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Published on 12 October 2022

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Residences can require business-class access services to support greater productivity, broadband bandwidth for collaboration, and robust security to better protect the expanded enterprise network.

Last year, enterprises used a variety of solutions to provide secure remote connectivity to what became a work-from-home (WFH) mode of operation for the entire organization. Today, the WFH mode of work has taken root though workplaces have reopened. Hybrid office/home arrangements are gaining momentum and increasing the workload for IT managers.

Increased bandwidth use, security challenges, and emerging connectivity options have IT managers working to ensure those at home can be more productive, and the enterprise network better defended.

Business or residence?

Many of the problems in this undertaking result from the differences between residential connections and those typically used for business locations. “Residential broadband connections and services are still best-effort with limited SLAs that are nowhere near as airtight as business-class SLAs,” according to Jeff Heynen, VP of Broadband Access and Home Networking for Dell’Oro Group, a global research and advisory services firm. “This is a big reason for the price delta between residential and business-class broadband services. IT managers have little control and even less recourse for solving connectivity issues, so that, in and of itself, is a headache.”

What’s enterprise IT to do about ISPs? IT managers should press each remote worker’s ISP to check to see whether the provider offers what Heynen calls a “business-lite” service tier that supplies added security features and increased SLAs. “We have heard of more ISPs offering these types of services and connections as a response to the growth of remote workers.”

Knowledge is power: Engage ISPs for security specifics and Internet access options. IT managers should press each remote worker’s ISP to supply details about the security of their Internet connection. On the management front, it is essential for IT managers to enforce a common security framework across all employees and their devices, regardless of location or access point. This helps make sure VPN and antivirus software remain current across all devices. Do not forget to implement parameters for gaining access to network resources, such as continually polling devices and requesting identity verification.

Define and protect the perimeter. A bigger concern, though, is security - both device security and data security. When workers were all in an office, the perimeter of security mechanisms and enforcement was within the enterprise. But now the perimeter must be extended to workers’ homes, as well as to public Wi-Fi locations. However, the latter should be avoided as they are notoriously insecure, according to Heynen who strongly recommends remote workers steer clear of using VPNs on unsecured public Wi-Fi networks.

VPN Pros and Cons

VPNs do a good job of providing extra levels of security. But in the remote work world, those VPNs can often get overloaded, which affects performance. Further, because of the extra levels of security, VPNs often throttle upstream traffic. “Residential networks—particularly cable—are upstream-constrained by design, so performance can often reach frustrating levels for remote workers,” warned Heynen. IT managers also need to ensure VPN and antivirus software remain up to date across all devices.

Planning for Internet access upgrades

The success of an accelerated shift to hybrid working model hinges on the quality of underlying reliable and secure connectivity, according to Cisco’s Broadband Index 2022. The vendor surveyed 60,000 workers across 30 markets globally to learn about their home broadband access, quality and usage, economic and societal growth.

The findings: Cisco reported “75% of the people polled believe broadband services must dramatically improve to fully support hybrid work. This is further reflected in 43% of respondents who are planning to upgrade their Internet in the next 12 months.”

Access and performance concerns

After many months of working from home, it became clear that Internet connections to residences needed higher than available upload channels as users moved from content consumption to video conferencing and collaborative tools such as Microsoft Teams to accomplish tasks. Long used to connect remote workers to corporate networks and resources, VPNs were not designed with heavy collaboration between distributed locations in mind. As a result, VPNs can stifle collaboration among remote workers.

Enter: Symmetrical Internet Access

The need for symmetrical Internet access – where download and upload links support the same speed - has become an increasingly prominent issue. Fiber-based Internet access providers are quickly rolling out these offerings but cablecos are lagging, which puts timing in question as they try to catch up with DOCSIS 4.0.

Including un- and underserved locations

Further, work from home programs and approaches can be when employees are in un-served and underserved parts of the country, such as rural areas, where broadband may be on the way but is still essentially a pipe dream. The lack of broadband access in these instances limits the level of participation of remote workers in many work efforts.

The broadband breakout powered by the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is supplying billions in funds nationwide for states to build far-reaching high-speed networks. This massive initiative aims to close the Digital Divide and reach areas lacking broadband access, but it is a process that will take time.

