2026 Fiber Project Roundup.
Where the Work Is — and What Subs Should Do Now.

Per the BBC Magazine 2025 analysis, the fiber industry posted record numbers and is set up for an even larger 2026.

Underneath the headline number is a market shift: 16.1% of locations now have two or three competing fiber providers, up from just 1.5% in 2015. Overbuild is no longer a fringe behavior — in markets with two competing fiber operators, BBC reports cumulative take rates around 61%, vs. 40–46% for single-provider markets. That math is why so many operators are willing to build into territories already served by an incumbent.

Two structural changes set up 2026 specifically:

• 100% bonus depreciation is back — BBC estimates this alone could lift fiber capex by 5–15% in 2026.
• BEAD funding was released in late 2025 — the $42.5B federal program is now actively moving into state award and construction phases.

Operator / Project	Scope	Region
Trans Americas Fiber System (TAFS)	TAM-1 undersea cable Phase 1 deployed late 2025; expansion through 2026	U.S. — Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, St. Croix
T-Mobile / T-Fiber	Continued integration of Greenlight and GoNetspeed acquisitions; new expansion into Rhode Island and New Jersey	New York, Pennsylvania, New England, RI, NJ
Omni Fiber	$465M+ investment to pass roughly 400,000 new locations	Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania
Google Fiber (GFiber)	2026 expansion into Douglas County, Colorado; following 2025 launches in Lawrence, KS and Wilmington, NC	Colorado (new), prior: Kansas, North Carolina
South Reach Networks	60 new miles of underground fiber connecting Miami, Boca Raton, and Fort Lauderdale data centers and subsea cable landings	South Florida
Jo-Carroll Energy	Rural broadband buildout serving 27 neighborhoods, 5,400+ locations, funded with rural broadband grants	Northwest Illinois
HIVE Digital Technologies	$3.1M high-speed network supporting Eastern Canada’s first sovereign AI factory (announced May 2026)	New Brunswick, Canada
AT&T	Committed to adding ~1 million additional fiber locations per year on top of the post-Lumen acquisition footprint	National (multi-state)
Verizon	Up to $2B in 2026 tax savings earmarked for network expansion	National

Beyond the national operators, a long list of regional ISPs and cooperatives are running 2025–2026 builds. These are typically better access points for small and mid-sized subcontractors than the nationals — less red tape, more direct relationships with project managers, faster pay cycles.

For 2026, fiber operators can fully expense qualifying capital investment in the year it’s placed in service — instead of depreciating over 15–20 years. That math change is enormous: $1B of fiber capex can now translate into roughly $210M of immediate federal tax savings at the 21% corporate rate. Verizon has publicly committed to plowing up to $2B in tax savings into expansion. BBC estimates the industry-wide impact at 5–15% higher fiber capex than 2025 levels.

The $42.5B Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program had been mostly stuck in the state planning phase. By late 2025 and into 2026, awards are flowing to providers and construction is starting in earnest — particularly in rural states that have completed their challenge processes and final award stages. This is largely additive to private operator capex — BEAD funds primarily unserved rural footprints that private operators wouldn’t have built anyway.

With 16.1% of fiber locations now having two or three providers, and take-rate math favoring overbuilders, expect a wave of competitive metro and exurban buildouts on top of the rural BEAD work. T-Mobile’s T-Fiber expansion, AT&T’s additional 1M locations/year, and Google Fiber’s Douglas County, Colorado entry are all examples.

Separate from residential FTTH, hyperscaler data center fiber has emerged as a parallel demand driver — Meta’s LevelUp program, Texas’s 140 planned data centers, and projects like HIVE’s sovereign AI factory in New Brunswick all signal sustained demand for structured cabling crews, BICSI-credentialed installers, and inter-building OSP fiber.

The bottleneck on the 2026 buildout isn’t money, isn’t fiber strand, isn’t equipment — it’s qualified field crews. Multiple operators are reporting that they have funded backlog they can’t mobilize against because they can’t find enough qualified OSP, splicing, and drop install subs. This is why Meta launched LevelUp and why every major operator now runs an internal training program.

Looking at the project list above, a single operator (T-Mobile, Omni, AT&T) is now running fiber builds across 3–10+ states simultaneously. Subs that can mobilize crews across state lines — with proper workers’ comp registration in each state, multi-state commercial auto, and per-state contractor licensing — have a significant advantage when bidding regional or national operator work.

The mix above (subsea, data center interconnect, residential FTTH, rural co-op) means subs can specialize in one lane or build a diversified book across several. Diversified subs are more resilient to project delays — when one prime’s funding stalls, work shifts to others. Single-prime dependency is one of the most common ways small contractors get squeezed.

Subs working across multiple primes and states in 2026 have to think about insurance as a compliance system, not a single policy. Common gaps:

Issue	What Changes for Multi-State / Multi-Prime Subs
General Liability Limits	$2M / $4M is now baseline for any large prime. Hyperscaler data center primes push to $5M aggregate. Build limits to the highest requirement in your portfolio, not the lowest.
Workers’ Compensation	Required per state. NC requires it at 3+ employees; CA requires it at 1+; TX is voluntary but subscribership is effectively required by hyperscaler GCs. Multi-state operations need multi-state workers’ comp.
Commercial Auto	$1M CSL with hired & non-owned auto. Cross-state crew travel makes this non-negotiable.
Umbrella	$5M–$10M to cover the highest-limit prime in your book without stacking individual policies.
Underground Utility Strike Coverage	Cannot be excluded. Rural fiber work is strike-heavy — an exclusion kills your ability to bid.
Additional Insured Endorsements	Build a COI template that can issue AI endorsements to multiple primes with primary & noncontributory wording on short notice.
Pollution Liability	Increasingly required on directional drilling, trenching, and any underground work. Phoenix and Texas primes already require it; others are following.
Davis-Bacon / Certified Payroll	Required on federally-funded BEAD work. Your broker and accounting workflow need to be ready.

• Identify which of the major 2026 operators have build activity in your geographic footprint — T-Mobile/T-Fiber, AT&T, Omni Fiber, Google Fiber, Verizon, regional ISPs and cooperatives
• Apply to each prime’s vendor pre-qualification program before you have a bid — intake takes weeks
• Track BEAD award announcements in your state — the grantee is typically your real prime contact
• Watch for hyperscaler data center construction GC announcements (DPR, Turner, Skanska, Holder) in your region

• Get crew current on OSHA 10 / OSHA 30
• Pursue BICSI Installer Level 1 (data center / structured cabling work)
• Maintain FOA CFOT for fiber-specific credentials
• Register your business in every state where you mobilize crews
• Verify workers’ comp in every state of operation
• Maintain state-specific contractor licensing where required (CA, NC, others)

• Confirm GL limits at $2M / $4M minimum, with no underground utility strike exclusion
• Add umbrella to $5M+ for hyperscaler / BEAD work
• Add hired & non-owned auto for multi-state crew travel
• Verify inland marine covers your fusion splicers, OTDRs, and MPO testers
• Pre-build a COI template that can issue AI endorsements with primary & noncontributory wording within hours
• Confirm your broker can support Davis-Bacon documentation on federally-funded scopes