China Telecom Set To Singlehandedly Match US Fiber Deployment

[Commentary] In yet another sign of the gaping chasm between America's broadband trajectory and the rest of the world, China Telecom has announced that they're going to install a fiber network that passes 18 million homes this year. To put that into context, there are barely 18 million homes passed by fiber in the entire US today.

The vast majority of those passings have been made by Verizon, but Verizon's publicly indicated its intentions to slow down and even stop their fiber deployment. While there are lots of other deployers and cities considering fiber, we have no clearcut champion ready to pick up Verizon's slack. Because of this America's year-to-year growth of fiber penetration is expect to slow. So while America hits a plateau of next generation networks at about 18 million passings, China's ramping up to see 18 million homes passed in a single year.