Fiber expansion still has significant room to grow, according to Nir Hollander, general manager of Amdocs Mobile & Fiber Networks. Speaking with Fierce Network TV, Hollander said about 60% of U.S. homes now have access to fiber, while adoption sits closer to 45%, leaving additional runway for growth as operators work to convert coverage into active subscribers.
Hollander shares that the next phase of expansion will focus on reaching areas that are typically more complex to serve, including rural and less densely populated regions. As operators move into these markets, factors such as cost, labor availability and deployment speed are becoming more important, particularly as competition increases across regions.
He added that operators will need to balance continued buildout with more efficient execution, including greater use of automation and streamlined processes across planning, design and construction. The ability to scale deployments while managing costs and improving time to market will play a key role in how operators extend fiber growth and realize returns on infrastructure investment.
Tommy Clift:
Nir, thanks so much for being here, Fiber Connect day two. Can you just start off by telling me a little bit about yourself and what you're doing?
Nir Hollander:
Yes. Hi. Very happy to be here. Second day, exciting. My name is Nir Hollander. I'm the general manager of the network division within Amdocs.
Tommy Clift:
So even though you've got a global perspective, I'm curious to hear how do you perceive, we're here in Fiber Connect, obviously, the fiber industry particularly in the US, it's an odd one. What do you consider its kind of unique outlook or challenges?
Nir Hollander:
So I would say what we see, what I see in the industry, and in general in fiber, the growth is absolutely amazing. And it's still an area where there is growth potential, and we would like to be part of it. I think that we have about in the US, 60% of the homes are now have access to fiber. So there is still room to grow because out of these, the adoption rate is about 45%. So from one hand, there is a lot of progress and there is a lot of focus on build. From the other hand, there is still room to grow.
The other places that are not covered by fiber are the tougher ones, rural areas and other areas. And also the adoption rate, which at the end of the day, this is what's needed in order to bring revenue or monetize this huge investment in infrastructure. I think that it will continue, and I think that it's an amazing time for us to be part of this huge transformational growth.
Tommy Clift:
Yeah. When you look at that approach, what do you consider the largest challenges that operators are really struggling with when it does come to the deployment and the opportunity advancement like you were speaking to?
Nir Hollander:
So I think one is cost. Because to deploy fiber in different areas has different cost and prices, especially when you go outside the cities. The other thing is labor of work is much higher than before. So this also applies and has an issue. Time to market, how fast they can go in competition. Because today, you have different players that are providing fiber connectivity or fiber services in each state or each region or each market. I also think that if a player or vendor or a carrier goes and deploy fiber, the first ones to be at a specific region, their chances are much higher to be able to take over this region or market. So I think it's so important to have a very fast time to market and to be able to impact that. So that's the other thing.
Tommy Clift:
Yeah. So fiber being this technology of longevity, how do you think operators should be thinking right now to kind of stay ahead of the curve over the next few years?
Nir Hollander:
So I'll divide it to two. One, from their ability to build and continue the fiber deployment, all the operators are accelerating and trying to get more market share. The competition is huge, trying to penetrate first to different areas, being able to reduce cost and so on. And move from the build to be able to really monetize the huge infrastructure investment that is being done in the US and also globally.
The other thing is finding the right partners to go through this journey. Because the manual work and the fact that they have to automate and to save cost and really transform the organization in order to do things better and faster, requires the right partner. So having the right partner that helps in the network engineering space, and being able to move to the agentic era and automate from the design to the planning to the actual rollout as well, moving to construction, is key.
And this is where I believe we as Amdocs have a solutions and platform that uses agentic flows and complete agents that we built that will be able to streamline the entire process and help on the engineering side our customers to do it faster and better and bring more customers to them.
Tommy Clift:
Beautiful. Nir, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time.
Nir Hollander:
Thank you.