NTIA Approves Louisiana Final BEAD Proposal
It's the first state to reach the deployment stage of the $42.5 billion program.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13, 2025 – It’s official: Louisiana can finally break ground on its plans to end the digital divide.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration approved Monday the state’s final spending plan for more than $1.3 billion in federal funding for broadband deployment. It’s the first state to get such approval under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, which allocated $42.5 billion among states and territories to expand infrastructure to every unconnected home and business in the nation.
“Louisiana has an outstanding plan to close the digital divide. Today it can put that plan into action and start building the networks that will connect everyone in the state,” NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson said in a statement.
State Broadband
The state is set to spend about $748 million of its BEAD cash on building out to locations without adequate broadband, about 140,000 of them statewide, with the rest going toward workforce development and other digital equity efforts.
Veneeth Iyengar, executive director of Louisiana’s broadband office, said last week the state was on track to officially ink agreements with participating ISPs, who have already been tapped for tentative awards, within 30 to 45 days. He noted that under Louisiana law, 10 percent of awarded funds become available the moment that agreement is signed, an effort to get projects underway quickly.
It’s been a long time coming for BEAD, which was signed into law in 2021 with the Infrastructure Act. The Federal Communications Commission maps used to make state-level allocations was finished in May 2023, and states have spent the time since fielding local challenges to that coverage data and making detailed plans to reach every eligible location.
Louisiana has been leading the pack for most of that time, routinely hitting major milestones first and informing NTIA’s best practices and guidance for other states. At least 20 states have now begun fielding grant applications, with three producing their final spending plans.
There’s been speculation the incoming Trump administration might be looking to substantially change parts of the program—GOP lawmakers have criticized the program’s preference for fiber and Trump donor and advisor Elon Musk owns satellite ISP Starlink. But that evidently hasn’t stopped states from selecting projects under the current rules, or the NTIA from giving Louisiana the go-ahead to put shovels in the dirt.
More than 95 percent of the state’s BEAD locations are slated to get fiber, with the rest being covered by a mix of fixed wireless and satellite, plus a small amount of cable. The largest grant, more than $450 million, went to a consortium of two local fiber providers and T-Mobile, which is set to provide mobile service with the infrastructure. More than 70 percent of the state’s deployment spending is going to in-state companies.
It’s not clear how much SpaceX’s Starlink or Amazon’s Kuiper Systems—the two low-earth orbit satellite providers who qualified in Louisiana—will be taking home. The state hadn’t finalized a deal as of Thursday and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
