Research Note

Abstract

LightCounting reports from FiberConnect 2025

by Stelyana Baleva

June 24, 2025

Last week, LightCounting published a research note highlighting key takeaways from OptiNet China Conference, discussing fiber-to-the-home deployments and China’s lead in deploying 50G PON. Today’s research note focuses on the U.S. fiber broadband market with highlights from FiberConnect 2025, discussing the need for funding support to connect the unconnected and the advancement of 25G PON.

According to a report by FTTH Council Europe, China ranks third globally in fiber penetration, with 93.6% FTTH/B subscriber penetration (#1 is UAE with 99.5% and #2 is South Korea with 96.6%). In comparison, fiber penetration in the U.S. is 28.7%—still above other developed countries that are lagging behind, such as the U.K. (26.3%) and Germany (11.2%).

At OptiNet China, speakers talked about "Fiber-to-Everywhere," highlighting that fiber is now very inexpensive and that bandwidth-intensive AI-related use cases are emerging. In stark contrast, speakers at FiberConnect focused on the challenges of securing funding—both private and public—to deploy fiber in suburban, rural, tribal, and remote communities in the U.S. These areas already face a strong demand for bandwidth, driven by applications in agriculture, education, healthcare and beyond, but the cost of deployment remains a significant barrier. It is not the higher cost of fiber cables in the U.S., compared to China, it is the cost of cable deployments that matters.

FiberConnect 2025 was fueled by the excitement of over 5,000 attendees from network operators to technology innovators—all holding their breath in anticipation of changes to the U.S. government’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program funding. And sure enough, three days after FiberConnect 2025 ended, the NTIA published the new BEAD policy, rewriting the rules of the $42.5 billion program and confirming the ecosystem’s worst fears: the preference for end-to-end fiber is gone.

The new policy guidance eliminates the fiber-first preference and nixes all previously approved proposals. It establishes a short 90-day “Benefit-of-the-Bargain” re-bid, giving states a short time to rewrite their broadband roadmaps focusing on cost-first.

A huge ecosystem of companies has sprung up around states’ plans to pursue government broadband funding but now some will have to adjust their expectations. The BEAD program was already delayed by at least six months, which raised the question of how much longer some of the companies could wait before going out of business or moving on to something else, if they wouldn’t be laying fiber in the ground.

However, speakers at the event said that opportunities are emerging from private funding, helping to offset these delays and driving continued investment in fiber infrastructure projects in the U.S. This may be a good time to launch Google Fiber v2.0…



The Fiber Broadband Association has strongly advocated fiber-first policies and has played an important role in the direction of the BEAD program since its inception in 2021. It has emphasized fiber’s long-term scalability and economic benefits, ensuring that BEAD’s original guidelines prioritized fiber-first deployments. Its organization has enjoyed accelerated growth, and its membership increased 178% in the last five years—reaching 625 member companies in May 2025, with network operators representing 45% of the membership. Now it faces challenges with BEAD’s new direction.

The new notice of funding opportunity no longer says “fiber-first”, instead it defines as priority:

• “Benefit of the Bargain”: the states must conduct at least one additional selection round to ensure the lowest-cost broadband option.
• Performance: broadband network needs to deliver service at speeds of no less than 100Mbit/s download and 20Mbit/s upload with latency less than 100 milliseconds.
• “Regardless on technology employed”: funds are possible to shift away from fiber to cable, fixed wireless access (FWA) and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite, if cost and performance are met.

Full text of the research note is available to LightCounting subscribers at: https://www.lightcounting.com/login

LightCounting will continue to monitor the future development of the broadband market in the U.S. An updated Access Optics forecast will be published in October as part of our Market Forecast Report. We will also discuss the trends in the broadband market in greater detail in the Access Optics Report to be published in November 2025.