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What’s New

Fiber Connect 2026 is “Light Years Ahead” – showcasing how fiber is powering the next generation of communities, industries, and innovation. There are new thematic programs, activations, and pre-conference workshops designed to meet attendees where they are and help them move forward at light speed.

New Sunday Pre-Conference Lineup

Kick off your week with a completely reimagined Sunday focused on practical, roll-up-your-sleeves learning:

  • FBA Fiber Starter Toolkit
    A new foundational workshop for emerging providers and communities, covering how to build a cohesive ecosystem, find first customers, navigate local roadblocks, understand FTTH basics and design, and put in place marketing strategies that drive subscriber growth.
  • LATAM Program
    A new regional deep dive that addresses gaps in broadband delivery across Latin America, explores neutral host and open access business models, and examines how fiber to the data center and edge compute is transforming economies as communities come online.
  • Marketing & Customer Experience Program
    A brand-new track for CMOs and growth leaders, featuring sessions like Marketing Metrics That Matter, The Power of Local, Driving Subscriber Growth, and Winning Customer Loyalty to help providers turn great networks into loyal customers.

New Curated Forums & Summits

Fiber Connect 2026 introduces a suite of focused programs that give each audience a place to go deep on the issues that matter most:

  • The C Suite Forum
    An invitation-only executive program for FBA Premier Members, federal and state regulators, and leading innovators. This new forum brings top decision-makers together for sponsor keynotes and fireside conversations on private equity, fiber expansion, and closing the digital opportunity gap for all Americans.
  • Precision Ag: Seeding Broadband Futures
    A new half-day program examining how fiber enables advanced agriculture, from high-cost threshold deployments to data-driven farming, edge connectivity, and partnerships that support rural economic growth.
  • Dream a Little Stream
    A fresh look at capacity, latency, and network design for streaming, gaming, AR/VR, and creator economies, with operators and content leaders unpacking what it takes to deliver flawless experiences for today’s bandwidth-intensive households.
  • Broadband Policy Upload
    A new policy symposium focused on how federal and state agencies and the broadband industry can work together over the next decade, with panels on AI’s impact on policy and how regulatory decisions shape telehealth, precision ag, and aging-in-place services.
  • Telehealth & Broadband Summit
    A new summit dedicated to how fiber supports modern healthcare – from virtual visits and specialty consults to rural access – featuring healthcare, broadband, and policy leaders exploring what’s next in digital health.
  • Hyperscale Data Center & Evolving Edge
    A brand-new program on how fiber underpins AI, cloud, and edge computing. Sessions look at in-rack connectivity, data center interconnects, and the capacity and low-latency requirements for AI, quantum, and hyperscale workloads.

New AI & Emerging Tech Infrastructure Focus (Wednesday)

Wednesday at Fiber Connect 2026 becomes the AI & Emerging Tech Infrastructure Summit, a new, concentrated look at how fiber, AI, and quantum innovation intersect.

  • Keynote by Dr. Michio Kaku and follow-on fireside conversation explore where AI and quantum networking are taking us and what it means for communications infrastructure.
  • New sessions examine photonics and interconnects for AI factories and multi-data-center architectures, capacity and energy demands to scale AI, and the role of telecom in an AI-driven world.
  • Additional new keynote voices from across the technology ecosystem – including cloud, gaming, streaming, and AI investment leaders – help frame what “Light Years Ahead” looks like in practice.

New Deployment & OSP Breakouts and Tech Deep Dives

Outside the General Sessions, Fiber Connect 2026 adds an expanded slate of deployment and OSP-focused breakouts on Monday and Tuesday mornings:

  • Topics include deployment best practices, outside plant considerations, service provider ecosystem strategies, data centers, open access, fiber economics, local considerations, tribal broadband, network expansion, marketing, MDU solutions, and middle-mile planning.
  • New Tech Deep Dives give engineers and technical teams space to dig into advanced designs, architectures, and implementation details.

New Expo Hall Experiences & Activations

This year’s Expo Hall is transformed with new experiential elements that bring fiber’s impact to life:

  • Smart Community Installation & Theater
    A new, immersive environment that showcases fiber’s impact on all stakeholders – residents, businesses, healthcare providers, employers, and remote workers – alongside dedicated theater programming on economic impact and community outcomes.
  • Proof of Concept Program
    A new platform on the show floor where vendors and operators can highlight real-world solutions, architectures, and use cases ready to scale.
  • Fiber Connect TV Podcast Booth
    A brand-new broadcast space capturing live interviews, discussions, and insights from speakers, sponsors, and attendees throughout the event.
  • Live “Fiber for Breakfast” and Thematic Programs
    FBA’s flagship thought-leadership series comes to the main stage live for the first time at Fiber Connect 2026, joined by thematic programs that tie together AI, data centers, smart communities, and more.

New Engagement: Fiber Family Feud

Fiber Connect 2026 introduces Fiber Family Feud, a new, high-energy competition on the main stage where four teams, including a State Broadband Office team and three sponsor teams, battle to be crowned champions. Preliminaries take place during the Monday General Session, with the finals closing out on Tuesday.

New 25th Anniversary
Gala & Awards Banquet

To celebrate a quarter-century of progress, Fiber Connect 2026 debuts the 25th Anniversary Gala & Awards Banquet on Tuesday evening:

  • Red-carpet welcome with passed hors d’oeuvres and a beer and wine bar.
  • A refreshed awards program honoring companies, communities, and individuals shaping the future of fiber.
  • A full dinner service with entertainment, followed by dessert stations and dueling pianos to close the night in style.

This black-tie event is a first for Fiber Connect and offers new sponsorship opportunities for Connect and offers new sponsorship opportunities for organizations that want to align their brand with excellence, innovation, and industry leadership.