Program Structure, Sequencing and Requirements

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Program Structure, Sequencing and Requirements

This Section provides information regarding the BEAD Program’s structure, describing in detail the nine principal steps in the process: (1) the Letter of Intent, (2) the Request for Initial Planning Funds, (3) the Five-Year Action Plan, (4) Program Fund Allocation and the Notice of Available Amounts, (5) the Initial Proposal, (6) the Challenge Process, (7) the Subgrantee Selection Process, (8) the 20 Percent Funding Release, and (9) the Final Proposal and Release of Remaining Funds. NTIA urges entities seeking to participate in the BEAD Program as Eligible Entities or as subgrantees to review this section especially closely. NTIA plans to provide detailed technical assistance to Eligible Entities regarding all matters addressed in this section.

A. Program Structure

As described in greater detail below, the BEAD Program involves multiple steps and stages of application review, a robust and competitive subgrantee selection process, and ongoing reporting and monitoring obligations. NTIA will provide robust technical assistance throughout the Program’s application, implementation, and reporting processes. NTIA intends to collaborate with Eligible Entities to maximize the effectiveness of allotted funding and ensure compliance with all federal requirements, while allowing Eligible Entities to tailor program design to the unique needs within their boundaries. Eligible Entities are encouraged to utilize resources that will be made available by NTIA or other partner organizations and should reach out to Program contacts whenever additional assistance is needed. Achieving programmatic goals will require a partnership and ongoing dialogue between NTIA and Eligible Entities.

B. Program Sequencing

As set forth in the Infrastructure Act and outlined in greater detail below, the BEAD Program is sequenced as follows:

Letter of Intent
Request for Initial Planning Funds
Five-Year Action Plan
Program Fund Allocation and Notice of Available Amounts
Initial Proposal
Challenge Process
Subgrantee Selection Process
20 Percent Funding Release
Final Proposal and Release of Remaining Funds

The BEAD Program sequencing set forth in this Section contemplates that Eligible Entity submissions and NTIA review will occur on a rolling basis. The deadlines set forth below are the maximum amount of time allowed for each step in the process, absent an extension (see Section II.B.1).25 Eligible Entities are encouraged, however, to submit materials as early as possible during each submission window to expedite implementation of the Program. NTIA will begin its review of submissions from Eligible Entities in the order they are received.

1. Letter of Intent

a. Timing

Each Eligible Entity that wishes to participate in the Program must file a Letter of Intent (LOI) to participate in the Program no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on July 18, 2022. The Assistant Secretary reserves the right to extend this deadline; however, the Assistant Secretary will be reluctant to grant a waiver of the LOI deadline except in extraordinary circumstances.

b. Letter of Intent Form and Content

An Eligible Entity may submit only a single LOI. The LOI should be in letter form and signed by the Governor (or equivalent official, e.g., the Mayor of the District of Columbia). The LOI must include:

A statement that the Eligible Entity intends to participate in the Program;
Identification of the agency, department, or office that will serve as the recipient of, and administering agent for, any BEAD Program award for the Eligible Entity and the main point of contact at that agency, department, or office for the purposes of the BEAD Program;
If the Eligible Entity so chooses, a request to access not more than $5,000,000 (States) or not more than $1,250,000 (Territories) for initial planning activities (the “Initial Planning Funds”),26 for use as described in Section IV.B.3 of this NOFO. The Eligible Entity may instead submit a request for Initial Planning Funds and associated documentation at a later date. All requests and required documentation for Initial Planning Funds must, however, be submitted through the application portal by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on August 15, 2022.

2. Request for Initial Planning Funds

Upon receipt of the Letter of Intent, NTIA will provide the Point of Contact for each Eligible Entity instructions on how to submit a request for Initial Planning Funds through the application portal at https://grants.ntia.gov/. These instructions will provide additional information regarding what materials must be submitted, including but not limited to standard forms and a budget narrative. All supplemental information must be submitted no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on August 15, 2022.

Eligible Entities that receive Initial Planning Funds may use those funds for the following planning and pre-deployment activities:

Research and data collection, including initial identification of unserved locations and underserved locations consistent with the rules, regulations, and processes the Commission has established for making these determinations in the Broadband DATA Maps;
The development of a preliminary budget for pre-planning activities;
Publications, outreach, and communications support related to broadband planning, deployment, mapping, equity and adoption;
Providing technical assistance to potential subgrantees, including through workshops and events;
Training for employees of the broadband program or office of the Eligible Entity or employees of political subdivisions of the Eligible Entity, and related staffing capacity or consulting or contracted support to effectuate the goals of the BEAD Program;
Establishing, operating, or increasing capacity of a broadband office that oversees broadband programs and broadband deployment in an Eligible Entity;
Asset mapping across the Eligible Entity to catalogue broadband adoption, affordability, equity, access and deployment activities occurring within the Eligible Entity;
Conducting surveys of unserved, underserved, and underrepresented communities to better understand barriers to adoption;
Costs associated with meeting the local coordination requirements in Section IV.C.1.c of this NOFO including capacity building at the local and regional levels or contracted support;
Reasonable post-NOFO, pre-Initial Planning Funds expenses in an amount not to exceed $100,000 relating to the preparation of program submissions to NTIA (such as the Letter of Intent) or adding additional capacity to State or Territorial broadband offices in preparation for the BEAD Program may be reimbursed if they are incurred after the publication date of this NOFO and prior to the date of issuance of the grant award from NTIA;27 and
Other uses approved in advance writing by the Assistant Secretary (including in response to an Eligible Entity’s request) that support the goals of the Program.28

In determining uses of Initial Planning Funds, Eligible Entities should take into consideration that NTIA will provide guidance on a variety of issues which include, but are not limited to, model job functions and descriptions for broadband office staff, grant support, asset management and data collection, policy considerations for broadband expansion, and outreach and engagement. Once NTIA approves an Eligible Entity’s Letter of Intent, NTIA will provide a list of existing resources that are currently available, which will include NTIA slide decks, program and issue overviews, NTIA points of contact and where appropriate, share outside resources that may be able to assist Eligible Entities. Eligible Entities are strongly encouraged to utilize free resources provided by NTIA and other partners and are discouraged from using Initial Planning Funds for resources that can be accessed by the Eligible Entity for free. An NTIA Infrastructure Act website will have resources that are available to Eligible Entities. NTIA will have a robust technical assistance program that will continually share updated resources to Eligible Entities.

3. Five-Year Action Plan

An Eligible Entity that receives Initial Planning Funds must submit to the Assistant Secretary a Five-Year Action Plan that establishes the State or Territory’s broadband goals and priorities and serves as a comprehensive needs assessment that will inform the State or Territory’s Initial Proposal.

The Five-Year Action Plan developed using Initial Planning Funds must (a) be informed by collaboration with local, regional, and Tribal (as applicable) entities, as well as unions and worker organizations, (b) detail the Eligible Entity’s investment priorities and associated costs, and (c) align the State or Territory’s planned spending with its economic development, community benefit, workforce, telehealth, digital equity, and other related efforts.

NTIA urges each Eligible Entity to apply for Initial Planning Funds and develop a Five-Year Action Plan to ensure that it has comprehensively evaluated the broadband needs of its communities and notes that much of the information required for the Five-Year Action Plan also will be required in the Initial Proposal. NTIA expects to offer technical assistance with regard to the Five-Year Action Plan and to provide specific feedback in response to each plan submitted, which can facilitate later steps in the BEAD Program’s process.

a. Five-Year Action Plan Timing

A completed Five-Year Action Plan must be submitted to NTIA within 270 days of receipt of Initial Planning Funds. The Assistant Secretary reserves the right to extend this deadline; however, the Assistant Secretary will be reluctant to grant a waiver except in extraordinary circumstances.

b. Five-Year Action Plan Form and Content

Preparing a Five-Year Action Plan gives Eligible Entities the opportunity to identify their communities’ broadband access, affordability, equity and adoption needs and to adopt strategies, goals and initial measures for meeting those needs using BEAD and other funds. At a minimum, an Eligible Entity’s Five-Year Action Plan must:

Provide details of the existing broadband program or office within the Eligible Entity, including any activities that the program or office currently conducts, any previous entity- wide plans or goals for availability of broadband, and any prior experience awarding broadband deployment grants.
Identify the funding that the Eligible Entity currently has available for broadband deployment and other broadband-related activities, including data collection and local planning, and the sources of that funding, including whether the funds are from the Eligible Entity or from the federal government.
Identify existing efforts funded by the federal government, including the Universal Service Fund, or an Eligible Entity to deploy broadband and close the digital divide.
Identify the current full-time and part-time employees of the Eligible Entity who will assist in implementing and administering the BEAD Program and the duties assigned to those employees, as well as any existing contracted support, and any planned expansion of employees or contractors.
Identify known or potential obstacles or barriers to the successful implementation of the BEAD Program and the Eligible Entity’s corresponding plans to address them.
Include an asset inventory that catalogues broadband adoption, affordability, equity, access, and deployment activities occurring within the Eligible Entity and identifies and provides details regarding any relevant partners, such as community-based organizations and CAIs that may inform broadband deployment and adoption planning.
Include a description of the Eligible Entity’s external engagement process, demonstrating collaboration with local, regional, and Tribal (as applicable) entities (governmental and non- governmental) and reflective of the local coordination requirements outlined herein, including outreach to underrepresented communities and unions and worker organizations. The engagement required must be undertaken both during the development of the Five-Year Action Plan itself and following submission of the plan, reflecting ongoing collaboration throughout the BEAD Program.
Incorporate available federal, Eligible Entity, or local broadband availability and adoption data, including but not limited to Affordable Connectivity Program enrollment data. Other federal broadband federal data sources include the NTIA Internet Use Survey,29 the NTIA Indicators of Broadband Need Map,30 and the American Community Survey.31
Identify local and regional broadband service needs and gaps within the Eligible Entity’s boundaries, including unserved or underserved locations and CAIs without gigabit service, and/or any plans to make these determinations where service availability is unclear.
Provide a comprehensive, high-level plan for providing reliable, affordable, high-speed internet service throughout the Eligible Entity, including:
1. The estimated timeline and cost for universal service,
2. The planned utilization of federal, Eligible Entity, and local funding sources,
3. Prioritization of areas for federal support,
4. Any consideration afforded to the use of public-private partnerships or cooperatives in addressing the needs of the Eligible Entity’s residents,
5. Strategies to address affordability issues, including but not limited to strategies to increase enrollment in the Affordable Connectivity Program by eligible households; and
6. Strategies to ensure an available and highly skilled workforce (including by subgrantees, contractors, and subcontractors) to minimize project disruptions, including any plans to ensure strong labor standards and protections, such as those listed in Section IV.C.1.e; and plans to attract, retain, or transition the skilled workforce needed to achieve the plan’s goals, including describing the involvement and partnerships of sub-grantees, contractors, and sub-contractors with existing in- house skills training programs, unions and worker organizations; community colleges and public school districts; supportive services providers; Registered Apprenticeship programs and other labor-management training programs, or other quality workforce training providers.
Identify digital equity and inclusion needs, goals, and implementation strategies, including ways in which the Eligible Entity plans to utilize BEAD funding, Digital Equity Act funding and/or other funding streams in concert to remedy inequities and barriers to inclusion. Accordingly, the Five-Year Action Plan should set forth a vision for digital equity, include the results of a needs assessment for underrepresented communities and an asset inventory of ongoing digital equity activities, and detail holistic strategies around affordability, devices, digital skills, technical support, and digital navigation. This requirement may be satisfied by the completion of a State Digital Equity Plan under the Digital Equity Act.32 Please refer to the Digital Equity Act State Planning Grant Program NOFO for the requirements and deadlines applicable to that program.
Detail alignment of the Five-Year Action Plan with other existing and planned economic development, telehealth, workforce development, related connectivity efforts, and other Eligible Entity priorities.
Describe technical assistance and additional capacity needed for successful implementation of the BEAD Program.

The Assistant Secretary will publish at www.grants.ntia.gov an online template for submission of the Five-Year Action Plan. Use of this template is optional. To the extent an Eligible Entity has an existing plan that meets the requirements set forth above and has been completed in the last 12 months from the date of receipt of Initial Planning Funds, it may submit that plan as its Five- Year Action Plan. If an Eligible Entity has an existing plan that meets the requirements set forth above in part, it may submit that plan as part of the Five-Year Action Plan, along with supplemental materials sufficient to fulfill all of the requirements set forth above. However, with regard to the statements above, please note that an Eligible Entity may not use BEAD funds to pay for previously incurred costs (subject to limited exceptions described in Section IV.B.2 of this NOFO). If an Eligible Entity does not utilize the online template published by NTIA, the Eligible Entity must also provide an index, crosswalk, or similar document to allow the reader to quickly and efficiently locate relevant content.

4. Program Fund Allocation and Notice of Available Amounts a. Criteria for Reliable Broadband Service

For the purposes of the BEAD Program, locations served exclusively by satellite,33 using entirely unlicensed spectrum,34 or a technology not specified by the Commission for purposes of the Broadband DATA Maps,35 do not meet the criteria for Reliable Broadband

Service and so will be considered “unserved.”36

services

b. Form and Content of Notice of Available Amounts

On or after the date on which the Broadband DATA Maps are made public, the Assistant Secretary, in coordination with the Commission, shall issue a notice to each Eligible Entity that contains the estimated amount of Program funds that will be available to the Eligible Entity pursuant to the funding allocation process described below (the Eligible Entity’s “Total Allocation”).

This “Notice of Available Amounts” will invite the Eligible Entity to submit an Initial Proposal and Final Proposal in accordance with Sections IV.B.5 and IV.B.9 below.

c. Funding Allocation Process

The Assistant Secretary will, in coordination with the Commission, choose a date certain upon which the Broadband DATA Maps will be utilized to identify unserved locations (the “Allocation Date”). Each Eligible Entity’s Total Allocation will be the sum of the Eligible Entity’s (i) Minimum Initial Allocation; (ii) High-Cost Allocation; and (iii) Remaining Funds Allocation, each calculated as follows:

i. Minimum Initial Allocation

The “Minimum Initial Allocation” for (i) each State of the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico is $100,000,000, and (ii) for American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is $25,000,000.

ii. High-Cost Allocation

The “High-Cost Allocation” for each Eligible Entity will be calculated by (i) dividing the number of unserved locations in high-cost areas in the Eligible Entity by the total number of unserved locations in high-cost areas in the United States and (ii) multiplying the quotient obtained by $4.245 billion.

NTIA will provide further information regarding its designation of high-cost areas in future guidance and/or related documents.

iii. Remaining Funds Allocation

The funds remaining after subtracting each of (i) the total Minimum Initial Allocations; and (ii) the total High-Cost Allocation from $41,601,000,000 are the “Remaining Funds.”37

Each Eligible Entity’s Remaining Funds Allocation shall be computed by dividing the number of unserved locations in the Eligible Entity by the total number of unserved locations in the United States and multiplying the result by the Remaining Funds.

