First BEAD-Funded Equipment Deployed in Louisiana, State Says

WASHINGTON, May 13, 2026 – A fixed wireless provider in Louisiana has activated a tower funded by the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, the state’s broadband office said Wednesday.

Nextlink turned on the gear May 1, which Louisiana claimed was the first time BEAD-funded infrastructure went live anywhere in the country. Subscribers aren’t on the radio yet, but 104 homes and businesses are currently able to sign up and start the process of getting equipment installed at their premises.

“Today’s milestone shows what can happen when states are trusted to move quickly, providers are empowered to compete and the focus stays on execution,” Veneeth Iyengar , head of the state’s broadband office, said in a statement. “In just a few months, Louisiana moved from federal approval to delivering live BEAD-funded service to rural households.”

The $42.45 billion BEAD program was first signed into law more than four years ago. Projects like Nextlink’s are just beginning to break ground, with most states in the process of hammering out final contracts with grant winners.

In the intervening years the Federal Communications Commission created a new nationwide broadband coverage map used to make state-by-state funding allocations and state broadband offices, many spun up to implement BEAD, refined those maps and solicited bids from ISPs.

Many states held a second round of bidding after the Trump administration updated BEAD’s rules to favor fiber less, and final results of those bidding rounds began receiving approval from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration last year.

Louisiana has taken a string of firsts in BEAD implementation under, which Gov. Jeff Landry and the broadband office touted in their release. On April 30, the state said it was the first in which ISPs had cleared federal environment and historical review requirements for BEAD projects, giving providers the go-ahead to begin construction. The state was the first to receive NTIA approval on its spending plan in November.

There’s something of a race to hit first-ever milestones as projects begin to get underway. Vistabeam, another fixed wireless provider, is claiming to have the first subscriber connected to BEAD infrastructure, according to a media advisory that went out Tuesday.

The connection is in Nebraska. The company is holding an event Thursday at the connected residence with NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth and Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen , a Republican.

"At the end of the day, it’s about connectivity of people’s homes across America," Matt Larsen , Vistabeam's CEO, said in a statement. "We congratulate our friends Bill and the team at Nextlink for doing the same hard work to set the stage to serve households in Louisiana soon."

The Nextlink deployment is in Bossier Parish, Louisiana. It reaches 104 BEAD locations and is part of a $18.5 million grant that will ultimately fund connections to 7,460 locations. The company said the Tarana equipment deployed would perform better in heavily forested conditions that have historically made it difficult to use fixed wireless in wooded areas.

Of the Louisiana announcement, Roth said in a statement, “Just six months ago, I expressed that I couldn’t wait to see shovels in the ground and broadband availability for every Louisianan. Today, that vision is becoming a reality, with the first BEAD-funded connections in the state now live through a fixed wireless tower deployed under the Trump NTIA’s Benefit of the Bargain reforms.”