West Virginia $624.7 Million Rural Fiber Projects

$624.7M in BEAD funds Aiming at 73,701 Locations

West Virginia has advanced its broadband expansion efforts by recommending nine providers to receive a combined $624.7 million in federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funds. The proposal, announced by the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, covers every one of the state’s 73,701 unserved and underserved locations. The recommendations still require approval from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

The Biggest Awards

Analysts note that Frontier and local provider Citynet stand out, each slated to receive more than $200 million to extend service to over 24,000 homes and businesses apiece. Following them are:

• Comcast: $61.3 million
• Micrologic: $52.9 million
• GigaBeam: $23.4 million
• Prodigi: $21.6 million
• Armstrong: $12.7 million
• Hardy Communications: $7.9 million
• SpaceX (Starlink): $6.4 million

Fiber Remains the Dominant Technology

Although the federal government revised BEAD rules in June to require technology-neutral awards, West Virginia’s proposed funding remains overwhelmingly fiber-focused. SpaceX’s Starlink is the lone non-fiber awardee, set to provide low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite service to 4,241 locations, nearly 6% of the total.

This places West Virginia in line with other states that have released “Benefit of the Bargain” award lists, where fiber continues to receive the bulk of the dollars despite the policy shift.

How Awards Were Determined

West Virginia applied the new federal criteria to evaluate proposals. The primary criterion was minimal BEAD outlay — selecting the lowest-cost combination of projects for each region. If bids were within 15% of one another, secondary factors were used, including:

• Deployment speed (18–36 months)
• Capacity to deliver symmetrical gigabit service
• Previous provisional selection before the rule changes

The state also considered West Virginia’s challenging terrain — steep valleys, tree cover, and mountains — in determining which technologies could deliver sustainable service.