Fiber reaches nearly half of U.S. commercial buildings: Vertical Systems Group

The percentage of commercial buildings connected to a fiber-optic network in the U.S. reached 49.6% in 2016, according to Vertical Systems Group. The figure covers multi-tenant and company-owned buildings in the with 20 or more employees.

The market research firm states that the number of unconnected commercial buildings in the U.S. has dropped over the past dozen years from nearly 90% to the present 50.4%. It would seem reasonable to expect that more than half of U.S. commercial buildings will have a fiber connection at last sometime this year.

Active Carrier Ethernet transmission is the most popular choice for delivering services over this fiber, Vertical Systems Group reports. These services include dedicated internet connectivity, cloud services, data center interconnect, hybrid VPNs, and emerging SDN-enabled services.

"Fiber footprints have been highly valued assets in nearly every merger transaction in the industry during the past two years. The density of fiber-lit buildings on-net and geographic reach are significant competitive differentiators," said Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group. "For 2017, network providers report that fiber footprint expansion is the top factor that will drive Carrier Ethernet growth and support rising demand for other gigabit-speed services."

The fiber connection data is an outgrowth of the market research company's ENS (Emerging Networks Service). Topics include an analysis of current U.S. fiber trends, fiber penetration rates by customer segment (large enterprise and SMB), and statistics on fiber penetration and the number of unconnected premises within four building size segments (20-50 employees, 51-100 employees, 101-250 employees, >250 employees).

For related articles, visit the Business Topic Center.

For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer's Guide.