Rosemary Cochran, principal of VSG, noted that fiber footprint expansion is in the strategic plans of every major network service provider. "Merger, acquisition, and re-branding activity across the fiber provider landscape is so intense that it takes a scorecard to keep track," Cochran said. Such activity also is becoming more common among smaller players not on the Leaderboard (see, for example, "Atlantic Broadband buying FiberLight's south FL net").
But, there also is building from within. Comcast Cable is said to have the highest organic growth rate. This is not surprising given the amount of news that comes from Comcast's business segment about not only DOCSIS 3.1 news, but fiber offerings as well. In the last six months, we've seen:
- Comcast Biz Expands Fiber Net in Harrisburg, PA
- Comcast Biz Expands WA Fiber Net
- Comcast Biz Expanding Fiber Network in NJ, Philly
- Comcast Biz Expanding Fiber in San Jose
And news across the fiber board is intense. For example, Globalstar is merging with fiber-optic network services provider FiberLight, gaining 14,000 route miles of fiber.
ZenFi Networks and Cross River Fiber, which are focused on the New York and New Jersey metro markets, intend to merge this year. Combining their assets means that they will have more than 700 route miles of fiber-optic network, 130 on-net buildings, 49 colocation facilities, and 1700 outdoor wireless locations.
A separate VSG report that came out in April shows that all this activity is benefitting business customers. The market research firm reported that 54.8 percent of U.S. commercial buildings had fiber connections at the end of 2017, compared to 45.2 percent the previous year. And there is no slowdown in sight.
"Deployments will continue to accelerate because fiber is both a strategic asset for delivery of wireline business services, as well as a necessity for enabling 5G," Cochran said.