Officials from New Mexico and Minnesota are the latest to declare that federal and state funds currently available to them will not be enough to bring broadband to the underserved and unserved in their states.
At Mountain Connect 2023 this week, Bree Maki, the executive director of Minnesota’s Office of Broadband Development, said the state’s Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) allotment of about $651.8 million is “very close to” what her office expected.
“However, we have statutory goals that are different when we talk about what unserved is,” said Maki. The state of Minnesota considers unserved locations to be those without access to 100/20 Mbps speeds.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) defines an unserved location as one without any broadband service at all or with internet service offering speeds below 25/3 Mbps, and it is instead this definition that Maki said Minnesota’s allocation was based on.
“That dollar amount, though, is incredible,” she added. “We’re very thankful. It will continue to get us where we already wanted to go. But our dollar amount, we just know, is not going to be enough.”
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This would be enough money as the NTIA has accepted that Fixed Wireless providers are able to be recipients of BEAD funding. However, in the State of Minnesota Fixed Wireless providers are not considered broadband providers and it is illegal for them to receive federal funding.
With new advancements in the technology that supports Fixed wireless better connections and speeds can be delivered at symmetrical speeds to the end user.