SUBGRANT PROGRAM DOCUMENTS
The ConnectLA Team is pleased to release of the following documents related to the BEAD/GUMBO 2.0 subgrant process. These documents are meant to provide supplemental information and guidance to all parties with an interest in the state’s GUMBO 2.0 program and does not modify Louisiana's approved Initial Proposal. All GUMBO 2.0 prospective participants should thoroughly review the Initial Proposal to familiarize themselves with all program requirements prior to submitting applications. The Pre-Qualification Application Guide is meant to be used as an aide when submitting required documentation during the Pre-Qualification window of the BEAD/GUMBO 2.0 subgrant process.
BEAD POLICIES
The ConnectLA Team is pleased to share the following policies. BEAD aims to expand and improve broadband access in underserved and unserved areas not just in Louisiana, but across the nation. The BEAD program is a critical component of the government's commitment to ensuring that all Americans have equitable access to high-speed internet, facilitating economic growth and opportunities for those historically underserved by broadband services.
APPROVED BEAD INITIAL PROPOSAL DOCUMENTS
BEAD INITIAL PROPOSAL
Louisiana received a $1.355 billion allocation from the BEAD program, the eighth-largest in the nation and 10th-largest per capita. Louisiana was also the first of all 56 states and territories to receive NTIA approval of the Initial Proposal. This means that broadband construction projects will have a head start in bringing high-speed, reliable and affordable internet to every home, business and community anchor institution in the state.
While Vol. 1 of the Initial Proposal details Louisiana’s plans for a challenge process to determine all locations eligible for BEAD funding, Vol. 2 covers the specific actions the state will take to completely eliminate the digital divide.
ConnectLA is proud that we have set the pace for the country in terms of speed and execution in policy setting. Nearly a third of the content in our Initial Proposal has been incorporated into other states’ plans. This is a win for Louisianians, as now the road toward complete digital opportunity in our state has been paved.
FIVE-YEAR ACTION PLAN
ConnectLA was founded with the goal of eliminating the digital divide in Louisiana by 2029. The comprehensive Five-Year Action Plan lays out the priorities of ConnectLA, adheres to guidance set out by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and outlines how BEAD funds will be allocated throughout the state.
The plan is informed by the number of unserved and underserved households, businesses and community anchor institutions in the state, in addition to research conducted for the Digital Opportunity Plan. We invite you to read our goals for increasing access, adoption, affordability, digital opportunity and inclusion, digital skills and economic development.
READ THE FIVE-YEAR ACTION PLAN
BEAD Challenge Results
(Pending Approval by NTIA)
As a requirement of Louisiana's BEAD Initial Proposal Vol. 1, ConnectLA completed the Louisiana Statewide Broadband Challenge Process to determine locations that need broadband service through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
ConnectLA is committed to ensuring every Louisianian is able to access high-quality broadband service. During the fall of 2023, we partnered with regional planning commissions and the Governor's Office of Rural Development to host stakeholder engagement sessions. A full briefing was provided on broadband efforts and the challenge process. Parish/municipal officials, non-profit organizations and internet service providers were eligible to challenge whether a location is served or not. The formal challenge process began Oct. 6, 2023 and ended on January 6, 2024. Results from the challenge process will directly impact the sub-project locations for BEAD eligibility.
BEAD Challenge FAQs
As required by statute, the initial eligibility determinations for funding eligibility under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program are based on the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) National Broadband Map.
The BEAD State Challenge Process was designed to provide stakeholders in Louisiana with an opportunity to dispute the data from the National Broadband Map and challenge the eligibility of locations, based on the process approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
This challenge process was designed to take earlier in the process to ensure that the application and award process is based on the most accurate and up-to-date data available.
Under the BEAD program, the NTIA defined “Permissible Challengers” as broadband service providers, units of local governments, units of tribal governments, and non-profit organizations. Only these entity types were eligible to submit challenges, although they were allowed to submit data collected from residents
ConnectLA conducted the BEAD Challenge Process using the August 29, 2023, update of the FCC Broadband Availability Map, which is based on Version 2 of the FCC Broadband Serviceable Locations Fabric. Following the challenge process, ConnectLA migrated the challenge results to Version 3 of the Fabric and updated the locations with the February 20, 2024, update of the FCC Broadband Availability Map.
Challenges and rebuttals were submitted by Internet Service Providers, Non-profits, and units of local governments. These challenges and rebuttals were adjudicated by ConnectLA.
