Demand for high-speed, low-latency fiber connectivity is surging. Businesses need it to support AI workloads, cybersecurity services, edge computing, and other essential applications — and the growth is evident: U.S. fiber-lit buildings will exceed 2 million by year’s end, according to a Vertical Systems Group report.
By the end of last year, more than 36% of the country’s commercial buildings and data centers were fiber-lit.
According to Vertical Systems Group, the majority of fiber-connected commercial buildings in the U.S. have only one provider today — but that’s starting to change as redundancy becomes a higher priority for business customers.
The researchers also note that new fiber builds face significant headwinds, including high construction costs and difficulty securing property access rights and construction rights-of-way.
In descending order, the companies with the most fiber-lit commercial properties at the end of last year were: AT&T, Verizon, Charter (Spectrum Business), Comcast Business, Lumen, Cox Business, Zayo, Crown Castle, Frontier, Uniti, Breezeline, Brightspeed, and Segra. Each had 25,000 or more on-net fiber-lit buildings.
In alphabetical order, the companies below that threshold were: Altafiber, Conterra Networks, Everstream, Fidium, FirstLight, Great Plains Communications, and Lightpath.
- Buildings that are already fiber-connected allow providers to deploy services much faster and at lower cost, since there’s no need to lay new infrastructure.
- Numerous billion-dollar investments in new U.S. data centers are in process or planned, adding to the thousands already operational. Investors aim to build new facilities to accommodate immense AI workloads.
- Optical fiber is essential for AI. According to Vertical Systems Group, high-capacity lit fiber supports the massive data transfers required between processors and data centers, and the largest AI facilities now consume roughly 10 times more fiber than conventional data centers.
Vertical Systems Group cites the following for the expected continued strong growth of fiber-lit buildings:
Many providers are continuing their fiber buildouts. Among the most recent fiber expansions announced was Ezee Fiber’s expansion of its 100% fiber network across Metro Detroit. Residential and business customer installations are expected to begin in the second quarter of 2026.
