Louisiana is showing the nation that it doesn’t take massive bureaucracy to manage federal broadband subsidies. With a small, mission-driven broadband office and a well-designed program making it easier for private industry to build more quickly, the Pelican State has been a consistent leader in the race to connect unserved and underserved households and businesses.
The ingredients of Louisiana’s success: experience and efficiency. The state broadband office, ConnectLA, grants Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funds from the 2021 federal infrastructure law under the second iteration of a state program known as GUMBO, for Granting Unserved Municipalities Broadband Opportunities. It’s a sequel to the original GUMBO, which managed Louisiana’s broadband funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. ConnectLA’s current executive director led the team of four during GUMBO 1.0 and continues to lead now.
An office that small — with direct access to the governor — avoids the problem of having too many cooks in the kitchen. Compare that with California, which splits its broadband responsibilities across its Public Utilities Commission and Department of Technology, resulting in slow progress and deadline extensions. Louisiana’s prior experience and lean office let the team skip drawn-out bureaucratic processes and set the national pace.
ConnectLA also helps GUMBO 2.0 recipients use their funds effectively. Research shows that navigating lengthy permit applications can balloon the cost of worthwhile broadband infrastructure projects, making them uneconomical and unattractive to would-be investors. In response, the office developed resources like the GUMBO 2.0 deployment and excavation toolkits, which offer builders and other stakeholders reliable roadmaps to efficiently navigate local permitting processes. All told, Louisiana’s leg up on other states comes from a nimble administrative process and user-friendly resources that make it easier and quicker for builders to build.
The results speak for themselves. Louisiana was the first state to receive National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) approval on its initial proposal, the first to launch the mandated challenge process for confirming the accuracy of BEAD-eligible locations, and the first to win final approval and start awarding BEAD money to grantees. This year, Louisiana became the first state to connect consumers with a BEAD-funded project.
To date, Louisiana has expanded broadband coverage to 94 percent of the state — not just locations under BEAD purview — and expects to cover the whole state years before BEAD’s 2030 target for full coverage nationwide. Whether through private investment, GUMBO 1.0 or 2.0, or other contributing factors, ConnectLA has facilitated substantial broadband development in a remarkably short period.
Although Louisiana swept the first-place spot during the original BEAD funding rounds, states have a second chance to move just as quickly. In early September, the NTIA announced a second round of broadband deployment funding, with shorter planning, challenge and approval phases than before. If states can learn Louisiana’s ways, they can put it to the test in this new round.
Some states will likely still stumble. Take California, which passed off BEAD responsibility to its more generalized Public Utilities Commission; divided broadband responsibilities required the PUC to coordinate with the state’s Department of Technology. Consequently, progress in California has been slow and inefficient. While other states met the Sept. 4, 2025, deadline for final proposals, California needed three separate extensions before submitting its proposal on Dec. 19. This September, over a year after the original final deadline, California’s PUC finally voted to sign its grant agreement with NTIA. No BEAD-funded locations have been connected yet. Untangling broadband expansion from generalized bureaucratic to-do lists can give it the attention it needs.
Elsewhere on the West Coast, Washington state policymakers published a 100-page handbook — like GUMBO 2.0’s toolkits — to help BEAD money recipients better navigate state policy. Meanwhile, Oregon regulators adopted temporary rules excusing BEAD recipients from a slow administrative process that would risk missing NTIA deadlines, jeopardizing the state’s BEAD money and internet access for about 148,000 consumers.
Neither change leapfrogged the Pacific Northwest to the front of the pack — those states’ broadband offices are still tied up in more red tape than Louisiana’s — but they saved Washington and Oregon consumers from needless delays in getting connected. Like them, more states should follow Louisiana’s example and give builders a helping hand through muddy regulations.
Louisiana has led from Day 1 in getting federal broadband money to where it’s most needed because it has the ingredients for success: an efficient, experienced, mission-driven team making building easier. Its speed matters because its consumers are already seeing results — BEAD-funded infrastructure is already live. A second round of funding will reveal which states have learned from their five years of experience and which will continue to trail the bayou.
Nate Karren is a policy analyst with the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. Follow Nate on X @NateKarrenOnX.
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