5. Initial Proposal

The Initial Proposal is the “first draft” of an Eligible Entity’s Final Proposal for grant funding, and, among other things, should explain (as described below) how the Eligible Entity intends to ensure that every resident has access to a reliable, affordable, high-speed broadband connection, utilizing all funding available to be brought to bear to accomplish this goal, including but not limited to BEAD Program funds.

a. Initial Proposal Timing

On the date that an Eligible Entity’s Notice of Available Amounts is issued, the Assistant Secretary will invite each Eligible Entity to submit an Initial Proposal. Each Eligible Entity will have 180 days to submit its Initial Proposal but Eligible Entities are encouraged to submit Initial Proposals earlier, if possible. Eligible Entities should not wait until the Notice of Available Amounts is issued to begin preparing their Initial Proposals. Rather, they should begin this process immediately upon receiving the online template. If an Eligible Entity fails to submit an Initial Proposal by the deadline, this will be treated as an application failure by the Eligible Entity pursuant to Section IV.B.10 of this NOFO. The Assistant Secretary reserves the right to extend this deadline; however, the Assistant Secretary will be reluctant to grant a waiver except in extraordinary circumstances.

b. Form and Content of Initial Proposal

NTIA will provide Eligible Entities with an online template for submission of the Initial Proposal. An Eligible Entity may submit only a single Initial Proposal.38

The Initial Proposal must, at a minimum:

Outline long-term objectives for deploying broadband, closing the digital divide, addressing access, affordability, equity, and adoption issues, and enhancing economic growth and job creation including information developed by the Eligible Entity as part of the Five- Year Action Plan and information from any comparable strategic plan otherwise developed by the Eligible Entity, if applicable.39
Identify, and outline steps to support, local, Tribal, and regional broadband planning processes or ongoing efforts to deploy broadband or close the digital divide and describe coordination with local and Tribal Governments, along with local, Tribal, and regional broadband planning processes.40
Identify existing efforts funded by the federal government or an Eligible Entity within the jurisdiction of the Eligible Entity to deploy broadband and close the digital divide, including in Tribal Lands.41
Certify that the Eligible Entity has conducted coordination, including with Tribal Governments, local community organizations, unions and worker organizations, and other groups, consistent with the requirements set forth in Section IV.C.1.c of this NOFO, describe the coordination conducted, summarize the impact such coordination had on the content of the Initial Proposal, detail ongoing coordination efforts, and set forth the plan for how the Eligible Entity will fulfill the coordination requirements associated with its Final Proposal.
Identify each unserved location and underserved location under the jurisdiction of the Eligible Entity, including unserved and underserved locations in applicable Tribal Lands, using the most recently published Broadband DATA Maps as of the date of submission of the Initial Proposal, and identify the date of publication of the Broadband DATA Maps used for such identification.
Describe how the Eligible Entity applied the statutory definition of the term “community anchor institution,” identified all eligible CAIs in its jurisdiction, identified all eligible CAIs in applicable Tribal Lands, and assessed the needs of eligible CAIs, including what types of CAIs it intends to serve; which institutions, if any, it considered but declined to classify as CAIs; and, if the Eligible Entity proposes service to one or more CAIs in a category not explicitly cited as a type of CAI in Section 60102(a)(2)(E) of the Infrastructure Act, the basis on which the Eligible Entity determined that such category of CAI facilitates greater use of broadband service by vulnerable populations.
Include a detailed plan to conduct a challenge process as described in Section IV.B.6.
Include a detailed plan to competitively award subgrants consistent with Section IV.B.7.a of this NOFO with regard to both last-mile broadband deployment projects and other eligible activities. With respect to last-mile broadband deployment projects, the plan must explain how the Eligible Entity will ensure timely deployment of broadband and minimize the BEAD subsidy required to serve consumers consistent with Section IV.B.7 and the other priorities set out in this NOFO. The Initial Proposal must include identification of, or a detailed process for identifying, an Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold to be utilized during the subgrantee selection process described in Section IV.B.7 of this NOFO. Each Eligible Entity must establish its Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold in a manner that maximizes use of the best available technology while ensuring that the program can meet the prioritization and scoring requirements set forth in Section IV.B.7.b of this NOFO. NTIA expects Eligible Entities to set the Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold as high as possible to help ensure that end-to-end fiber projects are deployed wherever feasible.
With respect to non-deployment eligible activities, explain any preferences the Eligible Entity will employ in selecting the type of initiatives it intends to support using BEAD Program funds, the means by which subgrantees for these eligible activities will be selected, how the Eligible Entity expects the initiatives it pursues to address the needs of the Eligible Entity’s residents, the ways in which engagement with localities and stakeholders will inform
Describe any initiatives the Eligible Entity proposes to implement as the recipient without making a subgrant, and why it proposes that approach.
Detail how the Eligible Entity will ensure that subgrantees, contractors, and subcontractors use strong labor standards and protections, such as those listed in Section IV.C.1.e, and how the Eligible Entity will implement and apply the labor-related subgrantee selection criteria described below in Section IV.C.1.e of this NOFO.
Detail how the Eligible Entity will ensure an available, diverse, and highly skilled workforce consistent with Section IV.C.1.e of this NOFO.
Describe the process, strategy, and data tracking method(s) that the Eligible Entity will implement to ensure that minority businesses, women-owned business enterprises, and labor surplus area firms are recruited, used, and retained when possible.
Identify steps that the Eligible Entity will take to reduce costs and barriers to deployment, promote the use of existing infrastructure, promote and adopt dig-once policies, streamlined permitting processes and cost-effective access to poles, conduits, easements, and rights of way, including the imposition of reasonable access requirements.42
Provide an assessment of climate threats within the Eligible Entity and proposed mitigation methods consistent with the requirements of Section IV.C.1.h of this NOFO.
Describe the low-cost plan(s) that must be offered by subgrantees consistent with the requirements of Section IV.C.2.c.i of this NOFO.
Describe the intended use of the 20 percent of total funding allocation that is made available upon approval of the Initial Proposal consistent with Section IV.B.8 of this NOFO.
Disclose (1) whether the Eligible Entity will waive all laws of the Eligible Entity concerning broadband, utility services, or similar subjects, whether they predate or postdate enactment of the Infrastructure Act, that either (a) preclude certain public sector providers from participation in the subgrant competition or (b) impose specific requirements on public sector entities, such as limitations on the sources of financing, the required imputation of costs not actually incurred by the public sector entity, or restrictions on the service a public sector entity can offer; and (2) if it will not waive all such laws for BEAD Program project selection purposes, identify those that it will not waive and describe how they will be applied in connection with the competition for subgrants.
Certify the intent of the Eligible Entity to comply with all applicable requirements of the Program, including the reporting requirements, and describe subgrantee accountability procedures. Additional requirements for the Initial Proposal may be provided to Eligible Entities when the Notices of Available Amounts are released.

In drafting its Initial Proposal, an Eligible Entity should keep in mind that it may allocate grant funds for the following:

Deploying and/or upgrading broadband network facilities in connection with an Unserved Service Project or an Underserved Service Project;43
Deploying and/or upgrading broadband network facilities to provide or improve service to an eligible community anchor institution;44
Data collection, broadband mapping, and planning to the extent necessary beyond the planning fund allocation to facilitate the goals and deliverables of the BEAD Program;
Installing internet and Wi-Fi infrastructure or providing reduced-cost broadband within a multi-family residential building, with priority given to a residential building that has substantial share of unserved households or is in a location in which the percentage of 45 individuals with a household income that is at or below 150 percent of the poverty line applicable to a family of the size involved is higher than the national percentage of such individuals;
Broadband adoption, including programs to provide affordable internet-capable devices;
Training and workforce development; and
Other uses, including other Digital Equity programs not already included above, proposed by Eligible Entities and approved in advance in writing by the Assistant Secretary that support the goals of the Program.46

The Assistant Secretary may request and accept corrections to the Initial Proposal of an Eligible Entity after the Initial Proposal has been submitted.

c. Review process

After receipt of an Initial Proposal, the Assistant Secretary shall acknowledge receipt and begin the review process in the order in which Initial Proposals are received. This review process is intended to be iterative and may require Eligible Entities to submit revised, updated, or corrected Initial Proposals after the Initial Proposal has been submitted. In reviewing the Initial Proposal, the Assistant Secretary shall determine whether the use of funds proposed in the Initial Proposal:

Complies with Section 60102(f) of the Infrastructure Act;
Is in the public interest; and
Effectuates the purposes of the Infrastructure Act.

d. Actions upon completion of review

i. Approval
If the Assistant Secretary determines that the Initial Proposal meets the standards set forth in Section IV.B.5.c, the Assistant Secretary shall approve the Initial Proposal, inform the Eligible Entity, and make available to the Eligible Entity 20 percent of its Total Allocation; or a higher percentage at the sole discretion of the Assistant Secretary, for uses as described in Section IV.B.8 of this NOFO.
ii. Disapproval
If the Initial Proposal is incomplete, or the Assistant Secretary determines that the use of funds proposed in the Initial Proposal does not meet the standards set forth in Section IV.B.5.c, the Assistant Secretary shall notify the Eligible Entity of deficiencies in the proposal, provide the Eligible Entity with an opportunity to resubmit the Initial Proposal, and establish a deadline for resubmission. If an Eligible Entity fails to resubmit an Initial Proposal that remedies the deficiencies identified by the Assistant Secretary by the applicable deadline, the Eligible Entity will be treated as an application failure pursuant to Section IV.B.10. NTIA will provide technical assistance to Eligible Entities in the revision process with the goal of ensuring an approved Initial Proposal for each participating Eligible Entity.

6. Challenge Process

Each Eligible Entity shall develop and describe in the Initial Proposal, a transparent, evidence- based, fair, and expeditious challenge process under which a unit of local government, nonprofit organization, or broadband service provider can challenge a determination made by the Eligible Entity in the Initial Proposal as to whether a particular location or community anchor institution within the jurisdiction of the Eligible Entity is eligible for grant funds. Among other things, the process must allow for challenges regarding whether a particular location is unserved or 47 underserved as those terms are defined in the Infrastructure Act and Section I.C if this NOFO. Eligible Entities should update the data provided in their Initial Proposal to reflect the most recently published version of the Broadband DATA Maps available as of the initiation of the challenge process.

The Assistant Secretary may modify the challenge process proposed by the Eligible Entity as necessary and shall inform the Eligible Entity of any modifications required. Once an Eligible Entity makes any required modifications, the Assistant Secretary shall approve the challenge process, either in conjunction with, or prior to, approval of the Eligible Entity’s Initial Proposal. The Eligible Entity shall conduct the approved challenge process before allocating grant funds received from BEAD for the deployment of broadband networks to subgrantees.48

After resolving each challenge and at least 60 days before allocating grant funds for network deployment, an Eligible Entity must provide public notice of the final classification of each unserved location, underserved location, or Eligible Community Anchor Institution within the jurisdiction of the Eligible Entity. An Eligible Entity must also notify NTIA of any modifications to the Initial Proposal that are necessitated by successful challenges to its initial determinations. Pursuant to the discretionary authority granted to the Assistant Secretary in the Infrastructure Act, NTIA may reverse the determination of an Eligible Entity with respect to the eligibility of a particular location or community anchor institution.

7. Subgrantee Selection Process

Each Eligible Entity must establish fair, open, and competitive processes for selecting subgrantees.49 The selection of subgrantees is a critically important process that will determine which providers will bring service to all Americans, and in many cases, which entities will stand up and operate training programs and take other actions aimed at closing the digital divide.50 Eligible Entities’ selection processes must be made clear to potential subgrantees and must be described in the Eligible Entity’s Initial Proposal and Final Proposal. NTIA recognizes that there may be a variety of competitive processes Eligible Entities might use to select subgrantees and does not mandate any specific approach. Each Eligible Entity is encouraged to invite participation in the process by a broad cross-section of potential subgrantees, including minority- owned business and other socially or economically disadvantaged individual-owned businesses. NTIA will provide further guidance and technical assistance on approaches to subgrantee selection.

a. General Principles Governing Subgrantee Selection

i. Protecting the Integrity of the Selection Process

In establishing a fair, open, equitable, and competitive selection process, each Eligible Entity must ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to protect the integrity of the competition, including safeguards against collusion, bias, conflicts of interest, arbitrary decisions, and other factors that could undermine confidence in the process.

ii. Last-Mile Broadband Deployment Projects

When selecting subgrantees to provide broadband service to Unserved Service Projects, Underserved Service Projects, and Eligible Community Anchor Institutions (“last-mile broadband deployment projects”), each Eligible Entity must apply a process that abides by the following principles:

An “Unserved Service Project” or “Underserved Service Project” can be as small as a single unserved or underserved location, respectively. This principle will help ensure that isolated unserved and underserved locations that cannot be aggregated in groups that are 80 percent or more unserved or underserved are addressed by the BEAD Program.
An “Unserved Service Project” or “Underserved Service Project” may include Middle Mile Infrastructure in or through any area required to reach interconnection points or otherwise to ensure the technical feasibility and financial sustainability of a project providing service to an unserved location, underserved location, or eligible CAI.51
In identifying an Unserved Service Project or Underserved Service Project, an Eligible Entity may not treat as “unserved” or “underserved” any location that is already subject to an enforceable federal, state, or local commitment to deploy qualifying broadband as of the date that the challenge process described in Section IV.B.6 of this NOFO is concluded.52

Any grant, loan, or loan guarantee provided by an Eligible Entity to the provider of broadband service;
Any grant, loan, or loan guarantee provided by the Secretary of Agriculture under:

o Title VI of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 (7 U.S.C. § 950bb et seq.), including:

any program to provide grants, loans, or loan guarantees under Sections 601 through 603 of that Act (7 U.S.C. § 950bb et seq.); and the Community Connect Grant Program established under Section 604 of that Act (7 U.S.C. § 950bb–3); or

o The broadband loan and grant pilot program known as the “Rural eConnectivity Pilot Program” or the “ReConnect Notice of Funding Opportunity Program” authorized under Section 779 of division A of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (Public Law 115–141; 132 Stat. 348);

Any high-cost universal service support provided under Section 254 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. § 254), except that in the case of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, a location will be considered to have an enforceable commitment for qualifying broadband only (a) after the Federal Communications Commission has announced in a Public Notice that RDOF support for that location is ready-to-authorize or is authorized, and (b) the provider does not rely on satellite technologies to deliver service;
Any grant provided under Section 6001 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (47 U.S.C. § 1305);
Amounts made available for the Education Stabilization Fund established under the heading “DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION” in title VIII of division B of the CARES Act (Public Law 116–136; 134 Stat. 564), and funded under the CARES Act, the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSA Act), and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP Act);

Assistant Secretary may waive such treatment of locations or areas with prior enforceable commitments at the request of the Eligible Entity in cases where the Eligible Entity can demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Assistant Secretary that such treatment of such locations or areas is necessary to achieve the goals of the program, including where purported commitments do not have the appropriate documentation with respect to Tribal lands consistent with requirements set out above.53 For the purposes of the subgrantee selection process, “qualifying broadband” to a location that is not a CAI is Reliable Broadband Service with (i) a speed of not less than 100 Mbps for downloads; and (ii) a speed of not less than 20 Mbps for uploads; and (iii) latency less than or equal to 100 milliseconds; “qualifying broadband” to a CAI is Reliable Broadband Service with (i) a speed of not less than 1 Gbps for downloads and uploads alike and (ii) latency less than or equal to 100 milliseconds.

An Eligible Entity must establish a competitive process designed to maximize the public benefits achieved through the subgrant process by increasing subgrantee-provided match and reducing costs to consumers. The type of competitive process selected is at the discretion of the Eligible Entity, subject to the Assistant Secretary’s approval in reviewing the Eligible Entity’s Initial Proposal and to the criteria and other requirements set forth in this NOFO.
The Eligible Entity may seek proposals to serve unserved locations, underserved locations, and CAIs collectively or separately, so long as the Eligible Entity awards funding in a manner that prioritizes Unserved Service Projects and once it certifies that it will ensure coverage of all unserved locations within the Eligible Entity, prioritizes Underserved Service Projects.
The Eligible Entity may not exclude, as a class, cooperatives, nonprofit organizations, public-private partnerships, private companies, public or private utilities, public utility districts, or local governments from eligibility as a subgrantee.
1. Amounts made available for the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) established under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117–2; 135 Stat. 4) (ARPA);
2. Amounts made available for the Capital Projects Fund established by Section 604 of the Social Security Act, as added by Section 9901 of ARPA; or
3. Any other grant, loan, or loan guarantee provided by, or funded in whole or in part by, the federal government or a State or Territorial government for the provision of broadband service.

Eligible Entities may fund Unserved Service Projects and Underserved Service Projects that include locations in an area that has an enforceable commitment for the deployment of qualifying broadband to less than 100 percent of the locations in that area. See, e.g., 47 C.F.R. § 54.308(a). Eligible Entities must, however, seek to identify as part of the challenge process described in Section IV.B.6 of this NOFO those unserved locations and underserved that will not be served by qualifying broadband service as a result of such enforceable commitment, and use that information in determining whether to treat each location as unserved or underserved within the relevant area.

