US fiber rollouts reach tipping point but are still far behind hybrid fiber-coaxial

Fiber network deployments have reached a milestone as they now pass more than 50% of US households, according to recent data from the Fiber Broadband Association and RVA Market Research and Consulting. Almost 69 million of those locations are "unique" fiber homes, meaning that about 9 million are passed by more than one fiber provider. The share of broadband technology is also evolving. While hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) remains the primary way of delivering broadband, fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) and fixed wireless access (FWA) will continue to make their presence felt in the coming years. Research companyy Omdia expects cable's share of that mix to drop over the next four years, hitting about 55% by 2028, while fiber's share is expected to rise to 30% by that time. For the cable industry, fiber and FWA are not solely about competition. Many operators are also using FTTP extensively in greenfields and subsidized rural buildouts. They are deploying it on a targeted basis via a new generation of nodes that can support multiple access technologies, including HFC and wireless. Additionally, CableLabs has put fiber-to-the-premises on the front burner via a pair of new working groups. A recent survey from Omdia shows that more than one-third of cable operators have already deployed passive optical networking (PON) in some form. That number will "undoubtedly keep rising" thanks to initiatives such as the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, according to Heavy Reading analyst Alan Breznick