Fiber operators and builders must always look to the future. This is why most network projects begin by calculating current and projected future broadband needs, determining the number of fibers needed to meet those needs, and then evaluating the budget to support the maximum number of fibers that can be installed with the available funding, conduit, and space.
As AI continues to grow and the need for more capacity increases within data centers, between buildings and campuses, and for regional and long-distance connectivity, we are already seeing forward-thinking builders begin to reap the benefits of optical “fibermax.” More fiber is needed to support ever-increasing bandwidth between existing locations and to deploy fiber along new routes to increase diversity and resiliency. As the country transitions from traditional copper to fiber optics, eliminating single points of failure is critical to local public safety and national security.
There are three main areas where I expect fiber usage to increase beyond today’s “normal” growth trends due to increased use by homes and businesses through existing applications. AI is certainly at the top of the list due to the need for dense computing resources to create new models with multiple ways to pack more fiber into less space. Reducing the diameter of individual glass strands from 250 microns to 190 microns and significantly changing cable packaging allows manufacturers to place twice as many fibers in the same physical space, and multicore technology allows four different light paths through a single piece of glass.
Removing copper is on everyone’s to-do list, and data center operators are eliminating cabling for out-of-band management (OOBM) through PON-based solutions, reducing physical footprint, power consumption, operational overhead, and creating more space for GPUs and racks under the data center roof. Other changes include resizing and repackaging optical components inside and outside the data center to further increase density while reducing power consumption.
The adoption and use of new AI models will strengthen the connectivity between data centers and users, whether they are large enterprises or home users. While we don’t know exactly what AI will look like in five years, and some hypothesize that some processing will move from core data centers to the edge to reduce latency, I think everyone will need more bandwidth and lower latency as we move from an information-based economy where data flows back and forth to a thinking economy where intelligence works with data to provide insights and increased efficiency for individuals, organizations, and businesses. Putting more intelligence at the edge doesn’t eliminate the need for more fiber overall across the network.
Quantum technology is the next big growth area, as concerns that quantum computers will break industry standard encryption have gone from a theoretical concern to a likely reality within the next five years. Last month, the White House issued two executive orders that put quantum technology at the forefront. Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks Executive Order 14412 recognizes that large-scale quantum computers pose a significant threat to existing cryptographic security systems, transitions federal information systems to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-approved Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) for post-quantum cryptography (PQC), and outlines steps to assist critical infrastructure owners and operators in the transition.
This push is in some ways very similar to the White House’s initial push for the Internet in the 1990s, which quickly moved us into an open standards information economy by requiring all government agencies to have a web presence and promoting the World Wide Web as a way for the federal government to distribute information and communicate with other government agencies, businesses, and the public. In less than five years, the United States was in a state of “What is the Internet?” “I need an address so people can access my website.”
However, while the implementation of PQC security is invisible to the general public, it is of great importance to the federal government and, as mentioned above, “critical infrastructure owners and operators.” The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has defined 16 critical infrastructure sectors, including chemical plants, water and wastewater systems, communications, emergency services, financial services, health care, and information technology.
Optical fiber is the only widely available medium for implementing quantum key distribution (QKD). Still, for fiber optic operators, PQC security measures are not just a service to sell to customers, but a broader security capability that must be integrated into network infrastructure and operations. Near-term customers will be the financial and federal government sectors. Still, other companies will soon follow suit as new regulatory and sectoral requirements are phased in and economies of scale reduce implementation costs.
Beyond QKD, fiber will play a widespread role in networking quantum computers within and between data centers. Initial technology demonstrations of metropolitan-scale quantum networking over existing communications-grade fiber are taking place in cities around the world, including Berlin, Chattanooga, and New York City. Ultimately, we will use existing fiber to build a quantum internet, networking quantum computers at regional and national scales and running them alongside “normal” data fiber and communications equipment.
Fiber optic sensing is the third area of fiber usage and, depending on how it is implemented, could be the area of least growth. If the fiber is used as a sensor at the same time, it is also used to transmit data. The underlying technology of using fiber as a sensor can be used to monitor the integrity of fiber optic cables and other types of physical infrastructure such as power lines, tunnels, and bridges, for fire detection, duct monitoring, pipeline leak detection, and detection of underground geographic features.
Combining fiber and quantum technology adds an additional layer of physical security, allowing carriers to detect eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle attacks by monitoring the light scattering and physical interference required to penetrate the fiber, and to verify the physical location of nodes in the network rather than relying on spoofable attributes such as IP addresses.
Texas 811 promotes the large-scale use of fiber-optic sensing to protect the state’s infrastructure and brokers transactions between pipeline, electric, and other utilities, fiber-optic providers, and companies that provide fiber-optic sensing equipment and services. For example, a power company seeking to protect buried power lines may be located on the same site as a fiber-optic company, with Texas 811 acting as a matchmaker and clearing house. Having trouble reporting information from your fiber optic sensing equipment or services? Visit Texas 811 to see known activities, including locations and excavation permits. Without a permit, Texas 811 will send email and text message alerts to utility owners that include the GPS location of the area where activity is detected.
By serving as a statewide fiber-optic sensing clearinghouse, Texas 811 can eliminate false alarms caused by anticipated construction activity that is properly permitted, allowing utility owners to respond to alarms that indicate digging without location or permitting.
In the coming months, you’ll hear more from the Fiber Broadband Association about the future of fiber, powering the thought economy of the future and enabling quantum technology on a national scale. Fiber Connect 2027 (June 13-16, 2027 in Nashville) may seem far away, but I can assure you that the pace of AI and quantum advances are happening much faster than many of us expected.
