On Monday, the Office of Broadband Development posted their draft copies of the Initial Proposals to BEAD (Broadband Equity Access and Development Program) to outline how they would dole out money for broadband deployment and why they are qualified to do so. The public has 30 days to submit comments to the drafts.
Here are the drafts:
Between meetings I have been trying to digest this. I thought I’d share my abstract of the reports. I’d be delighted to hear from others. We will all have a different view and take on the reports. Mine is pretty academic. A community leader will read through for opportunities and barriers for them – the broadband provider will do the same. I think the collective hive mind has the power to share their views to make sure we can optimize the $652 million coming into the state. I encourage everyone to read and submit comments to the OBD.
Distillation of Draft Initial Proposal Volume 1
“Minnesota will receive a total of $651,839,368. The individual state amounts were calculated from the number of unserved locations (locations without reliable broadband service of at least 25Mbps download and 3Mbps upload) within each state based on new maps that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) developed as well as the number of such locations in areas deemed to be high cost.”
Minnesota is asked to list all Community Anchor Institutions (CALs). They use the Minnesota Interactive Map to compile the list. If you are a CAI, you should make sure you are on the list. However doing so might not help get funding since they also report, “Since Minnesota has had a process to map CAIs for several years, and because the BEAD allocation for Minnesota is inadequate to address priority #3 (gigabit symmetrical speeds to CAIs), the Office of Broadband Development with its limited resources and very short timeline for preparing the Initial Proposal did not stand up a new process to identify CAIs… (1.3 p4)
Minnesota will not include fixed wireless, DSL nor licensed fixed wireless connections as “served” locations. They will allow speed tests that demonstrate slower speeds (than 100/20) to define addresses (as unserved) even if they show up on the National Broadband Map as served.
Distillation of Draft Initial Proposal Volume 2
Much of the proposal outlines the activities of the OBD since it was established. That history makes parts of the proposal easier to process, such as the logistics of assessing eligible entities, contractual issues, soliciting applications and getting subgrantees to coordinate work.
For many folks, the plot gets good on page 6, when the report gets into working with subgrantees; in short they will build upon the existing process:
- Applicant resources for participating in the grant round, which will also be used as the basis to select BEAD subgrantees is available here: https://mn.gov/deed/programs-services/broadband/grant-program/
- Minnesota broadband infrastructure grant programs follow state grants management policies overseen by the Minnesota Department of Administration’s Office of Grants Management and are available for review here: https://mn.gov/admin/government/grants/policies-statutes-forms/
The plan is three rounds of grants and a priority for unserved areas. The expectation is that funding will not be adequate to reach all unserved and underserved locations. They will negotiate with providers to get to as many unserved locations as possible. “If negotiations and/or funding options to address all unserved locations prove unsuccessful after Round 3, OBD will seek NTIA approval in its Final Proposal to classify any remaining unserved locations as locations to default to existing fixed wireless service and/or low-earth orbiting satellite service and addressed in any future state grant funding rounds, ReConnect 6, RDOF II, Community Connect, etc.”
The Line Extension program may be a model to reach high cost areas if necessity require and budget allows but that would happen in the third round and be modified based on lessons learned in the first two rounds.