What is "Fiber Nearby"?

Those subscribing to the Inside Towers Database (https://insidetowers.com/database/) might have discovered a mysterious new field called “Fiber Nearby”.  What is it?  Inside Towers is collaborating with BroadbandToolkit.com to give users visibility into the proximity of fiber to towers in the United States.  Here’s how it works.

·        Last mile fiber is being deployed across the United States.  The FCC, in its Broadband Data Collection (BDC) process documents the presence (or absence) of last mile fiber at each FCC Fabric Location ID.

·        BroadbandToolkit.com provides the fiber industry with an extensive set of tools for understanding the extent of fiber (and other technology) infrastructure deployment and in providing investors, ISPs, government entities, and not-for-profits with comprehensive planning tools.

·        Towers used by Wireless ISPs (WISPs) and others include towers owned by commercial entities (a.k.a. tower companies).  They also include “informal” structures such as water towers, buildings in elevated locations, etc.  Many towers are located in populated areas.  Others are not.  Remotely located towers may have the advantage of elevation and line-of-sight to large populated areas.  They might have the disadvantage of not having nearby fiber.

·        The benefit of fiber is that it offers a high speed low latency connection, typically at a small fraction of the cost of other technologies.  Most tower owners would prefer to pay a modest construction charge and a monthly recurring fee for fiber than invest in private microwave.  Most last mile fiber employs a passive optical network (PON) architecture. 

·        A PON architecture means that the electronics at either end of the connection can evolve to deliver increasing capabilities over time.  If you need higher speeds there is a very high likelihood that the fiber ISP can provider them. 

·        If you need dark fiber (for remote radio head or other applications) there is a high likelihood that the fiber ISP can provide it.  Fiber is typically deployed in high-strand bundles, which means that a lot of fiber is available for new / non-standard applications, if desired.

·        A wireless ISP with a remote tower (think “isolated mountain top”) can invest in a short-haul microwave link to another fixed location with fiber access.  Over a short distance a point-to-point microwave or millimeter wave link can operate at a higher bandwidth, at a higher frequency (in spectrum that is more widely available), with greater resilience to weather and other atmospheric effects, and at lower cost.  Ultimately, almost all traffic ends up on fiber.

·        Finally, fiber ISPs provide a wide range of business and consumer offerings.  The closer their current fiber infrastructure is to a tower the less expensive it will be to connect.  The Fiber Strategy Toolkit shows not only the presence of fiber, but also the “depth” of deployment, the percentage of locations within a small geographic area that are passed by fiber with certain commercial / performance specifications (e.g. “residential”, “gigabit symmetrical”, etc.).  The Fiber Strategy Toolkit also provides an exhaustive competitive matrix, naming the specific providers, and describing their FCC-reported capabilities.

What do we know about fiber availability at towers?  In Figure 1:

·        93% of the Inside Towers Database commercial towers and 91% of the structures in the FCC’s Antenna Structure Registration database (also part of the Towers Database) are in populated areas.  This means that they are surrounded by broadband serviceable locations (BSLs), e.g. residential and small business locations that could have fiber.

·        The FCC’s smallest reporting area in rural environments is a level 8 hexagon, which is approximately 0.7 square kilometers.

·        The percentage of sites that have some fiber availability (“ANY Fiber” in Figure 1) is 64% for commercial towers and 61% for registered structures.

·        Figure 1 also calculates the percentage of sites in hexagons with 20%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of locations passed by fiber.  If a large percentage of locations are passed then the ISP has already made a large investment to reach consumers.  Special construction charges are therefore likely to be modest.

Figure 1:

What do we know about competing fiber providers?  Figure 2 provides a glimpse of the competitive view of the Fiber Strategy Toolkit (or the Fiber Strategy Toolkit Pro). 

·        In this particular view colors indicate the percentage of locations passed (purple is just over ~0% and green is approaching ~100%).

·        The breakout boxes show specific competing fiber ISPs.

·        In some cases one provider will have multiple offerings in the same location (e.g. business and residential with different attributes).

·        This example shows three different competing providers.

Figure 2:

What does this mean for tower owners?

·        The “Fiber Nearby” field of the Inside Towers Database gives you a quick easy way to identify a minimum level of fiber availability at any particular site.

·        You can you use the Fiber Strategy Toolkit to explore the presence of fiber providers in greater detail.

·        Alternatively, BroadbandToolkit.com can - as a service - map your tower inventory to the footprint of each nearby fiber provider.  This enables tower owners and fiber providers to discuss volume backhaul arrangements over a large geographic area.  Questions?  We are here to help:  https://broadbandtoolkit.com/pages/contact-us, 415-346-5393.