If 2022 was anything, it was the year that fiber builds began shifting into high gear. A newly released report from the Fiber Broadband Association found there are now 68 million fiber passings in the U.S., a figure that is up 13% year on year and 27% from two years ago. To put it another way, operators collectively added 7.9 million fiber passings this year. But that raises an interesting question: what counts as a passing, anyway?
Fierce took this question directly to a number of operators, with the goal of determining whether a passing refers to locations where fiber is run right up to the doorstep or those where infrastructure is merely present along the street out front. The distinction might seem frivolous, but considering a county in Maryland recently had to create an entire grant category to help reach homes that are considered “passed” but are so far from the road that residents would have to pay thousands to actually be connected, it seems an important detail.
It seems the answer to the passing question varies slightly by operator, though most consider a passing to be any location which can be connected to fiber running along the main road. Verizon, Lumen Technologies and Consolidated Communications all fell into this category.
Asked whether homes far away from the road might have to pay out of pocket to be connected, a Verizon representative told Fierce it typically does not require “the application of construction charges to residential Fios Home Internet customers for extension of drops to long setback structures."
Though Verizon is one of the companies operating in the county with the aforementioned long driveway grant program, the representative said it was not sure why a the county’s Chief Information Officer told Fierce last month the operator would charge for service drops of more than 225 feet.
Lumen VP and GM of Field Sales and Marketing Guy Gunther similarly said many of its connection offers include the cost of installation. However, he acknowledged there are instances “when construction charges are required, usually when the customer’s home is really far from our network source or extensive work is required, such as laying fiber under roads, driveways, or other obstacles.” The cost for consumers in these cases varies based on distance and how much boring is necessary, he added.
Likewise, a Consolidated representative said passings are locations which are in “close proximity” to its network. And depending on the length of the fiber drop and other factors, “there could be additional costs [for installation] in exceptional circumstances.”
Brightspeed, which just closed on a deal to acquire Lumen’s ILEC assets in 20 states and is embarking on a massive fiber build, told Fierce it has not yet connected any homes to its new network or opened any for sale. However, it indicated its definition of a fiber passing will be similar to those of Verizon, Lumen and Consolidated.
AT&T was something of an outlier. An operator representative told Fierce it doesn’t use the term “passings” at all. “The term we use to report the current state of our fiber footprint is fiber locations served. We define customer locations served as where fiber has been built to a specific customer location, the customer is able to place an order for fiber and service can be provisioned.”
Grant considerations
That some homes considered “passed” may have to pay to actually be connected is notable given those locations are not eligible for certain federal grant funding.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees the multi-billion Broadband ReConnect grant program. An agency representative told Fierce that under program rules, a passing is considered a location which is near enough to broadband facilities that service can be provided in a reasonable amount of time if it is requested. Passings fall into a different category than “connected” locations, which actually have facilities constructed to the premises.
ReConnect funding is designed to ensure all premises in the proposed service area are connected, so there is no need to charge a customer even if their house is miles from the main road, the representative said. But if a consumer’s home isn't yet connected but is already considered passed by facilities meeting the program’s minimum speed requirement, they’re out of luck.
“If an area can receive broadband service at or above this minimum speed, then that area is ineligible for funding,” the representative said.
But the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program could help close this gap. A senior National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) official told Fierce that funding will be distributed based on new broadband coverage maps from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and locations that are passed but cannot be connected within a reasonable amount of time or without excessive fees should be marked as unserved.
The FCC said as much in challenge guidance for consumers posted online, noting service is only considered “available” at a given location “if the provider has, or previously had, a connection in service to the location, or if the provider could initiate service through a routine installation within 10 business days of a request with no extraordinary monetary charges or delays attributable to the extension of the provider’s network.”
The key, the NTIA official said, will be getting consumers to ensure their passed but unconnected locations are counted as unserved by filing challenges where inaccurate information has been listed on the first version of the map.
The FCC opened the door for consumer map challenges when it unveiled the map last month. In a blog posted earlier this week, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the agency has received “thousands” of consumer challenges already. She added that to ensure availability disputes are resolved and factored into the NTIA’s BEAD funding calculations, consumers should file their challenges by January 13.