As policymakers consider potential major FTTH expansion, U.S. confronts labor and supply chain constraints.

As the United States confronts the need to rapidly ramp up deployment of fiber to the home (FTTH) advanced telecommunications infrastructure, it faces a major labor and supply chain challenges. There are only so many qualified people who know how to design, build, operate and maintain FTTH networks. Over the past two decades or so, field technicians were laid off by investor-owned telephone companies that limited FTTH construction as their legacy copper outside plant was placed in run off mode and deteriorated. Others have retired or are about to, but aren’t being replaced by younger journeymen, notes industry observer Doug Dawson.

Additionally, there is a limited capacity to manufacture fiber optic cable and electronic equipment that controls the photons that carry the bits and bytes of information that power high quality digital voice, video and data.

In a recent podcast interview, Dawson said these constraints disadvantage the small community fiber projects that have sprung up to fill the many potholes in America’s FTTH infrastructure that currently passes only a third of all homes. Due to their limited purchasing power, these smaller builds will go to the back of the line, particularly if they– as is the case with many – lack a “shovel ready” construction plan. Waiting for years for FTTH, they’ll face yet further delay as they are out competed by larger projects and those able to pay higher labor rates – estimated to comprise about 70 percent of construction costs.

These circumstances point to the need for solutions, particularly as federal policymakers contemplate a major fiber infrastructure expansion under the Biden administration’s American Jobs Plan. In this context, it’s properly framed as a jobs plan since the nation will need to raise a large corps of workers to construct the enormous amount of fiber needed to bring it to where it needs to be at present and going forward. It might well be a modified 21st century version of the infrastructure oriented 1939 Works Progress Administration with a digital infrastructure component.

Infrastructure funding might also target projects of a broader regional scope in order to compete for labor and equipment and invest more efficiently due to enhanced market power and economies of scale.

As part of or to supplement the American Jobs Plan, policymakers should also consider industrial policy that would provide incentives to rapidly expand the supply of needed fiber optic cable and electronics and establish temporary capacity to ramp up production.