The satellite opportunity

For those that cannot wait on the broadband breakout to reach remote WFH locations, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite fleet operators such as SpaceX, ViaSat, and OneWeb supply an Internet access choice. IT managers must first check service availability as many providers’ rollouts are still a work in progress.

(Share your experiences with SD-WAN and SASE. Take the survey today, conducted by Omdia researchers.)

Related content:

• Network Security Demands Drive SD-WAN and SASE Adoption
• 5 Challenges for Enterprises Considering LEO Satellite Services
• Putting Broadband Internet on the Map

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Published on 27 September 2022

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COVID-19 and broadband funding legislation together supercharged interest in equal speed download and upload connections as carriers lead the way.

Over two years of COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions forced a prolonged switch to virtual versions of work, education, and healthcare, with far greater use of online gaming and streaming OTT video services.

These services have increased traffic on residential broadband networks. “ISPs have responded by further improving their networks, intensifying their fiber deployments, and upgrading their existing infrastructure,” explained Elizabeth Parks, President and CMO for Parks Associates, a research and consulting firm focused on the use of carrier services and the home. “Consumer intention to upgrade their home internet service remains at an all-time high.”

Add infrastructure funding

Now add the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s tens of billions of dollars in funding to close the digital divide over five years, and you have a broadband breakout featuring the deployment of optical networking technologies to deliver -in part-the equal speed download and upload access links.

Symmetrical Internet is a connection that gives you equally fast download and upload speeds. Most Internet connections have much faster download speeds than upload speeds. But that’s changing with the wider deployment of fiber.

Carriers continue symmetrical Internet

Customers have been moving in volume, to higher-speed Internet access tiers, according to research released this year by OpenVault, which supplies broadband industry analytics. As subscribers migrate to higher speed tiers, the number of subscribers with speeds of 200 Mbps or slower has declined almost 90% during the past year.

AT&T, Google, Verizon, and CenturyLink are among the growing list of carriers offering symmetrical Internet access, with speeds ranging from 940 Mbps to 5 Gbps, and prices from $65 to $180 a month. The market for faster and symmetrical Internet is expanding as more applications – such as Microsoft Teams – and services are used from increasingly smart homes as companies transition from full work from home to increasingly more appealing hybrid scenarios.

The smart home drives symmetrical Internet access

Demand for more bandwidth in smart homes is real, according to ongoing user-driven research from Parks Associates. As of Q2 2022, the typical US home Internet household owns a mean average of 16 Internet-connected products: 11 consumer electronics products, three smart home products, and two connected health products. This average rises to over 25 devices for smart home households and almost 24 for households above 3,500 square feet in size.

Symmetrical Internet – want vs. need?

To recap, some service providers have slammed symmetrical Internet access with Charter CEO calling it a marketing ploy and the Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) association claiming their members’ offerings provide the bandwidth customers need today and will tomorrow.

So, who's driving growth in the use of upstream usage? Just gamers? The top 1% of subscribers account for approximately 30% of upstream usage, and the top 5% of subscribers account for more than 50% of upstream consumption, according to research from OpenVault in April 2021.

Despite those who claim symmetrical Internet access is not necessary and is a marketing ploy, carriers continue to spend on delivering the coveted services.

Symmetrical Internet rollouts continue

In August, Lumen announced it had launched gigabit Quantum Fiber service in 20 new communities, including parts of Denver, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. Quantum offers symmetrical speeds of up to 8 Gbps.

In July, Consolidated Communications sold its wireless holdings to a Verizon entity for $490 million to fund its fiber expansion and delivery of symmetrical Internet in its footprint. Consolidated claimed it’s already delivering symmetrical 2 Gbps service across its entire territory, which extends over parts of California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Vermont.

Dubbed Fidium, its service offers 1 Gbps service priced at $70 per month or 2 Gbps at $165 per month. In May, Consolidated teamed with a Southern Vermont communications entity to supply symmetrical gigabit broadband to almost 12,000 homes in Bennington County.

