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Broadband Bytes, February 2025 Issue 1

This edition of Broadband Bytes includes: Arielle Roth named to head NTIA, Lutnick advances through Committee vote for Commerce, FBA Fiber Survey results, Fiber deployment cost slowdown? Red states and satellites, Red states caution on pause in BEAD, SCOTUS USF hearing March 26. Funding, Network Expansions, M&A: AI drives fiber plans for Zayo, Dobson Fiber expands in OK, Gateway Fiber and WANRack to merge, Glo Fiber Lancaster OH, Lumos Fiber Birmingham, AL, Metronet Elwood, IN, AFN completes AL Middle Mile and 360 Broadband $52M Grant TX.1. Arielle Roth, Policy Director for U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Selected to Lead NTIA. Arielle Roth was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the NTIA. Part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, NTIA oversees the $42 billion BEAD Program.  Roth currently serves as Policy Director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. She also has served in various roles at the FCC and as a Legal Fellow with the Hudson Institute’s Center for the Economics of the Internet, where she concentrated on federal telecommunications law and policy. Read more.2. Senate Committee Votes to Advance Commerce Nominee Howard Lutnick, Where Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz Says He is “Certain There Will Be” Changes to BEAD. The Senate Commerce Committee voted 16-12 on Wednesday to advance Howard Lutnick’s nomination for Secretary of Commerce. If confirmed by the full Senate, Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, will lead the agency responsible for key tech and telecom programs, including the $42.5 billion BEAD Program. Read more3. The Fiber Broadband Association Announced the Results of a Fiber Deployment Survey From RVA LLC Market Research & Consulting in January 2025. The survey was for the year ending in September 2024. ISPs built fiber to pass 10.3 million homes in the last year, a new all-time high. RVA estimates that fiber now passes 56.5% of U.S. homes. The remaining fiber market is still immense, with almost 149 million homes that don’t have fiber. Read more.4. Fiber Deployment Costs May See Slight Slowdown. Industry experts predict price stabilization with federal broadband funding scheduled to begin. While underground fiber deployment costs surged by 12% in 2024, aerial deployments saw only minor cost increases, and industry experts believe the worst of the inflationary squeeze on fiber projects may be over, according to the 2024 Fiber Deployment Cost Annual Report. The median cost of underground fiber deployment climbed to $18.25 per foot, up from $16.25 per foot in 2023, while aerial fiber deployment remained relatively flat at $6.55 per foot. Labor remained the dominant expense in fiber projects, accounting for 60 to 80% of total deployment costs. Read more.5. Some Red States Don’t Want Too Much Satellite for BEAD. Republican leadership in the Senate has assailed the Commerce Department’s flagship broadband subsidy’s preference for fiber, citing high per-location costs. Yet officials from some red states aren’t sold on shifting the scales too far in one direction.  “We’re hoping the administration’s change is not just ‘Let’s give it all to satellite and then the problem’s over,’” said Misty Ann Giles, head of Montana’s broadband office. “Satellite is fantastic, I know a lot of people that love it in Montana. But have you ever looked at the price tag? Most folks can’t afford it.” Read more6. Some Republican Senators Don’t Want to See a Pause in the BEAD Program. Howard Lutnick, who is on track to become Secretary of Commerce, has supplied some answers to questions from Senators regarding his stance on the BEAD program. The answers show that Lutnick is keeping his cards close to his chest. But perhaps more interesting is the fact that even some Republican Senators expressed concern about slowing down the BEAD program. Read more.7. Supreme Court Will Hear Universal Service Case on March 26. Read more.FUNDING AWARDS, FIBER EXPANSIONS1. Zayo unveiled plans to build 5,000 new route miles in the next five years to support AI and data center activity. Bill Long, Zayo’s chief product officer, told Fierce that in the past, Zayo’s average long-haul order ranged from 8 to 12 fibers. That all changed 12-18 months ago when customers started requesting counts from 144 to 432 fibers. Read more.2. Dobson Fiber has broken ground on network construction in Okmulgee, a community in Oklahoma’s Tusla metro area.  Construction on the network in Okmulgee, which has under 12,000 residents, will be completed in phase. Currently, Dobson Fiber serves nearly 40 communities in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Read more.3. Gateway Fiber and WANRack to merge. Gateway Fiber and WANRack, which both are majority owned by a CBRE Investment Management Fund, are merging. Fiber-to-the-premises developer and operator Gateway Fiber is based in St. Louis. It was founded in 2019 and serves residential and businesses in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Missouri. WANRack, which was founded in 2013, serves school districts and libraries through an E-Rate program and business and residential customers in eastern Kansas through its KWIKOM subsidiary. The press release says that, together, Gateway Fiber and WANRack will offer a FTTX platform and operate across 25 states. Read more.4. Shentel’s Glo Fiber has begun construction on a network that will reach approximately 10,000 additional locations in Lancaster, Ohio. Glo Fiber was previously known as Horizon Telecom before rebranding last year. The provider was acquired by the Shenandoah Telecommunications Company in 2024. Construction on the network is expected to finish in the second half of 2025. Read more.5. Lumos announces major fiber-internet expansion in Birmingham, AL. Communities in the Birmingham metro area will soon have a new fiber-optic internet provider on the block. The news broke this week when Lumos Fiber, a provider that serves customers across Virginia and the Carolinas, announced plans to lay 1,300 miles of fiber to reach “underserved communities and families throughout the Birmingham Metro.” The ISP announced that construction will begin soon on the network, with engineering work already underway. Read more.6. A private, fully funded multimillion-dollar investment will fuel Metronet’s fiber internet expansion into Elwood, Indiana. Thousands of homes and businesses in the community of Elwood, Indiana will soon gain access to Metronet’s fiber-optic internet network. The expansion effort was fully funded and backed by private investment. According to Metronet, the first customers in Elwood, a city of less than 10,000 residents in Central Indiana, will gain access this spring. Read more.7. Alabama fiber network completes middle-mile construction. This month, AFN can provide service to 60 counties with 3,406 active miles of the network. This phase of the network nearly fulfills the $82.5 million middle-mile grant from the state’s allocation of ARPA funds. The organization also received two additional grants to support the connection of community anchor institutions, further expanding the depth and breadth of the network. Although AFN does not serve end-users per se, the state-of-the-art network provides access points in each county that community anchor institutions, last-mile and wireless providers utilize for connectivity. Read more.8. 360 Broadband wins $52 million grant to connect Fannin County, TX. More than $52.1 million has been awarded to 360 Broadband to help fund a project that will connect thousands of locations across Fannin County, Texas. The money, awarded by the Texas Broadband Development Office’s Bringing Online Opportunities to Texas (BOOT) II Program, will go towards a $65 million project to bring high-speed fiber to 4,355 locations in the county. The project is part of 360 Broadband’s larger effort to provide access to 12,000 locations in Fannin County, located in North Texas along the border with Oklahoma. Read more.    Broadband Bytes is a regular feature by David Levine of UCL Swift. David is a graduate of Northern Illinois University, a certified BICSI RCDD,and a 35-year industry veteran in fiber and copper solutions.He currently works as a Business Development Manager for UCL Swift.

Feb 25, 2025