Monday, July 11, 2011

74% Happy with Fiber to Home Access


Overall satisfaction among fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) subscribers reached a new high in 2011, with 74 percent stating they are "very satisfied" in a new study conducted by the FTTH Council. This compares favorably to customer satisfaction for cable users at 54 percent and 51 percent for DSL. Perhaps the only surprise is that "only" 74 percent were "very satisfied." Read more here.

The study also indicates that 54 percent of cable modem subscribers are "very satisfied," while 51 percent of digital subscriber line customers are "very satisfied." Read more.

The study further estimates there are about 162,500 U.S. subscribers buying broadband access at 50 Mbps, and about 69,700 buying services at 100 Mbps. One would suspect that most of those users are "business" users rather than consumer users. One possible hint about that pattern is that 67 percent of users with 50 Mbps connections say they "ever work from home." About 30 percent of all FTTH users say they "ever work from home." 

One might guess that 67 percent of 50 Mbps users say they "work from home" because they use connections subsidized by their employers. Only about
22 percent of users of 50 Mbps services (or higher) say they have "home-based" businesses. About 12 percent of all FTTH subscribers say they operate a home-based business. The take-away is that most at-home 50 Mbps connections are not supporting a home-based business.

The survey of more than 2,000 broadband subscribers, drawn randomly from a nationally balanced panel of more than 3.2 million consumers by the market research firm RVA LLC also found that overall satisfaction among FTTH users continues to lead that of other broadband subscribers, with those answering "very satisfied" at 74 percent - up from 71 percent a year ago - compared to 54 percent for cable users and 51 percent for DSL.

As of April 2011, fiber to the home services were available to more than 18 percent of North American homes and were connected to more than seven million of them. RVA estimates that there are now 170,000 North American households receiving FTTH service with connection speeds of at least 100 megabits per second, and a total of 347,000 receiving 50 Mbps service. Both of these figures were more than double those from last year's survey report.

With regard to cost of service relative to download connection speed, the RVA survey results showed FTTH subscribers paying $2.91 a month per megabit of bandwidth, compared to $3.83 for cable subscribers, $16.40 for DSL, and $49.38 per megabit for fixed wireless services.

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