Industry insights

For enterprises – and carriers – justifying symmetrical Internet access appears to be easier, as market research and analysis delivers data points showing a continued increase in upload speeds and popularity from those unhappy with the longstanding disparity in the speed of the two channels.

In July, Recon Analytics founder Roger Entner claimed a survey the firm conducted revealed that more than a third of likely Internet switchers consider symmetrical speed important when they plan their decision - and that they're willing to pay more for equal speed links.

Rising cableco prices for asymmetrical Internet connections is driving interest in symmetrical options.

For Q2 2022, cable giant Comcast registered zero growth in Internet subscribers for the first quarter ever. Other cable companies reported unimpressive Internet subscriber figures.

The Bottom Line

It looks as if the pandemic has changed the nature of upstream usage for the long run, even as full-time work from home evolves toward a hybrid approach. That, combined with a newfound appreciation of videoconferencing, will drive the use of what has been a limited upstream capacity of carriers’ broadband infrastructures.

OpenVault went further in April 2021, declaring that "the unique role of the upstream channel as an enabler of two-way communication makes unfettered performance essential.”

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Published on 15 September 2022

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In the wake of the broadband access-focused Biden spending bill, the NTIA has earmarked $1 billion for carriers to enhance and upgrade the crucial infrastructure that connects the last mile to long-haul networks.

In its rush to roll out high-speed services to un and underserved areas, the Biden administration's infrastructure investment and jobs act has focused on the broadband access segment of carrier networks.

But now help is on the way for the middle mile, which connects access networks to high-capacity national and regional backbone networks. The NTIA has launched a $1 billion fund for carriers fortifying this segment for enterprises of all sizes.

The National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) is within the Department of Commerce and is the Executive Branch agency responsible for advising the President on telecommunications and information policy issues. The NTIA’s programs and policymaking focus on expanding broadband Internet access and adoption.

Big bucks for middle-mile broadband

In May, the NTIA ‘s Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) along with key dates for carriers interested in landing a piece of the $1 billion for the middle mile of their networks. All applications for funding must be received by September 30.

Funds will be disbursed on March 1, 2023. Complete buildout of middle-mile infrastructure must be completed no later than five years after the receipt of the NTIA funds.

Who is eligible?

Any state, political subdivision of a state, tribal government, technology company, electric utility, utility cooperative, or public utility district is eligible for middle mile funding, according to the NTIA. The list also includes any telecommunications company, telecommunications cooperative, most any type of nonprofit, economic development authority, or any partnership of two or more of these entities.

Enterprise IT impact

“Subsidization of middle mile networks is intended to expand their reach into more communities so that they can deliver premium broadband services to both residential and business customers,” explained Jeff Heynen, VP of Broadband Access and Home Networking with Dell’Oro Group, a global market research and analysis firm. “Without those networks, communities are on an island. So, they are critical infrastructure that deserves as much attention as the last mile networks themselves.”

Given the historic spending on network upgrades and expansion funded by the infrastructure and jobs act, Heynen believes that the NTIA will need to distribute more than $1 billion to cover the essential costs.

Middle mile challenges for IT leaders

Know your provider. IT managers should always be aware of who is supplying middle mile access to their retail service provider. Most are not household names, and many are not known for spending big on their networks, as serving rural areas is expensive.

Aging infrastructure. Have middle milers underinvested in their infrastructure? Fair, poor, or worse performance can be indicators of this. “Critical edge POPs and data centers might not have the best connections and could result in poor network performance, especially for cloud-based services,” cautioned Heynen.

Spending challenges. Expense can limit some middle-mile networks. Middle-mile providers avoid remote communities with low residential and business density for the same reason last-mile providers have stayed away until the infrastructure investment plan. Compared with building in densely populated urban areas, expanding into rural communities is expensive for many.

Performance issues. Problems meeting or exceeding service level agreements (SLA) covering performance can mean middle mile networks are due for upgrades or replacement. SLAs need detailed descriptions of every service offered. Service definitions should include how the services are delivered, whether maintenance service is offered, and where dependencies exist.

Investment targets. With the NTIA funding program, the hope is that middle milers will spend on optical transport, switches, and carrier routers—generally all aggregation equipment. But do not forget about the fiber and conduit itself. They will need a lot more of that to get to new POPs, data centers, and small cell locations.

