{"id":46672,"date":"2025-07-30T04:21:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T04:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/46672\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T04:21:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T04:21:19","slug":"fiber-firm-pivots-as-broadband-goes-tech-neutral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/46672\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiber firm pivots as broadband goes tech neutral"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>About a year ago, \u201cMarketplace\u201d host Kai Ryssdal was hanging out in Claremont, North Carolina, in a <a title=\"\" class=\"interallink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2024\/08\/26\/fiber-optic-cables-internet-broadband-manufacturing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">plant owned by Prysmian<\/a>, a fiber-optic cable manufacturer. He was watching sand and glass turn into the heavy-duty cables that bring us the internet.<\/p>\n<p>Ryssdal was there to see that process because the \u201cMarketplace\u201d team was reporting on BEAD, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. The program was tasked<a title=\"\" class=\"interallink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2024\/08\/27\/in-national-broadband-rollout-rural-landscapes-pose-a-challenge\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> with using $42 billion<\/a> of federal money to attempt a national broadband rollout.<\/p>\n<p>While none of that money was going directly to fiber manufacturers like Prysmian, fiber internet was meant to be the priority in the national broadband expansion. However, earlier this year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced that BEAD was going to see <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/broadbandusa.ntia.gov\/news\/latest-news\/statement-us-secretary-commerce-howard-lutnick-bead-program\">some changes<\/a>. Those included a switch to a \u201c<a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/commerce-sec-lutnick-releases-new-bead-guidance-tech-neutral\/\">tech-neutral approach<\/a>,\u201d meaning that \u201cfiber first\u201d is no longer the goal.<\/p>\n<p>Patrick Jacobi is SVP of digital solutions in North America for Prysmian. He joined Ryssdal to talk about how the policy change is playing out in the fiber internet supply chain, and how other economic headwinds are creating both challenges and opportunities for the company. <\/p>\n<p>Listen in the player above to hear their conversation.<\/p>\n<p>Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About a year ago, \u201cMarketplace\u201d host Kai Ryssdal was hanging out in Claremont, North Carolina, in a plant&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[13797,2285,28801,4792,7258,24929,174,74],"class_list":["post-46672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-internet","tag-bead","tag-bipartisan-infrastructure-law","tag-broadband-access","tag-copper-prices","tag-data-centers","tag-fiber-internet","tag-internet","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}