It’s become obvious that it’s going to be super complicated for states to define the bidding areas for Broadband Equity, Access & Deployment (BEAD) grants. Some states may define bid areas by census blocks, school districts or some other defined geography or cluster. But other states may go with a “free-for-all” approach, allowing bidders to say where they want to bid. Complexities will arise because bidders will probably have to work out deals with incumbent providers to reach many unserved areas in order to avoid duplicate infrastructure.
Wireless 20/20 is a consulting firm that has been doing geospatial mapping of fiber broadband infrastructure since 2019. And now, Wireless 20/20 is offering two tools to help state broadband offices, service providers, private equity companies and any other stakeholders involved in the BEAD bidding process. Wireless 20/20 offers two tools: its WiROI Fiber Business Case Analysis Tool and its WiROI db Geospatial SaaS Platform. “WiROI” stands for wired and wireless return on investment. “Typically, the two tools go hand in hand,” said Haig Sarkissian, founder and principal consultant at Wireless 20/20.
The geospatial tool shows the broadband infrastructure of every service provider, using every technology in the U.S. And it shows uplink and downlink speeds. The geospatial tool also identifies anchor institutions and shows other important structures that can pose obstacles to fiber builds – such as bridges and tunnels. Sarkissian said the first thing that needs to be done is to determine grant-eligible locations.
It takes some sophisticated computations to know the total number of locations in an area, then to subtract the served locations, then to subtract the already-funded but not-yet-constructed locations to arrive at the grant-eligible locations. “States should publish grant-eligible locations, but so far, they have not,” he said.
Wireless 20/20 is offering its tools to help states determine grant-eligible locations. And after those have been identified, then Wireless 20/20’s tools can also help users to run fiber-mile analysis to calculate the number of miles of fiber that must be deployed to connect a location.
Finally, Wireless 20/20’s tools can also conduct the financial analysis to determine how much money is needed to build to a grant-eligible location.