Follow the money. IT managers may need to track the NTIA funding program process and plan accordingly as carriers often must wait a long time between bidding and release of funds, as was the case with the Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF).

Learn the program. “Understand the federal broadband funding and state grant programs, their timelines, and process. Manage the timeline between winning the bid and getting the funding,” advised Cisco’s Robin Olds in a recent blog on the vendor’s website. “For example, the Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) grant process in some cases took more than a year between when a bid was submitted to when money was appropriated.” The middle mile carriers must understand these factors before they can produce a timeline for enterprises.

Check on possible delays. IT managers should check with these service segment providers to see if and how supply chain issues, chip shortages, and inflation may affect the enhancement, expansion, and upgrades of middle-mile networks.

The Bottom Line

Large federal infrastructure plans: the FCC’s RDOF, the Biden administration's infrastructure and jobs act, and now the NTIA’s $1 billion middle mile program, collectively portend to change the way business does business moving forward.

Understanding how these funding efforts work, what they include, and their likely timelines should give IT leaders valuable insight and perspective that can be used to enhance enterprise network planning in turbulent times.

Related articles:

• What Enterprises Can Expect as Carriers to Spend Billions on Broadband Rollouts

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Published on 02 September 2022

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Early implementers favor partnerships over Amazon’s expansive, do-it-yourself model. What are the top considerations for IT leaders?

Retailers Walmart and Walgreens continue to move forward with drone delivery services, even as innovator Amazon has yet to launch its decade-in-the-making offering.

That is because enterprises are evaluating drone delivery alternatives to time and resource-intensive DIY internal efforts that allow IT managers in retail to get running and valuable experience faster.

Drone delivery progress report

Amazon rival Walmart has been delivering items from select stores in its home state of Arkansas via drone for a year through a partnership with innovator DroneUp, a drone delivery flight services provider. Another competitor, Alphabet’s Wing, launched commercial drone deliveries in Texas in April with customer Walgreens pharmacies.

In late May, David Guggina, Senior Vice President of Innovation and Automation, Walmart U.S., announced in a blog that Walmart-DroneUp would be expanding its delivery network partner to 34 sites by yearend. This provides "the potential to reach 4 million U.S. households across six states – Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. This provides us the ability to deliver over one million packages by drone in a year."

The drone opportunity

Drone package delivery is alive and well, according to a team of experts at McKinsey’s Aerospace & Defense Practice, who has been tracking its emergence on a global level and have identified three keys to those looking to launch.

“The industry is real and booming,” according to the McKinsey team. “Over the past three years, there have been over 660,000 commercial drone deliveries to customers, not including the countless test flights to develop and prove the technology.”

In fact, the team wrote, drone deliveries had become a daily occurrence. “As of early 2022, we estimate that more than 2,000 drone deliveries are occurring each day worldwide. The growth rate is accelerating every week, and we project that there will be close to 1.5 million deliveries in 2022, up from just under half a million in 2021.”

Critical juncture

While drone package deliveries are growing, and important indicators are positive, the management consulting firm sounded words of caution about the road ahead.

“We are at a critical time in the drone delivery industry. Volume has grown dramatically in recent years, but the path ahead is not yet clear,” according to McKinsey. “Regulations, customer acceptance, and cost will all determine whether the industry reaches its potential to disrupt global logistics or remains limited to isolated applications.”

Key factors for enterprise IT leaders:

1) Regulatory landscape

The regulatory landscape can make or break an enterprise’s drone delivery undertaking by dictating the scale and scope of the operations.

“Regulation dictates the type of operations allowed, including parameters related to geographic areas and airspace, times of day, and the conditions required for flight. All these factors can have a large impact on costs,” according to the McKinsey team.

“Regulation can determine or limit one of the key costs of launching drone delivery, the operator-to-drone ratio. There is a big cost difference if, for example, regulations require one operator for each drone or allow a single operator to control a dozen or more drones.” Regulations also determine airworthiness requirements for drones, and the guidelines could potentially increase costs and delay at-scale operations, the McKinsey team wrote.

2) Public reaction (and acceptance?)

