CostQuest can provide custom solutions to make it easy for broadband offices to implement, manage, and meet compliance for their BEAD Grant Management Programs.
Custom BEAD solutions include:
- Creating BEAD Eligible Locations Lists for NTIA submission – in the required formats.
- Project area consulting and/or design custom project areas.
- Deliver a custom BEAD Grant Award Management System to implement, review, manage, score, and award grant applications through a mechanized and anonymized system.
- Deliver a custom BEAD Grant Reporting & Tracking System for grant awardees to report their project progress, enable managing entities to track and document each grant awardee’s progress, and fulfill the broadband office’s federal reporting requirements.
Each Broadband Office will have unique BEAD program criteria, and CostQuest’s solutions are customized to meet each program’s unique requirements and project needs.
Creation of BEAD Eligible Location Lists
CostQuest can help broadband offices fulfill their requirement of creating a BEAD Eligible Locations File to use in their State Challenge Process and final submission to the NTIA.
As outlined in the NTIA’s BEAD NOFO, each eligible entity is required to file to the NTIA a BEAD Eligible Location File before and after each eligible entity’s State Challenge Process. The final file developed at the end of each States’ Challenge Process will be submitted to the NTIA to determine the final list of eligible Broadband Serviceable Locations that can receive BEAD funding.
CostQuest can handle all the complex data matching and clean-up required as each entity prepares to run and process the results of their State Challenge Process.
At the end of this service, eligible entities have the option to receive a BEAD Eligible Location File in the NTIA-required formats for their pre-challenge and post-challenge phase requirements.
BEAD Project Areas & BEAD Grant Award Management System
CostQuest can work with broadband offices to define their project areas and deliver a custom BEAD Grant Award Management System to carry out each program’s unique strategies for achieving universal high-speed coverage.
CostQuest can support the BEAD Subgrantee Selection Process by:
- Define grant awardee selection logic.
- Deliver a custom BEAD Grant Award Management System embedded with the selection logic to enable managing entities to review, score, track, manage, and select grant applications.
- Help broadband offices narrow down, see, and select the best application based on the unique scoring criteria.
Key features of the BEAD Grant Management System include:
- The system comes with two interfaces:
- 1 for the managing entity
- 1 for the authorized bidder to submit grant applications
- Includes system documentation and training aids to help users navigate the Grant Award Management Software.
- Authorized bid participants are issued anonymous IDs, allowing managing entities to review bidders’ applications anonymously and remove potential bias.
- After the application scoring and selection processes, the managing entity will be provided with an ID decoder to identify the awarded companies.
- The system outlines which sections of the grant application the managing entity needs to score.
- Includes Quality Control and Audit Mechanisms: tracks all participant’s activity in the Grant Award System.
- Tracks project areas that are awarded to bidders and which areas may remain.
BEAD Grant Reporting & Tracking
CostQuest can gather the necessary reporting requirements to design and deliver a custom Grant Reporting & Tracking System.
CostQuest transfers all awarded project areas/Broadband Serviceable Locations and awardee information from the Grant Award system into the Grant Reporting and Management System.
The BEAD Grant Reporting and Management System:
- Provides awardees access to the reporting system to log their project progress.
- Allows broadband offices to track all awardees and their progress in fulfilling grant requirements and deploying to the awarded project area(s).
- Provides the necessary data broadband offices need to complete federal reporting requirements.
Custom Solutions Available on Carahsoft
Both the Grant Award Management System and Grant Reporting and Tracking solutions are available for purchase through CaraShoft, a Government IT Solutions Platform.
How to access:
- Go to this link: https://www.naspovaluepoint.org/portfolio/cloud-solutions-2016-2026/carahsoft-technology-corporation/
- Navigate to the pricing tab
- Select Carahsoft Pricing File Link
- Download the NASPO Catalog (A-L) file.
- Navigate to cells 62742-62753 in the NASPO Catalog (A-L) Excel file
Custom demonstrations of these solutions are available upon request.