Fiber Increasingly Gets the Nod From Cable for Network Expansions: SCTE Panel

Cable is increasingly employing fiber to the home (FTTH) in its networks, and competition is accelerating that drive, cable industry experts said Thursday during an SCTE webinar. Cable operators' expansions into greenfield areas like converted farmland almost exclusively are fiber, said Jack Burton, Broadband Success Partners principal. Anyone operating a coaxial cable network and not planning to incorporate or add fiber "is in for a rude awakening" from fiber competition, he said.

Cable broadband speeds have reached a point where they are good enough for most households' needs, but customer acquisition will be tougher without focusing on speed as a differentiator, said Pao Lo, vice president-network engineering, Midco. But beyond speeds, fiber allows for next-generation cable networks with greater capabilities, he said. FTTH could open the door to more opportunities for cable as it targets small businesses, said Dan Gledhill, senior vice president-broadband business operations, Fiber Harmonic. Fiber also could be a tool in luring or keeping higher-end users who aren't happy with their existing broadband service, he said.

Lo said local market conditions will be one of the drivers determining whether a cable operator opts for FTTH. In rural markets, a coax system running on DOCSIS 3.1 specifications will be more than sufficient, but in bigger suburban or metro markets with strong competition, an operator might choose fiber, he said.

Burton said cable operators' are increasingly switching to FTTH over upgrading a coax system. While the capital expense is somewhat higher, operating a fiber system is notably cheaper than coax, he said. The existence of fiber competition, he added, also could tip the scale toward FTTH over upgrading coax.

The cost of upgrading a DOCSIS system is, at minimum, about $80 per home passed, while a major upgrade to DOCSIS 4.0 can cost $350 or more -- and as much as $1,200 per home passed if the cabling is underground, Burton said. An aerial overbuild to fiber might cost $500 per home, though some operators are doing it for less, he said. The underground costs for fiber are similar to coax.

But an FTTH system doesn't require power supplies or the need to deal with issues like corrosion, frequency responses and RF leakage, Burton said. As such, operators that switch to fiber can have operating expenses that are 10%-20% of coax.

FTTH versus coax isn't an either/or proposition, said Gledhill. Vendors are working toward software-defined networks that allow operators to mix and match those technologies. There is also a vendor focus on letting cable operators employ both technologies with existing support staff, he said. In addition, CableLabs is working on developing common provisioning of the various networks, making it easier for mixing and matching, said Dean Stoneback, senior director-engineering and standards, SCTE.

Asked about DOCSIS 4.0's impact on FTTH, Burton said DOCSIS 3.1 Extended -- a series of DOCSIS 3.1 features enabled by DOCSIS 4.0 cable modems that can run on 3.1 networks -- "is going to be the death knell" for DOCSIS 4.0 upgrades. 3.1 Extended, along with moving video to IPTV, offers a lot of capacity and capability cheaply, he said.

Asked about how the broadband equity, access and deployment plan's demand for fiber might affect cable operators' access to fiber for their own network expansion and upgrades, Burton said most cable operators will have some or most upgrades done by the time BEAD money begins flowing. Stoneback said there could be difficulties with the availability of trained fiber network installers, which is why SCTE is focused heavily on workforce training.