Diana Goovaerts

Preparation. PON. Previous experience. Persistence. These are just some of the attributes states should be looking for when choosing ISPs to carry out builds for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, said Verizon executive Kevin Smith. “The ISPs and the builders also have to have those people and those teams internally that are making sure that you’re delivering what you signed up for,” he said. “Whatever you agreed to in that bid, you need all that program management. It’s not just about hanging the fiber.

Tachus Fiber, with help from private equity partner Crosstimbers Capital Group, is set to spend $100 million to expand its footprint in the Houston (TX) metropolitan area. The company has the aim of adding 100,000 passings in southwest Houston by the end of 2025.

AT&T is no stranger to public-private partnerships, with deals in place with municipal entities in Indiana, Kentucky and Texas to name a few.

It feels like broadband funding is flying at operators from left, right and center. But how does a provider figure out which funding source is the right fit, and what do they need to know about applying for and actually spending that money? A panel comprised of experts from Nextlink, Ting Internet, Calix, Fujitsu, and COS Systems tackled the ins and outs of the funding landscape. Here are the top takeaways from the session:

Permitting has long been the bane of broadband deployments across the country, but a little-known federal council is working to change that.

Nokia is broadening its horizons with a new version of its network-in-a-box solution, adding new components into the mix and making its kit scalable to meet the needs of medium-sized operators in addition to small ones.

C Spire has been working to bridge the middle-mile gap in the rural southeastern US, plugging away at construction of a backhaul network in the area for the past few years.

Tillman FiberCo received a $200 million investment from Northleaf Capital Partners to fuel plans to build an open-access fiber network in five states. The deal with Northleaf leaves the door open to another $300 million investment when the time is right. Founded in 2021, Tillman FiberCo is a subsidiary of Tillman Global Holdings, whose other subsidiary, Tillman Networks, is a well-known player in the telecommunications construction world. But unlike its sister company, Tillman FiberCo not only designs and builds fiber networks, but also owns them.

DOCSIS 4.0 has been billed as the technology that will put cable operators on par with 10G PON service from fiber providers, but a recent CableLabs interoperability event showed cable companies can hit over 8 Gbps with a mix of new and old gear. CableLabs Principal Architect Doug Jones said that operators demonstrated speeds of “eight point something” gigabits per second downstream and 1.5 Gbps upstream. But rather than using an end-to-end DOCSIS 4.0 system, this was done using a DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem termination system (CMTS) in a high split configuration and a DOCSIS 4.0 modem.

Nokia is teaming with longtime manufacturing partner Sanmina to bring production of fiber network electronics to Wisconsin, hoping the move will help it bring in the cheese when money starts flowing from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program.