Håfa Adai yan Tirow,
We know there’s been a lot of discussion and some questions raised about the BEAD provisional selections. To help clear up any confusion and keep everyone informed, we want to share some context and explain the process that guided our decisions.
As stated in our CNMI BEAD Initial Proposal Volume 2, here is a brief explanation of how the provisional selections were made:
We received three priority broadband project applications for each of the 21 BEAD Project Funded Areas for buried, hardened, resilient, end to end fiber network deployment.
IT&E buried fiber applications requested for $30 million in BEAD Funds.
GTA buried fiber applications requested for $60 million in BEAD Funds.
DOCOMO Pacific buried fiber applications requested for $90 million in BEAD Funds.
We selected and submitted the lowest cost to NTIA for approval along with our methodology for defining Priority Broadband Project for each project area. They said we had met their requirements and were satisfied. We moved forward with posting our draft final proposal for public comment as instructed.
NOTE: The $1.7 million of applications that Docomo Pacific is referencing in their public comment letter sent to the media is for aerial HFC (cable) network deployment on utility poles. This did not meet the standard for Priority Broadband Project for any of our Project Areas.
CNMI BPD has consistently stressed the need for resilient broadband network for our people. One that isn’t subject to massive outages during our frequent typhoons/storms.
We had estimated that to deploy a hardened network it would cost more than the BEAD funds we had secured. After the Benefit of the Bargain subgrant round mandated by the Trump Administration, we were able to achieve provisional subgrant awards that came in $50 million less than what we anticipated.