Dear Fiber Broadband Association Members,
Private investment and strong execution by fiber broadband providers has led the way in the first half of 2025. In June, AT&T hit a milestone, passing 30 million homes with fiber, well on its way to 60 million homes by the end of the decade. Frontier added 321,000 fiber passings in 1Q, reaching 8.1 million homes with fiber and is on track to hit its target of 10 million homes passed. Together with Verizon, they will target to pass 35 to 40 million homes with fiber. Su Shin and Hawaiian Tel received numerous industry recognitions and awards at Fiber Connect 2025 as they are investing $1.7B to connect every home in Hawaii with fiber by the end of 2026. T-Mobile is targeting 12-15 million homes with fiber. Brightspeed has passed over two million homes, with a target to pass five million homes with fiber. Ziply, Altice, Consolidated, TDS, and Google Fiber have deployed or have targets to pass over 12 million homes with fiber, collectively. Countless other regional and local broadband service providers are deploying fiber. In short, the fiber industry has stepped up with private capital and strong execution to build the critical broadband infrastructure for our nation’s future.
On the other hand, the $42B NTIA BEAD broadband infrastructure funding program has been delayed another six months, which will result in missed deployments for the 2025 build season. Not only does this impact the significant capital investments of our members, but it also perpetuates the digital divide. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick implemented a policy reset, requiring eligible service providers to resubmit applications for a “benefit of the bargain” round in all states. While FBA agrees with the intent of streamlining the program, it has been most notably frustrating that the “approved” status of Louisiana, Nevada, and Delaware has been reversed and the shovel-ready states of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maine with final proposals ready for approval must re-conduct a final, last round along with all states and territories.
On a positive note, NTIA has eliminated several of the non-statutory requirements and obligations from the previous Administration that FBA and our members advocated for. These changes will result in streamlining the application and deployment process. Unfortunately, NTIA removed the “fiber preference” and implemented technology neutral revisions that allows for greater consideration of alternative technologies, such as unlicensed fixed wireless (ULFW) and low earth orbit (LEO) satellite that NTIA previously did not recognize as reliable broadband services.
The Fiber Broadband Association has been committed to strategic and ongoing advocacy to clearly highlight the critical infrastructure advantages that will benefit the BEAD program. We continue to be committed to working with NTIA to ensure that and State Broadband Offices, to support their work, while maintaining an ability to maximize fiber deployment, providing the critical broadband infrastructure that scales and will deliver economic development with access to jobs, healthcare, education, and enable future innovations. To this end, the NTIA BEAD Revised Policy Notice did not include “per-location cost caps” or specific funding carve outs for LEO satellites or other technologies.
It is important to note that the BEAD Restructuring Policy Notice, still maintains that priority broadband projects must meet the statutory requirements for scalability, and we know that only fiber is capable of meeting this metric. In the end, we believe that state broadband directors will have the ability to maximize fiber deployment.
FBA will maintain its commitment to providing reliable data and facts needed to support State Broadband Offices in their mission to close the digital divide. Part of this strategy has included meeting with every State Broadband Office to understand their specific needs and challenges and working with our industry partners to deliver tools to help the states navigate the NTIA BEAD Revised Policy Notice. These tools include:
- A Guide to Assessing Network Scalability for State Broadband Offices (Cartesian)
- Making Sense of BEAD Rules for Unlicensed Fixed Wireless Projects: A Practical Guide for State Broadband Offices
- Making Sense of the BEAD Priority Broadband Project Criteria and Requirements
- Making Sense of the BEAD Requirement to Determine an “Excessive” Location Cost: A Cost Model and a Business Case Based Approach
- LEO Satellite Capacity Study (Cartesian)
FBA Performance
In the first half of 2025, the Fiber Broadband Association’s growth continued to accelerate. The Association added 72 net new member companies since our Premier Members meeting in December. We are also very excited about how active our members are and how their engagement is helping drive the organization’s success. I’m pleased to share that nearly 2,000 employees from our member companies serve on one or more of our 21 committees and working groups.
On a financial basis, we ended May with strong revenue growth, outperforming our year-to-date budget target by 24%. While the timing of our Fiber Connect 2025 annual conference prepaids were a significant contributor, FBA operations revenue also outperformed the budget by 32% while tightly managing expenses. The key contributors to FBA’s operations revenue growth were membership revenue, growing over 26% year-over-year, strong regional events, investment income, and nonconference sponsorships. We also saw strong revenue growth from our Fiber Connect 2025 annual conference.
