PCCA Journal|2
nd
Quarter 2013
48
ability of broadband services will give rural consumers access
to new educational opportunities, cloud computing services,
healthcare applications, IP television, and streaming video,”
Davis said. 
“The good news is that it appears the FCC is ready to move
forward on this important initiative. We believe and hope
that the FCC is prepared to adopt an order which would lay
the groundwork for use of these CAF I dollars sooner rather
than later.”
“For the hundreds of thousands of households and busi-
nesses that have little hope of receiving high-speed internet
services today, a speedy decision by the FCC would be a wel-
come and meaningful action that would improve both lives
and economies in these markets for years to come.” 
Telcos Saving Serious Money by
Upgrading to FTTH, Survey Finds
S
mall and medium-sized telephone companies that
have upgraded their networks to all-fiber are reporting
operational cost savings averaging 20 percent annu-
ally, according to a study commissioned by the Fiber to the
Home Council Americas.
The survey of more than 350 telecommunications providers
across North America, conducted by the market analyst firm
RVA LLC, also pointed to a steady drumbeat of FTTH deploy-
ment activity, with the number of homes that can access
FTTH networks increasing by 17.6 percent over a year ago
to 22.7 million. The number of households connected with
FTTH now stands at 9.7 million, an increase of more than 20
percent over April 2012.
In the survey, the council asked telecom managers to report
any cost savings they are experiencing in maintaining their
network infrastructure once they upgraded from copper in
the last mile to all-fiber. On average, respondents estimated
those savings to be 20.4 percent, largely because of a de-
crease in ongoing repair and maintenance.
“This latest survey shows not only the continued build-
out of high-bandwidth fiber to the home networks in North
America, but also provides one reason why hundreds of
small and medium-sized telcos have been upgrading to
fiber—it saves them real money in the long run,” said FTTH
Council President Heather Burnett Gold.
In recent years, FTTH connections have been expanding as
telephone companies in particular look to improve their com-
petitiveness by offering television programming and faster
internet, and as broadband providers in general prepare for
ever-increasing consumer demand for more bandwidth and
faster networks. Bandwidth demand is expected to continue
to accelerate along with the emergence of sophisticated
online applications for video over the internet, online multi-
player gaming, online education, work-at-home, and tele-
medicine, as well as is the proliferation of internet-connected
devices in homes and businesses.
Although Verizon in the U.S. and Bell Aliant in Canada to-
gether are responsible for a large share of the FTTH connec-
tions on the continent, RVA has documented nearly 600 small
and medium-sized telephone companies that have upgraded
at least part of their subscriber base to
all-fiber, as well nearly 100 municipali-
ties that have deployed FTTH networks
as a public utility. FTTH networks have
also been deployed by a number of com-
petitive broadband service providers.
From its survey, RVA documented a
further increase in the number of very
high bandwidth users, with more than
640,000 North American households
now receiving 100 megabit per second
(mbps) service through an FTTH net-
work, and many of them receiving that
level of connectivity for both download-
ing and uploading. A number of FTTH
providers are now offering gigabit con-
nectivity to homes, most notably Google
Fiber in Kansas City and EPB Chatta-
nooga in Tennessee.
News Briefs
Continued from page 47
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