WISPA Applauds Louisiana’s BEAD Reform Proposals

On January 22, 2025, Louisiana Governor, Jeff Landry, sent a letter to Acting Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, entitled “Louisiana’s Broadband BEAD Program and Proposed Reforms for Success under President Trump.”  The following statement may be attributed to Steve Schwerbel, Director of State Advocacy, WISPA – The Association for Broadband Without Boundaries:

Washington, DC, January 24, 2025 – WISPA applauds the opportunity Governor Landry took to make clear that “alternative technologies” such as unlicensed Fixed Wireless and low-earth orbit satellite are entirely reliable and should be seen as invaluable partners in sustainably closing the digital divide.

Being the first state to have launched its BEAD process and the first to be fully approved by NTIA, Louisiana’s example offers lessons for all subsequent state BEAD processes. ConnectLA got two important things right: 1.) despite having enough money to have theoretically been able to use only fiber, they sought, in Governor Landry’s words, “to maximize efficient use taxpayer dollars and ensure fit for purpose solutions statewide” by pursuing a “strongly… tech neutral solution”; and 2.) maintaining a focus on finding cost savings that would allow the state to implement a meaningful non-deployment program with remaining BEAD funds.

Louisiana is also an outlier in an important way: very few other states have been confident of being able to stretch their BEAD funds to complete the deployment phase of BEAD. Indeed, at least half a dozen states made clear in their Initial Proposal Volume 2 that they would not have enough money to fully achieve even the universal service goal of BEAD. That means Community Anchor Institutions and even some number of underserved locations may be left behind. Louisiana did not let the misguided “fiber-first” approach handed down in the first wave of BEAD guidance prevent them from choosing non-fiber technologies in their BEAD mix.

While WISPA would of course have appreciated a more robust use of “alternative technologies,” we also appreciate the work ConnectLA did to reach out to the Fixed Wireless community.

When BEAD was first being rolled out, NTIA’s refrain was that “BEAD without Equity is just BAD.” Louisiana’s BEAD program makes clear that prioritizing fiber over meeting all of BEAD’s goals represents a failure of imagination and courage, and WISPA continues to urge NTIA to send states back to the drawing board until they can demonstrate full consideration of alternative technology solutions.

We encourage more broadband leaders to look to the lessons Governor Landry lays out here to craft final BEAD plans.

WISPA – Broadband Without Boundaries
WISPA’s approximately 1000 members provide fixed broadband connectivity and include equipment suppliers, support services, and other industry partners and stakeholders. Our members provide broadband access to millions of residential and business customers in rural, urban, and Tribal areas across America.

Contact
Mike Wendy
WISPA
202-763-5257
mwendy@wispa.org