West Virginia recommended nine providers for $624.7 million in BEAD funding to deploy high-speed broadband to 73,701 underserved and unserved locations, covering all BEAD-eligible sites. Frontier and Citynet are each slated for more than $200 million to reach over 24,000 locations apiece. Other proposed awardees include Comcast ($61.3M), Micrologic ($52.9M), GigaBeam ($23.4M), Prodigi ($21.6M), Armstrong ($12.7M), Hardy Communications ($7.9M), and SpaceX ($6.4M). Awards require NTIA approval. Fiber-based deployments dominate the proposed awards, with SpaceX as the only provider planning a non-fiber LEO satellite solution for 4.241 locations (~6%). West Virginia is the third state to release proposed BEAD awardees.
According to Vikash Harlalka, a telecom financial analyst at New Street Research, the companies slated to receive the most funding are Frontier and West Virginia-based Citynet. If approved, both companies will receive more than $200 million each for more than 24,000 locations apiece. Following them, in descending order by amount of funding proposed, are Comcast ($61.3 million), Micrologic ($52.9 million), GigaBeam ($23.4 million), Prodigi ($21.6 million), Armstrong ($12.7 million), Hardy Communications ($7.9 million), and SpaceX ($6.4 million).
While SpaceX was the smallest winner, measured by amount of funding, it was the fifth biggest winner measured by the number of locations for which it won funding. According to Harlalka, SpaceX is the only company on the list that plans to use technology other than fiber. The company is slated to serve 4.241 locations with its low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite service. That's just under 6% of locations. West Virginia is the third state to release its proposed list of BEAD Benefit of the Bargain awardees. Despite changes to the BEAD rules that eliminate an initial preference for fiber broadband, all three states recommended most funding to go to fiber.
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