In 2025, Louisiana was the first state in the nation to qualify for a $42 billion federal program to greatly expand internet access, a significant improvement for local businesses and homes. But due to the Trump administration’s reevaluation of the program, the much-anticipated broadband expansion is in limbo, reports The Current.
Since 2020, Cajun Broadband has connected thousands of homes with the help of federal funds through previous grant programs. The delayed federal funding would allow the company to offer fiber internet to another 10,000 homes, businesses and community spaces, many dealing with unreliable or outdated connections.
In the summer of 2022, Louisiana allocated more than $176 million to Granting Unserved Municipalities Broadband Opportunities, aptly called GUMBO grants. The project’s main goal was to get high-speed internet connections to unserved and underserved communities in Louisiana, mostly through the expansion of fiber optic cable networks across 48 parishes.
Once completed at the end of this year, GUMBO 1.1 will have brought improved or more affordable internet options to roughly 65,000 homes, businesses and community partners in 48 of Louisiana’s parishes. Funds for the state project were allocated by the federal treasury’s Capital Projects Fund, according to The Current.
But GUMBO 2.0, which would greatly expand on its predecessor’s successes, is currently paused for review by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, a long-time critic of the $42 billion BEAD program. Locals say they’re ready to put shovels in the ground — if it wasn’t for Lutnick’s decision to pause the funding.
“We’re ready to go,” says Veneeth Iyengar, executive director of ConnectLA, Louisiana’s Office of Broadband Development. Iyengar defended the state’s process for identifying areas in need and the companies to serve them with the help of the federal funding program.
“We ran an efficient process, and the process that we ran adopted all sorts of technologies to ensure universal coverage,” he says. While started during the previous administration of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, the program’s goals are in line with current Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s priorities, according to Iyengar.
“From the governor’s perspective, his challenge to us was to ensure that every single nook and cranny of the state, wherever people live, need to receive access to high speed, full reliable internet,” Iyengar notes, pointing out that the state’s application for BEAD funds outlined plans to do just that.
The spending pause impacts providers like Cajun Broadband and their rural Louisiana customers. The company was expecting $33 million in BEAD funding to cover roughly 15,000 locations between both GUMBO programs, reaching areas never thought possible to connect.
Through grant-supported fiber, Cajun Broadband is able to provide free internet service to community centers, churches and firehouses across the region. Every GUMBO project included several “community partners” that received the service for free, according to The Current.
Victoria Disher, Cajun Broadband customer service representative, said the ISP, along with parish governments across the state, went all in on the GUMBO 1.0 grant process in 2022, gaining 11 grants worth $27 million, almost all covering expansion projects in Acadiana.
Once completed, these grants will have led to roughly 2,500 new customers, according to Disher, assuming the usual take rate on Cajun Broadband’s fiber. Through the grant process, says Disher, Cajun Broadband was able to take many of its old rural customers off of wireless connections and switch them to faster, more reliable fiber connections.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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