Fast, fiber internet is coming to Buras in Plaquemines Parish, fulfilling a federal grant aimed at bringing high-speed connections to more rural areas.

But after a rewrite of rules for the program, fiber internet is no longer being planned for Lake Providence, in the state’s northeast corner.

In August, the state Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity released the new awardees of a highly anticipated, highly debated federal grant program meant to fuel broadband availability across the country. Most of the $499 million headed to Louisiana will go to fiber companies, including Cajun Broadband, the homegrown company set to build in Plaquemines and several other areas.

The Trump administration rewrote the rules for the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program earlier this year. Some internet companies and activists feared that rural Louisiana residents would be left with few options beyond satellite service already available. And while some areas will now see satellite services instead of fiber, it’s only a small slice of overall funding. SpaceX, the company expected to benefit from that rewrite, will receive just $7.7 million of Louisiana’s grant allocation, or 1.5%.

The state’s draft plan still needs approval from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Cajun Broadband, based in Broussard, will get $18.2 million to bring fiber to some 4,000 locations. That’s less than the $26.2 million it would have received before the program’s revamp because the company, knowing that its previous winning bids were now public information, lowered its bids this time around “to protect ourselves,” said co-founder Chris Disher.

“The goal of it was to save the government money, and it did,” Disher said. “And we can still build what we want to,” 

Change of plans

In addition to rural Plaquemines, Cajun will be running new fiber in North Vermilion and West St. Mary, Disher said. The Louisiana Local Fiber Consortium, the program’s biggest awardee, will receive $378 million to extend fiber to 68,500 homes and businesses.

But one area that had expected fiber saw things flip under the tweaked grant program: Lake Providence.

Last year, Conexon, which builds fiber internet networks in rural areas, had been picked to connect the small city in East Carroll Parish with a $6.2 million grant. Conexon has history in the area: With the help of an earlier state grant program, known as GUMBO, the company brough 325 miles of fiber to 1,400 households and businesses outside of town.

But this month, Conexon learned that SpaceX had won BEAD funding there.

Starlink, operated by SpaceX, is already available in Lake Providence. It’s unclear how SpaceX plans to use the $150,000 it received for the area. A spokesperson did not respond to an email last week. But many residents who envy their rural neighbors’ fiber internet said they’re disappointed.

“We’re back to square one,” said Wanda Manning, a retired teacher who, with the nonprofit Delta Interfaith, has been pushing for faster, cheaper internet. “I think it’s worse than square one.”

Manning was “blessed” to have Starlink a few years back, thanks to a grant aimed at students and educators, and it worked well. But when that grant ended, she balked at the service’s $120-a-month price tag. “It’s not the internet we need in this town,” she said.

Conexon will still build networks in other parts of the state and the country. In BEAD’s first iteration, the company was awarded about $65 million in Louisiana. Under the new draft plan, it will get $9.3 million.

The company will be OK, said co-CEO Jonathan Chambers. But the residents of East Carroll Parish? After 3 or 4 years of effort, “they will receive no investment, no job creation, no infrastructure.” He criticized state and federal leaders for leaving “the most rural and poorest part of the state of Louisiana in a comparative disadvantage to the rest of the state and the rest of the nation.

“It’s a betrayal and a goddamned shame,” he said.

Different internet speeds

Fiber cables, installed underground, consistently meet the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband requirements of 100 megabits per second for downloads and 20 Mbps for uploads. This summer, a national speed analysis found that just 17.4% of Starlink users got speeds consistent with those minimum requirements.

That study, by Ookla, a private research company, showed that Louisiana users fared even worse: Just 9% of the state’s Starlink users got those speeds.

SpaceX argues that it should have gotten more funding than it did.

In a letter to the state broadband office, first reported by PCMag, the company argues that it “applied to serve virtually all BEAD households for less than $100 million dollars. As such, Louisiana’s proposal includes over $400 million dollars in wasteful and unnecessary taxpayer spending.”

But fiber internet companies argue that their service is faster and more future-proof.

In its draft final proposal for BEAD funding, the state broadband office’s executive director Veneeth Iyengar touted the fact that 82% of awards will go to Louisiana-based providers. “We are not only closing the digital divide but strengthening our local economy,” he wrote. “These investments will unlock unprecedented opportunities for economic development, education, and expanded healthcare access in every corner of our state.”

Starting small, and expanding

Cajun Broadband was the first company in the state to start and finish a build using a GUMBO grant, said Disher, its co-CEO.

But the company started small — with “an antenna in a tree.” In 2017, frustrated with his family’s AT&T internet connection, Disher started renting fixed wireless internet services off of cell towers. One neighbor wanted in, then another. Now, the company provides internet across Acadiana, in a donut-like shape surrounding Lafayette.

BEAD funding will allow the company to expand further, including into rural Plaquemines.

Bobby Thomas works in Belle Chase, where “internet service is tremendous,” he said. “Lightening in a bottle.”

But each night he returns home to Buras: “Ugh, back to this.”

Thomas has a smart TV he can’t use. The idea of Netflix excites him. Still, as executive director of the Plaquemines Association of Business and Industry, he’s more focused on the economic possibilities fiber internet could bring to the lacy reaches of the parish.

Slow service has been “a barrier,” he said, “for businesses expanding or new businesses relocating.”