Gary Bolton

Ensuring universal access to voice, internet, and emergency communications services should be something that requires no debate. It is a bedrock concept that Congress has locked into the law for a century as broadband has become the primary conduit to access local, state, and federal government services, setup a doctor’s appointment, pay your taxes, and interact with your school system, just to name a few examples.

As the Federal Communications Commission considers adopting its Nineteenth Section 706 Report, the Fiber Broadband Association submitted  updated market statistics to facilitate a data-driven assessment:

The United States has entered one of the most consequential infrastructure investment cycles since the construction of the interstate highway system and the commercialization of the Internet. Two historic trends are unfolding at the same time: the nationwide deployment of fiber broadband infrastructure and the rapid buildout of the infrastructure required to support artificial intelligence, quantum networking, and other emerging applications. Each would be transformative on its own.

The Fiber Broadband Association celebrated its 25th anniversary at Fiber Connect 2026 in Orlando, highlighting numerous milestones. In 2025, the fiber broadband industry passed 11.8 million homes, breaking 2024’s record, and it is on pace to beat that again this year. FBA research estimates that the total U.S.

In 2025, the fiber industry set another record for growth, hitting 11.8 million homes passed according to the latest Fiber Broadband Association research conducted by RVA Market Research & Consulting. Total broadband passings have reached nearly 100 million homes in the United States when you include homes with more than one passing. Taking out the multiple-passings, there are 84.6 million unique addresses that have fiber. But there’s still plenty of upward growth in the years ahead.

USTelecom and more than 30 other broadband industry groups sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo covering several ideas for how the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) can remedy the issues posed by the rates being approved for the low-cost service option requirement in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD)Pprogram.

As fiber continues to proliferate throughout the nation through federal and private investment, new and exciting opportunities to utilize it are opening beyond delivering high-speed, low-latency broadband to unserved and underserved areas of the country. Technologies using fiber as a sensor have been around for decades, but the growth of fiber deployments worldwide is opening up new applications in everything from monitoring cicadas to locating new energy sources. Fiber optic sensing measures changes in an optical fiber's naturally occurring light scattering.

In the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Congress established a preference for “priority broadband projects,” defined as projects providing broadband service that meet high performance standards, can scale with consumer and business needs over time, and will enable the deployment of 5G and other advanced services. After receiving input from a wide range of parties, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) determined that “end-to-end fiber optic facilities” were the only platform that satisfied these requirements and warranted such a priority.

One of the most critical questions that each State and Territory must tackle in implementing the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program is how to make efficient investments in the most reliable, capable, and sustainable broadband connectivity for those residents and businesses that have been left behind while reaching as many unserved and underserved locations as possible.

With virtually unlimited bandwidth, fiber optic connectivity is the fastest, most reliable, and most innovative solution for bridging the digital divide. Other options, like fixed wireless access, may be faster to deploy but require more upkeep, have limited capabilities, and require substantial new investment in a relatively short period.