Dell’Oro: Fiber Build Likely Shielded from Tariffs
The group noted there has already been some onshoring in preparation for BEAD.
Jake Neenan
WASHINGTON, April 18, 2025 – Fiber broadband deployment might not be significantly impacted by tariffs imposed on imports this year, according to the Dell’Oro Group.
The Trump administration announced sweeping duties on most American trading partners on April 2, then paused much of them for 90 days on April 9, leaving a 10 percent tariff in place across the board. A 145 percent duty is still in place for Chinese goods, with a partial exemption for consumer electronics, which are subject to 20 percent.
Given the uncertainty, “it remains challenging to forecast the full extent of the impact on broadband infrastructure in the near term,” Jeff Heynen, Dell’Oro Group's vice president of broadband access and home networking, wrote in a blog post Monday. The Silicon Valley-based firm produces telecom market research.
That said, he noted companies have already moved manufacturing onshore for some of those most common components of fiber networks to comply with the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program’s domestic manufacturing requirements.
“Though not all of the products being deployed in broadband access networks have been onshored,” Heynen wrote, the most common components “have already been self-certified by the respective vendors and have already seen substantial increases in domestic manufacturing.”
Those include the cable itself, cabinets, and terminals for both central offices and end-user premises, he wrote.
BEAD, the initiative to connect as many unserved homes and businesses as possible, is for now focused on expanding fiber when possible.
The Trump administration appears poised to change that, but vendors already had years to engage with the government, get the most onerous requirements waived, and start to set up shop in the United States.
As of January, more than 40 suppliers had certified to the Commerce Department they produced compliant equipment, including major ones like Nokia and Corning.
The major telecoms also have deep inventories and long-term purchasing agreements, Heynen noted, pointing to AT&T’s $1 billion deal with Corning.
“Originally intended to safeguard against supply shortages, this move now also serves to mitigate the risk of rising component costs,” he wrote.
Analysts had flagged that the original slate of broad tariffs could potentially cause a small slow down in fiber deployments by increasing costs to pass and hook up new customers. Heynen wrote that for the larger operators, this would likely be marginal.
“Even if the cost to pass and connect homes increases due to tariff-induced price increases, the fiber strategies of major operators including AT&T, Frontier, Lumen, and others aren’t going to change,” he wrote.
Cable upgrades, on the other hand, could be materially affected, Heynen wrote. He noted major component manufacturers operate in Mexico and Finland.
“The net result for cable operators pursuing DOCSIS 4.0 is additional deployment delays as well as increased equipment prices,” he wrote.
