 CenturyLink is expanding its intercity fiber network to a total of 4.7 million miles, making it the largest network of its kind in North America, according to the company. The company is also laying new fiber in parts of Europe. The first phase of CenturyLink’s fiber network expansion was completed in June, and it now reaches more than 70 U.S. cities including many of the country’s most populated metropolitan areas. The company’s fiber network in the United States now traverses more than 3.5 million miles. A forthcoming fiber deployment, which the company expects to be completed by early 2021, will add an additional 1.2 million miles of fiber to parts of Europe. The entire effort is an overbuild, which means CenturyLink is using existing multi-conduit infrastructure that was originally installed about 20 years ago to deploy new fiber technology and add network capacity as needed. The company also operates a long-haul network and dense metro networks. CenturyLink is using low-loss fiber technology from Corning for the build, which has a silica core design and offers the “lowest loss of any terrestrial-grade optical fiber,” according to the company. CenturyLink says it’s selling fiber routes to large enterprises and content providers in the U.S. “We expanded our intercity fiber network because we saw a tremendous demand for dark fiber driven by web-scale companies building data center connectivity between cities, as well as large enterprise businesses needing low-latency network infrastructure,” CenturyLink CTO Andrew Dugan wrote in response to questions. “As the demand for high-capacity, low-latency data transport continues to grow, web-scale companies, large enterprise businesses, content providers, government agencies and communications providers are seeking more fiber for building their own secure, scalable networks for next-generation applications,” Dugan explained. CenturyLink is positioning the network for applications running on 5G, including augmented reality, high-definition video streaming, and IoT devices. “We envision web-scale companies, large enterprise businesses, content providers, government agencies, and communications providers utilizing this fiber to unlock the opportunities presented by [IoT] and other transformative technologies,” Dugan wrote. Why has there been more “dark” (not in use) fiber than “lit”, (in-service) fiber in America? Most of us have heard that the FCC’s data pertaining to broadband coverage needs to be fixed, but that’s nothing. What is really screwy is what America has been told about the fiber optic deployments. NOTE: Fiber optic wires are really a glass or plastic substitute for the original copper-based wires (which have been used since the turn of the 20th Century). Fiber can handle a lot more data at much higher speeds. It’s the difference of delivering water through a drinking straw vs opening up a fire hydrant. And since the 1990’s, the plan has been to replace the aging copper networks, but that never happened as promised, or as paid for. The chart above was taken from the FCC’s “Statistics of Communications Common Carriers”, as of December 2007 which is, unfortunately, the last data available — that’s 13 years ago. The FCC has not updated this information and according to this 2007 report, there were 43.2 million fiber optic miles of cable laid in America which were controlled by what are now AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink (with caveats). However, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, “Fiber Route Mile Leaderboard” in March 2019, AT&T and Verizon, combined, had only 2.2 million route miles of fiber cable, and these wires are being dedicated to roll out wireless services, known as 5G wireless. (Ironically, we keep hearing that 5G can replace the need for fiber, but duh, they require fiber optic wires to work.) What? I’ll get back to this 2.2 million miles of fiber in 2019 vs 43.2 million miles (rounded) in 2007 discrepancy in a moment. And note, we are talking about millions and millions of miles of fiber that have supposedly already been put into the ground or on poles in America. NOTE: This data is NOT counting the fiber lines to homes and offices. 1 Million miles of fiber can handle lots of separate connections to residential and business locations. The Dark Side But it gets worse. There is a very serious caveat which no one talks about. The majority of this fiber optic cable put in by 2007 was “DARK”, meaning it was not “LIT” — meaning it is in the ground or on a pole but not in service. 66% of the Fiber in America in 2007 Was Not in Use but Installed. With some incumbent phone companies, the amount of fiber that had been already laid by 2007 and left dark was much higher. AT&T California, (Pacific Bell) had 81% of their fiber optic network NOT LIT and NOT IN USE. Thus, as of December 2007, there were 2.9 million miles of fiber optic wires in California; 2.4 million miles were NOT TURNED ON. And we assume that this fiber could still be in the ground and most was probably still NOT TURNED ON. The excerpt below is from the original source and it is calibrated in kilometers; it shows that 4.8 million km was in the ground but less than 1 million km of this cable was in use in AT&T California in 2007. There is no later information supplied by the State Commission, the FCC, or AT&T that we could find. And you thought that the accounting of broadband coverage in America was screwy…? Wait. There’s more. AT&T and Verizon only had 2.2 Million Miles of Fiber in 2019? According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, “Fiber Route Mile Leaderboard” in March 2019, AT&T and Verizon, combined, had only 2.2 million route miles and these wires are being dedicated to roll out wireless services, known as 5G.