Further, for unserved locations and underserved on Tribal Lands, a commitment that otherwise meets the criteria set forth above shall not constitute an enforceable commitment for the deployment of qualifying broadband unless it includes a legally binding agreement, which includes a Tribal Government Resolution, between the Tribal Government of the Tribal Lands encompassing that location, or its authorized agent, and a service provider offering qualifying broadband service to that location.

7. The Eligible Entity may solicit proposals from prospective subgrantees at the geographic level of its choosing—for example, on a per-location basis, per-census block basis, per-town, per-county or another geographic unit. An Eligible Entity may alternatively solicit proposals for project areas it defines or ask prospective subgrantees to define their own proposed project areas. If the Eligible Entity allows prospective subgrantees to define proposed project areas, it must develop a mechanism for de-conflicting overlapping proposals (for example, by de-scoping some locations from a provider’s proposed project area) to allow for like-to-like comparison of competing proposals. Whatever process is selected, the Eligible Entity must ensure it has a plan for serving all unserved and (where it has sufficient funding) underserved locations.

8. Each Eligible Entity must require that each proposal from a prospective subgrantee identify, for each location to be served in the proposal, the amount of BEAD funding the prospective subgrantee is seeking to serve that location.

9. If, after soliciting proposals, the Eligible Entity has received no proposals to serve a location or group of locations that are unserved, underserved, or a combination unserved and underserved, the Eligible Entity may engage with existing providers and/or other prospective subgrantees to find providers willing to expand their existing or proposed service areas. An Eligible Entity may consider inducements such as use of state funding toward the match requirement set forth in Section III.B or benefits during the grant selection process (e.g., points or credits). The Eligible Entity shall, in this circumstance, work to ensure that its approach is as transparent as possible. For the avoidance of doubt, this provider-specific outreach is only appropriate after the Eligible Entity has solicited proposals and failed to obtain one or more proposals to serve the location or locations at issue.

10. As discussed further in Section IV.B.9.b, if an Eligible Entity’s Final Proposal includes plans to deploy broadband to Unserved Service Projects or Underserved Service Projects that include any locations on Tribal Lands, the Eligible Entity must submit proof of the Tribal Government’s consent to such deployment.

11. Notwithstanding any of the above:

o An Eligible Entity may decline to select a proposal that requires a BEAD subsidy that exceeds the Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold for any location to be served in the proposal if use of an alternative Reliable Broadband Service technology meeting the BEAD Program’s technical requirements would be less expensive. Subject to the overarching requirement to run a fair, open, and competitive process, the Eligible Entity has discretion to design a selection process that allows it to engage with a prospective subgrantee to revise the proposal to ensure that no location requires a subsidy that exceeds the Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold.

o If no Reliable Broadband Service technology meeting the BEAD Program’s technical requirements would be deployable for a subsidy of less than the Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold at a given location, an Eligible Entity is authorized to select a proposal involving a less costly technology for that location, even if that technology does not meet the definition of Reliable Broadband Service but otherwise satisfies the Program’s technical requirements.

In this instance, Eligible Entities are directed to seek out the most robust, affordable, and scalable technologies achievable under the circumstances particular to that location.

Eligible uses of funding in connection with last-mile broadband deployment projects include the following:54

Construction, improvement, and/or acquisition of facilities and telecommunications equipment required to provide qualifying broadband service, including infrastructure for backhaul, middle- and last-mile networks, and multi-tenant buildings.
Long-term leases (for terms greater than one year) of facilities required to provide qualifying broadband service, including indefeasible right-of-use (IRU) agreements.
Deployment of internet and Wi-Fi infrastructure within an eligible multi-family residential building.
Engineering design, permitting, and work related to environmental, historical and cultural reviews.
Personnel costs, including salaries and fringe benefits for staff and consultants providing services directly connected to the implementation of the BEAD Program (such as project managers, program directors, and subject matter experts).
Network software upgrades, including, but not limited to, cybersecurity solutions.
Training for cybersecurity professionals who will be working on BEAD-funded networks.
Workforce development, including Registered Apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships,

and community college and/or vocational training for broadband-related occupations to support deployment, maintenance, and upgrades.

iii. Non-Deployment Uses

As detailed above, an Eligible Entity that can demonstrate it has a plan for bringing affordable, high-speed broadband service to all unserved and underserved locations within its jurisdiction may also allocate funding to non-deployment activities. Such eligible non-deployment uses include, but are not limited to, the following:

User training with respect to cybersecurity, privacy, and other digital safety matters.
Remote learning or telehealth services/facilities.
Digital literacy/upskilling (from beginner-level to advanced).
Computer science, coding and cybersecurity education programs.
Implementation of Eligible Entity digital equity plans (to supplement, but not to duplicate or supplant, Planning Grant funds received by the Eligible Entity in connection with the Digital Equity Act of 2021).55
Broadband sign-up assistance and programs that provide technology support.
Multi-lingual outreach to support adoption and digital literacy.
Prisoner education to promote pre-release digital literacy, job skills, online job-acquisition skills, etc.
Digital navigators.56
Direct subsidies for use toward broadband subscription, where the Eligible Entity shows the subsidies will improve affordability for the end user population (and to supplement, but not to duplicate or supplant, the subsidies provided by the Affordable Connectivity Program).
Costs associated with stakeholder engagement, including travel, capacity-building, or contract support.
Other allowable costs necessary to carrying out programmatic activities of an award, not to include ineligible costs described below in Section V.H.2 of this NOFO.

When selecting subgrantees for non-deployment uses of BEAD funds, an Eligible Entity must adhere to the Infrastructure Act’s requirement that subgrants be awarded “competitively.”57 NTIA recognizes that the breadth of potential non-deployment eligible activities could necessitate a broad range of subgrantee selection processes, even within a single Eligible Entity, and that such processes might even require the Eligible Entity to compare and choose among very different proposals (e.g., whether to allocate funds to an affordability program, a cybersecurity training program, or a digital literacy drive).58 Accordingly, NTIA does not prescribe any specific framework. NTIA reminds Eligible Entities that federal grant regulations “flow through” to subrecipients (i.e., subgrantees), and that subrecipients are responsible for adherence to applicable Federal program requirements specified in the Federal award.59 As with deployment projects, NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to promote participation by minority- owned businesses and other socially or economically disadvantaged individual-owned businesses.

b. Prioritization and Scoring in Selection of Last-Mile Broadband Deployment Projects

An Eligible Entity may choose its own means of competitively selecting subgrantees for last- mile broadband deployment projects, subject to approval by the Assistant Secretary (during review of the Eligible Entity’s Initial Proposal). Each Eligible Entity’s subgrantee selection process must, however, incorporate the following principles to satisfy the Infrastructure Act’s mandates and the BEAD Program’s goals.

eligible for a Digital Equity Planning Grant.

Digital Navigators are individuals who address the whole digital inclusion process — home

connectivity, devices, and digital skills — with community members through repeated interactions.”

National Digital Inclusion Alliance, The Digital Navigator Model: Adding Digital Equity to Our Social

Safety Net, available at https://www.digitalinclusion.org/digital-navigator-model/.

1. Complete Coverage of Unserved Locations and Underserved Locations, Followed by Prioritization of Eligible CAIs. The Eligible Entity, in awarding subgrants for the deployment of a broadband network, shall award funding in a manner that ensures the deployment of service to all unserved locations within the Eligible Entity’s jurisdiction. If the Eligible Entity has sufficient funds to ensure deployment of service to all underserved locations within its jurisdiction, it must ensure such deployment as well. If the Eligible Entity lacks sufficient funds to ensure deployment of service to all underserved locations, it must commit the remainder of its BEAD funds to ensure deployment to underserved locations. Eligible Entities must submit Initial Proposals and Final Proposals that will result in coverage for all unserved locations, and (to the extent funds are available) all underserved locations. The Assistant Secretary will only approve an Initial Proposal or Final Proposal that includes a plan to ensure deployment of broadband to all unserved and underserved locations within the State or Territory or that provides a strong showing that the Eligible Entity is financially incapable of ensuring universal coverage of all unserved and underserved locations. To the extent that an Eligible Entity demonstrates that there are insufficient funds available to fund deployment to all unserved, underserved, or eligible CAI locations, the Eligible Entity must prioritize projects within each of those categories based on a strong preference for projects in high poverty areas or persistent poverty counties.60

In ensuring deployment of service to all unserved and underserved locations within its jurisdiction, the Eligible Entity may opt to fund deployment of Wi-Fi infrastructure to multi-family buildings that lack high-speed broadband access in their entirety or contain units that lack such access. Such an Eligible Entity must give priority to residential buildings that (1) have a substantial share of unserved households or (2) are in locations in which the percentage of individuals with a household income that is at or below 150 percent of the poverty line applicable to a family of the size involved61 is higher than the national percentage of such individuals.62

NTIA strongly urges Eligible Entities that are able to fund deployment to all unserved and underserved locations to allocate remaining funds to eligible CAIs, and to move to alternative eligible uses only if they are able to fund deployments to all unserved locations, underserved locations, and eligible CAIs. An Eligible Entity that proposes to use BEAD funds to pursue objectives in lieu of the deployment of service to eligible CAIs must provide a strong rationale for doing so in its Initial Proposal.

The requirement that an Eligible Entity have a plan to ensure deployment to all unserved and underserved locations before contemplating non-deployment uses of funds does not impose any temporal requirement as to the order in which BEAD-funded initiatives are undertaken or completed. NTIA recognizes that broadband deployment projects often take months or years to complete, whereas certain other eligible uses of BEAD funds can be implemented more quickly. Thus, if an Eligible Entity has a plan to deploy service to all unserved and underserved locations within its jurisdiction, it may pursue non- deployment initiatives using BEAD funds before or while deployment projects are underway. For example, while an Eligible Entity is only permitted to pursue a device- subsidy program using BEAD funds if it has a plan to deploy service to all unserved and underserved locations within its jurisdiction, an Eligible Entity proposing such a program is both permitted and encouraged to implement it as soon as is feasible once its Initial Proposal has been approved.

2. Selection Among Competing Proposals for the Same Location or Locations. An Eligible Entity’s process in selecting subgrantees for last-mile broadband deployment projects must first assess which locations or sets of locations under consideration are subject to one or more proposals that (1) constitute Priority Broadband Projects and (2) satisfy all other requirements set out in this NOFO with respect to subgrantees. In the event there is just one proposed Priority Broadband Project in a location or set of locations, and that proposal does not exceed the Eligible Entity’s Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold, that proposal is the default winner, unless the Eligible Entity requests, and the Assistant Secretary grants, a waiver allowing the Eligible Entity to select an alternative project.63 To the extent there are multiple proposals in a location or set of locations that (1) constitute Priority Broadband Projects and (2) satisfy all other requirements with respect to subgrantees, the Eligible Entity shall use its approved competitive process to select a project subject to the selection criteria set forth below.

i. Selection Among Priority Broadband Projects

Definition. The Infrastructure Act provides that a “priority broadband project” is one designed to (1) “provide broadband service that meets speed, latency, reliability, consistency in quality of service, and related criteria as the Assistant Secretary shall determine” and (2) “ensure that the network built by the project can easily scale speeds over time to ... meet the evolving connectivity needs of households and businesses” and “support the deployment of 5G, successor wireless technologies, and other advanced services.”64 NTIA has determined that “Priority Broadband Projects” are those that use end-to-end fiber-optic architecture. Only end-to-end fiber will “ensure that the network built by the project can easily scale speeds over time to ... meet the evolving connectivity needs of households and businesses” and “support the deployment of 5G, successor wireless technologies, and other advanced services.”65 End-to-end fiber networks can be updated by replacing equipment attached to the ends of the fiber-optic facilities, allowing for quick and relatively inexpensive network scaling as compared to other technologies. Moreover, new fiber deployments will facilitate the deployment and growth of 5G and other advanced wireless services, which rely extensively on fiber for essential backhaul.

Primary Criteria. In deciding among competing Priority Broadband Projects covering the same location or locations, Eligible Entities must give the greatest weight (e.g., substantial points or credits) to the following criteria:66

Minimal BEAD Program Outlay. The total BEAD funding that will be required to complete the project, accounting for both total projected cost and the prospective subgrantee’s proposed match (which must, absent a waiver, cover no less than 25 percent of the project cost), with the specific points or credits awarded increasing as the BEAD outlay decreases. In comparing the project’s BEAD outlay and the prospective subgrantee’s match commitments, Eligible Entities should consider the cost to the Program per location while accounting for any factors in network design that might make a project more expensive, but also more scalable or resilient.
Affordability. The prospective subgrantee’s commitment to provide the most affordable total price to the customer for 1 Gbps/1 Gbps service in the project area.
Fair Labor Practices. Eligible Entities must give priority to projects based on a prospective subgrantee’s demonstrated record of and plans to be in compliance with Federal labor and employment laws. New entrants without a record of labor and employment law compliance must be permitted to mitigate this fact by making specific, forward-looking commitments to strong labor and employment standards and protections with respect to BEAD-funded projects. This prioritization requirement is described in further detail in Section IV.C.1.e of this NOFO.
Secondary Criterion. Eligible Entities must also give weight (e.g., some number of points or quantity of credits less than the amount given to the criteria above) to the following criterion:
Speed to Deployment. All subgrantees that receive BEAD Program funds for network deployment must deploy the planned broadband network and begin providing services to each customer that desires broadband services within the project area not later than four years after the date on which the subgrantee receives the subgrant from the Eligible Entity. Eligible Entities must give secondary criterion prioritization weight to the prospective subgrantee’s binding commitment to provide service by an earlier date certain, subject to contractual penalties to the Eligible Entity, with greater benefits awarded to applicants promising an earlier service provision date.67
Additional Prioritization Factors. Eligible Entities may develop additional secondary criteria to be given weights that align with Eligible Entity and local priorities, subject to the requirement to give the greatest weight to the primary criteria and the approval of the Assistant Secretary in the Initial and Final Proposal process. In particular, NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to incorporate the following as selection criteria:
Equitable Workforce Development and Job Quality. NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to adopt selection criteria relating to the subgrantee’s enforceable commitments with respect to advancing equitable workforce development and job quality objectives, see Section IV.C.1.f of this NOFO.
Open Access. NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to adopt selection criteria promoting subgrantees’ provision of open access wholesale last-mile broadband service for the life of the subsidized networks, on fair, equal, and neutral terms to all potential retail providers.
Local and Tribal Coordination. NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to adopt selection criteria reflecting a prospective subgrantee’s support from the local and/or Tribal Government with oversight over the location or locations to be served.

ii. Selection Among Other Last-Mile Broadband Deployment Projects

With respect to locations or sets of locations for which the Eligible Entity did not receive a proposal to deploy a Priority Broadband Project, the Eligible Entity shall first identify any locations with only one proposal that satisfies all other requirements with respect to subgrantees. In those locations or sets of locations, the entity submitting the sole proposal is the default winner, unless the Eligible Entity requests, and the Assistant Secretary grants, a waiver allowing the Eligible Entity to seek other potential subgrantees. To the extent there are multiple proposals seeking to serve a location or area that satisfy all other requirements with respect to subgrantees, the Eligible Entity shall undertake its competitive process to choose between or among those proposals.

Primary Criteria. In deciding among competing projects that are not Priority Broadband Projects covering the same locations or area, Eligible Entities must give the greatest weight (e.g., substantial points or credits) to the following criteria:68

• Minimal BEAD Program Outlay. The total BEAD funding that will be required to complete the project, accounting for both total projected cost and the prospective subgrantee’s proposed match (which must, absent a waiver, cover no

planned broadband network and begin providing services to each customer that desires broadband service within the project area not later than four years after the date on which the subgrantee receives the subgrant from the Eligible Entity.

less than 25 percent of the project cost), with the specific benefits awarded increasing as the BEAD outlay decreases. In comparing the project’s BEAD outlay and the prospective subgrantee’s match commitments, Eligible Entities should consider the cost to the Program per location while accounting for any factors in network design that might make a project more expensive, but also more scalable or resilient.

