dslreports logo
 story category
Rural Carriers Quickly Embracing Fiber
Both fiber to the node, and to the home...
While Verizon gets most of the attention with their $23 billion investment in fiber to the home deployment, a significant chunk of the fiber to the home deployments in this country is being accomplished by roughly 700 smaller rural telcos, co-ops, and municipal operations. According to a new study by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA), a growing number of rural telcos are moving toward fiber to the node (like AT&T's U-Verse platform), while many others are moving directly to fiber to the home:
quote:
NTCA's "2009 Broadband/Internet Availability Survey" found that nearly three-quarters (73%) of respondents with a fiber deployment strategy intend to offer FTTN to more than 75% of their customer base by 2011. Fifty-five percent plan to offer FTTH to more than half their customers in that same time frame -- more than doubled from just 26% last year. The study says that rural areas are seeing significant gains in broadband speeds, primarily due to the increased fiber availability in their communities. Fifty-three percent of respondents indicated their customers can now receive broadband service of between 3 and 6 Mbps (up from 46% last year), and 39% can receive service in excess of 6 Mbps, which is an increase from just 25% a year ago.
According to the most recent data (pdf) from the Fiber To The Home Council, the total number of homes served by FTTH is now 4.4 million, or 4% of all homes. FTTH service now passes (no last mile drop) 15 million US homes, or 13% of all US Households.
view:
topics flat nest 

hayabusa3303
Over 200 mph
Premium Member
join:2005-06-29
Florence, SC

1 edit

hayabusa3303

Premium Member

hey karl.

most recent data link--- doesnt work The requested page could not be found.

ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium Member
join:2005-03-14
Woodstock, CT

ptrowski

Premium Member

Re: hey karl.

Also in the same paragraph it lists FTTH on both points where the second should be FTTN.

WiseOldBear
Laissez les bons temps rouler!
Premium Member
join:2001-11-25
Litchfield Park, AZ

WiseOldBear

Premium Member

Yo Qwest-READ THIS!

And isn't it amazing that Qwest continues to limp along using fiber only in the new, rich (and now foreclosed) neighborhoods, while the rest of us limp along on 40 year old copper.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: Yo Qwest-READ THIS!

I don't think they string FTTH anywhere, but I'd love it if they put a VRAD in the big Qwest building in Golden. I'm only a few blocks over, so with any luck I'd be able to get 5 Mbps up service, which would be lovely.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS to WiseOldBear

MVM

to WiseOldBear
said by WiseOldBear:

And isn't it amazing that Qwest continues to limp along using fiber only in the new, rich (and now foreclosed) neighborhoods, while the rest of us limp along on 40 year old copper.
Aw, c'mon. Does Qwest really still have any 40-year-old copper in the plant? Around here, AT&T has been replacing F2s like crazy in preparation for Uverse (FTTN). The AT&T copper on the poles behind my house is newer than the Comcast coax!

puddleglum
@xmission.com

puddleglum

Anon

Re: Yo Qwest-READ THIS!

The QWest copper to our home in northern Utah is over 50 years old and they sued Utopia to keep FTTH out of our neighborhood. If you aren't going to provide the service please let someone else do it.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS

MVM

Re: Yo Qwest-READ THIS!

said by puddleglum :

The QWest copper to our home in northern Utah is over 50 years old ...
The neighborhood I live in is nearly 45 years old. The copper is less than 5 years old (possibly less than three years old; the binder looks different than it did three years ago. A tad thinner than it was).

Frankly, it amazes me that you are not having severe voice line problems with 50-year-old copper.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine

Member

Centurylink, take note!

Very glad to see this. Maybe there is hope for rural America after all.

I don't see why only cities need to get fiber to the home. Fiber doesn't break down as readily as copper and doesn't suffer as much attenuation. Apart from the initial outlay it is the perfect wired rural internet solution.

Centurylink, I hope you're taking note. I want to see some FTTH goodness up here in rural NJ.

tstolze
Premium Member
join:2003-08-08
O Fallon, MO

tstolze

Premium Member

Re: Centurylink, take note!

Centurtylink is doing this in new developments, let's hope they give some fiber to the copper areas.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to fifty nine

Member

to fifty nine
CLink has done fiber in other areas (20/2 I think, so not as good as your 30/2 cable, but probably cheaper, and without a cap) so there may be hope for you.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine

Member

Re: Centurylink, take note!

said by iansltx:

CLink has done fiber in other areas (20/2 I think, so not as good as your 30/2 cable, but probably cheaper, and without a cap) so there may be hope for you.
I don't care so much for the internet service as I do for TV.

