Infrastructure

Fiber vendors have long been banking on the promise of revenue opportunities via the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program and rural broadband expansion, but the hype is simmering down in light of fiber's uncertainty in the new administration. As a result, communications equipment vendors are eyeing greener pastures. For the most part, vendors are “being pretty quiet about the BEAD opportunity because so much is still up in the air,” said Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen.

Congress is supposed to write the laws, but these days it often prefers to delegate to the executive branch, and then cheer or boo the results. Twice amid the New Deal, but not since, the Supreme Court struck down statutes as abdications of Congress’s lawmaking power. Yet the Court has another chance in the case that the Justices will consider Wednesday, FCC v. Consumers’ Research.

America’s $42.5 billion investment in universal broadband internet access may be on track for a major overhaul. Three years into its meticulous planning and implementation process, and with significant progress already made, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program may pivot from prioritizing fiber to satellite connectivity.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided over $42 billion in subsidies for broadband deployment via the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. Although BEAD funds are supposed to be disbursed on a technology-neutral basis, the Biden Administration mandated a preference for fiber deployment, even when alternative technologies—including satellite broadband—are the more efficient mechanism to serve certain high-cost areas. With the recent election of President Donald Trump to the presidency, the government’s preference for fiber now faces significant uncertainty.

Within the Trump administration’s Defense Department, Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocketry is being trumpeted as the nifty new way the Pentagon could move military cargo rapidly around the globe. In the Commerce Department, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service will now be fully eligible for the federal government’s $42 billion rural broadband push, after being largely shut out during the Biden era. At NASA, after repeated nudges by Mr. Musk, the agency is being squeezed to turn its focus to Mars, allowing SpaceX to pursue federal contracts to deliver the first humans to the distant planet.

Elon Musk’s Starlink is set to cement its dominance of the satellite internet market with a surge in revenues in 2025, but the world’s richest man’s ties to President Donald Trump are shifting from an asset to a hindrance in Starlink's global rollout. The billionaire’s SpaceX group is engaged in talks to rapidly bring the service to countries with 1 billion potential new users, including holding negotiations with Turkey, Morocco and Bangladesh, while making progress towards regulatory approval in other vast markets such as India.

Conditions improved in the second half, but overall, 2024 was a challenging year for the telecommunications suppliers. Preliminary findings suggest that worldwide telecom equipment revenues across the six telecom programs tracked at Dell’Oro Group—Broadband Access, Microwave & Optical Transport, Mobile Core Network, Radio Access Network, and SP Router & Switch—declined 11 percent year-over-year in 2024, recording the steepest annual decline in more than 20 years (decline was >20 percent in 2002), propelling total equipment revenue to fall by 14% percent over the past two years.

It’s been a long time coming, but T-Mobile has found a buyer for the 800 MHz spectrum it inherited from Sprint.

Zayo announced a $90 million investment to expand and enhance fiber infrastructure across Tennessee. This investment will bolster key network routes, providing critical connectivity to major data centers and educational institutions and driving economic growth and innovation statewide. The initiative includes advanced network infrastructure to power hyperscale and data center campuses, supporting the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) and other high-bandwidth workloads in the region.

The City of Dublin (OH) and altafiber are excited to announce that the majority of single-family home addresses will have access to altafiber’s cutting-edge multi-gig XGS-PON fiber network by the end of 2025, marking a significant milestone in the partnership. Once this phase of the project is complete, more than 15,000 single-family home addresses in the City of Dublin will have access to fast, reliable broadband connectivity that is essential to fully leverage employment, education, and healthcare opportunities in the modern economy.