La. Admin. Code tit. 4 § XXI-1303

Current through Register Vol. 50, No. 9, September 20, 2024

Section XXI-1303 - Prioritization and Scoring Process

A. In Round 1, prospective subgrantees must specify the amount of requested BEAD funding for each application, expressed as a percentage of the total reference amount for all SPAs included in the application.

B. Prospective subgrantees also must submit scoreable application elements for affordability, fair labor practices, speed to deployment, inclusion of economically challenged or critical resilience SPAs, and network technical capabilities.

C.

1. After Round 1 submissions, two categories of applications will be awarded:

a. FTTH applications that do not overlap with any other application of any technology type, and that request funding no greater than the reference funding levels for all included SPAs; or

b. FTTH applications that achieve a decisively higher score at least 100 points better than any overlapping application of any technology type (informally referred to below as "decisively higher score" applications).

2. Round 1 applications that overlap with awards made in either of these categories will be deemed withdrawn, although applicants will be permitted to re-submit any non-overlapping SPAs in Round 2.

D. Unawarded Round 1 applications will be automatically moved forward to Round 2 and may not be withdrawn. Prospective subgrantees in Round 2 then have the option to either let Round 1 applications stand as-is, or to make modifications as follows:

1. The addition of SPAs not already awarded in Round 1, subject to the limit that a given SPA may not be included in more than two active applications from the same prospective subgrantee; and/or

2. A change to the requested subsidy amount (an increase no greater than the reference amount of funding available in any new SPAs added to an application in Round 2, or a decrease if not). Prospective subgrantees may not remove SPAs from any Round 1 application that is automatically carried forward to Round 2.

E. As in Round 1, new Round 2 applications may be made up of any combination of SPAs, subject to the constraint that such new Round 2 applications may comprise only SPAs that did not receive a Round 1 application. (Note that any unawarded SPA, whether it received any Round 1 interest, always also may be added to an existing Round 1 application.) Otherwise, such new Round 2 applications must follow the same approach as Round 1 applications.

F. After receiving all Round 2 submissions, the office will first rank all FTTH applications from highest to lowest score. By definition, Round 2 applications will not overlap with any previously awarded SPAs; therefore the highest scored Round 2 FTTH application will be provisionally awarded for all included SPAs at the total requested overall funding level. The office will then review each next-highest ranked FTTH application in order, applying the provisional selection and de-confliction rules between any overlapping FTTH applications.

G. After all available FTTH applications are resolved using this process, all non-FTTH applications will similarly be ranked from highest to lowest score, with reliable service (cable/HFC and licensed fixed wireless) applications being placed ahead of other terrestrial (unlicensed fixed wireless) applications. In addition, the secondary scoring criterion of speed of network will create an additional score-based prioritization as between non-FTTH applications.

H. Only after all priority projects have been either awarded in full, partially awarded based on deconfliction procedures or discarded due to overlap with a higher-scored priority project, will non-priority projects be evaluated. Overlapping non-FTTH applications will be selected and de-conflicted with each other using the same procedure.

I. Criteria and Maximum Points Available

Primary Criteria	Max points available	601
Minimal BEAD Outlay	300	Based on percent of reference funding level requested for a total project area
Affordability	200	Based on the applicant's commitment to support affordability in BEAD areas consistent with other areas of the state
Fair Labor Practices	101	Score based on compliance record
Secondary and Additional Criteria	Max points available	197
Speed to Deployment	12	Points for enforceable deployment plans faster than 48 months
Economically Disadvantaged Areas	25	Additional points for including economically challenged SPAs
Infrastructure Resiliency Commitments	100	Additional points for buried fiber and for commitments to designated SPAs lacking mobile broadband resiliency infrastructure
Number of Eligible Locations Included Within a Parish	35	Additional points for applications covering greater numbers of eligible locations within a given parish
Speed of Network	25	25 points for FTTH projects; non-FTTH scoring based on performance levels and scalability of non-FTTH networks

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.

La. Admin. Code tit. 4, § XXI-1303

Promulgated by the Office of the Governor, Division of Administration, Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity, LR 50, exp. 7/18/2024(Emergency), Amended LR 50506 (4/1/2024).

AUTHORITY NOTE: Promulgated in accordance with R.S. 51:2370.21-2370.33.