The Fiber to the Home Council this month released the results from a study by RVA Market Research which found that sixteen percent of homes in North America have access to all-fiber networks. The study also reported that, while Verizon has been responsible for the lion’s share of FTTH deployments, things are changing. Many smaller providers across the continent are now investing in fiber build-outs. According to the study, more than 750 providers now have fiber-to-the-home networks.
It’s easy to draw the conclusion that fiber is getting cheaper to deploy, and therefore more companies are getting in on the FTTH action. But I decided to ask around for some actual data on fiber costs. There’s a distinct trend among operators that deployed fiber between 2006 and 2009. Roughly speaking, their per-household costs went down twenty percent in that time period. Certainly the declines came in part from efficiency over time and bulk purchasing, but new service providers looking to deploy fiber will benefit from the same factors. Perhaps even more so now that others have paved the way forward.
