Fiber to the Home FAQ

Q. What is fiber to the home?

A. Fiber to the home (FTTH) is the delivery of a communications signal over optical
fiber from the operators switching equipment all the way to a home or business,
thereby replacing existing copper infrastructure such as telephone wires or coaxial
cable. Fiber to the home is a fast growing method of providing vastly higher
bandwidth to consumers and businesses, and thereby enabling more robust video,
internet and voice services.
Q. What is optical fiber?
A. Optical fiber is a hair-thin strand of glass, specially designed to trap and transmit
light pulses. The fiber uses light instead of electricity to carry a signal. It is unique
because it can carry high bandwidth signals over long distances without signal
degradation, and it can provide those signals simultaneously in both directions
upload and download. Copper media can also carry high bandwidth, but only for a
few hundred yards after which the signal begins to degrade and bandwidth
narrows.
Q. How does running fiber all the way to homes and businesses improve
telecommunications services?
A. Connecting homes directly to fiber optic cable enables enormous improvements
in the bandwidth that can be provided to consumers, both now and for many
decades to come. Todays widely commercialized fiber access technology can
provide two-way transmission speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, with 10 gigabit
systems now coming to market and even higher bandwidth fiber networks in
development. These improvements can be made without having to change the
installed fiber, which is why fiber networks are said to be future proof and are
capable of handling increases in bandwidth demand for decades to come. In
addition, all-fiber networks are capable of providing symmetrical bandwidth for
downloading and uploading, which give them another advantage over copper-based
networks.
Q. How many North American homes are connected to FTTH networks?
A. As of early 2013, fiber to the home networks are available to more than 22
million homes in North America, with nearly 10 million homes connected and
receiving Internet, voice and/or television service via FTTH.
Q. What kinds of companies are providing FTTH services?
A. More than two-thirds of all FTTH connections in North America are provided by
Verizon through its FiOS all-fiber service. The rest of the connections are spread
out over more than 700 entities, the vast majority of which are small, local telephone
providers that have upgraded from copper to fiber. In addition, about 100
municipalities across the continent are providing FTTH to their residents as a public
utility, and some small cable companies have upgraded to all-fiber as well. More
recently, Google has begun deploying gigabit fiber networks to homes in the
Kansas City, Austin, TX and Provo, UT areas, while public-private partnerships led
by Gig.U have spurred deployment of gigabit FTTH in a number of university
communities.

Q. Why are network operators upgrading to FTTH?

A. Ever-accelerating demands for more bandwidth and faster connectivity, driven by
increasingly sophisticated video services and other applications, have prompted
telecommunications providers to carefully consider which access technologies will enable them
to meet their subscribers needs far into the future. Running fiber all the way to homes and
businesses has become the best way to stay ahead of that demand. In addition, many
telephone companies are upgrading to FTTH because it gives them the ability to deliver a
television service to their subscribers, in addition to the fastest possible Internet service, which
enables them to compete with cable television providers. And many municipalities provide
FTTH service because they know that world class connectivity is essential to attracting
businesses and jobs and enhancing the quality of life for their residents.
Q. What trends in telecommunications are driving the need for more bandwidth?
A. The main driver is the proliferation of video over the Internet, particularly via video services
such as Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. In its annual Visual Networking Forecast, Cisco estimates
that by 2016 1.2 million video minutes the equivalent of 833 days (or over two years) will
travel the Internet every second. In addition, the number of Internet-enabled devices in the
average home continues to grow, as consumers purchase more smart-phones, tablets and
Internet video devices (such as Roku boxes), as well as machine-to-machine devices and
together these devices are increasing the need for more bandwidth to the home. Cisco
projects that by 2016 there will be nearly 18.9 billion network connections almost 2.5
connections for each person on earth compared with 10.3 billion in 2011.
Q. But isnt everything going wireless? Why do we need wireline fiber connections in
our homes?
A. Wireless mobility is increasingly important to the proliferation of Internet applications and
services. But when you look at connectivity from end to end, the vast majority of the signals
are carried over wireline (and increasingly) fiber infrastructure, whether its to a cell tower in the
neighborhood, a wi-fi access point in a business or community center, or a wireless router in
the home. It is this blend of robust wireless mobility and ultra high speed wireline connectivity
that is driving the development of the always available platform that is delivering increasingly
sophisticated, high-bandwidth services and applications to both consumers and businesses
Q. How many FTTH networks provide households with Internet speeds of 100 megabits
per second and above?
A. The FTTH Councils most recent estimate is that that there are now 640,000 North
American households receiving FTTH service with connection speeds of at least 100 megabits
per second.
Q. How many gigabit networks are there in the U.S. and where are they?
A. There are approximately 20 network operators offering gigabit Internet connectivity to their
subscribers. The public utility EPB in Chattanooga, TN has been offering gigabit services for
more than two years to the 170,000 homes in its service area, and there are public utilities
offering gigabit service in Lafayette LA, Gainesville FL and Bristol VA and TN. Meanwhile,
Google Fiber is deploying gigabit FTTH services in the Kansas City metro area, and has
announced plans to build gigabit networks in Austin TX and Provo UT. CenturyLink is
deploying a gigabit network in parts of Omaha NE, the ISP Sonic.net is offering gigabit service
in Northern California and Vermont Telephone is offering gigabit, as well.

