Towers with Fiber Nearby
This article is an excerpt from the currently available Inside Towers Intelligence 2026 Vol 2 issue
Fiber is becoming an increasingly important backhaul element to support growing mobile data traffic and anticipated AI inference needs. Developed in collaboration with Broadband Toolkit, ‘Fiber Nearby’ is a unique search parameter available in the Inside Towers Database that gives users visibility into the proximity of fiber to towers in the U.S.
What do we know about fiber availability at towers? Broadband Toolkit estimates that 93 percent of commercial towers and 91 percent of the structures in the FCC’s ASR database (also part of the Inside Towers Database) are in populated areas. This means that they generally are surrounded by broadband serviceable locations, that is, residential and small business locations that may have access to fiber.
The FCC’s smallest reporting area in rural environments is a level 8 hexagon, which is approximately 0.7 square kilometers.
If a high percentage of locations are passed by fiber, then an ISP has already made a large investment to reach consumers. In these instances, special construction charges incurred by the MNO to have the ISP run a connection to the tower are likely to be modest.
The chart, taken as an example from Broadband Toolkit’s Fiber Strategy Toolkit Pro provides a view of the hexagon mapping for a particular area and also gives a view fiber provider in a specific area. The Inside Towers Database Fiber Nearby feature indicates whether or not a tower is located in or near a hexagon that has fiber.
The hexagon colors indicate the percentage of locations passed within a hexagon. Purple is just over zero percent while green is approaching 100 percent. White indicates no fiber presence. Clicking on the hexagon will show the ISPs with fiber in that area. In this example, the breakout boxes for the selected hexagon (highlighted in red) show three competing fiber ISPs.
What does this mean for tower owners?
The “Fiber Nearby” field of the Inside Towers Database gives tower owners a quick easy way to identify a minimum level of fiber availability at any particular site.
Use the Fiber Strategy Toolkit Pro to explore the presence of fiber providers in greater detail.
Alternatively, BroadbandToolkit can map your tower inventory against the footprint of one or all fiber providers. This approach allows you to negotiate backhaul arrangements over a large geographic area with available fiber providers.
For more information or to discuss your specific needs, visit https://broadbandtoolkit.com/pages/contact-us.
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
