I. Criteria and Maximum Points Available
1. Primary
Criteria-Minimal Bead Outlay
a. Each
application in each of Round 1 and Round 2, will be scored based on the amount
of requested BEAD funding as follows:
i. For
applications requesting no more than the amount of reference funding set for
the applicable round for all included SPA(s)
(a). Score = 300- [percent of reference
funding requested, rounded to the nearest whole integer value].
ii. Applicants are permitted to
request up to 200 percent of the reference amount. For applications requesting
more than the amount of reference funding for all included SPA(s):
(a). Score = 100- [percent of reference
funding requested - 100, rounded to the nearest whole integer value].
(b). The application system will not accept
funding requests greater than 200 percent of the reference funding.
(c). The maximum score for any application
requesting more than the reference funding will be 100.
b. Maximum awardable
points: 300
2. Primary
Criteria-Affordability
a. Following Louisiana
statutory requirements. GUMBO 2.0 does not require subgrantees to offer any
particular rate for any particular tier of service, although existing Louisiana
law does impose certain requirements on existing in-state providers as
described below. Instead, this federally mandated scoring category offers
applicants the opportunity to obtain additional points via voluntary
affordability commitments of their choosing, with scoring defined as follows:
i. This affordability scoring approach
follows the provision of Louisiana law requiring that "[a] grant recipient that
has offered broadband service to at least one thousand consumers for a period
of at least five consecutive years shall offer broadband service at prices
consistent with offers to consumers in other areas of the state." This
statutory Louisiana requirement shall be implemented as a subgrant condition,
for a duration of time as required by final NTIA guidance, for any subgrant
recipient meeting that definition, with "prices consistent with offers to
consumers in other areas of the state" scored as an affordability commitment
using the methodology below.
b. Affordability score for FTTH projects: 200
points. Following Louisiana law, and applying the mandatory federal requirement
in the BEAD NOFO that a primary scoring criterion must be "[t]he prospective
subgrantee's commitment to provide the most affordable total price to the
customer for 1 Gbps/1 Gbps service in the project area," a base score of 200
points in this category will be awarded as follows.
i. Compliance with Louisiana law on
Affordability, if appliable to the prospective subgrantee. Any applicant that
has offered broadband service to at least one thousand consumers for a period
of at least five consecutive years that includes a commitment to provide 1
Gbps/1Gbps service in its proposed BEAD subgrant area at a price no higher than
its offer to consumers for 1 Gbps/1 Gbps service in other areas of the state
will receive a score of 200 points.
ii. Alternate Method of Achieving a Full
Baseline Score. An applicant that has not offered broadband service to at least
one thousand customers for a period of at least five consecutive years, or an
applicant that does not otherwise offer 1 Gbps/1Gbps service, that includes a
commitment to provide 1 Gbps/1Gbps service to all included locations in its
application at a price no higher than the median price for all 1Gbps/1Gbps
service offerings reported in the most recent year's FCC Urban Rate Survey will
receive a base score of 200 points.
c. Affordability score for non-FTTH projects:
200 points. For non-FTTH projects, the mandatory federal requirement in the
BEAD NOFO is that a primary scoring criterion must be "[t]he prospective
subgrantee's commitment to provide the most affordable total price to the
customer for 100 Mbps/20 Mbps service in the project area."
i. Compliance with Louisiana law on
Affordability, if appliable to the prospective subgrantee: 200 points. Any
applicant that has offered broadband service to at least one thousand consumers
for a period of at least five consecutive years that includes a commitment to
provide 100 Mbps/20 Mbps service in its proposed BEAD subgrant area at a price
no higher than its offer to consumers for 100 Mbps/20 Mbps service in other
areas of the state will receive a score of 200 points.
ii. Alternate Method of Achieving a Full
Baseline Score. An applicant that has not offered broadband service to at least
one thousand customers for a period of at least five consecutive years, or an
applicant that does not otherwise offer 100 Mbps/20 Mbps service, that includes
a commitment to provide 100 Mbps/20 Mbps service to all included locations in
its application at a price no higher than the median price for all 100 Mbps/20
Mbps service offerings reported in the most recent year's FCC Urban Rate Survey
will receive a base score of 200 points.
d. Use of FCC Urban Rate Survey. If
applicable to a subgrantee using the alternate methods outlined above, the FCC
Urban Rate Survey will be used as follows:
i.
