Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock announced that Texas’ final proposal for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program has been approved by the federal government. The BEAD program provides a roadmap for investing approximately $1.3 billion to close the state’s digital divide.
The plan will make it possible for almost every Texas location on the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Map to connect to high-speed internet. Through this, roughly 123,000 unserved and underserved locations would be connected by end-to-end fiber technology, roughly 65,000 via low-earth orbit satellite and about 54,000 locations through fixed wireless. Selected awardees will have four years to complete their work and provide service to every eligible location.
The final proposal can be found here. The Comptroller’s full press release can be found here.
