BEAD Faces Supply Chain Spike and Near-Certain Defaults as Program Shifts to Construction, Panelists Said

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2026 — The shift toward technology neutrality in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program created winners across multiple technologies, panelists said Wednesday at Broadband Breakfast's BEAD Implementation 2026 summit, while raising new questions about defaults, supply chain costs, and long-term network sustainability.

Under Benefit-of-the-Bargain changes, revised BEAD program rules issued in June 2025, low-earth orbit satellite providers captured roughly 23 percent of planned locations nationally and fixed wireless claimed nearly 15 percent. Fiber took 63 percent, said Greg Bathrick, area vice president of commercial development at Calix, a broadband software and equipment company serving roughly 1,000 rural providers. Hybrid fiber-coaxial cable networks, which deliver broadband over a combination of fiber and coaxial cable, took the remainder.

Chris Disher, co-founder of Cajun Broadband, a Louisiana-based internet provider, said fiber remains the strongest long-term technology choice for BEAD-funded locations. Fiber tested at 22.3 petabytes per second in Japan, he said, a speed 23 million times faster than a gigabit connection. His company plans to serve 14,000 homes across 3.5 million feet of fiber in Louisiana.