As it is, SECTV's HD quality leaves a lot to be desired. I could go to DirecTV but then the price for internet goes up...
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Broken Link

Please fix. I want to root for the rurals

Seriously though, there are three cooperatives (varying from rural to semi-rural/suburban) I know of that are doing FTTN/FTTH. GVTC (»gvtc.com) does FTTH; they don't have a ton of competition so heir residential tiers stop at 20/3 and the business tier stops at 25 Mbps down. Still better than their competition (TWC 15/2).

In the northwest corner of TX you have XIT Communications, another cooperative. I've stayed in a hotel that used them for internet service (I don't think there's anyone else available for wireline) and speeds were fine. The company also offers cable service. They use VDSL in town, with speeds of 1.5 Mbps each way for $39, or 3 Mbps each way for $49. If I had a choice between Verizon's ADSL packages and XIT's VDSL, I'd definitely pick the one with the lovely 3 Mbps of upload speed XIT also has ADSL for more rural areas.

Then there's Hill COuntry Telephone Cooperative. They're expanding into neighboring areas as a CLEC and of course going all-fiber (or wireless; they have a 3.65GHz license for WiMAX and a license for 20MHz of 1700MHz spectrum in their service area and a little beyond). In areas that they already serve, DSL is expensive ($70 plus a phone line for 3/768) but we're talking about areas that *might* be able to get 3G from a company or two, *might* be able to get slow fixed wireless from one provider and otherwise would be using satellite for internet. So it's a big jump.

The nice thing about HCTC DSL is, with all the upgrades they did over the last year or so, the average distance from a DLC (which serves up DSL for most HCTC customers) is 7k feet. So you could probably pair-bond and, with Annex M, push 30/3 or maybe even 30/5 speeds over the system, if there was a need to do so. For now there isn't a competitive reason to do this, since nobody can match 3 Mbps down (satellite doesn't count) in the area, but it is an option. The company is also thinking about deploying IPTV stuff, though we'll see where that goes. Some of this stuff may sound mundane but I remember in one of the co-op's newsletters seeing that the average customer density was four customers per wire mile. So upgrading to FTTN this way was more expensive for HCTC than for practically anyone else to upgrade their network to fiber...

Pullo9
join:2009-06-18
Reading, PA

Pullo9

Member

Re: Broken Link

said by iansltx:

Please fix. I want to root for the rurals
This may not be the exact document he wanted to post but it has most of the quoted information:

»www.ftthcouncil.org/site ··· 0res.pdf

Matt3
All noise, no signal.
Premium Member
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC

Matt3

Premium Member

Here Here

I've had fiber to the home for 3 years now and recently, subscribed to my provider's IPTV service. Both are cheaper, faster, and more reliable than Time Warner or AT&T's offerings in the area.

DOStradamus
MVM
join:2003-11-04
Santa Rosa, CA

DOStradamus

MVM

Let Them Eat Dialup!

I had an interesting conversation with my father, who lives in Yerington, Nevada, yesterday...

Yerington (and surrounding area) has 5000 inhabitants, who either are retired, farm, or "sell shoes to farmers", and is an "island" served by a rural carrier you might have heard of: VERIZON

They never offered DSL there (too spread out to be feasible), but had plans to install something newfangled called "fiber", instead.

Who killed it? Not Verizon... the City Manager. I told my dad: "Get a rope!" (or borrow a Guillotine).

-NK

morbo
Complete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000

morbo

Member

Re: Let Them Eat Dialup!

said by DOStradamus:

Who killed it? Not Verizon... the City Manager. I told my dad: "Get a rope!" (or borrow a Guillotine).
can you elaborate? while interesting, you provide zero detail on the reasoning why he killed it.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to DOStradamus

Member

to DOStradamus
Why was it killed?

I agree though...get a rope!
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88 to DOStradamus

Member

to DOStradamus
said by DOStradamus:

They never offered DSL there (too spread out to be feasible), but had plans to install something newfangled called "fiber", instead.
Fiber for residential or commercial? Most/all towers get Fiber now. Town hall and the library and the local schools WILL have fiber. And the local VZ Central Office is guaranteed to have multiple backhaul fibers going in the different directions to regional hubs 100s of miles away.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

1 recommendation

openbox9

Premium Member

Interesting Data Points

The overall take rate for broadband service is 37%.
What are good take rate numbers for other ISPs?
Eighty-nine percent of survey respondents indicated they face competition in the provision of advanced services from at least one other service provider in some portion of their service area. By comparison, only 66% of respondents to the 2003 survey indicated they faced competition and only 43% in the 1999 survey.

....

