Virginia reaches another milestone in accessing federal broadband funding

(The Center Square) — A little over a year after it was announced that Virginia would receive $1.4 billion in federal funding for broadband deployment across the state, the commonwealth is one step closer to accessing those funds.

The Virginia Initial Proposal Volume 2, a 57-page document answering questions about how the state will achieve near-universal internet access – the goal of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, the program supplying the funding – has been approved by the federal government.

The proposal includes goals like “functionally universal broadband access… to all unserved and underserved locations in the Commonwealth that lack a funded solution for broadband access” by the end of 2024 and completion of all BEAD projects by 2028.

“Virginia’s historic investment in broadband infrastructure is one key ingredient which helped drive our ranking as America’s top state to do business in 2024… Today’s announcement is a key step in our efforts to provide high-speed internet access to the remaining unserved regions of the Commonwealth ensuring all Virginians have the opportunity to prosper,” said Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

In the state’s BEAD five-year plan, data from internet service providers showed 162,107 locations in Virginia don’t meet the goals of the program – more than 134,000 “unserved” locations without broadband access, and nearly 28,000 “underserved” places with slower than 100 Mbps download speed, 20 Mbps upload speed. Since 2015, the Federal Communications Commission’s minimum standard for “high speed” internet was 25 Mbps download speed with a three Mbps “high speed” internet, but it updated that in March, quadrupling it to 100/20 based on “consumer usage patterns” and “standards used in multiple federal and state programs.”

The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development celebrated Friday’s approval of the proposal, but clarified that “this does not indicate the start of the BEAD application process in the Commonwealth.”

“DHCD continues to work with NTIA (the National Telecommunications and Information Administration) staff to certify the results of the BEAD challenge process and set the locations eligible for the BEAD program,” the department said in an email blast. “DHCD will issue a separate announcement once challenge process results are certified by NTIA, including when the application process will begin.”

Since 2017 and the creation of the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative, Virginia has been working diligently to expand broadband access in the state, using almost $2 billion in state and local funds to extend broadband infrastructure to over 388,000 locations.

Virginia was “the first state in the nation to submit all required BEAD plans to access funding,” according to the state DHCD, when it submitted its Volume 2 proposal in September.