it, we could harness bridges of light? Today, that idea is not only real, it’s ready. Wireless Optical Communication (WOC), the modern evolution of Free Space Optics (FSO), uses narrow beams of light to transmit data between two points kilometers apart. The result is a connection that delivers fiber-class performance – multi-gigabit throughput and ultra-low latency – without needing to pick up a shovel. In places where rivers, mountains, forests, or infrastructure gaps make trenching for fiber slow or cost-prohibitive, WOC offers a radically efficient alternative: broadband that travels by light – at the speed of light.  

What sets WOC apart isn’t just its speed, but the freedom it gives to planners. Systems can be deployed in a matter of hours. There’s no need to trench through protected land, no wait for spectrum licenses, and no dependence on latency from orbital relays. That makes WOC uniquely suited for the kind of projects BEAD is now prioritizing: fast, flexible, and resilient infrastructure for communities that have waited long enough. But this isn’t about prioritizing one technology over another, and fiber cabling will remain vital, particularly for last-mile connections. The next phase of BEAD will need all technologies to succeed – in some cases on their own, but in many cases together, as a cohesive network. 

Redundancy vs Resilience

Redundancy is fundamental to network design. It ensures that if one connection fails, traffic can automatically reroute through a secondary link. While redundant systems offer a safe backup, they don’t always guarantee continuity. Failovers can involve delays, manual reconfiguration, or traffic loss, none of which is ideal in remote or resource-constrained environments. For BEAD-funded networks extending into America’s most challenging geographies, the bar is even higher. Continuity must be ingrained not just as a backup plan, but as a design philosophy.   

That’s where resilience enters the design. A resilient network doesn’t react to failure; it actually anticipates it. It’s designed to absorb shocks, reroute intelligently, and recover without disruption. This often means incorporating multiple delivery methods and planning for power, access, and environmental risk in equal measures. In practice, that could mean a blend of fiber, fixed wireless, and Wireless Optical Communication (WOC), each playing a distinct role in keeping the network operational under stress. Particularly in difficult-to-reach areas, states need to start thinking about resilience as core to their architecture rather than a feature that sits on top.   

Examples across the US demonstrate what this approach can achieve. In Florida, a multi-path backhaul design shielded end users from a long-haul fiber outage. In Texas and California, years of extreme weather have exposed the limits of brittle, centralized infrastructure, driving demand for decentralized systems with faster recovery paths. In Puerto Rico, communities have seen the benefit of technologies that can operate off-grid and be deployed in a matter of hours. These are regional lessons with national significance. As climate volatility and cyber risk become the new normal, resilience must be treated as a first-order design principle.

Lighting the Path Ahead

America’s digital future will be shaped not only by how many communities are connected, but by how well those connections hold up under pressure. As the physical and environmental challenges of the middle mile become more visible, so too does the need for infrastructure that’s flexible by design and resilient by default. BEAD’s new technology-agnostic stance expands the pool of eligible technologies and, in doing so, it’s redefining what the country’s connectivity ecosystem may look like in the near future. Performance, cost-efficiency, and speed now share the stage with durability, environmental fit, and the ability to adapt in real time.  

Now, states simply have to act. With Wireless Optical Communication, unlicensed fixed wireless, satellite, and fiber all now on the table, states have a chance to build networks that are quick to deploy and built to last, and, in doing so, ignite their economies by bringing communities into the light.