Rural Fiber, Broadband on the Rise

According to a new survey by NTCA - The Rural Broadband Association, 45% of survey respondents currently deploying fiber serve at least 50% of their customers using fiber to the home (FTTH), up from 41% in 2013. Some 85% of survey respondents indicated they had a long-term fiber deployment strategy, and 74% of those respondents plan to offer fiber to the node to more than 75% of their customers by year-end 2017, while 67% plan to offer FTTH to at least 50% of their customers over the same time frame. An additional 25% have already completed fiber deployments to all customers.

Additionally, survey respondents are making higher-speed broadband service available to customers who want it. Some 83% of respondents' customers can receive broadband service of 10 Mbps or greater, up from 66% a year ago. The majority of respondents' customers subscribe to service of 3 Mbps or faster. Some 34% of survey respondents' broadband customers subscribe to service greater than 10 Mbps downstream. The next most popular speed tiers are 6 Mbps to 10 Mbps (9.5%), and 3 Mbps to 4 Mbps (8.9%).

Survey aside, rural broadband has been accelerating lately, particularly in gigabit services. For more, see this blog we ran in March.