64% of U.S. Commercial Buildings Do Not Have Fiber Access

You might think that after decades of activity by service providers to provide direct fiber connections to business customers, more than 36 percent of U.S. commercial buildings already would have been reached. You would be wrong.

Some 64 percent of U.S. commercial buildings do not have direct fiber access, according to Vertical Systems Group.

To be sure, business fiber availability has more than tripled since 2004, when the penetration rate was 10.9 percent. But the distance yet to be covered shows the work which remains. To be sure, the use of copper connections does not necessarily mean most businesses are “underserved.”

One can make the argument that for most small businesses, business class Internet access using either cable modems or digital subscriber line facilities supplies enough value to be workable today.

And most businesses do buy Internet access service, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. In 2010, 90 percent of small businesses used the Internet. Excluding small businesses that do not have any computers, the level of broadband adoption jumps to 95 percent.

That might not be so true everywhere, though. 



That is not to say small businesses, or other businesses, “do not need” or “would not use” an optical access service if it were available, only that, at the moment, other copper access networks seem to work well enough.

"The U.S. fiber gap has been steadily closing each year and this trend will continue,” said Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group.

On the other hand, service providers only have incentive to extend direct fiber connections to business when the demand exists, or the demand can be supplied profitably, and for most small business locations, either “willingness to buy” or “ability to supply at a profit” is lacking.

One might therefore expect slow, but continued progress on the “fiber to business” front, but no major leaps.