Another gating factor in the launch of a drone delivery service is the need to gain the public's trust and acceptance of drone delivery (and maintain it). New ways of doing business in towns and cities for visible approaches like drone delivery can evoke concerns by consumers.

The firm explained that actual adoption is likely to differ across neighborhoods depending on a variety of factors, including population density, geographic location, and local weather conditions.

3) Cost(s)

Consumers will favor deliveries with the lowest cost if all other factors are equal. While drone deliveries have grown markedly worldwide in the last few years, some only extend one mile from stores, as is the case with Walmart's program with DroneUp, as per FAA regulations.

4) Technology

Drone deliveries only go as far as a blend of technologies can take them. IT managers in retail and beyond need to plan accordingly as few have the deep pockets and technical resources committed to Amazon’s undertaking.

The serial innovator has built many sophisticated delivery platforms. In a website posting dated June 13, the company claimed to have “created more than two dozen (drone) prototypes.”

Further, Amazon has gone far beyond creating delivery drones themselves by building an advanced sense-and-avoid system to make air operations safer during flight.

Drones and the 5G advantage

The emergence of 5G networks can boost the operational efficiency of drones, according to Adam Schink, Senior Manager of Innovation & Scouting at BT Global, in The Future of Innovation: How 5G Is Pushing Drone Technology Forward.

“A connection to a 5G network means a drone can send information back to base in real time. Early drone technology meant all the information from drone-mounted cameras, sensors and telemetry could only be uploaded from the drone’s hard drive once it had landed,” Schink wrote. A 5G connection changes all that and opens new possibilities.

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Published on 29 August 2022

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The fast-growing sector may have businesses looking elsewhere to alternatives with faster options to expand networks to remote offices and WFH residences.

For those who looked skyward for solutions to problems here on Earth, Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite operators promise to deliver high-speed Internet around the world as part of a new era high stakes space race.

The entry of SpaceX and Amazon into the low-earth orbit satellite business, combined with their televised manned rocket rides to space, showed what could be accomplished by some of the richest men on Earth, Elon Musk of SpaceX and Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

The business of tech

But ironically, the economics of launching vast fleets of satellites into low Earth orbit to deliver lower latency and affordable price have many wondering if and why they should be looking to the option for help connecting businesses and homes with Internet here on Earth.

That leaves IT managers to evaluate LEO services offered by SpaceX (with an estimated 2,200 birds in flight for its Starlink service) and promised by Amazon Project Kuiper, which has yet to launch a single LEO bird*) for viability now as an option for serving a remote workforce comprising remote offices and home workers.

A SpaceX Starlink update

When we last visited this space last November, the Starlink service was in beta, leaving a few veteran providers such as Viasat, HughesNet, and OneWeb to serve interested enterprises and consumers. But now we have pricing from SpaceX for business and residential users, pricing that could hurt slow adoption.

Starlink Residential costs $100 a month and a one-time $599 charge for the dish and a Wi-Fi router. The equipment comes in a kit for subscribers to install, which requires a clear line of sight to the sky. Latency (a big selling point for satellite services) will be largely under 20 milliseconds. Supported data throughput is roughly 100Mbps for the downlink but much less for the return path.

Starlink Business, set to serve up to 20 users at an office, costs $500 a month with a one-time $2,500 dish and CPE charge that, like residential, comes in a self-install kit. Latency will be between 20-40 milliseconds with an expected download speed of between 150-350 Mbps. Customers must download the Starlink app to get underway. There are no long-term contracts or caps on usage.

The challenges

Price problems

“That seems a bit pricey relative to business-class cable and fiber offerings. But then again, when it is your only viable option, then you’ll pay the money,” explained Jeff Heynen, VP of Broadband Access and Home Networking for Dell’Oro Group, a global market research and advisory services company. “I suspect the LEOs will continue to expand their service offerings and applicability to businesses and end customers beyond residential, but cost remains a barrier to entry for now.”

Competition on Earth

While LEO satellite service providers are working on launching constellations of satellites, it's no secret that federally funded, nationwide broadband rollout enabled by the Biden Administration's Infrastructure and Jobs Act already has hundreds of millions in funding headed to states. It will bankroll statewide broadband deployments by service providers to connect a huge part of LEO operators' target customers – underserved and unserved locations, most located in rural areas.

