It's a Dry BEAD in Arizona

Arizona dropped its BEAD/BOB final proposal tonight around 8 EDT and as my new friend and Arizona broadband czar Nick Capozzi puts it… this is the best proposal for anything… ever! He and his team have worked hard, and he is proud that they’ve reached this milestone. I certainly like the positivity!

But whether this is the best thing since sliced bread or not, there are a lot of interesting tidbits, including:

• 75% of unserved and underserved homes will receive fiber.

• Licensed Fixed Wireless will reach 15% while and Unlicensed Fixed Wireless will reach an additional 4% of BSLs.

• LEO will attempt to connect 7% of Arizona’s BSLs.

Wecom proposes to reach almost half of BSLs, with fiber. Navajo nation was the second biggest (proposed) recipient while the list behind these two are largely ‘smaller’ awards.

And good news for future statewide non-deployment efforts, Arizona only spent 52% of its allocated BEAD amount!

Arizona recipients, alphabetically.