NTIA Digital Equity NOFO Expected With BEAD, Middle-Mile Release: Davidson

NTIA plans to release a notice of funding opportunity for its digital equity program when it releases notices for the broadband, equity, access and deployment program and middle-mile broadband infrastructure program, said Administrator Alan Davidson Thursday during a Brookings Institution webinar on achieving universal broadband. “That’s the starting gun,” Davidson said, and the notices will “lay out how the programs will be built and how people can participate.”

NTIA’s digital equity program is “the beating heart” of addressing digital inclusion and equity, Davidson said (see 2204140066). How the agency taps local engagement is “central and key,” said Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council Vice President-Policy Fallon Wilson. There are “so many opportunities for funding to address all of the many best practices that we know can really change the trajectory and end the digital divide as we know it,” Wilson said.

States will “immediately” be able to submit letters of intent after NTIA releases its NOFO for the BEAD program and the agency plans to encourage states to submit the letters so they can receive their $5 million planning grants quickly, Davidson said. The program “really relies on the states,” he said, noting states are “in different places on the spectrum of preparedness for this” and should be building up their broadband offices if they haven't already.

“A bit of this is dependent on mapping,” Davidson said. “Starting in the fall, we will see the first iterations" of the FCC’s data collection for its new maps. The maps “haven’t been as good as we’d like them to be,” he said, and “the good news” is that the FCC’s process will produce “much better maps when this is done.” NTIA is waiting until there’s “good mapping data” to “make sure we're doing these decisions properly,” Davidson said.

Some states already have ongoing mapping efforts. In Minnesota, wireline providers submit data on a granular level to the state’s mapping vendor, said Office of Broadband Deployment Deputy Director Diane Wells, which can be used to determine coverage areas for grant programs. The maps will be used in part for BEAD and for Treasury Department’s Capital Projects Fund, Wells said.

Tribes are “very eager to start to deploy their own communications solutions,” said Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association Director-Technology Matt Rantanen, but the amount of funding available to tribal communities is “likely a third of what needs to be spent” and it's a “bit confusing for tribes to figure out what the next step is.”

States may need more flexibility in matching requirements because 25% in some areas “is actually too much,” said ConnectME Authority Executive Director Peggy Schaffer. Allowing states to treat matching as overall instead of per project “would be really important in terms of how we figure this out,” Schaffer said.

It’s also “important that we focus on the scalability” of networks and the "solution for right now" in some areas may not be fiber, Schaffer said (see 2204080035). “Everybody wants fiber as the end solution,” Rantanen said, but tribal communities are in some of the most “geographically diverse” areas and “that doesn’t always cater to fiber solutions.”