FTTH data under renewed scrutiny

Two weeks after the FTTH Council announced the number of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) subscribers in North America had topped 2 million, another analyst is openly questioning the validity of those numbers.

“We continue to believe [the data] is too aggressive, and they continue to be evasive as to the actual data that makes up these numbers,” Teresa Mastrangelo, principal analyst at BroadbandTrends, wrote in a report issued today. “[FTTH equipment] vendor shipment data into North America does not even come close to supporting this kind of growth.”

Based on a report written by RVA Market Research (formerly Render Vanderslice and Associates), the FTTH Council, together with the Telecommunications Industry Association, announced earlier this month that 2.14 million North American homes were connected by fiber as of the end of September.

Bell companies accounted for more than 68% of those connections, RVA said, with independent telcos contributing another 16%, competitive carriers another 6%, developers 5% and municipalities more than 3%. That would give Verizon Communications, the most prolific FTTH deployer, about 1.44 million subscribers at the end of last month, Mastrangelo said.

“If this is in fact true, then Verizon will have nearly doubled the number of net additions over [this year’s second quarter],” she wrote. “While we believe that Verizon will announce strong growth in FTTH, we are doubtful that it will have grown at those levels. We also find it very interesting that both Verizon and non-Verizon FTTH subscriptions are growing at the same rate (60 percent) and that both make up the same percentage of total broadband lines (13 percent).”

Though it is still too early to report third-quarter FTTH subscriber numbers, she said, Mastrangelo predicts the actual number will be about 1.8 million.

Contacted this morning by Telephony, RVA President Michael Render promised to respond after reviewing Mastrangelo’s arguments.

RVA drew similar scrutiny from more than one analyst when it announced a year ago—again, at the council’s annual FTTH Conference—that North American FTTH subscribers had topped 1 million.

In the past, Render has attributed much of the surprising growth in FTTH to a “long tail” of small non-Bell providers. In this month’s report, RVA claimed there were 369 FTTH providers in North America, 5% more than a year ago.

Mastrangelo pointed out this week that RVA is claiming 60% growth in non-Bell FTTH subscribers since March. That implies an aggregate 266,000 net subscriber additions among the non-Bell group in the past six months. “SureWest is the single largest non-RBOC FTTH network, and they are only growing at an average of 1200 subscribers per quarter,” Mastrangelo wrote.

If there are 369 FTTH providers in North America, RVA’s data imply each of them would be serving an average of 1902 subscribers. But nearly half of the independent telcos deploying FTTH today have less than 5,000 total access lines, giving them an average base of 2800 lines each, Mastrangelo said. “It is doubtful that they are supporting greater than 60% of their access lines on FTTH.”

“If I am wrong, let me know,” Mastrangelo concluded. “But more importantly, show me the data.”