Fiber Connect 2025
Fiber Connect 2025, held in Nashville, June 1-4, was an overwhelming success on every measure. We set a new attendance record for the fifth year in a row, with over 5,000 conference registrants, and our largest exhibit hall yet with 313 exhibitors. On the exhibit floor we displayed a Smart Home Open House and Proof of Concept (POC) pavilion featuring eight member companies participants. The biggest surprise of the week, was the success of our first annual OpTIC Path Rodeo, where our fiber optic technician graduates competed in fiber-related events from their training. We congratulate Whidbey Telecom’s Keagan Beumer as an OpTic Path instructor and for winning the first annual OpTIC Path Rodeo competition.
At FC25, we set records with 327 speakers across twelve program tracks. Some key highlights included our six Operator Light Talks, Sean Evans’ “Fiber Hot Seat”, and we closed out Fiber Connect 2025 with the State Broadband Summit. During the conference, we heard from U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (TN), 26 representatives from the State Broadband Offices, policy experts from leading think tanks, the Federal Communications Commission and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Services. Additionally, we are very proud of the strong Tribal Broadband representation from 44 Native American and Indigenous American tribes. A top highlight was the preview of our Netflix-style documentary, ThoughtWaves, which follows the journey from the intersection of the birth of computing, rise of the internet, and the invention and adoption of fiber broadband.
Our top takeaway from FC25 was the high level of engagement. This year, attendees came better prepared to take advantage of the content and networking opportunities, including the C-Suite Forum, Broadband Policy Symposium, and other curated programming. The FBA team focuses hard on elevating the overall experience and we believe that we delivered an amazing conference. We are looking forward to taking this experience to the next level at Fiber Connect 2026 in Orlando, May 17-20, 2026.
FBA Partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
During the Women in Fiber Luncheon at Fiber Connect 2025, the Fiber Broadband Association and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (DPIL) announced a partnership to support early literacy efforts nationwide. Through this alignment, FBA’s 600+ member companies can align their brand with the world class Dolly Parton Imagination Library to help expand the reach of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library throughout every state [province], community, and home served.
We believe that our member companies have a shared vision with Dolly to raise the quality of life for the next generation, through fiber broadband and bringing families together to raise early literacy for the families and communities that our members serve. Ashley Travers (KGPCo) will serve as the FBA chair of our partnership with the DPIL, in addition to her leadership as the newly appointed chair of the FBA Supply Chain working group. If your company is interested in learning more about how to get involved, please click here to reach out to Ashley or the FBA staff.
FBA Canada
In FBA’s efforts to better represent our Canadian members, we have launched a Canadian working group, led by Co-Chairs Robert Petruk (Dura-Line), Ian Oliver (Globema), and Justin Cameron (Rexel). This working group has hit the ground running and will be holding an in-person working group meet-up on Monday August 18, the day before FBA’s Regional Fiber Connect workshop in Toronto. We had a very strong turnout in Calgary last year and we are looking forward to being in Toronto in August.
FBA Work Products (2Q)
Our committees and working groups are focused on developing and publishing studies and industry best practices. During the second quarter, FBA’s committees, working groups, and research partners published the following studies and industry best practices:
FBA LATAM
During 2Q, FBA’s LATAM chapter held successful events in Queretaro, Mexico in April and had a prominent position at the massive Abrint Global Congress event in Sao Paulo, Brazil in May. Training continues to be a strong focus, rolling out sessions in Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador. Further training sessions are planned during our upcoming regional events in Argentina in August and in Colombia in October. The FBA LATAM Committees are also publishing reports in the areas of new technologies, data centers, sustainability and fiber optics, and the integration of artificial intelligence in optical networks.
FBA 3Q Goals
As we move into the third quarter of 2025, the following are our top-level goals:
- Continue to deliver policy tools to the State Broadband Offices to enable the states to maximize the outcome in their final NTIA BEAD grant awards.
- Continue to educate policymakers on AI Fiber.
- Execute FBA Regional Fiber Connect events in Alaska (July), Toronto (August), and Spokane (September).
- Execute FBA LATAM’s Fiber Connect event in Buenos Aires, Argentina in August.
It was great to see the amazing industry energy, excitement and engagement at Fiber Connect 2025 in Nashville in June. What a great time to be part of the Fiber industry. I continue to be impressed with the resiliency, focus, resolve, and execution from our industry as we work to connect every home, business, and AI data center with fiber.
We are so fortunate to have such a hard-working board of directors, led by FBA Chairwoman Ariane Schaffer, as well as an amazing team of volunteer committee and working group leadership, dedicated strategic partners, and a passionate staff of true professionals to help advance our industry. As always, you can reach me 24/7 on my cell phone (listed below) or by email. If I or anyone on my staff can help you and your company accelerate the deployment of fiber, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Sincerely,
