The Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) and the fiber industry hit the ground running in the first quarter of 2023, according to President and CEO Gary Bolton. In a report issued by his association, Bolton said the industry ended 2022 with record deployment of an additional 7.9 million homes passed. The FBA expects another record fiber deployment year with double digit year-over-year deployment growth in 2023.
Wall Street Equity Research Analyst George Notter at Jefferies recently said, “Based on our analysis of recent FCC data, we believe the [FTTH] market has at least 5 strong years of growth ahead. Our research agrees but we have some serious work to do to overcome some market challenges and impediments that threaten our mission to deliver fiber to every American home and business.”
During the quarter, Bolton said the FBA launched an extensive research effort with Cartesian to create a framework for how states can use the NTIA BEAD ($42.45B Broadband Equity Access and Deployment) funding program to solve their local fiber workforce needs.
“From this research, we are issuing a Workforce Development Guidebook that is being distributed to all state broadband and state workforce development offices,” Bolton said. “In addition, our education chair and FBA board member, Mark Boxer, along with Deborah Kish, FBA’s VP workforce development, have been making strong progress in their efforts to ramp our comprehensive OpTIC Path™ Fiber Optic Technician training program across the nation. Currently we are engaged with 40 service providers and 67 community colleges and training institutes across 38 states.”
On the supply chain front, FBA reports its supply chain working group, chaired by FBA board member, Scott Jackson (Graybar), has updated its estimates on fiber supply chain lead times. During last summer, the working group reported 52-60 week lead times on Fiber Optic Cable and 20-35 weeks on Fiber Multiport Terminals, among other critical products. The group is now reporting as of March 2023, lead times on Fiber Optic Cable are now down to 4-10 weeks and Fiber Multiport Terminals are down to 4-8 weeks.
“While the industry has done a great job in catching up in Q1,” Bolton said, “the team cautions that a strong uptick in demand is anticipated and highly recommends that all companies in our industry maintain a strong focus on long-range planning and follow the recommendations in the FBA Strategies to Mitigate Bottlenecks white paper to address their own needs as it relates to the fiber broadband supply chain.”
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