Fiber to Surpass Cable's Broadband Share in About 3 Years: Consultant
The percentage of U.S. broadband subscribers getting service via fiber will likely surpass the percentage using cable modems in 2028 or thereabouts, said Mike Render, CEO of RVA, a market research and consulting firm, during a Fiber Broadband Association webinar Wednesday. Fiber “is winning wherever it's available.”
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
The number of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) passings in the U.S. hit 98.4 million as of Q3, according to RVA, with 11.8 million fiber deployments to homes in 2025 alone. Roughly 16.1% of U.S. homes enjoyed two or more fiber passings as of September, up from 13.2% a year earlier, it said. Render said new residential fiber deployments in 2026 could top 12 million, though there could be some headwinds in the form of labor availability and permitting delays.
RVA also said the FTTH addressable market in the U.S. remains big -- 60.2 million addresses with no fiber, and an additional 69 million with one fiber passing but not a second. Render noted that new home construction will inevitably move to FTTH.
In addition, the fiber community has opportunities beyond FTTH, Render said, pointing to the fiber needs of data centers and of macro towers and small-cell antennas. Data centers over the next five years will need an estimated 92,335 route miles of fiber, he said.
Canada is ahead of the U.S. in fiber penetration for now, but Canada's rural locations are "much more rural than the U.S. rural," and getting to greater fiber penetration in Canada will be tough, Render added.