FEBRUARY 23, 2010 -- New FTTx deployments during 2009 increased "last mile" business fiber availability to 22.9% of U.S. sites and 15.1% of sites in Europe, according to Vertical Systems Group's latest research.
Detailed findings show that while most large enterprise locations in the U.S. and Europe are fiber-connected, small and medium business (SMB) sites are underserved with fiber from any service provider (i.e., incumbent carrier, competitive provider, cable MSO, PTT, etc.). Last year, Vertical System Group reported that 19.1% of U.S. business with 20 or more employees had fiber connections.
Fiber is the preferred access technology for network services like Ethernet or IP VPNs in support of business applications that require up to gigabit per second bandwidth rates, says Vertical Systems Group.
"The good news is that overall accessibility to business fiber has more than doubled within the past five years," said Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group. "Larger enterprises are the primary beneficiaries of new fiber installations, which have been focused on business parks and metro areas with high population densities. The challenge ahead is to extend fiber connectivity to remote business locations. For the U.S. plus countries throughout Europe, this fiber gap exceeds more than one million sites."
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