ConnectLA thoroughly reviewed each challenge and rebuttal that was submitted and made a decision to reject or sustain each challenge using the best available evidence.
ConnectLA is required to use the locations provided in the FCC Fabric as the authoritative dataset for the pool of possible eligible locations. If your location is not listed, please reach out to ConnectLA to discuss how your location can get added to the map through the FCC challenge process.
Now that the challenge process is completed, the list of locations has been finalized pending NTIA approval. The BEAD funding is required to be distributed based on this final list of locations.
No, speed tests were not accepted in the BEAD challenge process to dispute the download or upload speeds of Internet service. However, data on the latency from performance tests were allowed in the BEAD challenge process.
Now that the challenge process is completed, the list of locations has been finalized pending NTIA approval. The BEAD funding is required to be distributed based on this final list of locations.
Please submit all questions to Connect@la.gov.
BEAD Challenge Resources
This document provides an overview of the challenge process and how to participate.
The Challenge Process User Guide, created by Ready, outlines how to participate in the BEAD challenge process.
This document provides an overview and timeline of the challenge process.
Federal Deduplication Data Dictionary
LA GUMBO Deduplication Data Dictionary
Challenges - Location is a CAI (Missing)
These are challenge files from NTIA. Challengers will need to join the Location IDs from unserved and underserved files with the relevant location IDs in the deduplication files. Doing so will allow challengers to build an internal map for analysis.
In this webinar discussion, Deputy Director Thomas Tyler outlines the challenge process and answers questions.
Challenge Process Office Hours #1
Recording of office hours webinar from October 25th
BEAD Draft Sub-Project Areas (SPAs)
(Pending Approval by NTIA)
The following Sub-Project Area list is based upon BEAD eligible locations that have not yet received NTIA approval. However, ConnectLA does not anticipate any major changes to the SPAs following NTIA’s approval of the underlying BEAD eligible location data. Once the eligible location list is approved by NTIA, ConnectLA will publish the final SPAs as well as a summary of any changes between the current SPA list and final SPA list.
Public comments are now being accepted by the office in relation to the SPA list. Please submit any comments to the office via email at Connect@LA.gov by May 18, 2024. To provide detail related to specific SPAs, pleas use the template form below.
BSL – Broadband Serviceable Location – a business or residential location in the United States at which fixed broadband Internet access service is, or can be, installed. (BEAD NOFO, Section I, C.)
SPA – Sub Project Area – A set of BEAD eligible broadband serviceable locations that include unserved, underserved and community anchor locations to function as an application unit for GUMBO 2.0 applications (Sections 2.4.1 and 2.4.6 of Initial Proposal Volume 2, FAQ V2, #12a)
Reference Funding – Reference funding values are determined based on a standardized deployment cost model applied using consistent input values statewide. (Section 2.4.6 of Initial Proposal Volume 2, FAQ V2, #12g)
Parish Name | Total BSLs in Parish | Number of SPAs | Total BEAD Eligible BSLs in SPA | Percent BEAD Eligible within Parish | Total Reference Funding |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acadia | 26,833 | 22 | 1,999 | 7.4% | $6,217,362 |
