Closing the Digital Divide

Services: Program Design / Project Management / Stakeholder Engagement

Verizon Pennsylvania BEAD Program

Verizon, PA, 2024-2025

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program is a federal initiative aimed at bringing high-speed internet to underserved communities across the U.S. To qualify for BEAD funding, applicants must show strong coordination with local governments, ensuring broadband investments meet community needs.

Rvesta partnered with Verizon and Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies to design and execute a statewide municipal outreach strategy across Pennsylvania, ensuring compliance with federal BEAD grant requirements. Together, our teams developed and executed detailed outreach plans, managed stakeholder databases, and facilitated meetings with local officials, capturing all interactions and maintaining communication. This structured approach allowed meaningful, documented engagement across the state’s municipalities, maximizing Verizon’s BEAD funding eligibility and supporting statewide broadband deployment.

Following this initiative, Pennsylvania was allocated $1.16 billion in BEAD funds, of which about $793 million are actively awarded to providers. Verizon will receive about $120 million in BEAD funding to build and upgrade broadband infrastructure in 15,500 underserved locations across Pennsylvania.