BEAD-Related M&A Expected to Heat Up in 2026
ORLANDO -- This year has already seen multiple blockbuster mergers and acquisitions in telecom, and the relatively modest levels of BEAD-related consolidation should start to heat up in 2026, said Jonathan Adelstein, TWN Communications' chief strategy and external affairs officer, at the annual Broadband Nation Expo on Monday. Pointing to such activity as Verizon/Frontier, AT&T/Lumen and regional deals, the former Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO said mobile network operators are interested in fiber. The state of BEAD had been unclear going into 2025, but now the rules seem set, and BEAD activity is picking up, he added.
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Meanwhile, broadband industry representatives expressed hopes for greater congressional and administration focus on fiber deployments and for states getting access to BEAD non-deployment funds. Bobbie Gilbert, chief government affairs officer at Ripple Fiber, said there needs to be some form of support for states and localities that are struggling to process applications in a timely fashion, as permits can take a year in some states. She also said the broadband industry could be a source of support to local governments so they can level up their permitting process.
Deloitte Consulting's Tim Haaf said uncertainty “is the death of [M&A] deals,” and issues ranging from tariffs and interest rates to questions surrounding BEAD had a lot of potential buyers holding off in 2025. But with record amounts of cash sitting on company balance sheets, “they want to make deals,” he said.
Adelstein agreed that there’s pent-up M&A demand from the BEAD uncertainty, which chilled activity. Consolidation around rural operators was quiet, he noted. But he said the market will attract more capital in 2026 now that BEAD awards are known, and it’s clear which operators are entering which rural markets.
Florida telecom lawyer Derek Carrillo said Charter/Cox is a massive deal, with huge geographic consolidation. The FCC will heavily scrutinize it, given concerns about what it does to consumer prices long-term, he said. New Charter will likely slash prices in the short term, “but long term is where operators make their money.”
BEAD and the Treasury Department’s Capital Projects Fund are night-and-day broadband programs, to the frustration of states, said Brian Newby, North Dakota's broadband program director. CPF has been consistent in its rules and guidelines, Newby said. State broadband offices “are rules followers. Tell us the rules, and we will do those.” BEAD, however, has been the child of “two NTIAs” -- the Biden administration's and the Trump administration's, he said. Even now, “the assignment changes all the time” with BEAD, while CPF got its money out the door expeditiously.
Once BEAD work is done, expect a lot of consolidation in the broadband industry, Newby said. It's undeniable that there are carriers that are overextended with their BEAD projects, and there will be defaults, he added.
Newby and Carl Guardino, Tarana Wireless' vice president of government affairs and policy, expressed concern about the viability of low earth orbit satellite as a BEAD solution. With one LEO operator winning BEAD awards despite not even providing service yet, “hope isn't a strategy,” Guardino said, seemingly referring to Amazon Leo.
If satellite stays affordable and proves to be a scalable service, it’s a valid solution for BEAD, said Broadband Council adviser Sarah Sullivan. But the use of LEO in connectivity programs raises questions of whether satellite will be good enough in the long term, she said. Maybe satellite technology can keep up with a community’s future needs, but there needs to be feedback between communities and satellite operators over time to monitor that, she argued.
Expo Notebook
Fiber installation and data center work is growing faster than the labor supply to do that work, said Vincent Cioci, CEO of Syracuse-based Luck Grove, a telecommunications construction and engineering firm. One problem is that there’s no natural pipeline for telecom professionals, he said, as there’s widespread ignorance about career opportunities. Stacey Slaughter, CEO of broadband and wireless workforce training provider NCTI, added that high schools need to have telecom and broadband technician career programs, since energy and other industries are competing for the same labor pool.
Randall Covard, senior vice president of legal and people operations for Florida’s Summit Broadband, said there are a lot of ISPs in Florida, and thus a lot of competition for technical and engineering workers. If an operator can keep a new hire beyond a year, they often stay and will become long-term workers, he said.
Ray LaMura, president of VCTA, the Broadband Association of Virginia, said the state has been taking a variety of steps to foster internet adoption. The association worked with the governor’s office when some school boards were reluctant to let Comcast, Charter and Cox send information home with students about the cable ISPs’ low-cost options, he said. It has also been doing training with state legislative aides to make them aware of those low-cost programs so they can serve as forms of digital navigators, he added.
Leah Brackenbury, Tak Broadband's director of public works, said there are particularly high construction costs in California due to notably high restoration requirements, such as often needing to repave much more roadway than was disturbed by a project. She said that can disincentivize some deployment projects, but California's prevailing wage requirements on government-funded projects have an upside in that they attract better construction talent.