With the Biden Administration's tens of billions of dollars in broadband subsidy money directed toward wired broadband--including billions to states for their buildout plans--the fiber business could boom, big time, according to its trade group.

The Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) said Wednesday (January 5) that according to its latest study of fiber providers, more of that broadband plant could be deployed in the next five years than all the fiber deployed in the country to date.

That is predicated on all that infrastructure build-out money going to fiber, rather than cable, satellite or wireless, and would mean that a nationwide fiber buildout could be nearly wrapped up by the end of the decade, according to FBA.

The study, from RVA LLC Market Research & Consulting for FBA, found that fiber passes some 60.5 million homes, up 12% in 2021 and constituting over 40% of U.S. homes with access to fiber.

That growth has been driven by large telecoms and the top five cable MSOs, which together account for 72% of overall fiber broadband access, with regionals including Windstream, Frontier, Consolidated and TDS making accounting for about 10% of the growth.

There could be bumps along the path for a fully fibered nation, it points out, including supply chain and labor shortages, particularly for midsized and smaller providers.

Then there is making sure that the infrastructure funding is steered to fiber rather than for what FBA said would "irresponsible" investment in non-fiber broadband due to fiber's higher download and upload speeds.

For stage governments getting billions in buildout funds, FBA is teaming with NTCA-the Rural Broadband Association on a playbook for helping those states understand the value of steering their money toward "future-proof fiber networks." ■

While the internet has helped mitigate the damage from COVID-19, work is still needed to improve its infrastructure by closing the digital divide. 

That is according to the Fiber Broadband Association's (FBA) latest annual consumer internet usage study/report, conducted by market research firm RVA. 

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RVA conducted a poll of 2,000 U.S. internet users for two weeks ending April 9 as well as using broadband speed tests on those respondent's service during the online polling. 

"Many wondered if the Internet would “break” during this Pandemic. It did not, despite greatly increased usage, per the FBA, which said controlled tests from independent testing firm “Sam Knows” show only about a 2% decrease in speeds from a point just prior to the pandemic. 

The report suggested that outcome could have been different. 

"It seems clear that if the same circumstances of Pandemic and shutdown occurred several years ago, with a much lower quality broadband access, there would have been far more severe impacts from the crisis. Pandemic spread could have been faster given less ability to retreat from traditional contact, economic impacts almost certainly would have been heightened, and mental health impacts would be more acute." 

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The study found that more than nine in 10 said the internet was either somewhat or very important to their household, with videoconferencing a big factor. The most important broadband use, the survey found, was connecting with family and friends (33%), followed by news and information (24%) and ordering food (20%). Entertainment (19%) and working or looking for work (17%) came next. 

Interestingly, only 4% said "education" and only 2% said "telemedicine," both of which have been a big focus of Washington policymakers. The question was open ended, so the respondents had to come up with the categories themselves. 

And while 25% said they were streaming more pre-recorded entertainment product, even more (27%) said they were streaming more "less professionally produced and small audience materials," like live-streamed religious services, music performances, lectures or demonstrations. 

Where the survey showed some issues was with in-home rationing and online waiting times that varied between rural and urban.  

In the highest-tier service, which tended to be the most-populated, urban, areas, les than one in five (18.7%) said they were doing "significant" rationing of internet use, while that number was 48% for the lowest tier of service, which tended to overindex for less dense population. 

There was a similar digital divide over latency, with top-tier service users estimating about five hours a week in lost time versus 11 hours for the lowest tier of service. 

"We hypothesize that higher quality broadband access is simply not currently available to most of those in low density areas," said the study.  

There has been some back and forth in the FCC C-Band docket about whether receiving their network and remote video exclusively by fiber rather than satellite will one of the keys to freeing up C-Band spectrum for 5G.

The C-Band is used by broadcasters and cable operators to receive network programming and get local programming the field to the studio.

T-Mobile, for example, backs a move to fiber, while NCTA-The Internet & Television Association counters that "the record casts serious doubt upon the viability of [that] purported alternative as adequate substitutes for C-band spectrum."

Not surprisingly, the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) has no doubts that a national terrestrial video program network delivered by fiber is not only doable, but the best way to go, and suggests the FCC should force the issue with a C-Band repurposing.

“Over the past decade, video programmers have been transitioning from satellite to fiber delivery, almost exclusively in urban areas," said Lisa Youngers, president of the association. "But rural multichannel video program distributors (MVPDs) need access to the same future-proof, high-performance capabilities that only fiber networks can offer. The FCC’s C-Band proceeding provides an opportunity to expedite the transition to fiber delivery, and various providers have offered proposals that would make a state-of-the-art nationwide fiber delivery network real."

FBA told the FCC as much in a letter Friday saying the C-Band proceeding was a great opportunity to make that fiber network a reality.