16% of US homes can now get fiber, but deployments slowing

Eighteen million US homes can order up a fiber optic line that runs all the way to their door. That's 16 percent of the population, and this buildout has happened almost totally in the last seven years.

It's good news for fiber, which has been on a growth rate that exceeds anything ever achieved by copper telephone wiring and coaxial cable wiring in their first years. But the huge majority of these lines are part of Verizon's FiOS buildout—and that buildout has now reached the end of its first stage. And less than a third of those homes that can order a fiber connection have actually done so.