Affordability. The prospective subgrantee’s commitment to provide the most affordable total price to the customer for 100/20 Mbps service in the proposed service area.
Fair Labor Practices. Eligible Entities must give priority to projects based on a prospective subgrantee’s demonstrated record of and plans to be in compliance with Federal labor and employment laws. New entrants without a record of labor and employment law compliance must be permitted to mitigate this fact by making specific, forward-looking commitments to strong labor and employment standards and protections with respect to BEAD-funded projects. This prioritization requirement is described in further detail in Section IV.C.1.e of this NOFO.
Secondary Criteria. Eligible Entities must also give weight (e.g., some number of points or credits less than the amount given to the criteria above) to the following criteria:
Speed to Deployment. The prospective subgrantee’s binding commitment to provision service by a date certain, subject to contractual penalties to the Eligible Entity, with greater benefits awarded to prospective subgrantees promising an earlier service provision date.
Speed of Network and Other Technical Capabilities. Eligible Entities must weigh the speeds, latency, and other technical capabilities of the technologies proposed by prospective subgrantees seeking to deploy projects that are not Priority Broadband Projects. Applications proposing to use technologies that exhibit greater ease of scalability with lower future investment (as defined by the Eligible Entity) and whose capital assets have longer useable lives should be afforded additional weight over those proposing technologies with higher costs to upgrade and shorter capital asset cycles.
Additional Prioritization Factors. Eligible Entities may develop additional secondary criteria to be given weights that align with Eligible Entity and local priorities, subject to the requirement to give the greatest weight to the primary criteria and the approval of the Assistant Secretary in the Initial and Final Proposal process. In particular, NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to incorporate the following as selection criteria:
Equitable Workforce Development and Job Quality. NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to adopt selection criteria relating to the subgrantee’s enforceable commitments with respect to advancing equitable workforce development and job quality objectives, see Section IV.C.1.f of this NOFO.
Open Access. NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to adopt selection criteria promoting subgrantees’ provision of open access wholesale last-mile broadband service for the life of the subsidized networks, on fair, equal, and neutral terms to all potential retail providers.
Local and Tribal Coordination. NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to adopt selection criteria reflecting a prospective subgrantee’s support from the local and/or Tribal Government with oversight over the location or locations to be served.

8. 20 Percent Funding Release and Eligible Uses

If the Assistant Secretary determines that the Initial Proposal meets the standards set forth in Section IV.B.5.c, the Assistant Secretary shall make available to the Eligible Entity 20 percent of the grant funds that were allocated to the Eligible Entity, or a higher percentage at the sole discretion of the Assistant Secretary, for uses as described in Section IV.B.3 of this NOFO.

Upon completion of the challenge process described in Section IV.B.6 and the subgrantee selection process described in Section IV.B.7, an Eligible Entity may use the funds made available under this Section to fully fund deployment projects that:

Consist of at least 80 percent unserved locations; and
Are in a location in which the percentage of individuals with a household income at or below 150 percent of the poverty line applicable to a family of the size involved (as determined under Section 673(2) of the Community Services Block Grant Act (42 U.S.C. § 9902(2)) that is higher than the national percentage of such individuals.

An Eligible Entity may use the funds made available under this Section of the NOFO for other eligible uses described under Section IV.B.7 of this NOFO (i.e., for uses other than deployment of last-mile broadband infrastructure to unserved and underserved locations or eligible CAIs) only if the Eligible Entity is able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Assistant Secretary that the Eligible Entity has a plan to meet the unserved and underserved location broadband deployment commitments set forth in the Eligible Entity’s Final Proposal, in which case the 69 Assistant Secretary may waive, in whole or in part, limitations on the use of this funding round. Additional information on how to request the use of funds for other purposes and the associated documentation required to demonstrate such plan will be provided at a later date.

9. Final Proposal

a. Timing

To receive the remaining grant funds that were allocated to the Eligible Entity, an Eligible Entity shall submit a Final Proposal no later than twelve (12) months after the date upon which the Assistant Secretary approves the Eligible Entity’s Initial Proposal. If an Eligible Entity fails to submit a Final Proposal by this deadline, this will be treated as the Eligible Entity’s application failure pursuant to Section IV.B.10. The Assistant Secretary reserves the right to extend this deadline; however, the Assistant Secretary will not grant a waiver of the Final Proposal deadlines except in extraordinary circumstances.

b. Form and Content of Final Proposal

NTIA will provide Eligible Entities an online template for submission of the Final Proposal. An Eligible Entity may submit only one final proposal.

The Final Proposal must include, at a minimum:

1. A detailed plan that specifies the outcome of the Eligible Entity’s subgrantee selection process and how the Eligible Entity will:
1. a. allocate grant funds to subgrantees for the deployment of broadband networks to unserved locations, underserved locations, and (if applicable) CAIs in accordance with the prioritization framework described in Section IV.B.7.b of this NOFO; and
2. b. align the grant funds allocated to the Eligible Entity under the BEAD Program, where practicable, with the use of other funds for broadband that the Eligible Entity receives from the federal government, an Eligible Entity, or any other source.
A timeline for implementation of the detailed plan and completion of each project and other eligible activity to be funded;
Processes for oversight and accountability to ensure the proper use of the grant funds allocated to the Eligible Entity under the BEAD Program consistent with Section IX.G of this NOFO;
Certification that the Eligible Entity has conducted coordination, including with Tribal Governments, local community organizations, and unions and worker organizations, consistent with the requirements set forth in Section IV.C.1.c of this NOFO, a description of the coordination conducted, and a summary of the impact such coordination had on the content of the Final Proposal;
Description of the results of the challenge process conducted by the Eligible Entity under Section IV.B.6;
Certification that the Eligible Entity will provide service to all unserved and underserved locations, if the Eligible Entity is seeking to use BEAD funding for deployment to CAIs or for other eligible activities;
A detailed description of all planned uses of BEAD funding that are not last-mile broadband deployment projects, including the nature of each funded initiative, how those uses are consistent with Section IV.B.7.a.iii of this NOFO, how the Eligible Entity expects the initiative to address the needs of the Eligible Entity’s residents, the ways in which engagement with localities and stakeholders informed the selection of such eligible activities, and any efforts the Eligible Entity undertook to determine whether other uses of the funds might have been more effective in achieving the BEAD Program’s equity, access, and deployment goals;
The means by which subgrantees for non-deployment eligible activities were selected, if the Eligible Entity pursued those initiatives via subgrant, or, alternatively, how the Eligible Entity determined that it should undertake the initiative itself;
A description of efforts undertaken by the Eligible Entity to ensure the participation of non-traditional broadband providers (such as municipalities or political subdivisions, cooperatives, non-profits, Tribal Governments, and utilities), including an explanation for awards to traditional broadband providers when one or more non-traditional providers submitted competing proposals to serve an area consistent with the requirements of Section IV .C.1.a;
Implementation status of plans described in the Initial Proposal related to:
1. a. Steps that the Eligible Entity has taken or intends to take to promote streamlined permitting processes and cost-effective access to poles, conduits, easements, and rights of way, including the imposition of reasonable access requirements;
2. b. Labor and workforce activities, including how the Eligible Entity implemented and applied the labor-related subgrantee selection criterion required herein;
3. c. Utilization of minority businesses, women-owned business enterprises, and labor surplus area firms;
4. d. Low-cost plan requirements; and
5. e. Climate change and resilience;
Information regarding specific commitments made by provisionally selected subgrantees to warrant a project’s treatment as a Priority Broadband Project;
Information regarding specific commitments made by provisionally selected subgrantees to warrant benefits in the Eligible Entity’s subgrantee selection process (e.g., the primary and secondary criteria);
Environmental documentation associated with any construction and/or ground-disturbing activities and a description of how the Eligible Entity will comply with applicable environmental and national historical preservation requirements.
To the extent an Eligible Entity’s Final Proposal includes plans to deploy broadband to Unserved Service Projects or Underserved Service Projects on Tribal Lands, the Eligible Entity must submit a Resolution of Consent from each Tribal Government, from the Tribal Council or other governing body, upon whose Tribal Lands the infrastructure will be deployed70.
A description of (1) each unsuccessful application that was affected by laws of the Eligible Entity concerning broadband, utility services, or similar subjects, whether they predate or postdate enactment of the Infrastructure Act, that the Eligible Entity did not waive for purposes of BEAD Program project selection and that either (a) preclude certain public sector providers from participation in the subgrant competition or (b) impose specific requirements on public sector entities, such as limitations on the sources of financing, the required imputation of costs not actually incurred by the public sector entity, or restrictions on the service a public sector entity can offer; and (2) how those laws impacted the decision to deny each such application.
Additional requirements for the Final Proposal may be provided to Eligible Entities when the approval of the Initial Proposal is granted.

c. Review process

After receipt of a Final Proposal, the Assistant Secretary shall acknowledge receipt and begin the review process in the order in which Final Proposals are received. Upon determination that the Final Proposal is complete, the Assistant Secretary shall determine whether the use of funds proposed in the Final Proposal:

Complies with Section 60102(f) of the Infrastructure Act; 2. Is in the public interest; and
Effectuates the purposes of the Infrastructure Act.

The Assistant Secretary may request and accept corrections to the Final Proposal of an Eligible Entity after the Final Proposal has been submitted.

d. Actions Upon Completion of Review i. Approval

If the Assistant Secretary determines that the Final Proposal meets the standards set forth in Section IV.B.9.c, the Assistant Secretary shall approve the Final Proposal, so inform the Eligible Entity, and make available to the Eligible Entity the remaining Program funds identified in the Eligible Entity’s Notice of Available Amounts to be used to implement the Eligible Entity’s Final Proposal.

ii. Disapproval

If the Final Proposal is incomplete, or the Assistant Secretary determines that the use of funds proposed in the Final Proposal does not meet the standards set forth in Section IV.B.9.c, the Assistant Secretary will notify the Eligible Entity of the deficiencies in the proposal, provide the Eligible Entity with an opportunity to resubmit the Final Proposal, and establish a deadline for resubmission. If an Eligible Entity fails to resubmit its Final Proposal remedying the deficiencies identified by the Assistant Secretary or otherwise does not satisfy the standards set forth in Section IV.B.9.c by the applicable deadline, the Eligible Entity’s application may be treated as an application failure pursuant to Section IV.B.10.

10. Application Failures

If an Eligible Entity fails to submit a covered application (i.e., a Letter of Intent, Initial Proposal, or Final Proposal) by the applicable deadline (and following any relevant opportunity to cure deficiencies), NTIA will issue a public notice inviting a political subdivision or consortium of political subdivisions of the Eligible Entity (a “Substitute Entity”) to submit the applicable type of covered application in place of the Eligible Entity. In the case where an Eligible Entity has missed a deadline opening the process to a Substitute Entity, NTIA will publish a public notice to facilitate meaningful participation of political subdivisions.

In the case of a Substitute Entity that submits a covered application:

The Assistant Secretary shall, if necessary, establish revised deadlines for the Substitute Entity to meet the requirements of this NOFO; and
Any reference in this NOFO to an Eligible Entity in a geographic sense shall be deemed to refer to the Eligible Entity in whose place the Substitute Entity submitted the covered application.

If no Substitute Entity applies or if the Substitute Entity fails to meet a submission deadline without the grant of extension, an Eligible Entity’s Program funds may be reallocated pursuant to Section II.D above.

C. Program Requirements

As set forth in the Infrastructure Act and outlined in greater detail below, the programmatic requirements applicable to Eligible Entities and subgrantees are as follows:

Eligible Entity Obligations
1. Consider All Provider Types
2. Ensure Subgrantee Accountability
3. Local Coordination
4. Equitable and Nondiscriminatory Distribution of Funds e. Fair Labor Practices and Highly Skilled Workforce
5. Civil Rights and Nondiscrimination Law Compliance h. Climate Resilience
Subgrantee Obligations
1. Network Capabilities
2. Deployment Requirements c. Service Obligations

1. Eligible Entity Obligations

a. Consider All Provider Types

Competition among broadband providers has the potential to offer consumers more affordable, high-quality options for broadband service. As required by the Infrastructure Act, in awarding subgrants for the deployment of a broadband network using grant funds, Eligible Entities may not exclude cooperatives, nonprofit organizations, public-private partnerships, private companies, public or private utilities, public utility districts, or local governments (“potential providers”) from eligibility for grant funds. In determining whether to approve an Eligible Entity’s Initial or Final Proposal, NTIA will consider whether the Eligible Entity has, after the enactment of the Infrastructure Act, adopted new laws, regulations, policies, procedures or any other form of rule or restriction that, in the determination of NTIA, seeks to exclude or has the effect of excluding any potential providers from eligibility for its subgrant competition. This could include new laws that have the effect of excluding providers from offering broadband service or rendering them incapable of effectively competing for subgrants.

Some laws of Eligible Entities concerning broadband, utility services, or similar subjects that predate the enactment of the Infrastructure Act may either preclude certain public sector providers from participation in the subgrant competition or may impose specific requirements on public sector entities, such as limitations on the sources of financing, the required imputation of costs not actually incurred by the public sector entity, or restrictions on the service a public sector entity can offer. NTIA strongly encourages Eligible Entities to waive all such laws for purposes of the Program. If an Eligible Entity does not do so, the Eligible Entity must identify all such laws in its Initial Proposal and describe how the laws will be applied in connection with the competition for subgrants. Such Eligible Entity must, in its Final Proposal, disclose each unsuccessful application affected by such laws and describe how those laws impacted the decision to deny the application.

b. Ensure Subgrantee Accountability

In addition to demonstrating how it expects to satisfy the subrecipient monitoring and management requirements identified in 2 C.F.R. Part 200 Subpart D, each Eligible Entity must include sufficient accountability procedures within its program to ensure subgrantee compliance with all applicable Program requirements. Each Eligible Entity must, at a minimum, include in any subgrant agreement reasonable provisions allowing for recovery of funds in the event of a subgrantee’s noncompliance with the BEAD Program’s requirements, including but not limited to failure to deploy network infrastructure in accordance with mandated deadlines. Each Eligible Entity must, at a minimum, employ the following practices: (1) distribution of funding to subgrantees for, at a minimum, all deployment projects on a reimbursable basis (which would allow the Eligible Entity to withhold funds if the subgrantee fails to take the actions the funds are meant to subsidize); (2) the inclusion of clawback provisions (i.e., provisions allowing recoupment of funds previously disbursed) in agreements between the Eligible Entity and any subgrantee; (3) timely subgrantee reporting mandates; and (4) robust subgrantee monitoring practices. NTIA will review proposed subgrant processes during the Initial Proposal and Final Proposal review phases and will reject Proposals that fail to provide sufficient recourse against subgrantees that do not fulfill their legal and contractual responsibilities. NTIA likewise will pursue clawback of funds directly from Eligible Entities that fail to ensure subgrantee accountability to the fullest extent of the law.

c. Local Coordination

Each Eligible Entity must develop a comprehensive local coordination approach that will begin in the development of the Five-Year Action Plan and continue at each stage of the BEAD

Program through the awarding of all subgrant funding. Local and Tribal coordination and stakeholder engagement is critical to the BEAD Program’s success, to eliminating barriers to broadband access and adoption, and to rapidly and economically building out new broadband networks. NTIA views strong involvement between Eligible Entities and local and Tribal communities as key to ensuring that the broadband needs of all unserved and underserved locations and underrepresented communities are accounted for in Initial and Final Plans. Local coordination promotes alignment of priorities between Eligible Entity and local and Tribal officials and helps ensure visibility of local needs and preferences. Robust engagement efforts increase initial adoption rates once the broadband is deployed in an area and stimulate awareness about the programs that can support the local community.

