Pickering Expects NTIA Will Help States Behind on BEAD Applications

It's possible some states will miss Wednesday's filing deadline for NTIA’s broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, Incompas CEO Chip Pickering said Thursday in an interview. However, he said he remains optimistic about the BEAD program’s future. “It will have some failures, a lot of success, and overall, it will move the country ahead.”

As of Dec. 20, fewer than half the states and territories had filed both volumes of their initial plan, NTIA’s BEAD progress dashboard showed. NTIA said 20 entities filed both volumes, though the agency received nothing from 21 others; however, all released drafts of both volumes (see 2312210009). The NTIA update didn’t include New Jersey, where the Board of Public Utilities cleared staff to submit both volumes Dec. 20 (see 2312200064). Also, California last week said it would file on time.

Pickering won’t be surprised if a “handful of states miss” the deadline to submit initial BEAD plans. The former Republican U.S. House member from Mississippi added, “I hope that’s not the case,” but some states might be “just that far behind.” NTIA should assess late arrivals on “a case-by-case basis and see if [it] can quickly help [them] ... to meet the deadline,” Pickering said. “NTIA can provide the technical assistance, guidance and resources to help them meet the requirements.”

A hypothetical late state’s funding probably wouldn’t be reallocated to on-time states, Pickering added. “My expectation is that the Commerce Department will try to help the state … and make sure that every corner of the country is connected.” Pickering predicted that the “vast majority” of states will gain NTIA approval by June, so they can start awarding grants in the second half of 2024.

Pickering praised “first mover” Louisiana, which received NTIA approval for its full initial BEAD plan earlier this month (see 2312150047). States can learn from Louisiana “what it takes to get approval for the plan [and] how to run the challenge process,” he said. Kansas has also been “a good state to work with and a good model,” the Incompas CEO said. However, “like all things in life, you can have your first movers … and your best practices, and then we see a wide range in the middle,” he said.

Pickering believes it was correct to shift funding from Washington to the states. While that “bottom-up” approach is a “significant departure from past telecommunications or broadband initiatives,” it’s “more similar to how we do highway construction funding,” he said. “For this moment in history, this is a better way to achieve the broadband mission.”

Incompas filed comments in 45 states and territories on volume 2 initial proposals, the association said last week. It didn’t file in some places due to “super early deadlines,” an Incompas spokesperson said. The association advocated across states to “future-proof the networks” and not “make the mistakes of the past by subsidizing networks of the past,” Pickering said.

States should deploy fiber deeply and densely because it’s the “foundation” for all kinds of networks, including 5G, satellite and fixed wireless, Pickering said. States should make the award process highly competitive and remove deployment barriers, including by making permitting and pole attachment processes as quick and inexpensive as possible, he added. Technologies besides fiber may make sense in “very remote and difficult to deploy areas,” the Incompas CEO said. The association supports a standard or preference for 1 Gbps symmetrical speeds. Pickering thinks that can be achieved by fixed wireless, not just fiber.

States won’t award BEAD funding for several months, but they have recently distributed money from other federal funds like the U.S. Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund. Pickering said “the record is mixed” on states choosing competitors over large ISPs.

“Hometown” broadband companies like C Spire in Mississippi and Mammoth in Wyoming “compete against the AT&Ts and the Comcasts of the world extremely well in those markets,” said Pickering. And most states will use a competitive bid process for BEAD thanks to pro-competition policies included in NTIA’s BEAD notice of funding availability, he said. That doesn’t mean that the “new entrant and the competitor will win everywhere or even [get] the majority of the BEAD awards," he said, “but we think the competitive process will make incumbents and competitors alike improve their bids” and maximize state and federal governments’ return on investment.