Regional fiber rollups may scream monopoly, but it’s complicated

With all of the recent buzz about fiber players getting prepared for acquisitions and incumbents expected to gobble up billions in forthcoming government funding, it’s not a far stretch to wonder if the rollup will result in less broadband competition across the country. But according to two leading telecom analysts, this is very unlikely to be the case post-mergers. And even if there is less competition, it likely won’t impact the quality or pricing of fiber to the consumer, they said. Roger Entner of Recon Analytics predicted that, even if a fiber rollup occurs, pricing will actually go down, not up. “The $42.5 billion in BEAD money will help build out really large parts of the United States that don’t have fiber or broadband right now,” explained Entner. To New Street Research's Blair Levin, it’s clear that a fiber rollup won’t change the core facts of the modern moment: there is more competition for broadband than there has ever been before. “If the argument was that a rollup would lessen competition, I would say, ‘I don’t think so.’ If the argument is, ‘We should have more competition,’ I would say great, but how are we going to do that?”