Economic Benefits of Fiber Deployment

Fiber deployment has significant incremental economic benefits even in the presence of other high-speed broadband technologies. The report also argues that because private actors will not capture all the benefits of fiber deployment the marketplace will not deploy enough fiber on its own. Based on these findings we suggest a few policy takeaways:

• Because the social return on investment is higher for fiber, directing more of the existing public funds towards fiber deployment will generate greater economic returns compared to investment in other high-speed broadband technologies such as hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC). Thus, the various public programs, such as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, ReConnect, Capital Projects Fund and the federal Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP), which are prioritizing fiber builds are on the right policy path.
• Based on available data, our research implies that even if fiber is deployed as an overbuild to existing high-speed technologies, the incremental benefits are sizeable. Thus, when the federal or local governments are measuring the underserved population, one important metric may be using a fiber-unserved metric and not just a speed-based metric.
• Federal and local governments that promote fiber deployment should be encouraged and expanded.
• Fiber is a future-proof solution and when the benefits and costs are evaluated on a long-run horizon, fiber becomes the optimal choice for delivering fixed high-speed broadband.