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State broadband office says awards will connect nearly 5,000 Iberia Parish locations; most new fiber to be buried
Summary
Connect LA officials told the Iberia Parish Council that federal and state awards — including a $176 million ARPA tranche and a $1.35 billion infrastructure round — will connect about 4,800 homes and businesses across the parish, with buildout expected within 18–24 months and most new fiber installed underground for resilience.
Vinny Thyengar, executive director of the Louisiana Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity (Connect LA), told the Iberia Parish Council on Feb. 19 that state and federal awards will deliver fiber to thousands of unserved homes and businesses in the parish.
Thyengar said the office used $176 million from the American Rescue Plan to obligate projects that will reach about 1,200 homes and small businesses (94% of that work is complete). He said an additional $1.35 billion from the federal infrastructure law has been allocated statewide and that awardees will build to roughly 3,600 more locations in Iberia Parish, meaning the two tranches will reach nearly 4,800 households and businesses in the parish.
"We fully expect over the next 3 to 4 months that we will knock out the problem for those 1,200 households and small businesses," Thyengar said, and added that the larger infrastructure awards should begin construction within about 100 days of final grant agreements and finish in 18–24 months.
Thyengar said the state prioritized building buried fiber in Iberia Parish where possible, noting that "over 90% of the infrastructure in Iberia Parish is gonna be buried" to increase resilience against hurricanes and repeated outages. He also said the state selected a consortium including Rev (formerly Veil), Swift Fiber and T‑Mobile to deliver the second tranche of work in the parish.
Council members pressed Thyengar on whether satellite services such as Starlink could substitute for fiber in small, very remote locations. He said satellite can be a reliable stopgap but argued that fiber is a longer‑lasting, higher‑capacity solution: "Fiber connectivity is concrete. Non fiber is asphalt," he said, adding that state contracts require providers to contribute meaningful matching capital and that local governments generally should not be asked to provide additional subsidies.
Thyengar urged patience for short-term construction impacts, warning that underground work can disrupt roads and utilities and that parish officials should be looped into construction plans 30 days before crews arrive. He also invited the council to a future meeting when individual grant agreements are signed so the public can meet the companies selected to build in the parish.
The parish president and several council members welcomed the timeline and emphasized the potential economic and educational benefits, while asking staff to track new subdivisions and notify Connect LA where builds may be needed.
What happens next: Thyengar said the state expects to finalize grant agreements with awardees in the coming weeks and to return to local officials to introduce the companies and the construction schedules.
