The states of New Mexico and Virginia recently had their “Internet for All” plans for the implementation of the federal Broadband Access, Equity and Deployment (BEAD) program accepted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is overseeing the BEAD program.
This means that New Mexico can request more than $675 million in funding, and Virginia, more than $1.4 billion.
“Today, New Mexico and Virginia can move their Internet for All efforts from planning to action,” said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson. “I congratulate the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion and the Virginia Office of Broadband for developing strong proposals for how they will connect all of their residents to high-speed Internet service.”
All U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia submitted their initial plans at the end of last year for the $42.5 billion in BEAD funds. Those plans are being approved on a rolling basis; 26 states and territories have completed all 10 necessary phases for their plans to be approved, with Virginia and New Mexico being the most recent; another 30 stand at having nine of the 10 phases approved.
NTIA noted that once deployment goals are met, “any remaining funding can be used on high-speed Internet adoption, training, and workforce development efforts, among other eligible uses.”
In related news, NTIA also recently updated on the progress of the Middle Mile funding program, which aims to bolster transport and interconnection of last-mile networks to the rest of the internet.
Middle-mile infrastructure doesn’t connect end users directly, but rather connects local networks with the larger internet. That piece of the network is often overlooked as part of deployment needs—but as mobile network operators know from their own build-outs, the performance received at a network end-point is directly impacted by the backhaul performance and capacity that are available. The cost of backhaul for local networks also impacts the ability to cost-effectively deploy, and funding of middle-mile access is seen as one way to bring down overall broadband deployment costs.
Middle-mile infrastructure received a dedicated $1 billion in funding through the bipartisan infrastructure act that provides $42.5 billion for broadband connectivity.
The first Middle Mile project broke ground last month in Reno, Nevada. It’s a $24 million project in which network infrastructure provider Zayo will build a 645-mile fiber network through the Panther Valley and Reno communities in Nevada as well as rural parts of Oregon and northern California. That network will include 23 network access points “to enable ready access to local Internet Service Providers, which will vastly improve the speed and quality of Internet service to homes in the area,” according to NTIA.
NTIA has approved middle-mile projects in more than 370 counties in 40 states and Puerto Rico, for the deployment of more than 12,500 miles of new fiber that will pass within 1,000 feet of community anchor institutions. Grants range from $2.7 million to $88.8 million, with an average of $25.1 million; the middle-mile project awardees are investing $871.79 million in outside match funding, NTIA said.
The federal agency has also launched the first of several dashboards through which the progress of infrastructure projects can be tracked; the dashboard for middle-mile project progress is the first to launch.
