NTIA Approves Colorado BEAD-Eligible Locations
The approval is a step in the process to bring $826 million to Colorado residents.
August 9, 2024 – Colorado received approval from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for its proposed list of eligible locations for the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program on Wednesday.
As per the BEAD Notice of Funding, states must conduct a challenge process of its broadband coverage map where providers, organizations and government agencies can refute coverage claims. Following this process, which includes a rebuttal phase, states “must submit any successful challenges to the NTIA for review and approval.”
For Colorado, this approval means that “potential BEAD applicants in Colorado now have an accurate depiction of eligible locations available for funding.” No more challenges to the state map can be made, and it is working on releasing a map of the eligible locations.
Brandy Reitter, Colorado's Broadband Office executive director, announced the news at the Mountain Connect conference in Denver on Wednesday. She noted that the state's broadband program had been conducting challenge processes bi-annually for several years, which helped the state drive its success in the BEAD process.
"We developed everything from scratch, in terms of the portal. Our whole process and our team is excellent," said Reitter.
States conduct their challenge process upon approval of the first volume of their Initial Proposal, which outlines each state’s process for subgrantee selection. All states have received this approval.
Colorado received full Initial Proposal approval in June. The state was allocated more than $826 million through the BEAD program.
