According to iGR, fiber is the preferred medium for cell backhaul over other options, including other wired technologies (e.g., VDSL2, HFC) and wireless. However, because the locations of small cell deployments vary greatly, there is no single solution for how they will be backhauled.

The main advantages for wired backhaul, fiber in particular, include high throughput, low latency and substantial throughput scaling over time. But there are two significant challenges with fiber: It is not always where it is needed, and it is relatively expensive to deploy. However, once fiber is in place, the incremental cost of adding new capacity is low.