Broadband infrastructure and software provider Calix is the latest vendor touting plans to expand its U.S. manufacturing capabilities in support of the federal government’s $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

Calix said it will move some of its overseas production to the United States. The most immediate transition is with domestic manufacturing partner Jabil at a facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan. That five-year partnership will have Jabil producing optical network terminals (ONTs) and optical line terminals (OLTs).

Jabil had previously scored U.S.-based work with Ericsson, acting as an initial manufacturing house for the Swedish vendor’s move to build some of its network equipment in the U.S. Those efforts used Jabil’s manufacturing facility in St. Petersburg, Florida, to build radio equipment, which Ericsson said would help speed the delivery of that equipment to its domestic operator customers.

Calix also reported a 10-year partnership with Hisense Broadband to produce optical modules at that firm’s New Jersey production facility, and an eight-year partnership with Gemtek to produce ONTs at that firm’s California facility.

Calix said the moves were backed by an initial investment of between $4 million and $6 million, with ongoing investments of between $10 million and $15 million per year. In addition to the U.S.-made equipment, the investments will generate more than 100 jobs tied to new employees needed for manufacturing, operations, engineering, quality assurance and administrative roles.

“The decision to move manufacturing to the US will ensure that Calix customers can leverage the BEAD program to meet this objective while helping create new high-value manufacturing jobs nationwide,” Calix noted in a statement.

A Calix spokesperson in an email to SDxCentral added that the firm currently manufactures its products in “a variety of facilities across Asia.”

Calix currently employs more than 1,000 people in the U.S. It has been focused on rural broadband service providers, counting more than 1,300 active customers in the U.S. It has also worked with larger providers, including work with Verizon.

Calix CEO Michael Weening said the onshoring of production will allow the vendor to “get back to that just-in-time mindset because you now actually can assemble closer and it's not sitting for months on a boat.”

Weening further noted that this will be beneficial for the vendor in dealing with some of its larger customers, like Broadcom.

“We're working with a lot of great American companies who are doing a lot of development here,” Weening said. “If you look at Broadcom, for example, they have a huge U.S. base of engineers … I think they have 18,000 engineers at Broadcom, and they're our most important partner with regard to silicon, they've announced their investments, and so what that allows us to do is to expand upon that.”

Calix’s move echoes that of other optical equipment vendors like Nokia and Infinera that have announced plans to extend their manufacturing capabilities in the United States in order to provide BEAD-compliant equipment to customers.

During the Calix press briefing, Assistant Secretary of Commerce Alan Davidson explained that the BEAD program requires that 90% of the money doled out has to be spent on equipment made in the U.S. He further clarified that this was a “pragmatic approach” tied to challenges sourcing specific components.

“We heard from the beginning that there were going to be challenges and we took a close look at whether there were going to be very specific pieces of equipment – also around semiconductors – where we knew there would be huge challenges in bringing the manufacturing back on shore or where it wouldn't really be really worth it for companies to do it for some of the connectors and smaller pieces,” Davidson said.

“We recognize that there are going to still be some components that will be made outside of the United States," he added. "But we want to make sure we ask these questions: Can it be made in the U.S.? Can it be done in time for the BEAD program? Can it be done in a way that's commercially viable? If it can, we're going to have it done here.

"In the small set of cases where it can't be, we're going to be pragmatic and make sure that we can meet the goals of the deployment on these programs.”