Notice that these are called “route miles” as opposed to just “fiber miles”. This is very problematic in and of itself. As we pointed out previously, AT&T covers 21 states and currently has a measly 4 million total fiber optic broadband connections to a home or office — out of covering 76 million residential and business locations, (as opposed to millions of fiber optic miles). In 2018, AT&T claimed it was leading with 1.1 million “global route miles” of fiber. Notice the term “global route miles”.
AT&T also claims that fiber is making 5G possible.
What a farce. If the fiber optic highway was right to the doorstep they wouldn’t need 5G, now would they? 22 Years Ago, AT&T had 8.5 Million Miles of Fiber; Verizon Was at 6.4 Million. This gets curiouser and curiouser. This next chart goes back over 2 decades and is from the FCC’s “Fiber Deployment Update End of Year 1998” detailing the fiber miles deployed by what are now AT&T, Verizon and Centurylink (formerly US West). According to this, AT&T, (which was created by combining Ameritech, BellSouth, Pacific Telesis and SBC, as well as the previous version of AT&T) had a total of 8.5 million miles of fiber optic cable in 1998; Verizon (Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and GTE, as well as MCI) had 6.4 million miles and Centurylink (formerly US West) had 1.7 million fiber optic miles — for a total of 16.1 million miles of fiber. *The total includes other smaller carriers. We also left out MCI and AT&T (1984–2005), and other carriers that were part of these companies, like SNET (CT). Questions Abound: Let us answer the opening question — There has been a manipulation of the different definitions of the terms “fiber optics”, “fiber miles”, “fiber route miles” and “global route miles” used by the companies and industry over the last 2+ decades. The Mathematics of Route Miles, Fiber Miles and Dark Fiber When a fiber optic cable is installed, as the opening picture shows, it can have multiple bundles of wires.
And note that a ‘strand’ of fiber can go to 1 household or business and supply 1Gbps speeds, in both directions, without breaking a sweat. Thus, the current accounting provided by AT&T et al. uses the term “route miles”, sometimes, and they are not supplying the actual number of strands that are in the bundle and how many are “lit” or are “dark”. To make matters even more confusing,
Boy, doesn’t all of this have a stench to confuse the public? Light Reading’s story “The Story Behind Verizon’s 5G Secret Weapon” claims Verizon is installing 22.5 million “fiber miles” through 2020, and yet, as we just saw, Verizon had only 1 million “fiber route” miles in 2019.
Wikipedia states that these bundles could add up to 864 separate ‘strands’. This would mean that there are only 26,000 “fiber route miles”, not 22.5 million miles.
AT&T has been throwing the different terms “fiber optic miles”, “route miles” and “global route miles” all over the place for the last decade+. John Stankey, President and CEO, AT&T, at a UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, Dec. 9, 2008, stated in one place that AT&T only had “77,000 miles of fiber”, and “877,000 route miles internationally”. And throwing in the term “Global”, AT&T is just manipulating the storyline. Capacity Media stated that AT&T was in 220 countries with wireline and wireless services in 2010 and that the fiber route miles were being used across the globe.
Questions abound, some of which you may now know the answer to but want investigated.
Finally — You, that’s right, You; You paid for these fiber optic wires — the millions upon millions of miles of fiber optic wires that are dark. We estimate that at least $500 billion dollars was spent and growing. And most of America was never upgraded to fiber. The land area of the entire United States is 3,531,905 square miles. If there were 43 million miles of fiber by 2007 (13 years ago), (and we discount the large states like Alaska’s wilderness, etc. — but supplied service to populated areas) — ALL of us could have had fiber-to-the-home by now as this last accounting of fiber miles was 13 years ago. |
What company has the most fiber route miles
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