Dell'Oro Group: Tariffs Will Have Minimal Impact on U.S. Broadband Deployments
The U.S. reliance on tariffs should have minimal impact on most fiber broadband equipment pricing and deployments, Dell'Oro Group's Jeff Heynen wrote Monday. Key U.S. fiber broadband equipment providers have onshored most of their manufacturing and assembly so they can qualify for BEAD's Build America Buy America provisions, he said. Most commonly deployed components have already been self-certified by vendors and seen big increases in domestic manufacturing.
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Some major broadband operators are further insulated from the effects of tariffs because they have multiyear purchase agreements for fiber-optic cabling and connectors. However, cable outside plant upgrades for DOCSIS 4.0 are likely to see higher equipment prices and deployment delays, Heynen said. Given the likely tariff effects on manufacturers Commscope and Teleste, they're probably considering relocating facilities or manufacturing to the U.S. or seeking waivers, he added. In addition, tariffs will affect residential Wi-Fi routers' retail costs by 5%-15%, Heynen said, because while they're exempted, the odds of those exemptions remaining are "very slim."
Heynen said that beyond tariffs, a federal review of BEAD is also likely to have a chilling effect this year on broadband equipment. Dell'Oro was expecting only a limited amount of BEAD funds to flow through to broadband equipment providers in Q4 of this year, he said. "Now, we highly doubt any money will be spent" on optical line and optical network terminals, with the spending instead pushed well into 2026.