Accordingly, each Eligible Entity is required to coordinate with political subdivisions, Tribal Governments, local and community-based organizations, and unions and worker organizations within its territory to ensure full representation and inclusion of unserved, underserved, and underrepresented communities throughout the planning and deployment processes. Each Eligible Entity must document its local coordination and outreach activities by providing a detailed description of their efforts to engage local governments, community groups, union and worker organizations, Tribal Governments, and underrepresented populations in its Five-Year Action Plan, Initial Proposal, and Final Proposal, relative to each stage in the BEAD Program process. Each Eligible Entity is strongly encouraged to integrate its local coordination efforts with any outreach and coordination efforts it is required to undertake pursuant to the Digital Equity Act. See Section V of this NOFO for additional information concerning application materials.

In evaluating whether local coordination and outreach efforts meet the programmatic requirements, the Assistant Secretary will assess whether plans and activities undertaken ensure: (1) full geographic coverage of the Eligible Entity; (2) meaningful engagement and outreach to diverse stakeholder groups, labor organizations, and community organizations, including to promote the recruitment of women and other historically marginalized populations for workforce development opportunities and jobs related to BEAD-funded eligible activities; (3) utilization of multiple awareness and participation mechanisms and different methods to convey information and outreach; (4) transparency of processes, to include the documentation and publication of results and outcomes of such coordination and outreach efforts, including additions or changes to the Eligible Entity’s Initial Proposal and/or Final Proposal; and (5) outreach to and direct engagement of unserved and underserved communities to include historically underrepresented and marginalized groups and/or communities. These requirements are designed to allow Eligible Entities to tailor the program for the unique environments within its boundaries. In evaluating the sufficiency of local coordination efforts, the Assistant Secretary will consider quantitative measures as well as the quality of the engagements.

The requirements of this section are critical to ensuring that Eligible Entities are coordinating with all communities, including their marginalized and underrepresented populations. Broadband availability, or lack thereof, is not new to localities and in many instances, they have undertaken data collection, planning and outreach and engagement efforts to identify the specific and unique needs of their communities. Bringing these stakeholders to the table will not only result in Eligible Entities developing and implementing a successful broadband plan that carries out the intent of the Infrastructure Act, but fosters buy-in from the people the plan and these programs are meant to serve. It also builds stronger relationships between Eligible Entities and localities and creates opportunities for them to further coordinate with each other. Eligible Entities should track all engagement efforts they conduct and provide a synopsis of the needs identified and if they were addressed (or not) in the appropriate portions of their Initial Proposals, Final Proposals, and reporting to NTIA.

i. Geographic Coverage
- Each Eligible Entity must demonstrate that its engagement with its political subdivisions and applicable Tribal Governments include sufficient geographic granularity to demonstrate full participation within the Eligible Entity. Engagement must include Tribal, rural, suburban, and urban areas to the extent applicable in the Eligible Entity and must address diverse stakeholder groups. Each political subdivision and federally recognized Tribe must be given an opportunity to submit its own plan71 to the Eligible Entity for consideration in the development of the Eligible Entity’s Proposals. Likewise, each political subdivision and federally recognized Tribe must be given an opportunity to comment on the Proposals of the Eligible Entity before submission to the Assistant Secretary. The Eligible Entity must detail how it addressed each submitted plan in each relevant Proposal.
ii. Diverse stakeholder groups
- Throughout its local coordination and outreach activities, each Eligible Entity must ensure that a diverse set of stakeholders is involved in development of its Five-Year Action Plan, Initial Proposal, and Final Proposal. To the extent the Eligible Entity encompasses sovereign Tribal or Native entities, the Eligible Entity must ensure that such entities are involved in development of the Eligible Entity’s plans, including, but not limited to a formal Tribal consultation process with the Eligible Entity. In addition, Eligible Entities must coordinate with local stakeholders—such as entities that carry out workforce development programs and labor unions—to provide a written explanation of their approach to ensuring a reliable supply of skilled workers, eliciting feedback on plans for creating good-paying jobs, and to recruiting and hiring women and other historically marginalized groups for the job opportunities created through the BEAD program. Other examples of stakeholder groups for consideration include but are not limited to the following:
- State and Territorial agencies, including departments and offices charged with overseeing transportation, economic development, community development, education, information technology, health and human services, labor, agriculture, and natural resources; County and municipal governments and regional associations of governments;
- Tribal Governments, Alaska Native entities, and Native Hawaiian organizations;
- Community anchor institutions;
- Nonprofit and community-based organizations;
- Civil rights organizations;
- Labor organizations and unions; 71 Plans in this context refer to formal, local broadband plans addressing deployment, equity, or other issues relevant to the BEAD program goals.
- Entities that carry out workforce development programs, including labor-management partnership training programs (like Registered Apprenticeship programs and pre- apprenticeships tied to Registered Apprenticeships);
- Higher education institutions, including community colleges, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs);
- Local educational agencies;
- Eligible Entity agencies that are responsible for administering or supervising adult education and literacy activities in the Eligible Entity;
- Public housing authorities or owners/operators of HUD-assisted housing in the Eligible Entity;
- Organizations that represent:
  - – Individuals with disabilities, including organizations that represent children with disabilities;
  - – Individuals who are 60 years of age or older;
  - – Individuals with language barriers, including English learners and individuals with low levels of literacy;
  - – People of color;
  - – LGBTQI+ people;
  - – Immigrants;
  - – Veterans; and
  - – Individuals in that Eligible Entity who are incarcerated;
- Economic development organizations, local businesses/chambers of commerce, including small and disadvantaged businesses and chambers of commerce (e.g., chambers of commerce serving underrepresented groups);
- Internet Service Providers (ISPs) of all types;
- Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) and equivalents;
- Consumer advocates and advocacy groups;
- Faith-based organizations;
- Neighborhood associations; and
- Other organizations that serve as representatives of underrepresented communities.
iii. Awareness, Outreach and Participation Mechanisms
- Successful coordination requires multiple mechanisms to ensure broad awareness and participation. Each Eligible Entity must design and implement efforts that promote inclusivity. This should be accomplished through facilitating broad outreach efforts that promote engagement in different ways to ensure that all unserved, underserved and underrepresented communities are included. Examples of such methods include but are not limited to:
- Listening sessions, or public meetings (in-person within the community and virtual);
- Eligible Entity websites and/or email address to submit comments directly;
- Informational materials such as fact sheets, brochures, Frequently Asked Questions, and newsletters;
- Social media (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.); Notice of Funding Opportunity – 54
- Email notifications and use of traditional mail;
- Utilization of community anchor institutions to help promote and distribute information); and
- Local Advertisements and Public Service Announcements.
iv. Transparency
- In conducting local coordination and outreach activities, Eligible Entities must establish, document, and adhere to clear procedures to ensure transparency. This includes publicly posting the Proposals prior to submission to NTIA as well as plans or comments submitted by local political subdivisions or Tribal Governments and explanations of how local recommendations were addressed. Examples of ways to promote and document transparency include but are not limited to publicly available information and easily navigable websites with up-to-date information, periodic reporting/reports to local and community stakeholders, and involvement of diverse stakeholders in the planning, implementation and execution of coordination and outreach efforts and activities, and in-person meetings and mailings.
v. Underrepresented Engagement
- Specific engagement efforts must be targeted at underrepresented communities within the Eligible Entity. Underrepresented communities have historically faced barriers in participating in federal programs and therefore Eligible Entities must identify these communities and determine specific outreach and engagement strategies tailored to their needs, including providing outreach in the languages used in the communities these eligible activities serve. Examples of activities that might be used to reach unserved, underserved, and underrepresented communities include but are not limited to:
- The creation of an Eligible Entity-wide task force or advisory board with representatives from underrepresented communities;
- Frequent engagement with State, Territorial, county, Tribal, and municipal associations that may have a greater reach to these communities through their local elected official members;
- Engagement with other Eligible Entity departments or agencies that regularly serve these communities and can help identify and engage with them, such as Eligible Entity departments of education, health and human services, workforce development, and/or public health;
- Utilization of the mechanisms listed in Section IV.C.1.c.iii that demonstrates a targeted focus on the above identified communities; and
- Investment in surveys, data collection, and mapping initiatives to better understand gaps in connectivity and needs.
- Each Eligible Entity should combine multiple strategies to develop a comprehensive approach that ensures equitable and broad participation from all stakeholders. Each Eligible Entity also must document, publish and integrate its local coordination activities with the outreac
- recommended that Eligible Entities conduct BEAD and Digital Equity Act program local coordination efforts in tandem as one cohesive effort.

d. Equitable and Nondiscriminatory Distribution of Funds

Consistent with Section 60102(g)(2)(C) of the Infrastructure Act, Eligible Entities must distribute funds in an equitable and nondiscriminatory manner and ensure, through stipulations in any subgrantee contracts, that each subgrantee uses the funds in an equitable and nondiscriminatory manner.

e. Fair Labor Practices and Highly Skilled Workforce

As set forth above in Section IV.B.7, Eligible Entities must give priority to projects based on (among other things) a demonstrated record of and plans to be in compliance with federal labor and employment laws. Eligible Entities are required to give preferential weight to projects based on the strength of the showing in their application on this factor. Doing so will help ensure that projects are carried out in accordance with the law, assist Eligible Entities in ensuring that a prospective subgrantee is capable of carrying out activities funded by a subgrant in a competent manner in compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local laws, and promote the effective and efficient completion of high-quality broadband infrastructure projects by ensuring a reliable supply of skilled workers and minimizing disruptive and costly delays.

Evaluation of a prospective subgrantee’s demonstrated record of and plans to be in compliance with federal labor and employment laws requires focus on several components. First, Eligible Entities must obtain and evaluate information on the prospective subgrantee’s record of compliance with federal labor and employment laws, as well as the records of any other entities that will participate in the project, including contractors and subcontractors. This information must include, at a minimum, information on these entities’ compliance with federal labor and employment laws on broadband deployment projects in the last three years. For example, the Eligible Entity should collect data on a prospective subgrantee’s historical use of contracting and subcontracting arrangements, including staffing plans, and at least one example of each contractor and subcontractor’s past performance in the context of a similar project. Eligible Entities will be required to describe in their Initial and Final Proposals what specific information they will require prospective subgrantees to provide in their applications and how they will weight that information in their competitive selection process. This should include, but not be limited to, (1) a certification from an Officer/Director-level employee (or equivalent) of the prospective subgrantee evidencing consistent past compliance with federal labor and employment laws by the subgrantee, as well as all contractors and subcontractors, and (2) written confirmation that the prospective subgrantee discloses any instances in which it or its contractors or subcontractors have been found to have violated laws such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, or any other applicable labor and employment laws for the preceding three years.

Second, Eligible Entities must require submission of, and evaluate, the prospective subgrantee’s plans for ensuring compliance with Federal labor and employment laws. These plans must address, at a minimum, how the prospective subgrantee will ensure compliance in its own labor and employment practices, as well as that of its contractors and subcontractors, including (1)

information on applicable wage scales and wage and overtime payment practices for each class of employees expected to be involved directly in the physical construction of the broadband network and (2) how the subgrantee will ensure the implementation of workplace safety committees that are authorized to raise health and safety concerns in connection with the delivery of deployment projects. Eligible Entities will be required to describe in their Initial and Final Proposals what specific information they will require prospective subgrantees to provide in their applications and how they will weight that information in their competitive selection processes.

An effective plan for compliance with federal labor and employment laws can include a subgrantee’s binding commitment to strong labor standards and protections for the project workforce (including contractors and subcontractors), which include:

Using a directly employed workforce, as opposed to a subcontracted workforce;
Paying prevailing wages and benefits to workers, including compliance with Davis-

Bacon and Service Contract Act requirements, where applicable, and collecting the required certified payrolls;

Using project labor agreements (i.e., pre-hire collective bargaining agreements between

unions and contractors that govern terms and conditions of employment for all workers on a construction project);

Use of local hire provisions;
Commitments to union neutrality;
Use of labor peace agreements;72
Use of an appropriately skilled workforce, e.g., through Registered Apprenticeships or

other joint labor-management training programs that serve all workers, particularly those

underrepresented or historically excluded);

Use of an appropriately credentialed workforce (i.e., satisfying requirements for appropriate and relevant pre-existing occupational training, certification, and licensure);and
Taking steps to prevent the misclassification of workers.

If an Eligible Entity includes any of these as mandatory requirements for all subgrantees (including contractors and subcontractors), it should describe these requirements in detail its Initial and Final Proposal and explain how it will incorporate them as binding legal commitments in the subgrants it makes. An Eligible Entity taking this approach can reduce the showing that prospective subgrantees need to make in their applications regarding their plans to comply with federal labor and employment laws.

72 Ability to require labor peace agreements:

By a governmental entity: Where a governmental entity receives NTIA grant funds, whether directly as an Eligible Entity or as a subgrantee, and the governmental entity uses those funds for the construction of facilities over which it will maintain a proprietary interest (e.g., governmental ownership of the network), it is authorized and encouraged to require labor peace agreements, unless prohibited by state or local law.
By a non-governmental subgrantee: Subgrantees that are non-governmental entities, and construct broadband facilities over which no governmental entity maintains a proprietary interest, are authorized and encouraged to require labor peace agreements, unless prohibited by state or local law.

To ensure that subgrantees have the technical and operational capacity to carry out the subgrant, prospective subgrantees must have a plan for ensuring that the project workforce will be an appropriately skilled and credentialed workforce (including by the subgrantee and each of its contractors and subcontractors). For purposes of this section, the “project workforce” includes those employees of the subgrantee, its contractors, or subcontractors directly engaged in the physical construction of the broadband network. The plan for a highly skilled workforce should include the following information:

The ways in which the subgrantee will ensure the use of an appropriately skilled workforce, e.g., through Registered Apprenticeships or other joint labor-management training programs that serve all workers;
The steps that will be taken to ensure that all members of the project workforce will have appropriate credentials, e.g., appropriate and relevant pre-existing occupational training, certification, and licensure;
Whether the workforce is unionized;
Whether the workforce will be directly employed or whether work will be performed by a subcontracted workforce; and
The entities that the proposed subgrantee plans to contract and subcontract with in carrying out the proposed work. If the project workforce or any subgrantee’s, contractor’s, or subcontractor’s workforce is not unionized, the subgrantee must also provide with respect to the non-union workforce:
The job titles and size of the workforce (FTE positions, including for contractors and subcontractors) required to carry out the proposed work over the course of the project and the entity that will employ each portion of the workforce;
For each job title required to carry out the proposed work (including contractors and subcontractors), a description of:
- safety training, certification, and/or licensure requirements (e.g., OSHA 10, OSHA 30, confined space, traffic control, or other training as relevant depending on title and work), including whether there is a robust in-house training program with established requirements tied to certifications, titles; and
- information on the professional certifications and/or in-house training in place to ensure that deployment is done at a high standard.

f. Advancing Equitable Workforce Development and Job Quality Objectives

A skilled workforce is critical to meeting infrastructure buildout timelines under the Infrastructure Act and connecting households across the country to reliable, affordable, high- speed broadband. A highly skilled workforce will also allow for the safe deployment of sustainable networks. To meet the workforce needs of this program, Eligible Entities and their subgrantees should make appropriate investments to develop a skilled, diverse workforce for the jobs that the subgrantees need to fill.73

73 Workforce development programs that provide high-skilled workers that support BEAD-funded projects are an eligible use of grant funds. See Section V.K for eligible uses.

i. Requirements. Eligible Entities are required to include in their Initial and Final Proposals:

A description of how the Eligible Entity will ensure that subgrantees support the development and use of a highly skilled workforce capable of carrying out work in a manner that is safe and effective.
A description of how the Eligible Entity will develop and promote sector-based partnerships among employers, education and training providers, the public workforce system, unions and worker organizations, and community-based organizations that provide relevant training (including through Registered Apprenticeships and pre- apprenticeships that are integrated with Registered Apprenticeships, or other quality work-based learning programs) and provide wrap-around services to support workers to access and complete training (such as child care, transportation, mentorship, etc.), to attract, train, retain, or transition to meet local workforce needs and increase high-quality job opportunities.74
A description of how the Eligible Entity will plan to create equitable on-ramps into broadband-related jobs (e.g., how entities plan to engage or partner with stakeholders like State, Territorial, and local workforce boards, training partners, labor and community organizations); maintain job quality for new and incumbent workers engaged in the sector; and continually engage with labor organizations and community-based organizations to maintain worker voice throughout the planning and implementation process;
A description of how the Eligible Entity will ensure that the job opportunities created by the BEAD Program and other broadband funding programs are available to a diverse pool of workers, including by engaging in targeted outreach, and seek subgrantees with effective plans for outreach, to populations that have traditionally been underrepresented in broadband and information technology jobs, including but not limited to women and people of color. Eligible Entities should be prepared to report on the demographics of each subgrantee workforce that is engaged on a project or other eligible activity utilizing BEAD grant funding (this will be aggregate workforce data only, not personally identifiable information), and should expect that this data will be made public.

ii. Other Considerations. NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to consider workforce development goals when selecting subgrantees. This could include setting requirements applicable to all subgrantees or establishing scoring factors. Eligible Entities can accomplish this in various ways, including the following:

Ensuring that subgrantees require their contractors and subcontractors to provide Registered Apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships tied to a Registered Apprenticeship, joint labor management partnerships, and other high-quality, on-the-job training opportunities, which may include minimum requirements of contractor or subcontractor job hours to be performed by apprentices; and ensuring that such programs lead to

74 For additional information on sector-based partnerships, Eligible Entities should review the Economic Development Administration’s Good Jobs Challenge NOFO, EDA-HDQ-ARPGJ-2021-2006964, available at https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppID=334720.

employment with wages at rates not less than the rates prevailing on projects and other eligible activities of a similar character in the locality as determined by the Secretary of Labor in accordance with subchapter IV of chapter 31 of title 40, United States Code.

