Verizon built a walled garden with Fios, but it badly needs watering

They don’t talk about it much these days, but Verizon is a veritable fiber powerhouse and, as telecommunications consultant Sean McDevitt put it, the OG fiber-to-the-home player. Because it was among the first to move on fiber and has deployed significant density across its footprint, Verizon has built something of a natural immunity to risk-averse overbuilders. Verizon first deployed Fios in 2005, originally aiming to reach 18 million passings across a service territory which then included more than 30 million serviceable locations. While its deployment target has remained the same, though, McDevitt noted its wireline territory shrank over the years to around 25 million homes due to divestitures. That means rather than targeting around 55% of homes with fiber, it is now looking at a figure above 70%. But while Verizon initially moved quickly on its Fios rollout – reaching 12.8 million passings by the end of 2010 – it later pressed pause to focus on its wireless ambitions. Expansion efforts only picked up again in the last few years and now Verizon is pushing to deploy Fios at a pace of around 500,000 new passings per year in 2023 and beyond. As of the end of Q4 2022, Verizon had 17.1 million Fios passings, meaning it should reach its goal of 18 million by 2025 if it maintains its stated deployment pace. And yet...consumer Fios revenue was roughly flat in Q4 at $2.9 billion. According to McDevitt, there are four key things Verizon could do to get more out of what is currently an underutilized asset.