Last year was generally a slow year for fiber technology, but an eventful year for the fiber optic marketplace and specific applications. It was also an interesting year in the politics of broadband and a bountiful year for tech hype and economist hand-wringing.

Artificial intelligence (A.I.) was the subject of much of the high-tech hype in 2025, and its effects on the fiber optic marketplace were substantial. A.I. needs data centers, and data centers need lots of fiber optics to connect servers, switches and storage. 

In addition, data centers need connections to each other and to users, which also requires plenty of fiber. The connecion of data centers has significantly increased outside plant construction.

While the hype about A.I. continues, some economists have been questioning if it is the next big bubble, like the dot-com bubble of 2001. Their opinions focus on the massive investments being made and overvalued stock prices with little evidence that A.I. will generate sufficient revenue to provide a return on the investment. If A.I. is a bubble, the effect on the overall economy could be substantial. Some economists seem to think it’s not “if,” but “when” the bubble bursts. (To read more about what some economists think about A.I. and data centers, check out the 2026 construction outlook on page 18.)

What happened to BEAD?

The fiber hype, as in prior years, has been focused on broadband, mainly fiber to the home. The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, created more than four years ago, promised $65 billion for broadband, including $43 billion for building networks to connect underserved and unserved users, many in rural areas, to high-speed broadband, with a preference for fiber optics. As of now, not a single BEAD-funded project has been started. What happened?

Like many government projects, BEAD involved a lot of moving pieces. To define underserved and unserved areas that would qualify for funding, broadband coverage maps had to be updated, a project that took a couple of years. States had to set up local agencies to manage the funding. Project submission and approval was complicated and time-consuming.

Then the clock ran out. The administration that created BEAD was voted out and the new one had different goals. The preference for fiber was taken away and replaced by a demand for cutting costs. In the interim, low Earth orbit satellites became a viable option for rural areas and had better political connections. These changes appear to have cut potential BEAD payouts to around $20 billion.

BEAD was not unique. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), in the five years between 2015 and 2020, the federal government had 133 programs under 15 federal agencies covering broadband construction, affordability and digital skills training, totaling $44 billion. And that’s before the pandemic and the BEAD program.

“The U.S. broadband efforts are not guided by a national strategy with clear roles, goals, objectives, and performance measures,” according to the GAO report. “Without such a strategy, federal broadband efforts will not be fully coordinated, and thereby continue to risk overlap and duplication of effort.”

While it remains to be seen if any BEAD money will ever be used to build networks, the areas covered have not been waiting idly by. Over the last four years, hundreds of small towns and rural areas have taken the matter into their own hands and built their own fiber networks. Many others in rural areas have already discovered wireless and satellite internet services that provide adequate broadband for their needs. 

A new installation standard

There has been one major accomplishment in fiber optic standards. You might remember reading in this column about the withdrawal of the ANSI/NECA/FOA 301 standard for fiber optic installation (see “Thoughts On a New Fiber Optic Installation Standard,” ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR, April 2024). It was outdated and too limited in scope to update, so the groups decided to start over. Standards for installation are rare; most projects create their own. The FOA wanted to create an open source standard anyone could use.

The FOA enlisted its worldwide network of technical advisors and created a new standard. The knowledge and experience of the FOA’s technical advisors, many of whom are also FOA instructors, is unmatched. Many of them have contributed to the fiber optics knowledge base—textbooks, web pages, videos and newsletter articles—which has provided a basis for development of the standard.

This new standard covers all applications of fiber optics, types of cable plants and installation practices. To address all of that, it is more than 60 pages. Anyone is free to use it to define the proper installation practices for their own project documentation. You can download a copy of the installation standard here.

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