[bryanlarsen]

A rule of thumb is that big infrastructure projects are always significantly behind schedule and budget. Fiber rollouts are big infrastructure projects. They'll be late, almost guaranteed. Therefore demonstrating that they can hit a schedule is very difficult.

[Deprecate9151]

It is difficult, but the program (theoretically, since the program isn't at that stage yet) has checkpoints to address failure to actually deliver.

This stage was to focus on if the bid accepted based off of the short-form proposal was progressing and likely to deliver as described by reviewing additional information provided in the long-form application. That is going to be easier for tech with an established delivery history.

[doikor]

While this is true to some extent it is also true that an infrastructure project finishing on time/budget is not news so you will hear about those.