Light Reading Podcasts The Divide: Shirley Bloomfield on rural broadband progress, BEAD's 'bargain' and USF
Feb 3, 2026
Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA and long-time rural connectivity advocate, reflects on her career and urgency to finish key priorities. She talks about rising fiber-to-home deployment, challenges like supply-chain and storm resilience, BEAD rule changes and the controversial 'bargain' approach, why some providers walk away from awards, and the importance of preserving the Universal Service Fund.
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Rural Fiber Adoption Momentum
- NTCA members have steadily adopted fiber, raising FTTH access to about 92% for their customers.
- Shirley calls the steady progress toward fiber deeply fulfilling and sees the remaining 8% as the toughest to reach.
Fiber Improves Reliability And Lowers Costs
- Fiber's operational efficiency and reliability reduce OPEX and improve disaster resilience.
- Shirley notes fiber and buried plant meant few members lost service during a big storm, with power being the main issue.
Build For Demand, Not The Lowest Bid
- Prioritize building durable networks that meet growing consumer demand rather than lowest-cost deployments.
- Avoid bidding into programs that underfund long-term sustainability and risk unsustainable networks.