State Broadband Officials Warn That NIST Approvals Are Slowing BEAD Deployment
The National Institute of Standards and Technology's review and approval of final BEAD plans is hindering deployment, state broadband directors warned Wednesday during a Broadband Breakfast webinar. Issues with slow NIST approvals come on top of concerns that the Trump administration's changes to the program have delayed deployment in general (see 2601140044). Officials also asked at the webinar whether all states are being treated the same.
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Bree Maki, executive director of the Minnesota Office of Broadband Development, said the state got NTIA approval in December but is still waiting on NIST sign-off. “Right now we are not necessarily deploying or contracting,” but Minnesota still has work to do “mitigating the changing policies and directions from NTIA” to align with state rules and contracting requirements, she said. Absent NIST approval, “nothing can start.” It’s also really difficult for states to run an open and transparent process when NTIA’s policies continue to change, she added.
Utah would like to see “shovels in the ground” by the end of the year, said Claire Shiverdecker, program manager at the Utah Broadband Center. But that may not happen, given the pace of NIST approvals, she said, noting that she hopes for NIST approval in a matter of days.
Texas already has NTIA and NIST approval, said Bryant Clayton, director of the state’s Broadband Development Office. Permitting is the next “milestone” to get work underway, and “hopefully that can get started as soon as possible.” Slow NIST approval is “a widespread problem,” Clayton added: It's supposed to be “ministerial,” but for Texas it still took eight weeks. NTIA approval took only 22 days, he said.
North Dakota Broadband Program Director Brian Newby noted Clayton’s comments on the relatively quick approval of Texas’ plans. “We feel like we’ve followed … all the processes, just like everybody else, and we have not experienced that same thing,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s because we’re smaller.” The state announced Nov. 17 that it had NTIA approval but didn’t get paperwork from NIST until Jan. 13, he said. There were “no issues on our side. It was just the delay caused by NTIA.”
In addition, Newby said that given delays from the administration, deployment in the state might not start until next year. “Whether it’s political or not,” a state like North Dakota is “left to wonder” how the administration is prioritizing its review of BEAD plans, he said. “We want to make sure that we’re not left in the dust because some of the bigger states are moving ahead.”