In 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act with a bold promise: bring high-speed internet to every American household. At the heart of that promise was BEAD, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deploym ent program, a $42.45 billion effort to finally connect the rural and underserved communities left behind by decades of uneven telecom investment.
But nearly three years later, the program’s progress is being called into question. Not because the funding isn’t there, it is. Every U.S. state and territory has received funding, and most have submitted deployment plans. The issue, critics say, lies in how that money is being used.
According to a recent estimate, as much as 90% of BEAD funding is currently directed toward fiber-optic buildouts, the gold standard for internet infrastructure, but also one of the most expensive and time-consuming technologies to deploy. In many rural areas, trenching fiber can cost upwards of $50,000 per mile, with some states reporting estimates as high as $77,000 per household.
The criticism has been building. In April 2025, over 100 bipartisan state legislators warned that rigid BEAD mandates could “undo years of planning and delay deployment by more than a year.” Others have called the program’s execution wasteful and needlessly slow, with one California county supervisor noting, “The need is there and the funding is there, but it’s just a very inefficient process.”
“The obsession with fiber is understandable, it’s fast, it’s reliable, and it’s scalable,” says Tom Starr, Chairman Emritus and former President of the Broadband Forum and one of the architects behind many of the global standards for broadband deployment. “But insisting on fiber everywhere, no matter the terrain or cost, is like insisting every town needs a subway. It’s a one-size-fits-all solution in a country that clearly isn’t.”
Starr also serves as an advisor to Actelis Networks, a company focused on enabling fiber-grade broadband performance over a mix of fiber and existing legacy infrastructure. In an environment where time and funding are limited, this type of hybrid deployment can serve as a valuable complement to fiber, not a replacement, but an accelerator.
The company’s approach is simple: use fiber where it makes sense, but in places where copper or coaxial cables already exist, such as old telephone lines or MDU (multi-dwelling unit) buildings, amplify and bring to fiber performance what’s already there, without replacing the infrastructure. Solutions like Actelis’ GL900 and GL800 enable fiber-grade, secure, symmetrical gigabit-speed internet over legacy copper or coax lines, dramatically reducing both the cost and time required to bring a user online.
The timing may be right. In June 2025, the NTIA, the federal agency overseeing BEAD, quietly overhauled the program’s rules, stripping out its fiber-first preference and requiring states to consider all “reliable broadband technologies” on an equal footing. Under the new “Benefit of the Bargain” policy, state broadband offices must now re-evaluate whether alternative solutions might offer similar performance at lower cost.
For companies like Actelis, this is significant. “We’ve been saying from day one: if the goal is to connect as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, you have to be pragmatic,” says Barlev. “BEAD wasn’t meant to be a fiber subsidy. It was meant to end the digital divide.”
The urgency is real. While BEAD planning continues, private-sector providers, including 5G wireless carriers and satellite operators like Starlink, are rapidly signing up customers in unserved regions. According to one analysis, over half of the locations identified as “unserved” in 2022 have since been covered by other programs or private investment, making them inelgible for BEAD funding. That means the remaining households are likely the hardest and most expensive to reach, making the case for flexible, lower-cost solutions even stronger.
There’s also the issue of equity. When tens of thousands of dollars are spent to bring fiber to a single remote farm, that’s money not spent connecting ten homes elsewhere. “Every dollar we overspend is a household that stays offline. We can do better.” says Barlev.
Still, not everyone is convinced. Some industry groups argue that anything short of full fiber risks entrenching second-class digital infrastructure. But that argument assumes newer automatically means better, and ignores that fiber too, has its challenges. Already back in 2002, an FCC study noted that typical metro fiber networks experience 13 cable cuts per 1,000 miles per year, roughly one cut every four days on a 30,000-mile route, causing hours-long outages and expensive repairs. Fiber also requires skilled splicing and testing, and can degrade with tight bends over time.
Meanwhile, copper and coaxial networks have consistently delivered reliable voice and data service for decades, and modern hybrid deployments can now meet or exceed BEAD’s own performance standards. More importantly, they can be deployed much faster, bringing service to Americans who might otherwise wait years for fiber.
In that context, these hybrid approaches may offer a path forward, not as a compromise, but as a strategy. One that helps communities leap ahead, builds smartly on what already exists, and makes every dollar of BEAD funding go further.