Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) now passes 15M US homes

Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) now passes 15 million US homes, or 13% of all US homes, according to data released today from research firm RVA. That’s an increase of about 28% from a year ago.

The number of homes connected to FTTH is now about 4.4 million, or 4% of all homes, RVA said, a nearly 52% increase from a year earlier and a 17% increase in the last six months.

About 2.6 million Americans subscribe to a video service through FTTH, RVA said, an increase of 65% from a year earlier and up 21% in the last six months.

About three fourths of the country’s FTTH subscribers belong to its three top telecom carriers, and most of those belong to Verizon Communications. The other fourth of the market is shared by some 681 other providers, RVA said.

Some planned FTTH buildouts have been put on hold lately as planners investigate whether their projects could be subsidized with federal broadband stimulus money whose award criteria are still being formulated, said Michael Render, RVA president. “But I think that will go away fairly quickly, and we hope to see the effect of stimulus programs by end of 2009.”