The typical respondent competes with one national ISP, two WISPs and one cable company. Other competitors mentioned include electric utilities, local ISPs and neighboring cooperatives. Fifty-three percent of those respondents facing competition indicated that their competitors were serving only the cities and towns in their service areas, while 47% said that competitors were serving customers throughout their service area.
So competition does appear to be increasing. Also, competition doesn't just happen in urban environments.
Seventy-three percent of those respondents with a fiber deployment strategy plan to offer fiber to the node to more than 75% of their customers by year-end 2011, while 55% plan to offer fiber to the home to at least 50% of their customers over the same time frame, up from 26% last year.
How many have a "fiber deployment strategy plan"? Eighty-two percent of respondents are already utilizing FTTN to extend DSL so it looks like they met their goal. Of course, only 31% of rural telcos responded, so those numbers may change once the remaining carriers are considered.
Deployment cost remains the most significant barrier to wide deployment of fiber, followed by regulatory uncertainty, long loops, low customer demand, and obtaining cost-effective equipment. Throughout the history of the survey, deployment cost has been respondents’ most significant concern.

....

Population density in most member service areas is in the 1 to 5 customers per square mile range.
Cost of deployment and sparsity of customers are the main deterrents to fiber deployment...but then we've hashed that topic to death around here.
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88

Member

Re: Interesting Data Points

said by openbox9:

Eighty-nine percent of survey respondents indicated they face competition in the provision of advanced services from at least one other service provider in some portion of their service area. By comparison, only 66% of respondents to the 2003 survey indicated they faced competition and only 43% in the 1999 survey.

....

The typical respondent competes with one national ISP, two WISPs and one cable company. Other competitors mentioned include electric utilities, local ISPs and neighboring cooperatives. Fifty-three percent of those respondents facing competition indicated that their competitors were serving only the cities and towns in their service areas, while 47% said that competitors were serving customers throughout their service area.
So competition does appear to be increasing. Also, competition doesn't just happen in urban environments.
Is cellular a WISP? Remember most rural areas have atleast 2 providers. The 2 800 mhz carriers (always 2 of them) were required to cover 2/3rd of square miles of each license area with coverage. The 1900 MHZ carriers were required to cover 2/3rd of the population of each license area.

Is Wildblue a WISP? What about Immarsat? What about disaster continuity wireless TDM T1 replacement WISPs that charge $3000/mo for a standby T1?

Whats a national ISP? Comcast or TWC, and Baby Bells? If so, looks like 90% of the counties in the USA has a national ISP.

Are they using 1 broadband customer from an ISP per zip code to declare that an ISP available to everyone in the zip code FCC style?
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Interesting Data Points

Don't know. The report definitely leaves a lot to be desired for additional details on how the stats were calculated.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

What happened to big telco/cable blocking this??

Sounds like a lot of small players are still in business and running fiber. Who would have thunk it, what with all the stories about how major telcos & cable companies are always illegally shutting out their competition.
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

Re: What happened to big telco/cable blocking this??

big telco can't block services where they don't offer them. Most rural fiber is done by the Co-Ops and rural telco's that only service one exchange. Many of them also do not get cable tv or the co-op owns the cable company as well.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: What happened to big telco/cable blocking this??

Correction: the co-ops are the only ones with service in the exchange. There are plenty of multi-exchange co-ops. Which is the annoying thing about co-ops; many of them have ridiculously small local calling areas. But that's what internet/VoIP are for You just won't get a local number.
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

Re: What happened to big telco/cable blocking this??

depends on what state you are in as far as a getting a local number with VoIP ask TWC that. They sued their way into the market and was granted local DIDs in many markets around the country. as far as Internet goes you're usually stuck having the co-op as your ONLY HSI provider meaning, now you pay out the ass. »www.smta.cc/dsl.htm The prices and speeds offered haven't changed nor will ever change since the Telco Co-Op also owns the cable company. And to top if all off...if your service stops working- ie even modem problems, they charge you to fix it!

Talk about an area that needs a WiMax provider.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: What happened to big telco/cable blocking this??

I'll take low-speed high-priced DSL over satellite. That said, if the economics work out it's a matter of time before competition comes in ad makes things better.
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

Re: What happened to big telco/cable blocking this??

competition in these markets? Are you kidding me? These areas only have phone service because of the Co-Op. The only customers they have DO NOT have a choice and never will. Non-Profits are NOT allowed to sell to a For Profit company so that is out of the question for many of these customers ever getting anything. Nobody is going to spend the money to run a fiber line out into some field 50miles from their "service area" to service 200 customers. Not counting the money it would cost to build out the network, etc.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: What happened to big telco/cable blocking this??

That's why I said "if the economics work out." If the co-op is in an area that truly is remote/unprofitable, you may not see competition for communications for another twenty years. If on the other hand they're a wireless hop (or two) away from somebody's fiber network an enterprising WISP could come in with AirMax and provide service. If the baseline is 768k DSL for $50 per month with no upgrades available, you can compete even with two T1s.

