Blog: Project Service Areas - Putting BEAD on the Map

By Meghan Grabill, Ph.D., Director of Research & Data

Some of you may have been in a meeting with me and asked about the spinning wheel that sits behind me, which I use to turn raw fleece from my sheep into yarn. Spinning yarn is about twisting the fibers together. The final output depends on the beginning material, finding the right amount of twist, removing major imperfections, and drafting to achieve the desired thickness. Getting any one of these dimensions wrong will result in a final product that is unusable for your intended purpose; however, as long as it is one long continuous piece, it counts as spun yarn.

As I think about my fiber art avocation and the work I am doing for Maine Connectivity Authority’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program (BEAD) Project Service Areas (PSAs), I see a few parallels. PSAs are the building blocks, or particular types of yarn, for the projects a prospective applicant would bid on and eventually deploy service to. If designed correctly, the PSAs should complement and potentially complete the fabric of connectivity that Maine strives to create through private and public investment in a modern-day necessity. It will be imperative to satisfy many tensions and inputs to create the most useful PSAs that will enable Maine to achieve its connectivity goals.

- The starting material matters: The PSAs are composed of all the locations without “reliable broadband service” in Maine, defined as unserved and underserved by NTIA for the BEAD program. They are interwoven with all the locations ineligible for BEAD (which are at or above 100 Mbps download / 20 Mbps upload). The ways these nearby locations have been served in the past help inform how the eligible locations would most efficiently be served in the future.

- Bobbin tension balances twist and uptake: Determining the size of PSAs depended on balancing the administrative burden of application and grant management with manageable builds. After running the state-led challenge process, just over 28k locations in Maine are eligible for BEAD funding. As the final number of locations is fixed, creating PSAs with fewer locations results in more PSAs. Small PSAs have increased administrative burdens because there are more of them. However, PSAs that are too large also create barriers to bidding and eventual deployment. Many PSAs increase the burden for prospective applicants during the bidding process and for grant management after the award. Therefore, it was essential to create PSAs with many locations and keep the overall number of PSAs on the smaller side.

- You need to deal with the neps, noils, and veggie matter: When building networks, there are natural and manmade barriers to wired and non-wired networks alike. Natural obstacles like mountains, lakes, and rivers pose problems for different types of networks in various ways, needing to be traversed over, around, or simply being impassable. Artificial barriers like railways and highways require special consideration for where they can be crossed, if at all. Avoiding these complications where possible results in smaller PSAs, but creates building blocks that lend themselves to a more organic build.

- Mind the drafting triangle: Density and distribution of locations add to the complication of creating PSAs. Dense clusters of proximate locations are the most profitable areas to build because less distance results in less material and labor and less upfront and ongoing costs. However, in many cases, these types of areas are already built out and meet the 100/20 Mbps standard of BEAD. What is left in our BEAD-eligible locations are generally more distributed locations that have been less desirable. The goal is to create PSAs that include as many fringe locations as possible before reaching a tipping point that results in a PSA that is too expensive.

The last parallel I will draw in this tortured analogy is the importance of learning from the village. Spinning is a tradition handed down from generation to generation. A final garment is made better by learning from those around you who have special expertise or technical knowledge. As MCA’s BEAD PSAs come together, they will only be improved by the wisdom of the many. This is why MCA encourages all potential applicants to complete the optional Mapping section in the BEAD Pre-Qualification process and provide feedback on how MCA can improve the PSAs in size, scale, and structure.

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