The Office of Broadband Development presented PowerPoint slides, shared information and took questions. I’ll paste the PPT, notes and questions below. Please note the next Office Hour is scheduled (Sep 26).

Questions:

Q: Will there be a quick turnaround after the Oct 21 deadline?
There’s a good chance but we need to check in with Connected Nation.

Q: We got an availability challenge for an address in the middle of an area we serve. The address doesn’t actually exist. We can say we don’t serve it, it opens it up to funding. But without an actual location it’s difficult to provide.
NTIA just came out with some guidance. We can look at that and report back.

Q: Will there be a pre-qualify round before qualifying round?
Yes. We are working on it now. Probably not available under later in the Fall.

Q: How long will that be open?
Hopefully a few months. But we have a few things to go through. We may just end up posting a list of qualifications.

From the Chat:

• Register for the final session, rescheduled for Thursday September 26th at 2pm here 
• Sign up for the OBD emails: mn.gov/deed/programs-services/broadband/contact/
• The OBD webpage has the latest info + resources on BEAD: mn.gov/deed/programs-services/broadband/bead/
• Contact OBD: deed.broadband@state.mn.us or (651) 259-7610