The problem here is that carriers' expansion media options, fiber, and fixed microwave access (FWA) can offer higher speeds than the LEO technology and may reach customers sooner.

Broadband cable systems also offer speed competition to LEO services and the added benefit of already operating distribution systems with large residential and business reach outside metro areas.

Reliability issues

With incomplete LEO satellite fleets par for the course, the issues of resulting downtime present a concern for enterprises. Downtime is money, and more, so IT managers need to press for strong service-level agreements (SLA) to avoid service interruptions with compensation for unavailability. Heynen advises enterprise IT managers not to subscribe without them.

Geographic coverage

Coverage will improve with more LEO satellite launches. At present, Starlink service is not available in large swaths of the U.S. Other LEO satellite operators, including Viasat and OneWeb, are expanding deployment of the birds to expand geographic coverage around the world.

Accurate coverage maps will play a crucial role in enterprise IT’s interest in LEO satellite services since service regions vary by provider.

Disputes between operators

Although disputes can slow the rollout of new and current services, it’s unclear if and how a dispute between DISH Networks and SpaceX over spectrum use will impact either.

At issue is SpaceX's claim to the FCC that DISH's use of spectrum in the 12Ghz auction would interfere with Musk's LEO satellite service. DISH seeks to now use the spectrum it paid for video and data distribution service to launch a 5G wireless network service. DISH claims the use of Starlink service on mobile vehicles should lead to service deactivation by the FCC if SpaceX doesn't. Stay tuned.

The bottom line

When compared to traditional satellites in higher, geosynchronous orbit, LEOs fare much better when it comes to latency and speed. But since they do have limitations on the bandwidth they can offer, Heynen believes LEOs are a viable option in cases where fixed broadband operations are limited or unavailable. That’s not to say IT managers shouldn’t keep tabs on this emerging operator service sector as those LEO providers get closer to full satellite fleet deployment and farther from initial launches.

*NOTE: In 2020, the FCC issued Amazon a license that requires Amazon to launch at least half of its planned 3,236-satellite constellation by 2026.

Related articles:

• The DISH-SpaceX 5G Spectrum Dispute; Enterprise Impact and Possible Outcomes
• Planning for a Rural Broadband Breakout

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Published on 09 August 2022

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Tens of billions in infrastructure funding are being distributed to close the digital divide, but will certain short-term changes result in problems down the road for all parties?

Aiming to provide enterprise customers with expanded and enriched broadband networks to reach new sites and home workers during challenging times, carriers and their vendors are reworking longstanding practices to skirt weak supply chain links.

Tens of billions in federal funding are earmarked for the telecom industry’s largest ever infrastructure undertaking. The focus is on closing the digital divide and introducing high-speed services using next-generation fiber technologies.

But supply chain woes, chip shortages, and more have some carriers changing the way they acquire broadband infrastructure from equipment suppliers to advance their high-speed Internet service rollouts during a time of mounting frustration.

Current delay situation

When you combine delays in fiber optics, the resin that surrounds them, and the electronics for fiber broadband, carriers are experiencing 52-week lead times, according to Gary Bolton, President of the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA). The group held its annual conference in June and turned away over one hundred exhibitors.

Bolton said 52 weeks is workable for companies that plan their fiber deployments carefully. By the time they apply for a government grant, design their networks, and do other planning, they are going to need at least 52 weeks, anyway.

Rush to cash in

The allure of the largest ever broadband breakout has caught the attention of the telecom industry and enterprise IT. Carriers hope – sooner rather than later - to interest enterprises in expanding and upgrading their corporate networks to reach new offices and support work-from-home efforts as the telecom industry tires of rolling delays from supply chain issues. The waiting is the hardest part.

“Investment in next-generation fiber technologies has skyrocketed over the last four years,” explained Jeff Heynen, VP of Broadband Access and Home Networking for Dell’Oro Group, a market research and advisory services firm. “Broadband service margins remain incredibly strong, providing additional incentives for multi-gigabit service rollouts. Fiber plans have been pushed forward to help (upgrade) access networks.”