For each subgrant performance year covered by an applicable subgrantee
commitment, the state will use the prior year's FCC Urban Rate Survey broadband
data for the state of Louisiana.
ii. On the first business day of the year,
the state will determine that year's median price for 1Gbps/1Gbps service and
for 100 Mbps/20 Mbps service that will be applicable to the GUMBO 2.0 program
for the coming year.
iii. If a
given year's survey results do not contain any service tiers precisely at
1Gbps/1Gbps or 100 Mbps/20 Mbps, the closest comparable service tier result
will be used.
e. Other
provisions.
i. The applicable affordability
commitments shall be updated annually beginning upon final issuance of the
subgrant.
ii. If at any point
during the performance of a subgrant a subgrantee becomes subject to
Louisiana's statutory affordability requirement by virtue of having delivered
broadband service to at least 1000 consumers for a period of five consecutive
years, the required subgrant affordability commitment shall be based on state
law, as applicable.
f.
Maximum awardable points: 200
3. Primary Criteria-Fair Labor Practices
a. Record of Compliance with Federal Labor
and Employment Law. Any applicant that certifies a record of past compliance
with Federal labor and employment law with respect to broadband deployment
projects, as supported by submitted information as specified below, shall
receive points as follows:
i. applicants able
to certify a record of compliance for at least three years will receive 80
points.
ii. applicants also able to
so certify a record of compliance for four years will receive 5 additional
points.
iii. applicants also able
to so certify a record of compliance for five or more years will receive 6
additional points.
iv. applicants
that cannot certify compliance with Federal labor and employment law with
respect to broadband deployment projects within the last three years, including
new entrants that have not completed a broadband deployment project in that
time frame, shall be eligible for points.
b. Plan for Ensuring Compliance with Federal
Labor and Employment Law. Applicants shall receive points as follows.
i. Any applicant that provides a plan that
meets the baseline compliance plan requirements as specified shall receive 10
points.
ii. Applicants may also
achieve additional points, subject to the total category maximum of 101 points,
based on including in their compliance plans additional elements as specified
below:
(a). one additional element only: 40
additional points;
(b). two
additional elements: 70 additional points;
(c). three or more additional elements: 90
additional points.
c. The table below summarizes the total
points awarded for different combinations of past compliance records and
prospective compliance plans under of this scoring approach.
|
Years of
compliance
|
<3 years
|
3
|
4
|
5+
|
|
Baseline compliance plan
|
10
|
90
|
95
|
101
|
|
+ 1 additional element
|
50
|
101
|
101
|
101
|
|
+ 2 additional elements
|
80
|
101
|
101
|
101
|
|
+3 or more additional elements
|
100
|
101
|
101
|
101
|
d.
Applicants shall be permitted to have a single statewide workforce plan that
applies to all applications, or to propose different workforce plans for
individual applications.
e. Maximum
awardable points: 101
4.
Secondary and Additional Criteria
a. Speed to
Deployment
i. Any application that certifies,
including binding commitments and assumption of contractual liability for
penalties established by the state for non-compliance, that deployment to all
included eligible locations will be completed in less than the 48 months
required by BEAD shall receive additional points as follows:
a. [48-(number of months to complete
deployment, rounded up to the next whole month)] / 4
ii. Maximum awardable points: 12
b. Economically Disadvantaged Areas
i. Any application that includes ED-SPAs
shall receive additional points as follows.
(a). 15 points: Include all ED-SPAs within a
given parish.
