Today’s blog looks at the impact that the recently announced changes in BEAD funding will have on industry manufacturers. It’s clear that the new NTIA guidelines for BEAD will both significantly pare down the overall outlay from the $42.5 billion BEAD grant program and also will reduce the amount of the grant funding that will be used for fiber construction. To offset the spending on fiber, there should be increases in spending on WISP radios and hardware to support LEO satellites.

We can’t look at the impact of BEAD on fiber spending in a vacuum. While $45 billion is a lot of spending, there is a lot of other fiber construction already underway.

• There is a huge amount of fiber construction underway from other grants like ARPA, the Capital Projects Fund, ReConnect. RDOF, EA-CAM, etc. I’ve estimated these projects are generating more than $13 billion in fiber construction this year, nearly $11 billion next year, and another $4.5 billion in 2027.
• The big telcos and fiber overbuilders are busily building fiber in cities and suburbs. Led by AT&T’s announced plans to pass more than 25 million new passings by the end of 2029, there are announced plans of at least 10 million new fiber passings per year from the many other fiber overbuilders. It wouldn’t be surprising if the impacts of tariffs and general financial uncertainty slow some of these plans, but there is an immense amount of fiber construction being planned.

BEAD spending is going to drop in two ways. First, unlicensed WISPs have an opportunity to remove passings from the BEAD process. After that, the States have to start over again with at one round of BEAD. Like everything else associated with BEAD, there is a wide range of opinions on what’s going to happen when the states start over. Optimists are saying that there are ways for States to maintain many of the fiber grants that have already been decided. Others are predicting that fixed wireless and satellite will sweep the grants. The reality is probably somewhere in between.

Any shift away from fiber will have a definite impact on fiber cable vendors like Corning, CommScope, Lightera (formerly OFS), and Prysmian. Fiber vendors love rural projects like BEAD since low population density means a lot of miles of fiber are needed. Losing a lot of BEAD won’t badly hurt these vendors, but they’ll definitely notice the hit.

The impact of BEAD on fiber electronics vendors is also significant. The recent increase in AT&T’s planned passings will largely offset any impact from losing BEAD fiber customers. However, there will be a negative impact on the electronics vendors that specialize in serving rural ISPs. Interestingly, major fiber electronics vendors like Nokia, Adtran, and Calix all announced American manufacturing capability by opening factories here to meet Build America, Buy America requirements for BEAD. However, considering the shift to higher tariffs, those facilities might have a competitive advantage now, even without BEAD.

These aren’t the only impacts of a shift away from fiber. Large ISPs deal directly with vendors, but a lot of the smaller ISPs that might win BEAD buy most electronics and other construction materials through supply houses – and a shift in BEAD from fiber will hurt these companies. Makers of huts and cabinets will see noticeably less demand.

The shift in the BEAD rules probably means a boom for WISP vendors – assuming they don’t get underbid by satellite companies. Build America will be an issue for WISPs. Tarana might have a big edge since it manufactures radios in the U.S., while most other manufacturers make their radios in Asia.

It’s hard to say if BEAD will really increase the overall number of customers for Starlink since the company is growing quickly around the world. It could be that an increase in connections for BEAD just means fewer connections elsewhere for a while. The company that might get a surprising bump from BEAD is Kuiper. The company won a first-round award in the first BEAD process in Louisiana, and the company could try to snag billions to give it a boost during the start-up phase. Build America won’t be an issue since both Starlink and Kuiper manufacture satellites and receivers in the U.S.