NTIA Blog
National Spectrum Strategy Update: Funding Approved for Lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz Band Studies
With All Funds Obligated, NTIA Takes Additional Steps to Accelerate BEAD Construction
As of last week, the federal government has obligated all $42.45 billion in BEAD funding to states and territories (the “Eligible Entities”). This means that, subject to the terms and conditions of their awards, Eligible Entities can access their BEAD allocation to connect every resident to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service. With all 56 Eligible Entities having now reached this critical milestone, we know that grantees are eager to begin deployment of new high-speed Internet networks.
That’s why today, NTIA is accelerating construction to households across the country by streamlining the BEAD Final Proposal process and providing resources that will allow states, territories, and service providers to put shovels in the ground more quickly. With these steps, states, territories, and providers can fast-track the important work of connecting unserved and underserved Americans.
In November, NTIA announced that all 56 states and territories have received approval of their BEAD Initial Proposals. States are now completing their challenge processes and selecting the service providers who will build BEAD-funded networks to unserved and underserved locations. When that process is completed, they will submit their Final Proposal, which details the results of that process. To date, Louisiana, Delaware, and Nevada have completed both processes.
Today, NTIA released two documents to streamline the Final Proposal and accelerate BEAD construction.
Stay on Target: How Feedback is Helping Us Improve Project LEIA
By Rafi Goldberg, Acting Deputy Associate Administrator
In September, NTIA and the Census Bureau announced an ambitious new initiative to improve our understanding of Internet use at a local level.
Local Estimates of Internet Adoption (Project LEIA) is aimed at producing more granular Internet adoption estimates using a combination of existing data and statistical modeling techniques known as “small area estimation.”
Improved and more timely estimates of Internet adoption will lead to better tracking of our progress toward closing the digital divide and fuel important research and policy development efforts in the future.
The debut product of this collaboration is the first-ever set of experimental, single-year estimates of household wired Internet adoption for every county in the United States.
Ramping Up the BEAD Workforce: 5 Things States, ISPs, and Construction Firms Can Be Doing Now
By: Will Arbuckle, Senior Policy Advisor, NTIA
The $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program aims to connect 25 million Americans currently without high-speed Internet access. Building these broadband networks on time and at scale across 56 states and territories will require tens of thousands of broadband construction workers: from network designers to pole surveyors, from locators to drill operators, from general laborers to fiber splicers.
Establishing partnerships as well as initiating and administrating education and training that prepares individuals to be effective across this spectrum of jobs can take between 9 months to 1 year. NTIA encourages grantees to act now to ensure workers are on board and trained so that BEAD deployment remains on track. NTIA will continue to support grantees as they move from planning to implementation.
Every state and territory’s BEAD Initial Proposal includes a workforce readiness plan. And so far, more than 30% intend to allocate nearly $350 million in BEAD funding to support broadband workforce development initiatives. For example: