What's the status of long-haul network builds in the US?

When the internet was new, people talked a lot about long-haul networks in the United States. That’s because a lot of the early data centers were on the East and West coasts, and they needed to be connected. These days long-haul networks are largely overshadowed by last mile builds. There’s a lot of existing long-haul and middle-mile fiber that can be patched together to create the desired routes for any business. But there’s still a lot of fiber being laid on longer routes, whatever you want to call it. Bill Major, who’s been the CEO of FiberLight for one year, said there will always be a continued demand for new long-haul fiber. For its part, FiberLight is adding laterals to it 19,000-route-mile backbone network to connect data centers. Major also said he's interested in the consolidation that will happen due to the players entering the market because of the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.