BEAD Construction Work Expected This Year in 3 States, but Others Questionable
BEAD-related construction in Louisiana, Delaware and Nevada should start as soon as Q2, according to state officials, some BEAD subgrantee award winners and BEAD experts. The three states last week received NTIA approval of their final proposals, the first to do so. Unclear is whether other states will get started this year due to questions surrounding the change in administration possibly causing delays, we're told.
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Delaware said Verizon and Comcast should begin connecting the state's 5,721 unconnected addresses starting in June, after permitting is done. Work should be done by the end of 2027, which makes it "the first state in the country to be fully connected to high-speed internet under BEAD." Louisiana said it "fully expect[s] to see shovels in the ground in the next 100 days.” Nevada -- which received NTIA approval Thursday on its final proposal -- didn't comment.
Nextlink Internet Chief Strategy Officer Claude Aiken told us the company is "already laying the groundwork" for its Louisiana work, "so [we] should be ready to go shortly after final approvals are in place, which we expect to be in late February or early March." Aiken said some projects will be complete within a year while others could take up to two years.
The Louisiana Local Fiber Consortium emailed that it expects "to have shovels in the ground in Q2 2025, pending that final award agreements are executed in the next 30-60 days and that there are no compliance-related delays." Brightspeed told us it expects to sign its Louisiana BEAD agreement March 3, kick-starting the company's two-year build cycle commitment. It said it expects it will complete its Louisiana projects in March 2027, barring extreme weather or infrastructure permitting delays.
"Most states are well behind" Louisiana, Delaware and Nevada, and are just getting started with subgrantee selection, according to Nathan Smith, Connected Nation director-economics and policy. That means BEAD construction will "probably hit its stride in 2026 and 2027," Smith wrote last week. He said 19 states have open or soon-to-open application windows. Beyond Nevada, "it will be a few more weeks before any more Final Proposals come due," he said. Kansas' and West Virginia's are due in April, Pennsylvania's and Washington, D.C.'s in May, and six states are due in June, he said. Comcast pointed us to Delaware's statement. Speaking last week at the Needham Growth Conference, Cheri Bernarek, CEO of fiber installation equipment maker Clearfield, said BEAD construction work will predominantly run from 2026 through 2028 or 2029.
With the administration changing, "we simply do not know what will happen," broadband deployment consultant Carol Mattey said in an email. Louisiana, Delaware and Nevada will start construction this year, but for other states "it's a big unknown," she said. "While there's considerable momentum now, with many states in the pre-application qualification phase or actual application phase, the change of Administration will impact BEAD," Mattey added. For example, it's unknown who will lead NTIA, she said. And until that person is confirmed by the Senate, the acting administrator likely won't take bold actions or implement major policy changes, Mattey added. "It's quite possible no Final Approvals will occur for some period of time [after Donald Trump's inauguration] while NTIA re-examines the program."
The Trump Commerce Department and NTIA will likely immediately waive or drop a number of BEAD requirements that the current NTIA adopted, Mattey said. A big question is whether the next NTIA will require states to revamp their competitive processes and scoring rubrics to eliminate the current preference for fiber, and if any such move would be mandatory for all states that lack final approvals, she said. That would significantly delay implementation, she added.
With fewer than half of states or territories having begun the competitive subgrantee process, there likely won't be a large influx of BEAD dollars yet this year, Jade Piros de Carvalho, Bonfire Infrastructure Group vice president-broadband advocacy and partnerships, emailed us. States that have started allocating BEAD dollars still must finish their application rounds, submit final proposals to NTIA, get NTIA sign-off and come to contract terms with BEAD grant awardees, she noted. Piros said it's probable that the new administration will expedite the NTIA approval portion of the process.
While work can start once contracts are signed, many BEAD projects will require environmental and historical permitting (EHP) reviews, which can delay deployment, Piros said. She said there is speculation the new administration will loosen EHP requirements. "All this is to say that even under the best of circumstances (quick NTIA approvals, loosened construction rules), we will still not see shovels in the ground this year for the majority of states."
Brendan Carr, the FCC's presumptive chair by Tuesday and a frequent critic of BEAD, found fault with the Louisiana and Delaware approvals. While speaking at a Wireless Infrastructure Association event last week (see 2501160035), Carr said Louisiana's BEAD program has a notably high per-location cost, while Delaware's features some overbuilding of FCC-subsidized areas. He said it would have been preferable if the outgoing Commerce Department leadership left decisions to the incoming Commerce administration.