Q. What is the status of FTTH in Canada?

A. Canadas FTTH deployment has picked up in recent years, with more than 540 thousand
homes now connected into all-fiber networks across the country, compared with about 100
thousand just three years ago. The largest FTTH provider in Canada is Bell Aliant, which is
deploying mostly in the Atlantic provinces and is now the second largest FTTH provider in
North America after Verizon.
Q. What was the first FTTH community in the U.S.?
A. The first local governments to build a publicly-funded FTTH network for its residents were
Kutztown, PA and Chelan County, WA, where FTTH networks came online in the late 1990s.
But they were not the first FTTH networks to be deployed. The East Ottertail Telephone
Company in Minnesota (now known as Arvig Communications) began upgrading to FTTH in
1995, and we believe that is the first telephone company to do so. Going back further to the
late-1980s, BellSouth (Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Co. at the time) built FTTH
networks in Hunter's Creek and Heathrow, two master-planned communities near Orlando.
Q. Are fiber to the home services more expensive than those that are available over
cable modem and DSL?
A. Our surveys have shown that FTTH subscribers pay approximately the same for their
Internet, voice and video services as do customers of cable and DSL providers, and that FTTH
subscribers actually pay less per megabit of bandwidth that they receive. In addition, surveys
of broadband consumers conducted by Consumer Reports magazine and by the FTTH Council
have shown that subscribers of FTTH services show considerably higher satisfaction rates than
subscribers of other broadband services.
Q. How does the U.S. compare internationally in terms of fiber to the home
connections?
A. South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan and more recently the United Arab Emirates are
the world leaders in the percentage of their households that receive broadband services over
FTTH. Russia has recently surged in its FTTH deployment activity, adding 2.2 million
connections in the second half of 2012, while China is also deploying FTTH aggressively. The
United States is one of the worlds leading countries in terms of the number of FTTH
connections and in the annual growth of homes connected to FTTH.
Q. What is the Fiber to the Home Council?
A. The Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Council Americas is a non-profit association consisting of the
companies and organizations that deliver video, Internet and/or voice services over highbandwidth, next-generation, direct fiber optic connections as well as those involved in
planning and building FTTH networks. Its mission is to accelerate deployment of all-fiber
access networks by demonstrating how fiber-enabled applications and solutions create value
for service providers and their customers, promote economic development and enhance quality
of life.
Q. Who are the FTTH Councils members?
A. The FTTH Council Americas has more than 270 members, more than half of which are
entities that provide FTTH services to subscribers. These include independent telephone
companies and cooperatives, competitive broadband providers, municipalities that provide
FTTH services as a public utility, and some cable companies. The Council was founded
largely by optical access equipment makers, who still make up a large part of the Councils
membership. Another growing segment of Council membership is comprised of the
engineering firms that specialize in designing and building FTTH networks for service
providers. The Council also has a Latin American chapter that represents a growing number of
companies involved in wiring up Latin America and the Caribbean with FTTH.