U.S. FTTH Rollouts Reach More Than Two Million Homes

More than two million U.S. households now have direct connections into high-speed fiber networks, according to a study released by the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). This compares to 1.01 million connections as of September 2006, meaning that the annual growth rate has increased to 112 percent from the 99 percent that was measured last March. The study also shows fiber to the home networks now passing 9.55 million U.S. homes, up from 6.1 million a year ago.



Verizon serves about two-thirds of the 2.14 million connections.
The study noted that the number of households that receive video services over their FTTH connections has increased sharply over the past six months, to 1.05 million, for an annual growth rate of about 160 percent.



The FTTH Council also noted that the "take rate" for fiber to the home services -- that is, the percentage of households that are offered the service and which actually subscribe -- is firmly on the rise. While overall FTTH take rates had been suppressed while Verizon was building its FTTH infrastructure faster than it was adding customers, the company is connecting customers more quickly now. Accordingly, FTTH industry's overall take rate rose from 22.3 percent to 26.8 percent in the most recent six-month period. The take rate among non-Verizon FTTH providers is nearly 52% and some individual projects have take rates well above this.

http://www.ftthcouncil.org