- The energy at Fiber Connect this week was palpable
- Private equity and investments in fiber were hot topics
- The industry hopes BEAD will resume soon, but it's not sitting around to wait
FIBER CONNECT, NASHVILLE — Before the re-election of Donald Trump, some Republicans complained that BEAD was taking so long. “Not a single household has been connected with BEAD money for three years,” they often lamented, even though the NTIA and states were working at breakneck speed to set up a massive nation-wide construction project program.
But now that Republicans have taken over the House, Senate and the Executive branch, BEAD has basically come to a screeching halt. Even though some states such as Louisiana and Montana have been ready to distribute BEAD funds and put shovels in the ground for several months, they’re having to sit on their hands while the new administration does a “rigorous review” of the program.
Nevertheless, it was evident at Fiber Connect this week that the fiber industry is as jazzed as ever — just not as enthusiastic about BEAD. It appears the industry is pivoting to Plan B, or even Plan C or D, while the BEAD program is on pause.
Fierce Network spoke with Justin Suhr, senior director of construction with Great Plains Communications. Suhr said the service provider has multiple verticals, which is an especially good thing right now during the BEAD pause. Great Plains not only builds fiber-to-the-premise, but it also deploys connections for data centers, backhaul for wireless carriers, and fiber for multi-dwelling units. He said labor is the most expensive part of any fiber build, so it’s important to keep the company’s workers busy and not sitting around idle.
“As a service provider we have a set capital with business goals, and we’re able to pull those different levers,” said Suhr. “I think we always have plan A, B and C. You have to be diversified because you can’t rely on specific programs.”
But he indicated it’s an uncomfortable time with the lack of clarity on BEAD. And he said there was over-buying of supplies during COVID. But now that stock is starting to be depleted at the same time the prospect of tariffs is looming. All this volatility and confusion is not good for business planning.
“I hope a labor shortage isn’t the next issue and a domino effect,” said Suhr. “I think we’ll see that in the next 6-9 months.”
Speaking on a panel entitled “Key Considerations for Regional and National Network Builds,” James Hall, president of the broadband vendor Velox, said, “We’ve got resources out in the field that need to work. We’re seeing ISPs focus on parts of their deployments that can be worked on outside of BEAD to keep things going during this pause.”
James King, a solutions engineer with the broadband vendor Millennium, was also on the same panel. King said, “At Fiber Connect it’s busier every year. The industry has a lot of interest and obviously that comes with cash flow and private equity interest. But the private equity goal is generally going to be to increase enterprise value. It isn’t going to fill the void of BEAD, which is truly there to bridge that digital divide. Worst case scenario BEAD becomes a partisan issue, and the digital divide doesn’t get bridged. But as the industry we’re going to continue to see deployments.”
King also noted that a lot of people have gone through the BEAD application process and there’s a cost to that. “They’ve made that investment already. There’s multiple states right now ready to build. When you have money saved for a 25% or 50% match you can only hold that money so long. The longer we have to wait, there’s a higher chance that people abandon their initial plans for those deployments. My fear is this delay lasts longer, and people do make pivots, making other investments with the money they had allocated for that match.”
He asked the burning question: “When do we get past this pause?”
Catch up on all the news from Fiber Connect 2025 here.