That said, there are co-ops in these areas because nobody wanted to wire them, if the reason being that someone has to think on a 30-year time scale before the areas are close to profitable. In that case you probably have a natural monopoly, and the best thing to do is to try and vote someone effective into the cooperative presidency.

mrkevin
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Premium Member
join:2007-08-07
Aurora, ME

mrkevin

Premium Member

rural fiber

I work for a small rural telco and we are about 130 installs into our FTTH re-build.
We will be 98% FTTH by 2011
This is a company with roughly 1600 customers in an area of 400 square miles.

Love to talk about it more...but I have to go do another one.

mikesterr
join:2008-04-18
Sanford, FL

mikesterr

Member

Municiple Fiber

Tell me If this would work. I am a Municipality and I am considering a Municipal Fiber network. But really what Town wants to run their own fiber network forever. So I build out my network bring everything to central point. Then allow any Cable TV company that wants access to sell to my town. They make the Connection right in my Central Office. After Initial roll outs. once a customer is connect to a Provider that provider contracts for the fiber from the CO to their House. If the customer changes providers the new provider is responsible to maintain. I think that would bring True competition to my Town. Is this a crazy Idea or do you guys think it would work?
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Municiple Fiber

How does your Town plan to finance the fiber build? How does your Town plan to administer and maintain the infrastructure? What about the rural areas that this article is about? Does your Town plan to invest money in the surrounding farmlands outside of it's municipal limits out of the kindness of its heart?

I think it sounds like a nice Utopian concept, but there are many more details that need to be worked through.

•••
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to mikesterr

Member

to mikesterr
Can't name them off the top of my head, but I know there are several cities who are doing just that. You'll just need to use an active topology.

The problem is that if it's expensive to bring bandwidth into town you won't get very many providers running on the network. Also, count on your current telco/cableco to NOT offer services over the network, but instead drop prices to try to put you out of business.

If you're okay with that, go right on ahead. Do it right, and you'll win.

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium Member
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA

nixen to mikesterr

Premium Member

to mikesterr
said by mikesterr:

Tell me If this would work. I am a Municipality and I am considering a Municipal Fiber network. But really what Town wants to run their own fiber network forever. So I build out my network bring everything to central point. Then allow any Cable TV company that wants access to sell to my town. They make the Connection right in my Central Office. After Initial roll outs. once a customer is connect to a Provider that provider contracts for the fiber from the CO to their House. If the customer changes providers the new provider is responsible to maintain. I think that would bring True competition to my Town. Is this a crazy Idea or do you guys think it would work?
Sending an RFP out for network management is pretty much going to be the norm for such deployments. After all, very few small municipalities are likely to want to spend for a CCIE, a staff of more junior people, etc. Whether they'd want to lease the physical plant to multiple ISPs is another matter altogether.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

gobble gobble..

slowly, the underserved get going (into deployments). good luck! your cost of service will ultimately be much better than the big 3 telcos & cablecos, especially if you can contract with the big tier-1 ISP providers throughout the country which are not in the back pocket of the big 3.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: gobble gobble..

Internet bandwidth is dirt cheap if you can get to an IX. It's just the middle mile that's expensive. By cheap I'm talking less than $8 per Mbit in any quantity on any carrier. Pretty cool stuff.

treich
join:2006-12-12

treich

Member

rural FTTH

see the only thing bad about this rural FTTH setup is the bandwidth its not going to be like fios but the speeds be like 5-10mmb download and 2-6mb upload. because I have FTTH from hometown cable here in coldwater and they cap there download speed and I asked if they was going to make a higher download and they told me simply no.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: rural FTTH

Is there competition? If not, there's no incentive to compete on performance.

DrModem
Trust Your Doctor
Premium Member
join:2006-10-19
USA

1 edit

DrModem

Premium Member

Wish I had a Good Telco

But I'm stuck with Verizon.

I'm sure this post will give you several clues as to what my internet service is.
HUBadubBUB
join:2009-11-19

HUBadubBUB

Member

Re: Wish I had a Good Telco

It is the best.

RR Conductor
Ridin' the rails
Premium Member
join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
ARRIS SB6183
Netgear R7000

2 edits

RR Conductor

Premium Member

Those of us in rural areas stuck with a Major Telco.

Then there are those of us in rural areas stuck with a big telco, that's AT&T here, and they don't even have DSL out here (in Mendocino County, it's ONLY available from AT&T in Ukiah, Willits, Fort Bragg and Mendocino). The Northern third of the county is served by Verizon but they don't even have DSL anywhere on their network there. Thankfully, Comcast has HSI here, and it's fast and very dependable, we'll probably be dead by the time AT&T gets around to deploying DSL out here, let alone fiber.