Experts at Metro Connect 2025 tackled the supply chain, permitting, workforce and technology challenges threatening to derail projects, sharing ideas for building faster, smarter, and more collaboratively.
Speakers
- Hunter Newby, Owner – Newby Ventures (moderator)
- Kerry Haughan, SVP, Commercial Strategy – Calix
- Vincent Cioci, CEO – Luck Grove
- Robert Laudati, VP of product and partnerships – Render Networks
- Raj Singh, CEO – VCTI
- Char Noland, VP of solutions consulting – Vitruvi
Demand vs delivery
Digital infrastructure operators are under growing pressure to accelerate deployments as surging demand outpaces the industry’s capacity to deliver.
Whether driven by hyperscaler AI growth or fibre builds funded by federal programmes like Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD), panellists at Metro Connect 2025 agreed that overlapping investment cycles are straining every link in the chain, from components and materials to permitting and skilled labour.
“There’s a demand spike coming,” said Kerry Haughan, SVP for commercial strategy at Calix. “We’re working all the way back through our supply chain to shorten the lead times on components, but it still hinges on accurate forecasting.”
Getting ahead of the BEAD curve, he explained, means not only anticipating spikes in demand but also aligning internal and external partners on the timing of procurement, deployment, and revenue realisation.
“We’re under 12 months now on response time, down from 24, but you still need to predict well.”
For construction and engineering players, the squeeze is even tighter.
“It’s hard to find resource pools trained and capable of handling this kind of volume,” said Vincent Cioci, CEO of Luck Grove. “Companies like mine really have to focus on implementing a robust training programme from the start, so that helps mitigate a lot of those issues.”
With both AI and government-backed fibre builds hitting at once, companies like Luck Grove are investing in robust training programmes just to keep up.
Robert Laudati, VP of product and partnerships at Render Networks, added that while supply chain headaches have long been a reality, the recent acceleration of funding and urgency has introduced a new kind of time compression:
“Now, it’s not just about having the materials or the labour, it’s about timing them perfectly together. That’s where it’s breaking down.”
The consequence? Delays, budget overruns, and in some cases, cancelled projects. As the panel made clear, the new normal isn’t just about scaling infrastructure, it’s about synchronising ecosystems that weren’t designed for this level of simultaneity.
Supply chain visibility and forecasting
From permitting delays to mismatched deliveries, a lack of visibility into deployment pipelines continues to undermine digital infrastructure rollouts.
For many operators, the problem isn’t just limited access to materials or labour, it’s that one arrives without the other.
“People that make project plans that are informed by dates given to them by vendors that aren’t verified… it’s sort of fallacy,” said Hunter Newby, panel moderator and owner of Newby Ventures.
“Sometimes the materials show up, but the people aren’t on site—or the people are there, but the material didn’t show up.”
For Render Networks’ Laudati, solving that disconnect begins with accurate design and real-time coordination.
“If you have a well-oiled, well-built, well-thought-through design and plan, you can start to use that to orchestrate not only what work is needed but when it’s needed,” he said.
“The order of which network projects need to be built really matters, because if you’re not going to be building in this area for six months, you don’t need to pressure your supply chain now.”
That ability to prioritise and plan dynamically, he added, becomes even more essential on multi-year projects with evolving requirements.
“As the complexity of these projects continues to increase, that time element forces you into some form of digital approach. And this is where some of that technology, even AI, can be used to forecast better what’s coming into your project.”
Char Noland, VP of solutions consulting at Vitruvi, echoed the need for tighter integration between systems.
“We always say we have a complete end-to-end solution—but the reality is, it starts with a design. Then you move that into part of your project plan, and eventually that feeds your financial applications,” she explained.
“Often it’s in the financial system where material is actually ordered. If those systems aren’t connected in real time, you don’t get true end-to-end visibility.”
Ultimately, the panellists agreed that digital tools can’t eliminate deployment risk, but they can provide a much clearer picture, early enough to act.
As Noland put it, “It’s not about one system—it’s about tying them all together so that you know what’s happening, where, and when.”
Construction bottlenecks: Permits, delays and coordination gaps
Even with materials secured and labour on standby, construction delays continue to threaten deployment timelines, most often due to permitting hold-ups or a lack of early coordination.
