Europe Outpaces U.S. in Fiber Deployment, Industry Leaders Say
Europe has outpaced the United States in fiber broadband deployment through innovative wholesale models and municipal partnerships
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2025 — Europe has surged ahead of the United States in deploying fiber-optic broadband infrastructure through innovative wholesale models and municipal partnerships, industry executives said during a Broadband Breakfast Live Online webcast Wednesday from Spain.
Greg Mesch, Vice Chairman of CityFibre, Britain's largest independent fiber network, said European countries have adopted "really creative models" that have enabled more cost-effective deployment than in the U.S.
"Europe is ahead of the US and deployment of digital infrastructure at a more cost-effective rate," Mesch said during the event. "Their digital infrastructures are better, but they don't have the Facebooks and the Googles and the social media platforms that are riding on top of that digital infrastructure."
Broadband Breakfast
Mesch, who founded CityFibre and led it from inception to national scale before assuming his current role, said the U.S. remains "trapped in somewhat of a malaise at the infrastructure level because it's dominated by some big powerful incumbents that just will do everything in their power to kill off any challenger in their markets."
Vincent Garnier, Director General of the Fiber to the Home Council Europe, attributed Europe's success to diverse approaches across different markets. "The difficulty we have in Europe is the diversity of the situation in every country, but that has led also to very nimble organizations running very effective services at very low cost," Garnier said.
The discussion highlighted stark differences in how municipalities approach fiber deployment. Mesch cited Edinburgh, Scotland, as a model where local government actively stimulated network construction rather than creating barriers.
"The counselors actually stimulated us to build our fiber network," Mesch said. "They gave us all of their public sector sites, meaning every single school, every single social housing, every single building that they controlled."
That anchor contract, worth approximately 25 million pounds over 14 years, generated guaranteed revenue that enabled CityFibre to raise capital and build core fiber infrastructure, benefiting the entire city.
"That allowed us to build a core network that we expanded for everybody else," Mesch said. "So the city played a huge role."
By contrast, Mesch said U.S. cities have created obstacles by prioritizing short-term fee revenue. "The US cities did it in reverse. They got hooked on these fees and artificial fees that they get from the cable companies," he said. "Now they've got this approach that it's almost like a barrier for a fiber operator to come into the city."
Mesch suggested U.S. fiber operators could benefit from adopting European-style wholesale models. "All the fiber operators ought to begin to look at creating a wholesale platform that they can share across the whole country," he said. "Once you begin to get scale, then that scale feeds itself."
The panel was moderated by Drew Clark, CEO of Broadband Breakfast, who noted the irony that a discussion initially framed around Europe's challenges in regards to its technology industry actually revealed the continent's infrastructure advantages over the United States.
Member discussion