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CHARLESTON - Broadband expansion projects funded through one federal bucket of money are on their way to completion, while projects funded through a separate tranche are awaiting construction with the possibility of additional funding being approved.
Members of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council received updates Wednesday morning during a virtual monthly meeting from officials with the state Office of Broadband and several vendors managing projects to expand broadband access across the state to unserved and underserved residents.
Jeffrey Hartley, a project manager with the Thrasher Group, said that remaining broadband expansion projects funded through the COVID-era American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) are heading to the close-out phase.
According to Hartley, out of 45 total active projects, three projects are fully closed out with one projected completed. While these numbers appear to be low, Hartley said a majority of construction of the remaining projects are complete despite not being fully closed out yet.
"There's a large majority of the projects where fiber construction is 100% complete ... But in their scope, they have budget remaining for customer premise equipment," Hartley said. "So, they have eligible reimbursement costs that are related to physically connecting homes that take their service."
"We’re working with those grantees to not fully close their project out while they’re working on marketing campaigns and doing everything they can to get the customers to take their service during the grant lifetime,' Hartley continued. "A lot of things will close during the next couple months, but projects are currently trying to get customers to take the service and get them connected."
Hartley said that out of the 42,496 locations that were considered targeted for ARPA-funded broadband projects, 22,592 of them now have broadband availability on the pole in front of their house. He also said those numbers could jump following the release of third quarter address results on Oct. 7.
"What that means is if those locations would call and request service, the internet service providers, or the grantees in this case, will be able to provide service to them within 10 business days for the grant requirements," Hartley said. "(It's) super-exciting to see us about 50% complete on passing those targeted locations."
More than $205 million in ARPA grant dollars, awarded to the state through the U.S. Treasury Department during the administration of former president Joe Biden, are funding these 45 projects. Internet service providers have until Dec. 31, 2026, to finish the projects before any remaining funding is clawed back by the U.S. Treasury Department.
"I think this is just really gratifying to see how progress is being made," said council member Ronald Pierson.
Kelly Workman, director of the state Office of Broadband, told council members that projects funded through the federal Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program are still getting under contract, with projects awaiting the environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) approved the use last November of $546 million of the total $1.2 billion BEAD grant to connect more than 73,000 residents to last-mile broadband. Established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2021 and signed into law during the Biden administration, the BEAD program allocated more than $42 billion to expand high-speed broadband access across the United States.
Meanwhile, Workman said that NTIA is beginning to provide states instructions on a clean-up round of BEAD-funded projects aimed at unserved and underserved areas not already funded through BEAD or other federal broadband programs.
"On September 3rd, the NTIA, the administrative agency for the BEAD program, issued a supplemental deployment policy notice," Workman said. "With this notice, NTIA has given the states some instructions on what we would call a cleanup round for unserved locations, those locations that are not included in any other federal program."
The Office of Broadband contracted in July with international consulting firm KPMG, the same firm managing the federal Rural Health Transformation for the state, to manage the BEAD program in West Virginia. According to the State Auditor's Office, KPMG has been paid $692,933 since July.
"They are currently working, in addition to West Virginia, with Arizona, Michigan, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and a couple of other states on BEAD and (ARPA)," Workman said. "They bring a lot of national expertise ... specifically, in procurement, financial management, and compliance, things that are very important to our office as we work through these federal programs."
KPMG Director Raj Shelat explained that the re-opened BEAD deployment funding, called a second benefit of the bargain round, is for projects that were not accepted in the initial proposals that states submitted to the NTIA last year. Projects that could be included are address locations that remain unserved for provider misreporting or changes in federal broadband data maps.
"They will identify the locations for West Virginia that are unserved and not included within the final proposal," Shelat said.
The release of additional funding is capped at the average cost per location under the state's final proposal, multiplied by the count of approved supplemental locations, though the state could apply for a waiver to exceed that formula. States will have 97 days once NTIA sends out lists of unserved areas, which includes 30 days for review, seven days to publish, 30 days for the state to challenge the NTIA list, and 30 days for adjudication in order to create a final unserved list.
"There are locations that were once reported as served that have since been reported as unserved," Workman said. "There are other changes in our location data. So, we have an estimate of the number of locations that may be included ... The list of locations that we receive from NTIA may or may not match our list exactly ... We will have an opportunity to conduct a challenge process."