BEAD Program

About BEAD

The Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program is a federal initiative administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Through this program, Tennessee has been given $813,319,680.22 to expand high-speed internet access through infrastructure and adoption programs. 

Interested in Applying for BEAD?

Please keep up to date with this webpage as updates will be published here. 

Benefit of the Bargain Public Comment

TNECD invites the public and internet service providers to comment on the submitted BEAD Benefit of the Bargain Grant applications. TNECD will accept public comments through this form until August 1, 11:59pm CT. Please review the map below before submitting any comments.

BEAD Subgrantee Selection Map

We encourage all BEAD applicants to view Tennessee’s Subgrantee Selection Map. This displays the grant application Project Area Units (PAUs) with BSL eligibility data from the Challenge Process and updates to the "No BEAD" locations for the Benefit of the Bargain round.

Subgrantee Selection Map
  • On the map, BSLs that will not be served by BEAD funding are colored gray.
  • In the eligible locations file, these BSLs are indicated as “Yes” under the No BEAD column.
  • The BEAD eligible location file can be downloaded here
  • The BEAD Project Area Units kmz file can be downloaded here

Key Dates

Key Dates

The schedule below outlines the timeline of the Benefit for the Bargain Application Round, which will take place summer of 2025. Dates marked with an asterisk are tentative.                                                                                            

  • Letter of Intent: June 16 – June 24
  • Qualification: July 7 – July 16
  • Benefit of the Bargain Grant Application: July 7 – July 16
  • Benefit of the Bargain Public Comment Period: July 22 – August 1
  • Negotiations: July & August*
  • Final Proposal Public Comment: August 18 – August 25*

BEAD Challenge Process

Tennessee conducted the BEAD Challenge Process in the spring and summer of 2024. Please find the BEAD eligibility data and map above.

CostQuest Fabric version 3.2 was used for Tennessee’s Challenge Process and version 4 was used for the true-up.

Please find relevant dates below:

  • BDC publication update date used for true-up: 9/17/24
  • BDC submission true-up date: 12/31/23  
  • BDC publication update date used in Challenge Process:  3/5/24
  •  BDC submission date used in Challenge Process: 6/30/23