Ensuring that subgrantees offer “quality” jobs.75 For example, an Eligible Entity should consider scoring applicants based in part on the extent to which they will deliver on the quality jobs standard.
Ensuring that subgrantees prioritize hiring local workers and have robust and specific plans to recruit historically underrepresented populations facing labor market barriers and ensure that they have reasonable access to the job opportunities created by subgrantees. Such populations may include communities of color, women, and other groups (such as persons with disabilities, LGBTQI+ people, disconnected youth, individuals in recovery, individuals with past criminal records, including justice-impacted and reentry participants, serving trainees participating in the SNAP, TANF, and WIC, and veterans and military spouses).

g. Civil Rights and Nondiscrimination Law Compliance

No person in the United States may, on the ground of actual or perceived race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or handicap, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under, any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Prior to distributing any BEAD funding to a subgrantee, an Eligible Entity must require the subgrantee to agree, by contract or other binding commitment, to abide by the non-discrimination requirements set forth in the following legal authorities, to the extent applicable, and to acknowledge that failure to do so may result in cancellation of any award and/or recoupment of funds already disbursed:

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d et seq.) and the Department of Commerce’s implementing regulations, published at 15 C.F.R. Part 8, which prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, color, or national origin under programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance;
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (20 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq.) which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex under federally assisted education programs or activities;
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et seq.) which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability under programs, activities, and services provided or made available by Eligible Entity and local governments or instrumentalities or agencies thereto, as well as public or private entities that provide public transportation;

75 A “quality job” is defined as a job that (1) exceeds the local prevailing wage for an industry in the region, includes basic benefits (e.g., paid leave, health insurance, retirement/savings plan), and/or is unionized, and (2) helps the employee develop the skills and experiences necessary to advance along a career path. See Economic Development Administration, ARPA Good Jobs Challenge NOFO, EDA- HDQ-ARPGJ-2021-2006964, at n. 1, available at https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view- opportunity.html?oppId=334720.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. § 794), and Department of Commerce implementing regulations published at 15 C.F.R. Part 8b, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of handicap under any program or activity receiving or benefiting from federal assistance;
The Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended (42 U.S.C. §§ 6101 et seq.), and Department of Commerce implementing regulations published at 15 C.F.R. Part 20, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of age in programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance;
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., which provides that it is an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discharge any individual or otherwise to discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Note in this regard that Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-1(a), expressly exempts from the prohibition against discrimination based on religion “a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities;” and
Any other applicable non-discrimination law(s). Application requirements, award terms, and conditions do not impose civil rights and nondiscrimination law compliance requirements on Indian Tribes or Native Entities beyond what would otherwise apply under federal law.

In addition, each Eligible Entity must demonstrate in its Initial Proposal and Final Proposal that its selection of subgrantees will account for and satisfy the following authorities:

Parts II and III of Executive Order 11246, Equal Employment Opportunity (30 Fed. Reg. 12319), which requires that federally assisted construction contracts incorporate and fulfill the nondiscrimination provisions of §§ 202 and 203 of E.O. 11246 and Department of Labor regulations implementing E.O. 11246 (41 C.F.R. § 60-1.4(b)).76
Executive Order 13166, Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency (65 Fed. Reg. 50121), which requires federal agencies to examine the services that they provide, identify any need for services to those with limited English proficiency (LEP), and develop and implement a system to provide those services so LEP persons can have meaningful access to them. Note that the Department of Commerce issued policy guidance on March 24, 2003 (68 Fed. Reg. 14180) to articulate the Title VI prohibition against national origin discrimination affecting LEP persons and to help ensure that non- federal entities provide meaningful access to their LEP applicants and beneficiaries.
Executive Order 13798, Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty, and Office of Management and Budget, M-20-09—Guidance Regarding Federal Grants and Executive

76 Among other things, entities undertaking either wholly or partially federally funded construction projects may not “discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin,” and must “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.” Executive Order 11246 § 202.

Order 13798 (January 16, 2020), which provide that States or other public grantees may not condition sub-awards of federal grant money in a manner that would disadvantage grant applicants based on their religious character.

h. Climate Resilience

In establishing their Initial Proposals and Final Proposals, Eligible Entities must demonstrate that they have sufficiently accounted for current and future weather- and climate-related risks to new infrastructure projects. At present, weather- and climate-related risks to broadband networks include wildfires, extreme heat and cold, inland and coastal flooding, and the extreme winds produced by weather events such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and other weather events. Because retrofitted and new infrastructure for broadband might be expected to have a lifetime of 20 years or more, Eligible Entities must account not only for current risks but also for how the frequency, severity, and nature of these extreme events may plausibly evolve as our climate continues to change over the coming decades. Future projected climate change is expected to continue to result in higher seasonal temperatures and an increased likelihood of extreme heat events, higher risk of wildfires, more intense rainfall events, sea level rise and coastal inundation, permafrost thaw in Alaska, and the potential for stronger hurricanes when they do form, and other climate change related impacts.77

Communities that lack broadband are also often the most vulnerable to extreme weather and climate events. This combination often results in a lack of crucial communications infrastructure to respond during these emergencies. Building climate-resilient broadband infrastructure for such communities provides emergency response preparedness and thus greater climate resilience for the community itself.

In light of the above, Eligible Entities should make use of available tools and resources from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other federal agencies, as well as Eligible Entity-level resources and centers of expertise, in drawing up their Proposals pursuant to the BEAD Program. Each Eligible Entity must explain in its Initial and Final Proposal how it has utilized these tools and resources to account for, mitigate, and where possible, avoid the known and identifiable risks of current and future projected weather and climate conditions. Eligible Entities also should explain how they addressed these risks through measures such as (but not necessarily limited to) choice of a technology platform suitable to the climate risks of the region, reliance on alternative siting of facilities (e.g., underground construction where appropriate), retrofitting or hardening of existing assets that are critical to BEAD-funded offerings, additional onsite and in-home power resources, use of established plans and processes to deal with extreme weather related risks, the speed of restoration of service in the case of an outage, and use of network and facility redundancies to safeguard against threats to infrastructure. In particular, in its Initial Proposal and Final Proposal, each Eligible Entity should, at a minimum, clearly do each of the following:

77 For example, in accordance with Section 2(a)(1) of Executive Order 11988, as amended by Executive Order 13690, before taking an action, the applicant, in coordination with NTIA, must determine whether a proposed action will occur in a floodplain.

Identify the geographic areas that should be subject to an initial hazard screening for current and future weather- and climate-related risks and the time scales for performing such screenings;
Identify which weather and climate hazards may be most important to account for and respond to in these areas and over the relevant time horizons, utilizing the tools and resources recommended below or other resources available to the Eligible Entity;
Characterize any weather and climate risks to new infrastructure deployed using BEAD Program funds for the 20 years following deployment;
Identify how the proposed plan will avoid and/or mitigate the weather and climate risks identified; and
Detail the Eligible Entity’s plans for periodically repeating this process over the life of the Program to ensure that evolving risks are understood, characterized and addressed, and that the most up-to-date tools and information resources are utilized.

For flooding hazards, the Eligible Entity should take into account the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard and Implementing Guidelines established through in Executive Order 14030, Climate-Related Financial Risk (86 FR 27967) and Executive Order 13690, Establishing a Federal Flood Risk Management Standard and a Process for Further Soliciting and Considering Stakeholder Input (80 FR 6425). The Executive Orders and Guidelines can be found at https://www.fema.gov/floodplain-management/intergovernmental/federal-flood-risk- management-standard.

In implementing the above requirements, Eligible Entities should make use of the user-friendly resources and tools provided below. The information contained within these tools and resources should be carefully reviewed to understand key characteristics of the information and data provided (e.g., geographic scale of the information, timeframe of the information, levels of confidence in the information).

For broad, coarse-level screening of current and projected future weather- and climate- related risks for the region and Eligible Entity, review and cite the regional chapters found in the 2018 National Climate Assessment (https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/).
For more Eligible Entity-specific information on current and projected climate conditions and risks, refer to NOAA’s 2022 state climate summaries (https://statesummaries.ncics.org/).
In assessing current weather-related risks for specific regions, Eligible Entities can use NOAA’s disaster and risk mapping tool (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/mapping). and NOAA’s storms event database (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/).
The NOAA tools Climate Explorer and Digital Coast (updated with recently-published regional sea level rise scenarios) allow users to look up historic and future projected environmental variables (e.g., changes in temperature thresholds, sea level rise) for their region.
FEMA’s National Risk Index (https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/learn-more) provides a composite risk index for all regions across the United States, incorporating a range of natural hazards (most of which, but not all, are weather- and climate-related). FEMA’s flood risk maps (https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home) for current conditions and for specific locations.
Eligible Entities are also encouraged to consult their FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plans to help identify key risks and hazards.

To understand and access climate and weather information, Eligible Entities are encouraged to work with NOAA and its partners at the State and regional levels (National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices (https://www.weather.gov/srh/nwsoffices), Regional Climate Centers (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/regional/regional-climate-centers), Regional Climate Services Directors (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/regional/regional-climate-services-directors), academic and other partners under NOAA’s RISA program (https://cpo.noaa.gov/Meet-the- Divisions/Climate-and-Societal-Interactions/RISA/RISA-Teams), State climatologists (https://stateclimate.org/state_programs/), and any other relevant centers of expertise at the Eligible Entity and local level.

2. Obligations for Subgrantees Deploying Network Projects

a. Network Capabilities

Eligible Entities shall ensure that any subgrant agreement for a Funded Network permits the subgrantee to use the subgrant to deploy broadband infrastructure in or through any area required to reach interconnection points or otherwise to ensure the technical feasibility and financial sustainability of a project providing broadband service to an unserved location, underserved location, or Eligible Community Anchor Institution.

Pursuant to Section 60102(g)(1)(A) of the Infrastructure Act, which directs the Assistant Secretary to establish quality-of-service standards to which each subgrantee must comply, each Eligible Entity shall ensure that every Funded Network meets the following criteria:

i. Speed and Latency

To ensure that Funded Networks meet current and future use cases and to promote consistency across federal agencies, NTIA adopts the compliance standards and testing protocols for speed and latency established and used by the Commission in multiple contexts, including the Connect America Fund and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.78 In order to demonstrate continued compliance with these standards, subgrantees must perform speed and latency tests from the customer premises of an active subscriber to a remote test server at an end-point consistent with the requirements for a Commission-designated IXP.79

Subject to the exceptions identified in Section IV.B.7.a, Funded Networks shall deliver Reliable Broadband Service with speeds of not less than 100 Mbps for downloads and 20 Mbps for

78 See, e.g., Connect America Fund, WC Docket No. 10-90, Order, 33 FCC Rcd 6509 (WCB/WTB/OET 2018) (Performance Measures Order); Connect America Fund, Order on Reconsideration, WC Docket No. 10-90, 34 FCC Rcd 10109 (2019) (Performance Measures Reconsideration Order).

79 See Performance Measures Reconsideration Order, 34 FCC Rcd at 10114-16, paras. 17-19.

uploads.80 In addition, 95 percent of latency measurements during testing windows must fall at or below 100 milliseconds round-trip time.81 This approach ensures a connection that supports reasonably foreseeable real-time applications. In the limited circumstance where even a fiber deployment cannot achieve this latency threshold (for example in a remote territory), NTIA may expand the latency threshold for specific Funded Networks at the request of an Eligible Entity.

Funded Network connections to Eligible Community Anchor Institutions shall be capable of delivering service at speeds not less than 1 Gigabit per second for downloads and 1 Gigabit per second for uploads.82 Eligible Entities shall ensure that such connections can be used to provide business data services.83

ii. Network Outages

Each Funded Network’s outages should not exceed, on average, 48 hours over any 365-day period except in the case of natural disasters or other force majeure occurrence. Each Eligible Entity should ensure a prospective network is designed to meet this requirement and should develop metrics for measuring outages to be utilized in connection with this requirement once the network is operational.

b. Deployment Requirements

i. Deployment Deadlines and Benchmarks

Eligible Entities shall ensure that each subgrantee deploys its Funded Networks and begins providing broadband service to each customer that desires broadband service not later than four years after the date on which the subgrantee receives the subgrant for the applicable network.84 Eligible Entities shall establish interim buildout milestones, enforceable as conditions of the subgrant, sufficient to ensure that subgrantees are making reasonable progress toward meeting the four-year deployment deadline. Eligible Entities may, following consultation with the NTIA and with the approval of the Assistant Secretary, extend the deadlines under this subparagraph if the Eligible Entity reasonably determines that (i) the subgrantee has a specific plan for use of the grant funds, with project completion expected by a specific date not more than one year after the four-year deadline; (ii) the construction project is underway; or (iii) extenuating circumstances require an extension of time to allow the project to be completed.

ii. Conduit Access Points

Any Funded Network deployment project that involves laying fiber-optic cables or conduit underground or along a roadway must include interspersed conduit access points at regular and short intervals for interconnection by unaffiliated entities. Where a project proposes to lay conduit, Eligible Entities shall require prospective subgrantees to propose to deploy a reasonable amount of excess conduit capacity and to propose a conduit access point interval as part of the grant application process and shall consider the adequacy of the prospective subgrantee’s proposed excess conduit capacity and access points when evaluating the application.

c. Service Obligations

i. Affordability and Low-Cost Plans

The Infrastructure Act’s BEAD provisions are premised on Congress’s determination that “[a]ccess to affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband is essential to full participation in modern life in the United States,” and that “[t]he persistent ‘digital divide’ in the United States is a barrier to” the nation’s “economic competitiveness [and the] equitable distribution of essential public services, including health care and education.”85 Accordingly, each Eligible Entity must include in its Initial and Final Proposals a middle-class affordability plan to ensure that all consumers have access to affordable high-speed internet. We expect that Eligible Entities will adopt diverse strategies to achieve this objective. For example, some Eligible Entities might require providers receiving BEAD funds to offer low-cost, high-speed plans to all middle-class households using the BEAD-funded network. Others might provide consumer subsidies to defray subscription costs for households not eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Benefit or other federal subsidies. Others may use their regulatory authority to promote structural competition. Some might assign especially high weights to selection criteria relating to affordability and/or open access in selecting BEAD subgrantees.86 And others might employ a combination of these methods, or other methods not mentioned here. Ultimately, however, each Eligible Entity must submit a plan to ensure that high-quality broadband services are available to all middle-class families in the BEAD-funded network’s service area at reasonable prices. Eligible Entities will be required to ensure that services offered over Funded Networks allow subscribers in the service area to utilize the ACP.

