Michigan Releases Draft of Revised Final BEAD Plan
Michigan released its draft final BEAD plan for public comment Thursday, with comments due Tuesday. The state was among 20 entities to receive an extension of NTIA's Sept. 4 deadline to submit revised plans (see 2509080012). Michigan awarded about $924 million to 30 providers with $547 million in matching funds from subgrantees. Included among the providers selected were Amazon's Kuiper, Brightspeed, Comcast, SpaceX's Starlink and Spectrum.
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The state explained its need for more time, saying in the draft that the waiver was sought to ensure "that Michigan had the time contemplated" in NTIA's policy restructuring notice to implement the required changes and complete its subgrantee selection process.
The state also noted its intention to use some of its remaining BEAD allocation to support AI and other technologies. In addition, the draft said the state would use funding for "American First Policy initiatives focused on investing in education, training the workforce, and growing our industries." Some of the projects included public Wi-Fi deployment, pole resiliency and replacement, and advanced infrastructure mapping.