Shortening the acquisition process

Non-traditional acquisition processes have taken root. Instead of first apprising vendors of their gear needs in "forecasts," to vendors, Consolidated Communications has dropped forecasts and replaced them with actual purchase orders to shorten the process, explained Tom White, CTO of the carrier, which operates in over twenty states from coast to coast. "A purchase order out trumps a forecast all day, every day." Breaking practices helps deal with a 9-12 month wait on electronics and other required components.

Buying big

Ziply Fiber, a carrier providing business and residential services in parts of the Pacific Northwest, has taken Consolidated’s approach a step farther. “We own a lot of real estate and yards behind buildings,” began John Van Oppen, VP of Network for the company. "We fill it up with a parts supply of about 12 months and keep ordering on the back end." Submitting early purchase orders has also helped the carrier, which also uses the process for acquiring fiber. However, both carrier technology executives admit this changed process is not guaranteed to always work, as equipment vendors often receive de-commit notices from the makers of components used in equipment because of their production challenges. This can add three to six months to the availability of broadband networking – everything from fiber CPE to outside plant equipment such as cabinets.

The carrier executives – and others - discussed numerous issues in the Broadband Technology Summit, a multiday event created by Fierce Telecom and the Dell’Oro Group.

Concerns with overbuying

Dell’Oro’s Heynen questioned the long-term merit of overbuying. "This makes me nervous because the overcommitment is likely going to turn into an overshoot once the supply chain issues are resolved. It is called the Snapback Effect, and we are going to see some of that next year. But even if the providers are overbuying to move up the queue for equipment, the vendors still cannot ship to those commitments, which is reflected in the growing backlogs these vendors have reported."

Low inventories, which have been commonplace during Covid-19, provide a potential snapback effect for the economy.

The road ahead?

Heynen is concerned that recent interest rate increases will slow down purchases and whether a percentage of the vendor backlogs would simply go away as providers canceled projects and waited things out. He is convinced that there will be some operators “who just slow roll their buildouts or cancel some fiber overbuild projects that just aren’t strategic enough.”

Targeting small rural carriers that have landed RDOF funding but that typically lack global supply chains, Nokia in June introduced a network-in-a-box package that lets them provide high-speed fiber services to towns with up to 1,000 homes.

Each Nokia Broadband Relief Kit is comprised of the necessary FTTH equipment, software licenses, support, and state-of-the-art in-home Wi-Fi gateways required to serve a typical town of 1,000 households, according to the vendor. The kits support GPON and XGS-PON over a single port and fiber using Nokia’s Multi-PON-Module (MPM) technology.

The kits can support 25G PON today or when the need arises, according to the vendor. The kits are available now and include expedited delivery. Nokia has created twenty-five of these kits.

Households in unserved or underserved areas have been hardest hit by global supply chain shortages of telecommunications equipment as operators planning new gigabit broadband networks have been unable to complete their builds.

While both public and private funds are available in unprecedented quantities, many small operators have found themselves unable to secure the necessary materials from their established supply chains to meet their self-imposed construction schedules or regulatory-imposed milestones.

Manufacturing might

Global cable maker Corning has asserted that manufacturing capacity is a large part of the problem, especially in North America.

CEO Wendell Weeks put it on the company’s Q4 2021 earnings call in January “if we could make more, we could sell more…the real bottleneck is not resin, is not raw materials, is not labor. It is just us being able to get into place capacity that is more appropriately balanced to the demand that we are experiencing.”

To that end, Corning announced plans to build a new optical fiber manufacturing facility in Poland, and in September 2021, said it would spend $150 million to expand its optical cable manufacturing operation in North Carolina.

The new manufacturing facility in Poland is set to become operational this year. That will free up U.S. fiber capacity for U.S. demand, according to Corning. The company’s execs believe Corning and others expanding manufacturing capacity will improve lead times for their carrier customers.

Related articles:

• Putting Broadband Internet on the Map
• What Enterprises Can Expect as Carriers to Spend Billions on Broadband Rollouts
• Telecom Industry Takes the Workforce Challenge to Staff Internet-for-All Broadband Rollout