Nevada Nears BEAD Volume 2 Approval

Nevada could soon get a final OK for volume 2 of its initial plan for the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, said Brian Mitchell, the state’s broadband office director, on a Broadband.io webinar Friday. Nevada just needs the National Institute of Standards and Technology to concur with the approval, said Mitchell, explaining that NIST is NTIA’s grant manager and fiscal partner. The office recently completed the first phase of its challenge process and is currently in the rebuttal phase, he said. Volume 2 approval could allow Nevada to move into its subgrantee selection process this summer, he said. NTIA’s recommended changes for volume 2 were mostly “small and kind of technical in nature,” said Mitchell. Nevada is “open to all reliable technologies” for high-speed internet, said the director: Even wireless and satellite technologies need to connect to fiber somewhere. Therefore, the broadband office seeks to “extend fiber as deeply as possible … so that it can facilitate whatever last-mile technology makes most sense for any given location,” he said. Nevada's network should be scalable, added Mitchell. Don’t put in “a one-lane road when you're going to need a … four-lane road in the future,” he said. “It’s unlikely that Congress is ever going to … appropriate $65 billion for broadband again.”