In addition, the Infrastructure Act requires that each subgrantee receiving BEAD funding to deploy network infrastructure offer at least one low-cost broadband service option. Each Eligible Entity must consult with the Assistant Secretary and prospective subgrantees regarding a proposed definition of the term “low-cost broadband service option.” Each Eligible Entity shall thereafter submit a proposed definition to the Assistant Secretary for approval in its Final Proposal. The Infrastructure Act directs the Assistant Secretary to define the subscribers eligible for such low-cost plans.

Eligible Entities must propose low-cost broadband service option parameters that best serve the needs of residents within their jurisdictions. Low-cost broadband service options must remain available for the useful life of the network assets. In crafting proposals, NTIA emphasizes that access to affordable broadband is among the Infrastructure Act’s objectives. In determining whether to approve an Eligible Entity’s proposed definition of “low-cost broadband service option,” the Assistant Secretary will consider, among other factors, (1) whether prospective subgrantees will be required to participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program, any successor program, and/or any other household broadband subsidy programs; (2) the expected cost (both monthly and non-recurring charges) to an Eligible Subscriber for a typical broadband internet access service plan after the application of any subsidies; and (3) the performance characteristics of the proposed options, including download and upload speeds, latency, data caps, and reliability commitments.

A definition of low-cost broadband service option should address, at a minimum: (1) all recurring charges to the subscriber, as well as any non-recurring costs or fees to the subscriber (e.g., service initiation costs); (2) the plan’s basic service characteristics (download and upload speeds, latency, any limits on usage or availability, and any material network management practices, (3) whether a subscriber may use any Affordable Connectivity Benefit subsidy toward the plan’s rate; and (4) any provisions regarding the subscriber’s ability to upgrade to any new low-cost service plans offering more advantageous technical specifications. For example, a definition of low-cost broadband service option could be as follows:

1. The proposed service option:

a. Costs $30 per month or less, inclusive of all taxes, fees, and charges if the subscriber does not reside on Tribal Lands, or $75 per month or less, inclusive of all taxes, fees, and charges if the subscriber resides on Tribal Lands, with no additional non-recurring costs or fees to the consumer;

b. Allows the end user to apply the Affordable Connectivity Benefit subsidy to the service price;

c. Provides the greater of (a) typical download speeds of at least 100 Mbps and typical upload speeds of at least 20 Mbps, or the fastest speeds the infrastructure is capable of if less than 100 Mbps/20 Mbps or (b) the performance benchmark for fixed terrestrial broadband service established by the Federal Communications Commission pursuant to Section 706(b) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended;87

d. Provides typical latency measurements of no more than 100 milliseconds; and

e. Is not subject to data caps, surcharges, or usage-based throttling, and is subject only to the same acceptable use policies to which subscribers to all other broadband internet access service plans offered to home subscribers by the participating subgrantee must adhere;

f. In the event the provider later offers a low-cost plan with higher speeds downstream and/or upstream, permits Eligible Subscribers that are subscribed to a low-cost broadband service option to upgrade to the new low-cost offering at no cost;88

2. Subgrantees are required to participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program or any successor program, and Eligible Subscribers that are eligible for a broadband service subsidy can apply the subsidy to the proposed service option.

NTIA recognizes, however, that different Eligible Entities face different circumstances. NTIA will review and consider any definition proposed by an Eligible Entity in accordance with the terms of the BEAD statute. In all cases, an Eligible Entity must explain in its Initial and Final Proposal why the selected definition best effectuates the purposes of the program. NTIA may provide additional guidance to Eligible Entities on the development of the low-cost broadband service option definition.

ii. Consumer Protections

Each Eligible Entity shall ensure that each prospective subgrantee does not impose data usage caps on any plans offered over a Funded Network or impose unjust or unreasonable network management practices.89 Subgrantees shall certify through the semiannual reporting requirements described in Section VII.E of this NOFO that the plans offered over Funded Networks do not contain data usage caps for subscribers.

iii. Access to Service

Operators of Funded Networks shall provide access to broadband service to each customer served by the project that desires broadband service on terms and conditions that are reasonable and non-discriminatory.

iv. Public Notice

Eligible Entities shall require subgrantees to carry out public awareness campaigns in their service areas that are designed to highlight the value and benefits of broadband service in order to increase the adoption of broadband service by consumers. Awareness campaigns must include information about low-cost service plans and any federal subsidies for low-income households such as the Lifeline Program, the Affordable Connectivity Program, and any successor programs. Further, awareness campaigns must be conducted in an equitable and nondiscriminatory manner. Subgrantees must utilize a variety of communications media (e.g., online, print, radio) and provide information in languages other than English when warranted based on the demographics of the community.

Eligible Entities shall require that once a Funded Network has been deployed, each subgrantee shall provide public notice, online and through other means, of that fact to individuals residing in the locations to which broadband service has been provided and share the public notice with the Eligible Entity that awarded the subgrant. Each Eligible Entity shall require each prospective subgrantee seeking to deploy or upgrade network facilities to explain in its application how it intends to notify relevant populations of the new or newly upgraded offerings available in each area. Such proposals shall be designed in a manner that reflects any unique needs of the specific demographics of the area at issue (including, for example, languages prominently spoken in the area and the best means of ensuring that the population is likely to encounter the subgrantee’s public notice).

v. Interconnection Requirements and Wholesale Access

Any subgrantee receiving funds to deploy Middle Mile Infrastructure under this Program in connection with service to an Unserved Service Project or an Underserved Service Project shall permit other broadband service providers to interconnect with its funded Middle Mile Infrastructure network facilities on a just, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory basis. An Eligible Entity awarding funds for construction of Middle Mile Infrastructure shall require the subgrantee, via contract or other binding mandate, to allow such interconnection at any technically feasible point on the Middle Mile Infrastructure network (without exceeding current or reasonably anticipated capacity limitations). This duty includes, at a minimum, the physical interconnection of the subgrantee’s Middle Mile Infrastructure to a requesting party’s facilities for the exchange of traffic. In addition, subgrantees shall connect to the public internet directly or indirectly and provide requesting parties with an ability to connect to the internet. Rates and terms for interconnection shall be reasonable and nondiscriminatory. Each Eligible Entity shall require each subgrantee that obtains funding for the deployment or upgrade of Middle Mile Infrastructure to negotiate in good faith with any requesting party (including public, Tribal, private, non-profit, or other parties) making a bona fide request for interconnection. Subgrantees shall report through the subgrantee reporting process established in Section VII.E.2 of this NOFO any interconnection requests made to the subgrantee during that year and the status of those requests. In selecting subgrantees for last-mile deployments to Unserved Service Projects and Underserved Service Projects, NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to give preference to prospective subgrantees who commit to offering wholesale broadband services at rates and terms that are reasonable and nondiscriminatory.

Eligible Entities shall require that if a subgrantee, at any time, is no longer able to provide broadband service to the end user locations covered by the subgrant at any time on a retail basis remedial action be taken to ensure continuity of service. In consultation with NTIA, the Eligible Entity shall require the subgrantee to sell the network capacity at a reasonable, wholesale rate on a nondiscriminatory basis to one or more other broadband service providers or public-sector entities or sell the network in its entirety to a new provider who commits to providing services under the terms of the BEAD Program.90 The Eligible Entity may pursue either remedial action so long as such action results in continued retail service to end users in the grant area.

vi. Cybersecurity and Supply Chain Risk Management

The Infrastructure Act directs the Assistant Secretary to specify prudent cybersecurity and supply-chain risk management practices for subgrantees deploying or upgrading broadband networks using BEAD funds. NTIA recognizes the importance of (a) protecting American communications networks and those who use them from domestic and international threat actors, and (b) promoting the natural evolution of cybersecurity and supply-chain risk management practices in a manner that allows flexibility in addressing evolving threats. To that end, we impose baseline requirements herein, though an Eligible Entity may propose additional measures it believes necessary to safeguard networks and users falling within its jurisdiction for consideration by the Assistant Secretary.

With respect to cybersecurity, prior to allocating any funds to a subgrantee, an Eligible Entity shall, at a minimum, require a prospective subgrantee to attest that:

1. The prospective subgrantee has a cybersecurity risk management plan (the plan) in place that is either:

a. operational, if the prospective subgrantee is providing service prior to the award of the grant; or

b. ready to be operationalized upon providing service, if the prospective subgrantee is not yet providing service prior to the grant award;

2. The plan reflects the latest version of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (currently Version 1.1) and the standards and controls set forth in Executive Order 14028 and specifies the security and privacy controls being implemented;

3. The plan will be reevaluated and updated on a periodic basis and as events warrant; and

4. The plan will be submitted to the Eligible Entity prior to the allocation of funds. If the subgrantee makes any substantive changes to the plan, a new version will be submitted to the Eligible Entity within 30 days. The Eligible Entity must provide a subgrantee’s plan to NTIA upon NTIA’s request.

With respect to supply chain risk management (SCRM), prior to allocating any funds to a subgrantee, an Eligible Entity shall, at a minimum, require a prospective subgrantee to attest that:

1. The prospective subgrantee has a SCRM plan in place that is either:

a. operational, if the prospective subgrantee is already providing service at the time of the grant; or

b. ready to be operationalized, if the prospective subgrantee is not yet providing service at the time of grant award;

2. The plan is based upon the key practices discussed in the NIST publication NISTIR 8276, Key Practices in Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management: Observations from Industry and related SCRM guidance from NIST, including NIST 800-161, Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management Practices for Systems and Organizations and specifies the supply chain risk management controls being implemented;

3. The plan will be reevaluated and updated on a periodic basis and as events warrant; and

An Eligible Entity also must ensure that, to the extent a BEAD subgrantee relies in whole or in part on network facilities owned or operated by a third party (e.g., purchases wholesale carriage on such facilities), obtain the above attestations from its network provider with respect to both cybersecurity and supply chain risk management practices.

D. Subgrantee Qualifications

Eligible Entities shall ensure that any prospective subgrantee is capable of carrying out activities funded by the subgrant in a competent manner and in compliance with all applicable federal, State, Territorial, and local laws. Eligible Entities also shall ensure that prospective subgrantees have the competence, managerial and financial capacity to meet the commitments of the subgrant and any requirements of the Program, as well as the technical and operational capability to provide the services promised in the subgrant in the manner contemplated by the subgrant award.

Specific showings that Eligible Entities must require from prospective subgrantees seeking to deploy network facilities using BEAD funds are further detailed in Section IV.D.2. NTIA acknowledges that prospective subgrantees may be able to, or required, to demonstrate their capabilities in a variety of manners. A newly established special purpose vehicle established by a consortium of entities may point to the capabilities and experience of those entities in support of its application. A prospective subgrantee that has significant experience deploying broadband networks but no experience operating them may be able to demonstrate operational capability by entering a binding contract with another entity with such experience. The types of evidence available to municipal entities seeking to demonstrate financial capability may well differ from the kinds of evidence expected of commercial enterprises; Eligible Entities should accommodate these differences in establishing their requirements. The Assistant Secretary invites Eligible Entities to propose alternatives to the specific showings set forth herein if they are necessary and sufficient to ensure that the Program’s objectives are met.

1. General Qualifications

Prior to entering into any subgrantee agreement, each Eligible Entity shall ensure that any prospective subgrantee:

1. Is capable of carrying out activities funded by the subgrant in a competent manner in compliance with all applicable federal, Eligible Entity, and local laws;

2. Has the financial and managerial capacity to meet the commitments of the subgrantee under the subgrant, the requirements of the Program and such other requirements as have been prescribed by the Assistant Secretary or the Eligible Entity; and

3. Has the technical and operational capability to provide the services promised in the subgrant in the manner contemplated by the subgrant award.

Eligible Entities shall, at a minimum, take the steps detailed below to evaluate the ability of a prospective subgrantee to meet the requirements set forth above prior to entering into any subgrant agreement.

2. Specific Qualifications for Subgrantees Deploying Network Facilities a. Financial Capability

With the exception of the certifications required under Section IV.D.2.a.i below, Eligible Entities may, with the permission of the Assistant Secretary, allow prospective subgrantees that have the ability to issue public bonds (e.g., municipalities) to provide comparable evidence in support of their financial capabilities. NTIA will provide additional guidance regarding acceptable comparable evidence after publication of this NOFO.

i. Certifications

Prospective subgrantees must certify that they are financially qualified to meet the obligations associated with a Project, that they will have available funds for all project costs that exceed the amount of the grant, and that they will comply with all Program requirements, including service milestones. To the extent the Eligible Entity disburses funding to subgrantees only upon completion of the associated tasks (a practice that NTIA encourages Eligible Entities to adopt, as described in Section IV.C.1.b of this NOFO), each prospective subgrantee must also certify that it has and will continue to have sufficient financial resources to cover its eligible costs for the Project until such time as the Eligible Entity authorizes additional disbursements.

ii. Letter of Credit

Each Eligible Entity shall establish a model letter of credit substantially similar to the model letter of credit established by the Commission in connection with the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).91

During the application process, prospective subgrantees shall be required to submit a letter from a bank that meets eligibility requirements consistent with those set forth in 47 C.F.R.

§ 54.804(c)(2) committing to issue an irrevocable standby letter of credit, in the required form, to the prospective subgrantee. The letter shall at a minimum provide the dollar amount of the letter of credit and the issuing bank’s agreement to follow the terms and conditions of the Eligible Entity’s model letter of credit.

Prior to entering into any subgrantee agreement, each prospective subgrantee shall obtain an irrevocable standby letter of credit, which shall be acceptable in all respects to the Eligible Entity and in a value of no less than 25 percent of the subaward amount.92 Eligible Entities may adopt rules under which a subgrantee may obtain a new letter of credit or renew its existing letter of credit so that it is valued at a lesser amount than originally required by the Eligible Entity upon verification that the subgrantee has met optional or required service milestones.93 In no event, however, shall the letter of credit have a value of less than 25 percent of the subaward amount.

A prospective subgrantee shall provide with its letter of credit an opinion letter from legal counsel clearly stating, subject only to customary assumptions, limitations, and qualifications, that in a proceeding under Title 11 of the United States Code, 11 U.S.C. § 101 et seq. (the “Bankruptcy Code”), the bankruptcy court would not treat the letter of credit or proceeds of the letter of credit as property of the winning subgrantee’s bankruptcy estate under Section 541 of the Bankruptcy Code.

iii. Audited Financial Statements

Each prospective subgrantee shall submit to the Eligible Entity from which it seeks funding financial statements from the prior fiscal year that are audited by an independent certified public accountant. If the potential subgrantee has not been audited during the ordinary course of business, in lieu of submitting audited financial statements, it must submit unaudited financial statements from the prior fiscal year and certify that it will provide financial statements from the prior fiscal year that are audited by an independent certified public accountant by a deadline specified by the Eligible Entity.

An Eligible Entity shall not approve any grant for the deployment or upgrading of network facilities unless it determines that the documents submitted to it demonstrate the prospective subgrantee’s financial capability with respect to the proposed project.

iv. Sustainability / Pro Forma Analyses of Proposed Project

The Eligible Entity shall require prospective subgrantees to submit business plans and related analyses that substantiate the sustainability of the proposed project. This can be provided in the form of pro forma statements or analyses, inclusive of cash flow and balance sheet projections and should include at least three years of operating cost and cash flow projections post targeted completion of project.

b. Managerial Capability

Prospective subgrantees shall submit to the Eligible Entity resumes for all key management personnel and any necessary organizational chart(s) detailing all parent, subsidiaries, and affiliates. Each prospective subgrantee must also provide a narrative describing the prospective subgrantee’s readiness to manage a broadband services network. This narrative should describe the experience and qualifications of key management for undertaking this project, its experience undertaking projects of similar size and scope, recent and upcoming organizational changes including mergers and acquisitions, and relevant organizational policies. An Eligible Entity shall not approve any grant for the deployment or upgrading of network facilities unless it determines that the documents submitted to it demonstrate the prospective subgrantee’s managerial capability with respect to the proposed project.

