Yesterday, President Biden announced the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program that will spend billions to bring high speed internet to Americans. The program was first discussed in 2021 as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and is intended to provide funding for bringing broadband access to underserved and unserved areas throughout the United States. In total, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will fund around $90 billion for high-speed internet.
The BEAD program will allot $42.5 billion to states in need of upgrading or developing broadband infrastructure, the largest internet funding program to date. States will be awarded funding for areas that have either no service speeds or speeds under 25/3 Mbps to bring speeds up to 100/20 Mbps or faster.
Internet providers will be able to bid on this money to bring high speed internet to new areas. Providers will need to cover part of the cost, but the federal government is willing to help cover a majority of it.
Now that the program has been announced, we now know how much money each state will be getting. Each state will be getting at least $100 million in funding. U.S. territories will get at least $25 million. Nineteen states will get more than $1 billion.
Through the BEAD program, providers and operators will still need to provide no less than 25 percent of project costs. States slated to receive funding will be awarded money based on the number of underserved/unserved spots in each state. The Federal Communications Commission will use the National Broadband Map to determine how much each state is eligible for.
Here is how much each state will receive from this new $42.5 billion:
- Alabama: $1,401,221,901.77
- Alaska: $1,017,139,672.42
- Arizona: $993,112,231.37
- Arkansas: $1,024,303,993.86
- California: $1,864,136,508.93
- Colorado: $826,522,650.41
- Connecticut: $144,180,792.71
- Delaware: $107,748,384.66
- District of Columbia: $100,694,786.93
- Florida: $1,169,947,392.70
- Georgia: $1,307,214,371.30
- Hawaii: $149,484,493.57
- Idaho: $583,256,249.88
- Illinois: $1,040,420,751.50
- Indiana: $868,109,929.79
- Iowa: $415,331,313.00
- Kansas: $451,725,998.15
- Kentucky: $1,086,172,536.86
- Louisiana: $1,355,554,552.94
- Maine: $271,977,723.07
- Maryland: $267,738,400.71
- Massachusetts: $147,422,464.39
- Michigan: $1,559,362,479.29
- Minnesota: $651,839,368.20
- Mississippi: $1,203,561,563.05
- Missouri: $1,736,302,708.39
- Montana: $628,973,798.59
- Nebraska: $405,281,070.41
- Nevada: $416,666,229.74
- New Hampshire: $196,560,278.97
- New Jersey: $263,689,548.65
- New Mexico: $675,372,311.86
- New York: $664,618,251.49
- North Carolina: $1,532,999,481.15
- North Dakota: $130,162,815.12
- Ohio: $793,688,107.63
- Oklahoma: $797,435,691.25
- Oregon: $688,914,932.17
- Pennsylvania: $1,161,778,272.41
- Rhode Island: $108,718,820.75
- South Carolina: $551,535,983.05
- South Dakota: $207,227,523.92
- Tennessee: $813,319,680.22
- Texas: $3,312,616,455.45
- Utah: $317,399,741.54
- Vermont: $228,913,019.08
- Virginia: $1,481,489,572.87
- Washington: $1,227,742,066.30
- West Virginia: $1,210,800,969.85
- Wisconsin: $1,055,823,573.71
- Wyoming: $347,877,921.27
- American Samoa: $37,564,827.53
- Guam: $156,831,733.59
- Northern Mariana Islands: $80,796,709.02
- Puerto Rico: $334,614,151.70
- U.S. Virgin Islands: $27,103,240.86