FBA Study Finds Need for More Fiber Infrastructure is “Underappreciated”

The growth of new internet data centers to accommodate artificial intelligence in the United States is going to drive a boom in fiber optic network construction. According to a report commissioned by the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA), the expected tripling of data center capacity by 2029 will require a doubling of fiber network miles.

“Given the laws of physics as known today, fiber optic cable is by far the superior type of interconnection – and will remain so far into the future. In a real sense, fiber is the foundation of AI,” according to the report, “The Underappreciated Need to Enable AI and Data Center Growth.”

Earlier this summer, the White House released an artificial intelligence policy plan which included ideas to stimulate the construction of infrastructure to prepare for data centers. The plan focused on infrastructure needed to ensure data centers have enough electric power to operate but had comparatively little emphasis on fiber optic and other communications infrastructure.

Research firm RVA LLC, which authored the report, estimated that 95,000 miles of fiber optic networks currently cover the United States. “There is a clear need to rapidly expand both route miles and fiber miles to meet the needs of this new world of AI. It is expected that route miles will increase about two times from 95,000 route miles to about 187,000 route miles by 2029,” the report concludes.

“Fiber miles,” the total length of all fiber strands over the networks, must increase from the current 159 million miles to 373 million miles or 2.3 times more, the report finds.

Currently, the average straight-line distance between the first through third internet access point from existing data centers is 19.8 miles, 29.8 miles and 37.2 miles. RVA estimated that, because network routes between data centers and access points are never a straight line, the actual required fiber miles to link the sites will be about 15 percent longer.

“This analysis could be conservative for new hyperscale data centers now being built in even more rural areas via ongoing efforts to locate new land and power,” according to the report, which found that average distances could rise to about 50 miles.

FBA’s suggested policy changes to promote more network miles include permitting reform, capital gains tax reform and greater access to federal lands. “In addition to policy relief, new creativity must be used to find new routes,” the report finds. For example, it proposes fiber network owners and electric utilities working together to find solutions.

“Undergrounding DC power results in narrower and less obtrusive co-easements, which would allow both fiber and power infrastructure. Such easements may also allow developing partnerships for the use of fiber sensing to improve security for multiple assets in the right of way,” the report says.