The acceleration of Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) approvals and planning has mounted concern about whether equipment vendors have enough supply to help states connect all their remaining unserved and underserved locations.
Corning, alongside fellow fiber manufacturers AFL, Lightera and Prysmian, published a blog this week pledging to ensure sufficient availability of Build America, Buy America (BABA)-compliant optical fiber and cable. Each company intends to prioritize BEAD-funded projects by working directly with award recipients “to align delivery lead times with deployment schedules.”
Separately, Nokia announced it’s making its BABA products available to BEAD recipients through a joint stocking agreement with KGPCo. The companies boast they will help ISPs “accelerate project execution” and avoid delays.
Despite these reassurances, it’ll take some flexibility from the end customers to ensure vendors can manage BEAD demand, said Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen.
“When these companies all say they will have product ready for BEAD deployments, I think that is certainly true,” he told Fierce. “However, I do think there is going to be some negotiation between these manufacturers and the BEAD award winners to try to stagger the delivery of fiber cabling and connectors simply because they can’t manufacture fast enough.”
Corning’s blog estimates BEAD-related fiber demand – even at peak deployment – will represent less than 5% of total domestic capacity, and that U.S. fiber and cable manufacturers already produce about 135 million fiber kilometers per year.
Based on those figures, the vendors believe there’s enough fiber to support both broadband expansion and AI growth. But as Fierce Network has covered, fiber-hungry data centers are stretching manufacturers thin on cabling, glass and other components. Apart from hyperscaler buildouts, privately-funded fiber expansion is ongoing.
Heynen said the 5% capacity stat sounds about right when factoring data center demand and the reduction in total fiber-based BEAD projects after NTIA’s restructuring of the program. He’s not sure how many total route miles will be needed for BEAD deployments, but RVA has pegged about 92,000 additional fiber route miles are required for data center builds.
“Given the delays we have seen in the BEAD process, the last thing these vendors want to be is a bottleneck to these projects getting underway, especially since there are clear timelines for completion required,” said Heynen.
BEAD delays give vendors breathing room
Prolonged administrative delays could give vendors much-needed time to plan ahead for BEAD. NTIA thus far approved final proposals for 53 out of 56 states and territories, but it’ll take time before construction kicks off en masse since not every Eligible Entity has received National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) clearance to access their BEAD funds.
Thirty-eight of the 53 approved states and territories obtained the NIST green light, while 29 have signed and returned their award agreement to finalize the process.
As for why some states have yet to finalize their agreement despite NIST approval, CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson said there’s “no way to know” if that’s due to state and NTIA lawyers haggling over contracts or because states are disputing with ISPs over subgrantee requirements.
Heynen earlier this year predicted it’s unlikely broadband equipment vendors will see much flow-through from BEAD until 2027. He still thinks next year is “more realistic for real revenue.”
“I do think the projects will be far more staggered in how and when they get kicked off, which works to the benefit of Corning and the other fiber providers,” he concluded.