“There’s two big ones,” said Cioci. “It’s timeliness of material ordering and making sure your vendors have the correct material. And then the second would be permitting—making sure that you’re partnering with a good engineering vendor that’s seeing those permits well ahead of time.”
He pointed to railroads in particular as a common pain point: “We all know how long those take.”
That early engagement between engineering and construction teams was repeatedly emphasised as critical.
“Before we even hit boots on the ground, we have the materials ordered, and our permits are submitted and identified correctly,” Cioci added. “It sounds so basic, but time and time again, we’re held up by those delays.”
From the vendor side, Calix’s Haughan noted that missed timelines aren’t just about late shipments, they can trigger full-scale cancellations.
“It’s less about the delays for us as it is about the cancellations,” he explained. “When funding runs out, or a project gets killed, that’s a far bigger impact. We try to manage those demand signals as best we can, but ultimately, it hinges on whether the customer can execute.”
Permitting was cited as a particularly outsized constraint, especially for rural and tribal projects supported by BEAD funding.
Haughan stressed that framing matters: “A lot of times it feels like, ‘you’re going to delay my project,’ but if you reframe it as, ‘this is going to be great for your townspeople and community,’ you get a better start to the discussion.”
The panel returned multiple times to the need for upstream engagement, not just with permitting agencies, but across the supply and build chain.
As Laudati put it: “Understanding the order of operations, whether you’re doing splicing or vaults, overhead or underground, it matters. And it has to be baked into the project plan from the start.”
The evolving role of software
While not a silver bullet, the panellists suggested digital tools are becoming essential for managing complexity in fibre and data centre builds.
The shift from paper-based workflows to integrated construction management systems is helping reduce delays and improve coordination across teams.
“Now is the time,” said Cioci, noting that Luck Grove’s field crews are increasingly ditching paper for iPads, using digital splice diagrams and mobile-friendly interfaces. “We’ve started implementing tools like Render and Vitruvi, and the transition is already happening.”
Adoption, however, remains uneven. “We’re still lagging in terms of what can be done out in the field,” said Render’s Laudati. “There’s a persistent adoption problem, and we need to do more to support it.”
The panel agreed that the goal of using digital tools isn’t to replace field experience, but to amplify it.
“If your design is right, and your systems are talking to each other,” Singh said. “You’ll avoid the need to reorder and rebalance things midstream. That’s where software can really add value.”
Bridging the labour gap: Training the next wave
Despite demand surging, the industry faces a critical shortage of skilled labour, particularly in areas like electrical work, fibre splicing, and field installation.
The panel was unanimous: without new workforce strategies, timelines and budgets will continue to suffer.
“We’re short 20,000 to 30,000 skilled electrical workers,” moderator Newby said, citing figures shared earlier during the event. “That’s going to lead to delays, cancellations, and overbudget projects.”
Several speakers pointed to in-house training as a core strategy.
“Luck Grove grew from five to 300 employees in two years,” said Cioci. “We hired from adjacent industries—solar, utilities—and built a robust training programme from the start. It’s the only way to keep up.”
Singh of VCTI noted that building trust with subcontractors and giving them visibility into project timelines helps them prepare, adding: “Give them assurance that the work is coming, so they can train or hire accordingly.
Singh also noted that many workers from the solar industry have transferable skills and could help fill telecom roles—if the sector can attract them.
On the software side, Noland emphasised making tools easier to use: “We can’t train electricians, but we can shorten the learning curve for the systems they use.
“We’re putting real-time tools in the field—so even junior staff can communicate with supervisors, solve problems, and become productive faster.”
Aligning the industry: Transparency, collaboration and cultural change
If there was one theme that tied the session together, it was the need for greater transparency and collaboration across vendors, contractors, and software systems.
Several speakers echoed the need to break down silos, both organisational and technical, with Noland noting: “You’re never going to get down to one system, but the systems you do use need to be open—so your data can flow between departments and partners in real time.”
That need for interoperability also applies to the workforce.
“Organising your limited skill sets so they’re only doing the work only they can do, that’s what software should help you do,” Laudati surmised. “We haven’t done a great job of that yet.”
