Fiber Broadband Deployment Is Paramount To Achieving Zero Carbon Footprint

The carbon footprint of fiber broadband networks is lower than hybrid fiber coax networks on every sustainability metric, from embodied carbon to carbon in the operational phases, including customer premise equipment (CPE). The FBA’s Sustainability Working Group compared the carbon footprint of fiber to the home (FTTH) networks with Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) data over cable system interface specification (DOCSIS) 4.0 networks. The findings are unequivocal: carbon footprint associated with network component manufacturing (embodied carbon) is 60% less in FTTH networks compared to HFC, installation carbon is 7% less, network operational carbon footprint is up to 96% less, while customer premise equipment is 18% less.

Communications service providers seeking to improve sustainability metrics associated with their broadband deployments will find that overbuilding an HFC plant with fiber will initially cause an incremental increase in carbon footprint — but after converting customers to fiber, the annual reduction in operational carbon will provide a break-even payback in six years. With fiber’s ability to scale to nearly unlimited bandwidth speeds, transitioning networks from HFC to fiber provides a far more sustainable option now and for decades to come.