West Virginians — let’s say quintessential state residents Toby and Edith, for example — have gotten a jump toward improving broadband connectivity after the state became one of the first three approved to unlock millions of federal dollars.
That doesn’t mean state residents with poor or zero internet access will gain it right away. But this week’s announcement that West Virginia can start drawing down $1.2 billion is a major step toward progress in a state where connectivity has been an uphill battle.
“It is somewhat dependent on where you live, the applications that will address that target region and target project area,” West Virginia Economic Development Mitch Carmichael said this week.
“But without this funding, you could be Toby and Edith and never have broadband access. So this does enable it, and we’re within a very fast timeframe.”
The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration has approved Kansas, Nevada and West Virginia’s initial proposals for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Internet for All” initiative.
The designation will enable the states to request access to funding and begin implementation of the BEAD program.
Of the three initial states, West Virginia will draw down the most:
- Kansas: $451.7 million
- Nevada: $416.6 million
- West Virginia: $1.2 billion
The BEAD program is a $42.45 billion state grant program authorized by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The states were allocated funding to deploy or upgrade high-speed internet networks to ensure that everyone has access to reliable, affordable, high-speed Internet service.
So there is still a lot more work ahead, but officials celebrated the milestone.
“It’s a huge deal,” said Evan Feinman, director of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program with the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
“There’s no two ways about it. This has been a problem that has really made economic development, has made education, has made access to healthcare, a real challenge to folks who work in urban centers in West Virginia. This is the day that we’re going to start to really solve that problem, close the digital divide and make sure we can get every West Virginian online.”
In a conference call with reporters, Feinman described the hard work, motivation and organization of West Virginia officials. “Everybody we talked to was extremely motivated to get this problem solved for West Virginia,” he said, focusing his comments on the state Office of Broadband.
“It is the case that it’s one of the finest broadband offices in the country, and they just consistently do really, really excellent work.”
Feinman said West Virginia “took a pretty unique approach that it took me a while to get my head all the way around — target regions comprised of different sub-target areas and a really aggressive approach toward making sure low-income folks in West Virginia were going to be able to take service and afford it.
“So it really required a lot of thinking, hard work and late nights and a clear understanding that this was a shared endeavor.”
Kelly Workman director of the state Office of Broadband, acknowledged this is a major step but availability won’t be immediate.
“With a $1.2 billion program, you can imagine that there must be a very detailed plan for execution. So the plan is approved,” she said. “The second part of this is we have to detail the budget.
“There’s a deployment phase. Once we ensure that we can reach all the unserved locations in West Virginia, we can move on to non-deployment activities. So, we’ve proposed some non-deployment activities related to workforce. We’ve proposed $50 million for workforce development related to the broadband industry to carry out this massive infrastructure program.”
Carmichael emphasized that as the program is carried out, “It will reach every address, every single address or you don’t get any of it.
“This is a monumental leap forward to get every single address. And we’re doing it post-haste. As fast as you can move it.”