Report Finds Fiber Expansion Driving Gigabit Access to Nearly 98% of Fiber Consumers

WASHINGTON, December 28, 2022 – Almost 98 percent of fiber consumers are offered plans with download speeds of at least 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps), and most of those gigabit plans provide symmetrical service, according to Mike Render, CEO of RVA LLC Market and Research Consulting.

Render presented the results of the Fiber Broadband Association’s 2022 Fiber Provider Report Wednesday at a web event. The report, the completion of which was announced by the FBA last week, shows an unprecedented rate of new fiber deployments in 2022, with more than 7.5 million new homes passed by fiber. The report reflects public company data, provider surveys, Form 477 data, and other sources, Render said.

Fiber now passes 63 million unique homes, the report found. Total fiber passings number 68 million, Render said, a 13 percent year-over-year spike. About 28 million homes are connected to fiber, he added.

In addition to fiber providers, large cable providers have contributed to fiber’s proliferation, Render argued. “They’re still primarily focused on DOCSIS…but there is quite a bit of fiber among [the top five multiple-service providers],” he said. Small providers – comprised of cable companies, cooperatives, municipalities, and others – account for 18 percent of the fiber market, Render said.

Fiber outperforms other technologies by many metrics, Render claimed. While second-place cable is somewhat competitive with first-place fiber’s download speeds, he said, no technology approaches fiber’s upload speeds. For latency, fiber leads second-place cable 60 milliseconds to 115 milliseconds on average, according to RVA’s research.