Courtesy Photo Cherry Capital Connections workers unload supplies at a broadband infrastructure construction site in this undated photo provided by the company.

ALPENA — In Michigan, the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program is still on track to give people across the state high speed-internet access by 2030.

Through the BEAD program, the state received $1.6 billion — the fourth-largest allocation of all states and territories in the U.S. — to build broadband infrastructure in areas with little to no high-speed internet access, according to the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.

The BEAD program was established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which then-President Joe Biden signed into law in November 2021.

The Michigan High-Speed Internet Office released their BEAD Program Five Year Action Plan in August 2023, laying out the details of fund allocation and the process behind it.

Currently, the High-Speed Internet Office is in the application phase of the plan, the state said in a news release on Jan. 9. There is a 90-day application window for entities to apply for funds from the grant to build broadband infrastructure. The state is in the process of reviewing these applications.

If an entity’s application and proposal is accepted, that entity would then use the money to service unserved and underserved locations around Michigan. Unserved and underserved locations are determined by the internet speed readily available in the area.

Unserved locations have no internet connection available at a speed of at least 25 megabits per second download and 3 megabits per second upload, according to the BEAD website. Underserved locations have internet available at a speed of at least 25/3 Mbps but less than 100/20 Mbps.

There are about 248,000 unserved and underserved businesses and households eligible for BEAD funding, said Eric Frederick, chief connectivity officer at the High-Speed Internet Office. There are nearly 500,000 unserved and underserved locations in Michigan overall, according to the Action Plan, but BEAD funding will only cover about half of those locations.

Frederick stated that there is a “big job in front of us,” but that “the response has been good.”

Pre-registration began in June 2024, and “quite a few” organizations leaped on to the opportunity, said Frederick.

If all goes to plan, projects should start breaking ground later this year, according to the High-Speed Internet Office’s plan. It is estimated that projects will continue until 2030, with the end goal being to connect every household and business in Michigan to high-speed internet.

At the implementation of the five year plan, the counties of Alcona, Alpena, Cheboygan, Crawford, Iosco, Montmorency, Ogemaw, Oscoda, Otsego, Presque Isle, and Roscommon had a combined 46,275 underserved locations and 4,947 unserved locations, according to the state’s BEAD plan.

In total, about 55% of households in northeast Michigan had adopted broadband connection, according to the state plan, which is lower than the state average of 69%.

The plan states, “The low rate of household broadband adoption is reflective of the low rate of broadband availability.”

There are also higher-than-average numbers of rural population in Northeast Michigan, according to the plan. Rural areas are especially challenging to reach with broadband infrastructure, Frederick said.