The Obstacle

Arkansas received over $1 billion in funding from the federal government’s Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program to connect approximately 80,000 unserved and underserved homes, businesses, and community institutions to high-speed internet service.

“We faced the task of having to execute an enormous infrastructure program with one of the smallest broadband offices in the country,” says Glen E. Howie, Jr., state broadband director, Arkansas Department of Commerce. “We had to move fast, but we also had to ensure compliance to make sure the program would be successful.”

The State of Arkansas engaged BCG, which quickly identified three main challenges to the success of the universal broadband initiative:

  • Market participation. Arkansas would have to get enough internet service providers (ISPs) interested in the program to generate competitive bids that would yield efficiency for taxpayers.
  • Speed. The program would have to adhere to tight federal timelines.
  • Compliance. Arkansas would need to embed compliance deep in the program at the grassroots level and make sure it is thoroughly documented to pass any future audits. At the same time, Arkansas had to maintain enough flexibility to be able to adapt its BEAD Program implementation whenever federal guidelines changed.
The success of this program hinged on the smooth combination of strategic thinking plus tactical day-to-day actions: talk to the next stakeholder, solve the next bottleneck, keep the process rolling forward. The full ecosystem of stakeholders came together to deliver the framework for a successful program. Now the journey continues as we move into the stage of implementing agreements and connecting people with broadband access. — Shashank Shekhar, Managing Director and Partner, BCG

Our Approach

Bringing deep infrastructure and digital capabilities to the table, BCG consultants worked shoulder to shoulder with clients in the Arkansas Department of Commerce to meet timelines, optimize costs, and maintain high data-integrity standards.

“Digital and AI had a huge impact on the way we delivered this program,” says Shashank Shekhar, managing director and partner at BCG. “We built an end-to-end digital BEAD Fund Manager platform that allowed us to engage seamlessly with ISPs and update stakeholders with the click of a button. From a documentation perspective, the digital platform is immensely helpful, because all records are available and the process is fully transparent to facilitate compliance.”

The BEAD Fund Manager also automated the processing, scoring, and compliance checks on ISP applications. In doing so, it completed tasks in hours that would have taken weeks using manual processes.

“Technology-enabled program management dramatically improves efficiency and transparency,” points out Shekhar. “It is imperative that states use digital platforms to expedite each step of a large-capital program like BEAD and make swift progress.”

Another aspect of BCG’s role involved providing extensive support to ISP applicants through technical assistance sessions, comprehensive guides, FAQs, and hands-on support. The goal was to ensure that ISPs of all sizes could participate successfully in the bidding process.

Shekhar notes that market-driven processes played a critical role in the program’s success. Arkansas set up the program to generate competition from ISPs based both around the country as well as locally. The competitive nature of the bidding process ensured that Arkansas’s BEAD Program would use taxpayer dollars efficiently.

The Result

Arkansas awarded approximately $300 million in BEAD grants to achieve 100% coverage of eligible locations—meaning every single one of the previously unserved locations is slated to receive high-speed internet infrastructure while incurring among the lowest per-location costs nationwide.

Nearly $200 million from the BEAD awards will flow to Arkansas-based businesses, which will bolster the state’s local economy.

Although Arkansas was originally allotted more than $1 billion in BEAD funding, the state’s highly competitive bidding process resulted in grants designed to achieve full planned broadband coverage while saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

The success of Arkansas’s BEAD Program implementation will be measured not just in dollars and cents but also in lives changed and people uplifted. “At the end of the day, this program is about opportunity,” says Howie. “High-speed internet connectivity offers opportunities to students looking to do their homework, older folks who want to connect with their cancer specialist via telehealth, farmers seeking access to advanced precision agriculture technology, or small businesses seeking to market their products to the world through a new website. The rollout of this program will help every corner of our state participate in the digital economy and build a more prosperous future for Arkansas.”