The Fiber to the Home Council (FTTH Council) recently conducted its annual survey of fiber deployment in the U. S. and adoption of fiber connections by residential users. They found continuing upward growth in the number homes passed (almost 20 million or 100 times growth since 2001), the number of homes in the U. S. connected via fiber (6.4 million). The U. S. still outshines Europe when it comes to fiber deployment and according to the FTTH Council - Europe, Verizon alone ranges number four in the world in terms of total customers connected to fiber.
So on a macro level, the U. S. is doing well when it comes to fiber to the home networks and connections. And it should be noted that while fiber to home technologies are major advances, many local networks are built and being modernized using fiber in many parts of their infrastructure. Cable companies in many instances and AT&T may not be taking fiber all the way to the home as we are, they are building fiber out into local nodes in neighborhoods.
But a deeper question is this: does fiber matter? We know it has tremendous capacity and can be expanded without having to add new fiber links or dig up streets. Electronics and lasers at the ends, along with changes in software can add more capacity. While this is not inexpensive, it is far less costly and difficult to do than having to add new labor intensive capacity.
But it goes beyond this. For a long time, I’ve believed that consumers understand that fiber makes a big difference in terms of quality, reliability, capability and performance. While the FTTH Council slides on their web site do not reflect this data, they did survey consumers on these issues and the presentation made recently by the Council at one of their meetings revealed what consumers said.
For example, on the issue of performance, the FTTH Council references two tests of fiber connections and then took the median of the scores they accumulated for the year for fiber, cable modem and DSL. They found that the median download speed for fiber networks was 16.6 mbps versus 10.8 mbps for cable modem. Likewise, median upload speed for fiber networks and cable modem were 4.5 mbps and 1.4 mbps respectively.
In order to get a sense of the quality of the connection, they examined how many times consumers had to reboot per month on average depending on the type of connection. They found that customers on fiber connections had to reboot only 1.5 times a month versus 3.4 times a month for cable. While a crude indicator, speed alone is not the only metric that counts when it comes to broadband connections.
When asked how satisfied consumers were with various aspects of their broadband service, almost 70 percent of customers with fiber connections said they were very satisfied with the reliability of their fiber connection versus only 49 percent of those with cable modem connections.
Sixty-four percent of fiber customers were very satisfied with the broadband speed they were delivered over fiber versus 46 percent of cable modem users. Sixty-one percent of fiber customers were very satisfied with the consistency of the speed they received versus only 42 percent of cable modem customers.
With regard to the quality of television service, 76 percent were very satisfied with the quality of their HD picture over a fiber connection versus only 48 percent of cable customers. Almost 70 percent were satisfied with the quality of their standard TV service over fiber versus only 39 percent of cable customers.
With regard to the perceived advantages of fiber over other technologies, nearly 45 percent said speed, better Internet or bandwidth were major advantages over other technologies. And the FTTH Council research demonstrates that fiber has significant economic advantages. Nearly 12 percent of those surveyed work more from home because of their fiber connection, an average of 9 days more a year. While only an indicator, this data shows that fiber to the home technology lowers energy use and CO2 emissions. Nine percent of those who were surveyed indicated that their home businesses were only possible or more efficient due to the capabilities offered by fiber.
There is much more research to be done on these questions but when it comes to the consumer, economic and societal impacts of fiber, there are clear indicators that it is a significant contributor to reducing commuting, improving energy efficiency, and promoting small business growth. In other words, fiber is not just another broadband technology. There are clear indicators that consumers believe it is a better technology.