The number of commercial and government buildings with fiber broadband services available to them continues to grow. Twelve companies now have at least 15,000 on-net fiber lit buildings, which qualifies them for inclusion on Vertical Systems Group’s U.S. Fiber Lit Buildings Leaderboard. That’s one more than last year.
The companies, in order by the number of connected buildings, are AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum Enterprise, Lumen, Comcast Business, Cox Business, Zayo, Crown Castle, Frontier, Brightspeed, Breezeline and Optimum. AT&T held the top spot for the seventh consecutive year.
VSG Fiber Lit Buildings Leaderboard
VSG’s Challenge Tier includes companies with between 5,000 and 14,999 lit commercial buildings. In alphabetical order, companies in the Challenge Tier include Altafiber (formerly Cincinnati Bell), Consolidated Communications, FirstLight, Great Plains Communications, Ritter Communications, Segra, Unite Private Networks, Uniti Fiber and Windstream.
Companies in the Market Player Group have fewer than 5,000 commercial fiber lit buildings in the U.S. VSG has identified more than 200 metro, regional and other providers that fit that description. Some of the qualifiers, in alphabetical order, are 11:11 Systems, ACD, Alaska Communications, American Telesis, Armstrong Business Solutions, Astound Business, C Spire, Centracom, Cogent, Conterra, DFN, DQE Communications, Everstream, ExteNet Systems, Fatbeam, FiberLight, First Digital, Flo Networks, Fusion Connect, Google Fiber, GTT, Horizon, Hunter Communications, Logix Fiber Networks, LS Networks, Mediacom Business, MetroNet Business, Midco, Pilot Fiber, PS Lightwave, Shentel Business, Silver Star Telecom, Sonic Business, Sparklight Business, Syringa, T-Mobile, TDS Telecom, TPx, U.S. Signal, Vast Networks, WOW!Business and Ziply Fiber.
VSG also offered highlights:
- Rankings for the top six companies on the 2022 Leaderboard are unchanged from 2021.
- The next six provider rankings changed compared to 2021. Zayo advanced to rank seventh ahead of Crown Castle. Frontier moved up to ninth position from tenth. Brightspeed debuted in tenth position with fiber assets acquired from Lumen. Breezeline (formerly Atlantic Broadband) fell to eleventh position from ninth. Optimum (branded as Altice USA) dropped from eleventh to twelfth.
- The number of 2022 Challenge Tier citations expanded from eight to nine with the addition of Ritter Communications.
“Fiber installations at U.S. commercial sites increased in 2022, driven by escalating requirements for gigabit-speed connectivity to support cloud-based services, data centers, 5G rollouts, and other applications,” VSG principal Rosemary Cochran said in a press release.
“New fiber investments in the U.S. will continue to be impacted by pending federal programs and funding initiatives. Opportunities in the commercial segment include monetizing the millions of small buildings underserved.”