(L-R): Albert Garcia, Cisco; Nate Walowitz, Northwest Colorado Council of Governments; Robert Macaluso, Intrepid Fiber; Scott Wendland, NICX.

DENVER – The U.S. Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program is set to – eventually – unleash billions-of-dollars toward extending broadband connectivity across the nation, but that money is earmarked for deployment-focused capex, which could leave recipients holding a larger than expected financial opex bag.

This challenge was front-and-center of a panel discussion at this week’s Mountain Connect event, which highlighted the cost challenge and saving options available to those that are granted BEAD funds.

Robert Macaluso, VP of operations at Intrepid Fiber, noted that a fairly conservative estimate on a hypothetical rural 10-mile backhaul fiber network resulted in annual maintenance opex costs of up to 5% of the total capex spent on that deployment.

This amount was usurped by Nate Walowitz, regional broadband director at Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, who said his organization typically plans for yearly opex costs up to 10% of capex spent.

Most of this expense was tied to dealing with real-world challenges, like fixing fiber cuts, moving splice points, and replacing above-ground equipment damaged by vehicles or theft.

Cisco sees tech advantages

Albert Garcia, who heads up Cisco’s Smart Cities and Broadband channel for the U.S. Public Sector, acknowledged that those issues are tough to get around, but added that operators can take advantage of technology advances to help broadband providers manage that opex challenge.

Garcia noted that the first move could be in moving toward a converged IP platform that allows for easier management and control over an increasingly expansive optical broadband footprint. This also has the additional benefit of allowing those providers to offer more revenue-generating services.

“Routers have advanced quite a bit over the last few years, almost getting to the level of bandwidth capabilities as the optical transport and DWDM [dense wavelength division multiplexing] systems, and obviously the coherent optics can do DWDM so it lends itself to really driving more IP services and delivering better IP services as you converge these networks together,” Garcia said.

These equipment pieces are also getting smaller, which can help reduce the physical footprint of the above-ground attack surface.

This collapsing of the network also pays dividends in cutting energy needs. This includes energy to power these network components and cooling sources needed to manage the significant amount of heat generated by those components.

“These cabinets are adding a lot more components to it,” Garcia said. “We're talking about edge computing, we’re talking about a lot of different things that could very well be driving up power consumption. So being as tight with that as possible is going to ultimately improve what you can do.”

Garcia pointed to recent silicon advances that have shown up to a 90% increase in power efficiency compared to legacy platforms.

“So when you start to add them up, they can truly become a big cost saver down the road,” Garcia said, adding that this new equipment can also support more advanced features.

“It's also a platform that could do active Ethernet as well as other types of transports to make it much more flexible, services that you can ultimately deliver so you can certainly simplify residential and business accounts,” Garcia said.

Automation is also allowing for easier management of these networks. Garcia noted that forecasts are for two-thirds of current management needs will be automated within three years.

“You're still going to require some, and it's still going to take a while before it gets to complete, but 68% over three years, that's a lot,” Garcia said of that automation impact. “The question is, how far do you go, and how do you start little by little, to take it, to train the system, to do it the right way, and to understand what the right human intervention that is actually required.”

Cisco has been active in enticing potential BEAD recipients with new technology choices.

Robin Olds, senior sales business development manager for service providers in the Americas at Cisco, told SDxCentral last year that the vendor’s national broadband efforts continue to tap into its Rural Broadband Innovation Center that the vendor opened in North Carolina in 2021. That facility provides a location for partners to work through technology and deployment options toward bridging the digital divide.

“We have talked to electrical co-ops, tribal nations, municipalities, we've even had commercial accounts where they're looking to build out broadband into their local communities and we bring them in show them our technology,” Olds said of that facility.