Observations from the TIA BEAD Success Summit: Critical Factors that will Define the Success (or Failure) of this Generational Program

On April 19 and 20, a sell-out crowd consisting of the main stakeholders that will be responsible for the success of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program descended upon Washington D.C. for the TIA BEAD Success Summit. Keynotes and panels included luminaries that ranged from U.S. Senators (Mark Warner of Virginia), critical agency leaders like Kevin Gallagher of the U.S. Department of Commerce and Will Arbuckle of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), key influencers like Blair Levin of the Brookings Institution and more than a dozen state broadband offices, as well as technology vendors, consulting engineering firms and service providers.

It was a truly informative event highlighting what we know – and what we don’t yet know – about this generational opportunity to close the digital divide and push America to the forefront of the connected world.

DZS was proud to be a Platinum sponsor of the summit, helping secure panelists and attendees and participating across numerous panels and delivering a keynote. It was clear from the event even though the BEAD Program is still on the horizon, with details in important areas like Build America, Buy America (BABA), updated broadband maps, and timing of applications and awards still yet to be finalized, there is enough information available for everyone involved in the program to get serious about planning,  positioning and implementation. The opportunity is too big, and the stakes are too high to wait until everything is settled – so it was the perfect time and venue for an event like this to take place. Senator Mark Warner summed it up perfectly with, “Let’s not screw it up!”

As a participant in the main technology panel discussing “Fiber to the Premises: Maximizing Bandwidth While Overcoming Reach Constraints”,  a sponsor keynote, and an exhibitor who engaged with a wide range of stakeholders during the conference, it was clear to me that there were a few key messages that all ecosystem participants should keep in mind to ensure that the BEAD Program is ultimately successful.

• Look at the Big Picture – Successfully leveraging BEAD is ESSENTIAL for the communities currently not connected with adequate internet and it will define their future trajectory. For the service providers involved, it is also important to understand that this program is a catalyst for a long-term business model in serving these communities – not a one-time investment that expires at the end of the program.
• Be Strategic – It is important to understand that BEAD itself is not a strategy – it is a means to an end in creating a long-term service model for the communities it benefits. This means that architectures deployed should consider the ease and expense of future upgrades, and that ongoing OPEX should be minimized. It should also be viewed holistically, not just ready for future requirements in the last mile, but capacity increases in the middle mile as well.
• Invest with the Future in Mind – Strategic service providers will use this opportunity to transform their service models to that of an “experience provider” and deploy solutions that will allow them to not just meet the minimum technical requirements, but more importantly, to be responsive to the evolving needs of their subscribers. This involves personalization of services as well as service agility and world-class support enabled by analytical software, machine learning and ultimately artificial intelligence. From a technology perspective, choices need to favor the long run, with open solutions that can easily be upgraded and accommodate applications of the future.

The fact is that everyone involved in the BEAD Program is engaged in a noble cause – to connect all corners of the U.S. with world-class, affordable broadband access. We need to do this right, as failure is not an option. The promise from DZS is that we can be a powerful partner in ensuring BEAD success.

Our DZS Velocity Access EDGE systems lead the industry in future-readiness and flexibility, with non-blocking architectures and in-place upgrades to 50G PON and beyond. These systems are complemented by our groundbreaking DZS Saber Optical EDGE platforms, which provide extraordinary capacity, scalability and reach for the middle mile in an environmentally hardened, compact, and modular form factor.

Our DZS Cloud solutions are leveraged in tens of millions of homes and businesses globally to provide the analytics, orchestration, automation, service assurance and WiFi experience management that can allow service providers in hard-to-reach areas unprecedented levels of insight and efficiency.

We encourage all stakeholders to engage with DZS from education, to planning and strategy, to execution, and leverage our expertise, solutions and partnerships to make the BEAD initiatives a rousing success!

For more information on DZS, and our solutions that are ideal to support BEAD and other government funding initiatives, visit dzsi.com.