(b). 1 point: Any
individual ED-SPA, but not all within a parish
ii. Maximum awardable points: 25
c. Infrastructure Hardening and
Resiliency Commitments
i. Any application for
the deployment of fiber infrastructure to last-mile eligible locations that
includes an enforceable commitment to the infrastructure hardening step of
including at least 90 percent buried fiber plant, including 100 percent buried
plant to eligible CAIs, unless a specific exception is granted, as specified in
will receive 30 points.
ii. Any
application involving the deployment of new wireless tower infrastructure that
includes an enforceable commitment to the Wireless Tower Hardening
specifications provided will receive 20 points. This point total shall be
applied once for an entire application, irrespective of the number of such
hardened towers included.
iii. In
addition, any application that includes at least one critical resiliency need
(CRN)-SPA and includes an enforceable commitment to deploy necessary mobile
broadband infrastructure to achieve the resiliency requirements of the CRN
designation, following all requirements as detailed shall receive additional
points as follows:
(a). 40 points: Include all
CRN-SPAs within a given parish.
(b). 10 points: Any individual CRN-SPA, but
not all within a parish.
(c). Any
award of points in this category is subject to the state's technical review of
the satisfactoriness of proposed plans to fulfill specified resiliency
capabilities, according to the specifications provided in section
2.11.1.D.
iv. Applications
may receive points for any combination of commitments in these areas, but the
total points available in this overall category to any application is capped at
the maximum total awardable points level below.
v. Maximum total awardable points:
100.
d. Number of
Eligible Locations within a Given Parish
i.
During the review of each application, the state will total the number of
eligible locations within all included SPAs in each Louisiana parish within the
application and identify the highest such count.
ii. Applications shall receive additional
points based on this highest count value as follows.
(a). 10 points: An application that includes
at least 500 eligible locations within a single parish.
(b). 20 points: An application that includes
at least 2000 eligible locations within a given parish.
(c). 30 points: An application that includes
5000 eligible locations or more within a given parish.
(d). 35 points: An application that includes
100 percent of eligible locations within a given parish, only if the applicable
highest count value is greater than 2000 eligible locations.
iii. Maximum total awardable
points per application: 35
e. Speed of Network
i. FTTH applications shall receive 25 points
in this category.
ii. Non-FTTH
applications only shall be scored based on certified speed and latency
performance commitments that are enforceable subgrant conditions and subject to
verification after deployment to all eligible BSLs as well as on length of
useful life of the proposed infrastructure and future scalability.
(a). Speed and latency performance
characteristics, as certified by the applicant and subject to technical review
and verification by the state, shall receive points as follows.
|
Minimum downstream/ upstream
speed (Mbps)
|
Maximum latency
(milliseconds)
|
Points awarded
|
|
100/20
200/50
|
100
100
|
2
4
|
|
400/100
|
100
|
10
|
|
1000/250
|
100
|
20
|
(b).
To receive points in any of these categories, the state's technical review must
confirm that the proposed network design has the ability deliver the above
performance levels to all eligible locations within an application, including
reasonable assessment of how the proposed network can add incremental capacity
in a cost-effective manner as new customers are added.
(c). Total awardable sub-category points for
non-FTTH networks: 20
iii. For non-FTTH technologies, the length of
useful life and future scalability, as certified by the applicant and subject
to technical review and verification by the state, shall receive points as
follows.
(a). Useful life of funded
infrastructure, as assessed by the state:
(i).
<5 years: 0 points
(ii). 5-10
years: 1 point
(iii). 10+ years: 2
points
(b).
Cost-effectiveness of future scalability to significantly performance levels of
proposed technology, as assessed by the state:
(i). ineffective: 0 points
(ii). somewhat cost effective: 1
point
(iii). very cost effective: 2
points
(c). Total
awardable sub-category points for non-FTTH networks: 4
iv. Maximum awardable Speed of Network
points: 25.
