Masha Abarinova

The acceleration of Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment approvals and planning has mounted concern about whether equipment vendors have enough supply to help states connect all their remaining unserved and underserved locations. Corning, alongside fellow fiber manufacturers AFL, Lightera, and Prysmian, published a blog this week pledging to ensure sufficient availability of Build America, Buy America-compliant optical fiber and cable.

Major U.S. carriers have thus far seen reasonable growth in fixed wireless access gross additions, but the analysts at New Street Research said a plateau is incoming. The firm’s latest broadband trends report found residential FWA gross adds increased about 24 percent year-over-year in Q4 2025. But gross adds were “sequentially flat” compared to the 33 percent growth in the prior quarter.

States can proceed with their Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment plans without any say from SpaceX, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told senators. Regarding the proposed subgrantee agreement SpaceX sent to states, Sen Lutnick confirmed at a hearing “that rider is outside of our guidelines, it is outside the statute, and it is rejected by us.” The document asked states to 

The revised Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program aimed to give non-fiber providers a bigger seat at the table. Low-earth orbit satellite gained traction, but the same can’t be said for fixed wireless access, according to Tarana VP of Government Affairs and Policy Carl Guardino. In his view, FWA “underperformed” as only about 11 percent of BEAD eligible locations were awarded to fixed wireless providers, per Connected Nation data.

AT&T closed its $5.75 billion acquisition of Lumen’s Mass Markets fiber business, adding more than 1 million new fiber subscribers to AT&T’s total customer tally.

At the hearing on the reauthorization of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), Sen Klobuchar (D-MN) asked Melvin Maier, CEO and executive director of APCO International, what metrics should be used to evaluate the FirstNet network performance and reliability. “Public safety has to have the tools they need during the crisis,” Maier said, noting that law enforcement officers use uplink out in the field far more than downlink, sending data back to the home office for evaluation. “We look at cell edge performance on the edges of those maps where they say that there’s coverage,” he s

The fiber shortage is already here. And with data center builds as well as public and private rural fiber deployments all ramping, there's bound to be a breaking point sooner or later. “It’s like the perfect storm,” said Ashley Travers, chair of the Fiber Broadband Association’s Supply Chain Working Group. “You’ve got the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment [BEAD] Program, you’ve got hyperscalers…with all these states coming out the gate at the same time, it’s going to present a challenge.” Travers said the shortage impacts both ribbon and loose tube fiber.

Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space technology company, plans to enter the satellite connectivity arena with a new constellation targeting data centers, enterprises, and government customers.

After months of regulatory pushback, Verizon finally secured California approval for its $20 billion Frontier acquisition. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously voted in favor of the deal. Following that ruling, Verizon announced it expects to close the transaction on January 20. New Street Policy Analyst Blair Levin said CPUC’s decision was “imminent” based on an Administrative Law Judge’s filing.

Vistance Networks, formerly CommScope, said so long to its old name as well as plans to expand its fiber manufacturing plant in Catawba (NC). The company cancelled a $60 million plan that intended to create 250 jobs due to financial uncertainties.