Arkansas’ BEAD Initial Proposal Volume 2 has been approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Please see below for the approved document, which is the official document of record. Note, there is also a brief chart indicating written changes from the April 2024 draft Initial Proposal Volume 2 to the approved document.

See below for additional information:

ISP pre-registration will close on December 27, 2024, at 6:00 p.m. Partnerships and consortia pre-registration will close on January 3, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. Pre-registration takes place within the Arkansas Broadband Grantor Portal. Potential ISP applicants will not be eligible to participate in the Arkansas BEAD program without competing the pre-registration process.

If you have any questions or issues with pre-registration, please email [email protected].

As of December 20, 2024:

The following ISPs have officially pre-registered for Arkansas’ BEAD Program:

Amazon Kuiper

Aristotle Unified Communications

Arkansas Rural Internet Services

Arkansas Telephone Company

Ashley-Chicot Electric Cooperative

AT&T

Bethesda Wireless

Brightspeed

C&L Broadband Connect, LLC

CableSouth Media 3 (DBA: Swyft Connect)

CG Computer Works LLC

Clay County Connect

Cleveland County Telephone Company

Comcast Cable Communications

Connect2First Internet

Conway Corp.

Cowboy Internet Services

Cox Communications

Decatur Telephone Company

E. Ritter Communications

Empower

Enlightened by Woodruff

Hometown Internet

IBT Group USA

Lyte Fiber

MCEC Fiber

Mountain View Telephone Company (Yelcot Holding Group, Inc.)

NATCO

Oklahoma Western

Ozarks Go

Petit Jean Fiber

Phoenix Long Distance

Premier Holdings

Resound Networks

South Central Connect 

Southwest Arkansas Telecommunications and Technology, Inc. (DBA: Four States Fiber)

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation

SWATCO

Texhoma Fiber LLC

Uplink LLC

Wave Rural Connect

WEHCO Video

Windstream

Wiser Broadband III LLC

Wisper Internet

Additionally, three ISPs remain in the pre-registration process.

See below for additional information:

The Arkansas State Broadband Office is conducting BEAD Technical Assistance (TA) sessions twice a week during the month of September. If you are an ISP and have not received an invitation to these sessions, please email us at [email protected]. The resources linked below include the Applicant Primer, PowerPoint slides for each TA session, and a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document that is updated on a weekly basis.

Please note, TA Session #5 was a demonstration of the application portal, and TA Session #9 served as a review of the FAQ documents to date. As such, there are no PowerPoint presentations for these sessions.

See below for additional information:

Resources that can assist an ISP with their BEAD application will be located here.

See below for additional information:

Programmatic resources for Arkansas’ BEAD program will be listed below.

See below for additional information:

Allegations of fraud, waste, and/or abuse are taken seriously by the State of Arkansas. Should you become aware of potential fraud, waste, and/or abuse in the BEAD program, the Arkansas State Broadband Office highly encourages you to report such allegations to our office, the Arkansas Department of Inspector General, or the U.S. Department of Commerce – Office of Inspector General. Please see below for reporting information.

See below for reporting information:

NTIA has provided several foundational resources for the BEAD program.

See below for additional information:

The U.S. Department of Commerce is publishing and maintaining a list of manufacturers where an officer of the company has certified that certain company equipment meets the domestic manufacturing requirements listed in the BABA waiver for the BEAD Program and can be considered compliant with the Buy America preference.

See below for additional information:

NEPA compliance will be a requirement of the BEAD Program.

See below for additional information:

There are certain cybersecurity and supply chain risk management requirements in the BEAD program.

See below for additional information: