The race to connect America is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, with a new report from New Street Research projecting a staggering expansion of fiber optic networks. According to analysts, the U.S. fiber industry is on track to pass a collective 139 million locations by 2030, fundamentally reshaping the broadband landscape and creating a new era of opportunity and competition. This massive “fiber fever” isn’t just a vision—it’s a strategic, financially-backed movement driven by the nation’s largest telecom players and bolstered by the rise in community broadband networks.
At the heart of this expansion are ambitious build-out plans from industry titans. AT&T, for example, is aiming to reach a monumental 60 million total fiber locations by 2030. They are already accelerating their deployment efforts, leveraging key acquisitions like Lumen’s consumer fiber business to fuel their growth. Similarly, Verizon’s strategic acquisition of Frontier’s fiber business is expected to help the company reach 30 million combined fiber locations by 2028. T-Mobile, a more recent entrant into the fiber game, is also making a significant push, with its own acquisitions of Lumos and Metronet and a target of 12-15 million more fiber passings in the coming years.
In addition to the private sector’s massive fiber expansion, municipalities and utility cooperatives are playing a crucial role in closing the digital divide, especially in rural and underserved communities. These public and community-owned entities are stepping in where traditional for-profit providers have historically been reluctant to build.
The Rise of Municipal and Co-op Broadband
Across the country, a growing number of cities and towns are treating high-speed internet as an essential public utility, much like water or electricity. Municipalities and electric cooperatives are leveraging their existing infrastructure, such as utility poles and rights-of-way, to build and deploy their own fiber networks. This model offers several key advantages:
- Bridging the Gap: These networks are often deployed in areas deemed too costly for large telecom companies to serve, providing essential connectivity to residents and businesses in remote or sparsely populated regions.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Electric co-ops, in particular, can build fiber networks at a lower cost than private companies. They own their poles, reducing make-ready costs, and can borrow money at low interest rates.
- Community-Focused Goals: The primary goal of these public entities is not to maximize profit, but to improve the quality of life for their community members. This focus often translates to lower prices, better customer service, and a long-term commitment to network maintenance and upgrades
What makes this level of aggressive deployment possible? The industry is bolstered by a potent combination of market demand and favorable government policy. While the revised Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program has removed its preference for fiber, a new tax law is providing a powerful financial incentive. This legislation allows operators to depreciate 100% of select equipment and capital expenditures, which translates to a potentially significant increase in cash flow. This financial boost is like rocket fuel for a capital-intensive industry, enabling providers to reinvest in network builds and accelerate their expansion timelines.
As these companies race to lay fiber, the competitive pressure on legacy cable providers is mounting. New Street Research forecasts that fiber availability will expand to 84% of existing cable locations, marking a significant encroachment on their long-held territory..
The sheer scale of this build-out presents both an enormous opportunity and a series of complex operational challenges. As providers deploy fiber to new locations, they must ensure their internal systems can keep pace. Managing a fragmented network with multiple vendors, activating new services seamlessly, and handling real-time device telemetry at scale will become more critical than ever. The old way of doing business—with manual processes and siloed data—simply won’t survive in this new, hyper-competitive environment.
For broadband providers to succeed in this new landscape, they will need solutions that streamline operations, improve interoperability, and provide a single, unified view of their network. This is where strategic software solutions and partnerships become essential. By leveraging advanced platforms that automate key processes, operators can reduce costs, speed up time-to-market, and deliver the superior customer experience necessary to win and retain subscribers. The “fiber fever” is not just about construction; it’s about building a smarter, more efficient operational backbone that can support the demands of tomorrow’s connected world.
