States Push Forward with Fiber-Heavy BEAD Applications
Virginia reports 91% end-to-end fiber proposals received in first funding round.
WASHINGTON, March 14, 2025 – States are moving toward the final phases of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, with more than 30 states currently fielding applications from interested Internet service providers.
This week's data reinforces fiber as the leading technology choice in BEAD-funded projects, with Illinois limiting its first wave of grants to fiber-only applications and Virginia reporting that 91% of its applicants’ proposals are for fiber-to-the-home.
Here’s what we know:
Illinois
Illinois is moving forward with fiber-first BEAD investments, choosing to only award fiber applications in the first wave of its grant selection process.
The state received 238 applications, covering 86% of eligible locations statewide and 85% of hard-to-serve project area units. 66% of all proposed locations in submitted applications will be served by end-to-end fiber.
“Only end-to-end fiber applications that include 10% or more hard-to-serve [areas] are eligible to be scored and preliminarily awarded in Wave 1. Remaining applications will be carried over to Wave 2 for review,” the Illinois Broadband Lab confirmed in a post to LinkedIn.
The state broadband office expects preliminarily awarded projects to be published in late April or early May.
Illinois is also starting to receive applications for the state’s Digital Equity Capacity grant program. Wave 1 of applications for digital equity grants closes on March 20.
Virginia
Broadband Breakfast reported last week that Virginia’s first BEAD application round drew 2,000 applications covering 92% of eligible locations. The Virginia Office of Broadband provided Broadband Breakfast a deeper breakdown on participation this Wednesday, revealing 91% of those applications had proposed fiber-to-the-home projects.
Out of the 24 internet service providers that applied, 18 applications were small and local or regional internet service providers. Three of those 18 were electric co-ops or municipal networks.
Providers total funding requests exceeded $2.9 billion, far surpassing Virginia’s $1.48 billion BEAD allocation. Of those, 913 unique application areas were submitted, though some mountainous and sparsely populated regions in the state remain without bids.
“The Virginia Office of Broadband is thrilled with the level of engagement and competition in this initial phase of the BEAD application process,” an office spokesperson told Broadband Breakfast.
“Virginia is planning for additional submissions through a negotiation cycle where we will engage with providers that submitted a letter of intent to submit location-level funding requests. This process will reach the remaining BEAD eligible locations in Virginia, bringing the state to 100% BEAD-eligible coverage,” they said.
The state did not confirm whether any satellite providers had submitted bids, but noted that they have submitted letters of intent, making them eligible for participation.
Virginia expects to announce provisionally selected awardees in spring or summer 2025, for final NTIA approval.
Arkansas
Arkansas officially closed its second BEAD application window March 12, Glen Howie, director of the Arkansas State Broadband Office, confirmed in a statement on LinkedIn.
As of Thursday, state officials were still verifying participation data and not yet ready to release figures from Tranche-2. The state office carried 589 bids from Tranche-1 forward to this second round; and may award additional points to ISPs that pick up locations that did not receive bids in the first round.
As we previously reported, the state saw particularly strong participation in Tranche-1, awarding just 2% of its $1 billion BEAD allocation to cover 9% of eligible locations. In Tranche-1, 98% of all unserved or underserved locations within the state received at least one bid.
Pending: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Hawaii
Broadband Breakfast reached out to officials in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Hawaii to request BEAD participation data, but none were prepared to release figures quite yet.
- New Hampshire confirmed to Broadband Breakfast this week that it is still reviewing BEAD application data from its March 1 submission deadline and will soon be prepared to release figures.
- Maine closed its first BEAD application round on March 7.
- Massachusetts closed its BEAD round on March 10 and confirmed to Broadband Breakfast that statistics are pending but not yet ready.
- Hawaii closed its first BEAD application window on March 14.
Broadband Breakfast continues to track state-by-state participation as more data becomes available. See also the BEAD Grant Applications Tracker.
Broadband Breakfast