Eligible Entities may require a prospective subgrantee to agree to special grant conditions relating to maintaining the validity of representations a prospective subgrantee has made regarding its organizational structure and key personnel.

c. Technical Capability

Each prospective subgrantee seeking funding to deploy or upgrade a broadband network must certify that it is technically qualified to complete and operate the Project and that it is capable of carrying out the funded activities in a competent manner, including that it will use an appropriately skilled and credentialed workforce (see Section IV.C.1.e of this NOFO).

Prospective subgrantees must submit a network design, diagram, project costs, build-out timeline and milestones for project implementation, and a capital investment schedule evidencing complete build-out and the initiation of service within four years of the date on which the entity receives the subgrant, all certified by a professional engineer, stating that the proposed network can deliver broadband service that meets the requisite performance requirements to all locations served by the Project. An Eligible Entity shall not approve any grant for the deployment or upgrading of network facilities unless it determines that the materials submitted to it demonstrate the prospective subgrantee’s technical capability with respect to the proposed project.

d. Compliance With Laws

Each prospective subgrantee must demonstrate that it is capable of carrying out funded activities in a competent manner in compliance with all applicable Federal, State, Territorial, and local laws. To ensure that a subgrantee complies with occupational safety and health requirements, subgrantees must permit workers to create worker-led health and safety committees that management will meet with upon reasonable request.

e. Operational Capability

Prospective subgrantees must certify that they possess the operational capability to qualify to complete and operate the Project. A prospective subgrantee that has provided a voice, broadband, and/or electric transmission or distribution service for at least the two (2) consecutive years prior to the date of its application submission or that it is a wholly owned subsidiary of such an entity, must submit a certification that attests to these facts and specifies the number of years the prospective subgrantee or its parent company has been operating.

If the prospective subgrantee has provided a voice and/or broadband service it must certify that it has timely filed Commission Form 477s and the Broadband DATA Act submission, if applicable, as required during this time period, and otherwise has complied with the Commission’s rules and regulations. Alternatively, a prospective subgrantee should explain any

pending or completed enforcement action, civil litigation, or other matter in which it failed to comply or was alleged to have failed to comply with Commission rules or regulations.

If the prospective subgrantee has operated only an electric transmission or distribution service, it must submit qualified operating or financial reports that it has filed with the relevant financial institution for the relevant time period along with a certification that the submission is a true and accurate copy of the reports that were provided to the relevant financial institution.94

For a new entrant to the broadband market, a prospective subgrantee must provide evidence sufficient to demonstrate that the newly formed entity has obtained, through internal or external resources, sufficient operational capabilities. Such evidence may include resumes from key personnel, project descriptions and narratives from contractors, subcontractors, or other partners with relevant operational experience, or other comparable evidence.

An Eligible Entity shall not approve any grant for the deployment or upgrading of network facilities unless it determines that the documents submitted to it demonstrate the prospective subgrantee’s operational capability with respect to the proposed project.

f. Ownership

Eligible Entities shall require each prospective subgrantee to provide ownership information consistent with the requirements set forth in 47 C.F.R. § 1.2112(a)(1)-(7).

g. Other Public Funding

Eligible Entities shall require each prospective subgrantee to disclose, for itself and for its affiliates,95 any application the subgrantee or its affiliates have submitted or plan to submit, and every broadband deployment project that the subgrantee or its affiliates are undertaking or have committed to undertake at the time of the application using public funds, including but not limited to funds provided under: the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (Public Law 116- 127; 134 Stat. 178); the CARES Act (Public Law 116-136; 134 Stat. 281), the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Public Law 116-260; 134 Stat. 1182); or the American Rescue Plan of 2021 (Public Law 117-2; 135 Stat. 4), any federal Universal Service Fund high-cost program (e.g., RDOF, CAF), or any Eligible Entity or local universal service or broadband deployment funding program. At a minimum, the Eligible Entity shall require the disclosure, for each broadband deployment project, of: (a) the speed and latency of the broadband service to be provided (as measured and/or reported under the applicable rules), (b) the geographic area to be covered, (c) the number of unserved and underserved locations committed to serve (or, if the commitment is to serve a percentage of locations within the specified geographic area, the relevant percentage),96 (d) the amount of public funding to be used, (e) the cost of service to the consumer, and (f) the matching commitment, if any, provided by the subgrantee or its affiliates.

23 See id. and 2 C.F.R. § 200.306.

24 See 2 C.F.R. § 200.306.

25 Eligible Entities may request an extension from the Assistant Secretary in extenuating circumstances, which will be granted if the Assistant Secretary determines good cause is shown.

26 American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands may not request more than $1,250,000 each in planning funds. Each Eligible Entity’s Initial Planning Funds will be drawn from that Eligible Entity’s Minimum Initial Allocation.

27 Lobbying costs and contingency fees are not reimbursable from grant funds. Pre-award expenses should be clearly identified in the proposed budget. Additionally, pre-award costs are incurred at the sole risk of the applicant and will not be reimbursed by NTIA if the proposed project or other eligible activity does not receive an award pursuant to this Program. Pre-award expenses must be approved by NTIA and the Grants Officer in writing to be considered allowable;

28 Requests for approval of uses not listed here should be made in writing to the Assistant Secretary and submitted through the appropriate Federal Program Officer. Eligible Entities should make such requests on a timely basis to facilitate resolution prior to the point at which the Eligible Entity seeks to make the expenditure or expenditures at issue.

29 See NTIA Data Central, https://www.ntia.gov/data.

30 See Indicators of Broadband Need Map, https://broadbandusa.ntia.gov/indicatorsmap.

31 See American Community Survey (ACS), https://www.census.gov/acs.

32 It is anticipated that each Eligible Entity participating in the BEAD Program will concurrently participate in the Digital Equity Program, which is the subject of a separate Notice of Funding Opportunity. Eligible Entities should consider the minimum content requirements of the State Digital Equity Plan listed in the State Digital Equity Planning Grants NOFO as the minimum content required here. Eligible Entities that do not participate in the Digital Equity Program should refer to the State Digital Equity Planning Grants NOFO for additional information.

33 Broadband Data Collection Fixed Technology Codes 60 and 61. See BDC Specifications at 11, Table 4.1.

34 Broadband Data Collection Fixed Technology Code 70. Id. 35 Broadband Data Collection Fixed Technology Code 0. Id.

36 See Section I.C of this NOFO (defining “Reliable Broadband Service”). Note that Eligible Entities may consider funding such services under certain circumstances during their subgrantee selection processes. See Section IV.B.7.a.ii of this NOFO.

37 This figure reflects the $42,450,000,000 appropriated for the BEAD program minus the two percent of that sum allocated for administrative purposes. See Infrastructure Act § 60102(d); Section II.A of this NOFO.

38 Leading up to submission of the Initial Proposal and through the review and approval process, NTIA will provide support and technical assistance to help ensure that the proposal fully meets the requirements of the statute and the goals of the Program, up to and including iterative feedback on draft Initial Proposals.

39 For States and Territories that have completed Five-Year Action Plans, reference to this plan satisfies this requirement.

40 For States and Territories that have completed Five-Year Action Plans, reference to this plan satisfies this requirement.

41 For States and Territories that have completed Five-Year Action Plans, reference to this plan satisfies this requirement.

the selection of eligible activities, and any efforts the Eligible Entity will undertake to determine whether other uses of the funds might be more effective in achieving the BEAD Program’s equity, access, and deployment goals.

42 Consistent with the goal that Eligible Entities seek to minimize the BEAD funding outlay on a particular project, Eligible Entities and their political subdivisions are strongly encouraged to remove time and cost barriers associated with BEAD projects, including by expediting permitting timelines and waiving fees where applicable, where doing so does not undermine other critical policy goals.

43 This can potentially include deployment of Middle Mile Infrastructure where the Middle Mile Infrastructure is in or through any area required to reach interconnection points or otherwise to ensure the technical feasibility and financial sustainability of an Unserved Service Project or an Underserved Service Project.

44 This can potentially include deployment of Middle Mile Infrastructure where the Middle Mile Infrastructure is in or through any area required to reach interconnection points or otherwise to ensure the technical feasibility and financial sustainability of an Unserved Service Project or an Underserved Service Project.

45 As determined under Section 673(2) of the Community Services Block Grant Act (42 U.S.C. § 9902(2)).

46 Requests for approval of uses not listed here should be made in writing to the Assistant Secretary and submitted through the appropriate Federal Program Officer. Eligible Entities should make such requests on a timely basis to facilitate resolution prior to the point at which the Eligible Entity seeks to make the expenditure or expenditures at issue.

47 The fact that a location is served does not preclude its inclusion in an Unserved Service Project or an Underserved Service Project, as these terms contemplate that such projects may include served and (in the case of Unserved Service Projects) underserved locations. For example, a particular Unserved Service Project containing 10 total locations may have 8 unserved locations and 2 that are served.

48 Eligible Entities may, but are not required to, update their post-challenge data to reflect updates to the Broadband DATA Maps that occur after conclusion of the challenge process.

49 Subgrantees must meet the minimum qualifications set forth in Section IV.D of this NOFO.

50 Eligible Entities must subgrant funds in connection with broadband deployment projects and may also subgrant funds for non-deployment activities. As a recipient, however, an Eligible Entity may also decide to carry out non-deployment activities themselves.

51 See Infrastructure Act § 60102(h)(4)(E).

52 An enforceable commitment for the deployment of qualifying broadband to a location exists when the

commitment to deploy qualifying broadband service to that location was made as a condition of:

53 See supra note 52.

54 These also are the uses to which an Eligible Entity must in the first instance devote funding in the initial 20 percent funding distribution, pursuant to Section IV.B.7 of this NOFO.

55 Note that an Eligible Entity that wishes to obtain a Digital Equity Capacity Grant under the Digital Equity Act of 2021 must first apply for and receive a Digital Equity Planning Grant in order to do so. The application for BEAD funding will not be considered an application for a grant under the Digital Equity Act of 2021. Use of BEAD funds for digital equity purposes will not alone render the Eligible Entity

56 “

57 See Infrastructure Act § 60102(f).

58 An Eligible Entity could also run multiple competitions for different categories of activities.

59 See, e.g., 2 C.F.R. §§ 200.101(b)(2); 200.331.

60 For the purposes of this requirement, high poverty areas are areas in which the percentage of individuals with a household income that is at or below 150 percent of the poverty line applicable to a family of the size involved (as determined under Section 673(2) of the Community Services Block Grant Act (42 U.S.C. § 9902(2)) is higher than the national percentage of such individuals. Persistent poverty counties are counties that have had poverty rates of 20 percent or greater for at least 30 years as calculated by the Economic Research Service in the Department of Agriculture.

61 For this purpose, the applicable poverty line for a family of the relevant size is to be determined consistent with section 673(2) of the Community Services Block Grant Act, 42 U.S.C. § 9902(2).

62 See Infrastructure Act § 60102(g)(1)(D).

63 The Eligible Entity need not seek a waiver before rejecting a project whose costs, on average or for a given location, exceed the Eligible Entity’s Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold.

64 Infrastructure Act § 60102(a)(1)(I).

65 Id.

66 The primary criteria must collectively account for no less than three-quarters of the total benefits available across all the criteria the Eligible Entity employs in choosing between or among competing proposals.

67 Nothing herein supersedes the requirement that, barring an extension granted by the Assistant Secretary, any subgrantee that receives BEAD Program funds for network deployment must deploy the

68 The primary criteria must collectively account for no less than three-quarters of the total benefits available across all the criteria the Eligible Entity employs in choosing between or among competing proposals.

69 As described above, moreover, the Eligible Entity need not wait for its last-mile deployment projects to be completed before it can pursue its approved non-deployment uses. Rather, it is both permitted and encouraged to undertake those non-deployment activities as soon as is feasible.

70 In the case of consortiums, a Tribal resolution is required from each Tribal Government on whose Tribal Lands the infrastructure will be deployed. For projects deploying to locations on Tribal Lands in Hawaii, consent must be obtained from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. For projects deploying to locations in Alaska, with the exception of deployments on the Metlakatla Reservation, an Eligible Entity must gain the consent (by Tribal resolution) of 51 percent or more of the federally recognized tribal governments in the Alaska Native Region in which the infrastructure will be deployed. Consent from the Metlakatla Reservation will not be required for deployments in the Southeast Alaska Region Village. Conversely, deployments within the Metlakatla Reservation will require only the consent (via Tribal resolution) of the Metlakatla Reservation’s Tribal Government. If a Tribal Government is not meeting due to COVID-19 restrictions or will not meet between release of this NOFO and submission of the Eligible Entity’s Initial Proposal, NTIA will allow the submission of a Letter of Consent from the Governing Body of the Tribe with the Eligible Entity’s Final Proposal.

80 80 percent of a provider’s download and upload measurements must be at or above 80 percent of the required speed (i.e., an 80/80 standard). See Performance Measures Order, 34 FCC Rcd at 6528, para. 51.

81 See id., 34 FCC Rcd at 6527-28, para. 50.

82 These requirements are consistent with § 60401(e)(3)(C) of the Infrastructure Act.

83 The term “business data service” refers to the dedicated point-to-point transmission of data at certain guaranteed speeds and service levels using high-capacity connections. See Business Data Services in an Internet Protocol Environment et al., WC Docket No. 16-143 et al., Report and Order, 32 FCC Rcd 3459, 3463 para. 6 (2017).

84 As detailed below, each subgrantee that uses BEAD Funding to undertake a broadband infrastructure deployment project has a continuing obligation to provide access to broadband service to each customer served by the project that desires such service on terms and conditions that are reasonable and non- discriminatory. See Section IV.C.2.c.iii of this NOFO.

81 See id., 34 FCC Rcd at 6527-28, para. 50.

82 These requirements are consistent with § 60401(e)(3)(C) of the Infrastructure Act.

87 47 U.S.C. § 1302(b). The current performance benchmark for fixed terrestrial broadband service is 25 Mbps for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads. See Inquiry Concerning Deployment of Advanced Telecommunications Capability to All Americans in a Reasonable and Timely Fashion, Fourteenth Broadband Deployment Report, GN Docket No. 20-269, 36 FCC Rcd 836, 841 para. 12 (2021).

88 By way of example, if a customer is subscribed to a low-cost broadband service option that provides service at 100/20 Mbps and the customer’s service provider offers a new low-cost broadband service option at 200/20 Mbps after the FCC issues a new report pursuant to section 706(a) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, the customer would be allowed to upgrade to the 200/20 Mbps offering at no charge.

89 Providers may apply otherwise-applicable acceptable use policies to BEAD-funded networks.

90 If the subgrantee is no longer viable as a going concern, or if it is unable to provide sustained service over the network at issue, the Eligible Entity should work with the subgrantee and NTIA to assist in sale of the assets to a new owner that can assume the original subgrantee’s service and programmatic responsibilities.

91 Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Order, 35 FCC Rcd at 773-77, Appx. C.

92 At this step, the subgrantee must obtain an actual letter of credit, in contrast to bank’s commitment to issue the letter of credit, which is what is required during the application process.

93 See, e.g., 47 C.F.R. § 54.804(c)(1).

94 Acceptable submissions for this purpose will be the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Form 7, Financial and Operating Report Electric Distribution; the RUS Form 12, Financial and Operating Report Electric Power Supply; the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC) Form 7, Financial and Statistical Report; the CFC Form 12, Operating Report; or the CoBank Form 7; or the functional replacement of one of these reports. See Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Order, 35 FCC Rcd at 719, n. 202.

95 The term “affiliate” shall be defined consistent with 47 U.S.C. § 153(2) (“The term ‘affiliate’ means a person that (directly or indirectly) owns or controls, is owned or controlled by, or is under common ownership or control with, another person. For purposes of this paragraph, the term “own” means to own an equity interest (or the equivalent thereof) of more than 10 percent.”).

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