Allen | 10,432 | 19 | 1,010 | 9.7% | $5,961,346 |
Ascension | 50,210 | 14 | 362 | 0.7% | $2,803,529 |
Assumption | 10,101 | 13 | 366 | 3.6% | $4,761,536 |
Avoyelles | 19,032 | 26 | 4,748 | 24.9% | $10,812,598 |
Beauregard | 16,552 | 52 | 3,626 | 21.9% | $15,734,922 |
Bienville | 7,674 | 26 | 1,322 | 17.2% | $7,951,155 |
Bossier | 49,410 | 34 | 6,548 | 13.3% | $23,926,107 |
Caddo | 101,499 | 45 | 4,074 | 4.0% | $19,898,687 |
Calcasieu | 86,333 | 34 | 8,271 | 9.6% | $21,546,505 |
Caldwell | 4,862 | 19 | 471 | 9.7% | $7,525,338 |
Cameron | 4,223 | 18 | 282 | 6.7% | $4,668,458 |
Catahoula | 5,433 | 42 | 1,100 | 20.2% | $10,790,999 |
Claiborne | 7,774 | 37 | 1,148 | 14.8% | $8,815,904 |
Concordia | 9,745 | 36 | 1,118 | 11.5% | $9,441,516 |
De Soto | 13,879 | 33 | 2,452 | 17.7% | $16,657,188 |
East Baton Rouge | 161,710 | 21 | 3,294 | 2.0% | $9,387,756 |
East Carroll | 3,297 | 28 | 260 | 7.9% | $7,914,783 |
East Feliciana | 8,625 | 14 | 3,573 | 41.4% | $8,818,872 |
Evangeline | 15,231 | 39 | 3,438 | 22.6% | $13,601,447 |
Franklin | 9,379 | 19 | 564 | 6.0% | $2,287,456 |
Grant | 9,502 | 40 | 2,501 | 26.3% | $7,282,102 |
Iberia | 29,719 | 20 | 3,535 | 11.9% | $7,222,208 |
Iberville | 13,340 | 22 | 595 | 4.5% | $9,158,941 |
Jackson | 7,686 | 25 | 2,246 | 29.2% | $9,328,379 |
Jefferson | 147,155 | 25 | 1,998 | 1.4% | $4,420,834 |
Jefferson Davis | 15,158 | 34 | 2,147 | 14.2% | $8,796,166 |
Lafayette | 95,027 | 15 | 2,767 | 2.9% | $3,554,697 |
Lafourche | 39,899 | 43 | 8,663 | 21.7% | $12,518,484 |
LaSalle | 6,596 | 23 | 352 | 5.3% | $7,704,564 |
Lincoln | 18,393 | 13 | 3,027 | 16.5% | $6,684,932 |
Livingston | 56,950 | 25 | 1,692 | 3.0% | $6,085,522 |
Madison | 4,345 | 32 | 370 | 8.5% | $9,420,402 |
Morehouse | 12,733 | 17 | 543 | 4.3% | $5,196,398 |
Natchitoches | 17,740 | 41 | 1,923 | 10.8% | $13,583,836 |
Orleans | 123,438 | 12 | 966 | 0.8% | $4,968,764 |
Ouachita | 61,256 | 24 | 4,754 | 7.8% | $11,640,170 |
Plaquemines | 9,620 | 55 | 3,768 | 39.2% | $21,205,774 |
Pointe Coupee | 11,128 | 19 | 1,238 | 11.1% | $15,275,822 |
Rapides | 57,838 | 46 | 8,825 | 15.3% | $21,307,820 |
Red River | 4,228 | 20 | 1,395 | 33.0% | $5,213,139 |
Richland | 9,216 | 21 | 1,623 | 17.6% | $9,521,622 |
Sabine | 14,799 | 39 | 2,728 | 18.4% | $11,183,265 |
St. Bernard | 16,828 | 11 | 92 | 0.5% | $2,310,959 |
St. Charles | 20,634 | 9 | 221 | 1.1% | $6,528,539 |
St. Helena | 5,759 | 19 | 1,451 | 25.2% | $4,494,420 |
St. James | 8,807 | 12 | 255 | 2.9% | $4,414,250 |
St. John the Baptist | 17,213 | 9 | 156 | 0.9% | $3,343,640 |
St. Landry | 39,112 | 27 | 1,464 | 3.7% | $8,323,465 |
St. Martin | 25,121 | 41 | 2,885 | 11.5% | $19,732,544 |
St. Mary | 23,612 | 33 | 2,114 | 9.0% | $14,309,027 |
St. Tammany | 106,883 | 37 | 3,282 | 3.1% | $14,023,857 |
Tangipahoa | 54,825 | 35 | 2,490 | 4.5% | $10,776,663 |
Tensas | 3,533 | 25 | 664 | 18.8% | $9,260,918 |
Terrebonne | 42,255 | 36 | 568 | 1.3% | $9,876,966 |
Union | 11,529 | 32 | 2,140 | 18.6% | $7,005,702 |
Vermilion | 26,960 | 38 | 7,720 | 28.6% | $42,896,052 |
Vernon | 17,860 | 49 | 3,286 | 18.4% | $12,238,965 |
Washington | 20,650 | 32 | 7,223 | 35.0% | $9,672,052 |
Webster | 19,813 | 29 | 2,720 | 13.7% | $12,526,883 |
West Baton Rouge | 11,616 | 8 | 546 | 4.7% | $4,503,284 |
West Carroll | 5,336 | 12 | 484 | 9.1% | $4,689,658 |
West Feliciana | 4,893 | 20 | 1,212 | 24.8% | $4,744,808 |
Winn | 7,592 | 36 | 1,334 | 17.6% | $8,536,593 |
Totals: |