Aiming to provide enterprise customers with expanded and enriched broadband networks to reach new sites and home workers during challenging times, carriers and their vendors are reworking longstanding practices to skirt weak supply chain links.
Tens of billions in federal funding are earmarked for the telecom industry’s largest ever infrastructure undertaking. The focus is on closing the digital divide and introducing high-speed services using next-generation fiber technologies.
But supply chain woes, chip shortages, and more have some carriers changing the way they acquire broadband infrastructure from equipment suppliers to advance their high-speed Internet service rollouts during a time of mounting frustration.