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MiHi outlines BEAD round‑1 results, defends scoring change and reports termination of digital equity grant
Summary
Michigan High Speed Internet Office reported results from BEAD round 1, defended a last‑minute scoring change after industry feedback, said deconfliction left an estimated $600 million for round 2 and announced NTIA terminated the state's $20.5 million digital equity capacity grant.
Eric Frederick, chief connectivity officer at the Michigan High Speed Internet Office (MiHi), told the Michigan House Communications & Technology Committee that MiHi completed its first round of project applications for the federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment) program and is performing deconfliction of overlapping proposals.
MiHi is implementing BEAD to bring high‑speed fiber to unserved locations across the state. Frederick said the office received 394 project applications from 34 applicants that together included more than 194,000 unique BEAD‑eligible locations; before deconfliction, the projects covered about 476,000 BEAD‑eligible locations. He said the applications requested roughly $2.4 billion in subsidy and $1.15 billion in private matching funds against $3.557 billion in total project costs reported by applicants.
Why it matters: BEAD is the largest federal broadband infrastructure program to date; Michigan's allocation and how the state manages scoring, deconfliction and later rounds will determine which rural and underserved…
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