Fiber Investment Forecast to Surpass $125 Billion Over Next Five Years

A US fiber investment forecast from RVA LLC calls for service providers to spend $125 billion over the next five years, exceeding the total amount that has been invested in fiber since providers first began deploying it. The $125 billion includes money allocated in government programs, said Michael Render, RVA owner and principal analyst. The largest of these programs is the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program created in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. But although that program has a budget of $42.5 billion to go toward broadband deployments in unserved, primarily rural areas, Render noted that RVA doesn’t expect deployment from the BEAD money to become significant until 2024, and “a good portion of the spending will not occur until after 2026.” This observation offers an interesting counterpoint to a note from telecom and broadband financial analysts at MoffettNathanson. The analysts expressed concern that we may be heading for a period of overinvestment in fiber that could create a fiber bubble akin to the one that occurred around the year 2000. RVA expects fiber deployment to grow for several years and then level off, but according to Render, “we do not expect any significant pullback in fiber deployment during the next 10 years.”