Leading members of the fiber industry descended on Orlando, Fla. this week for the Fiber Broadband Association's annual Fiber Connect conference to take stock of a national inflection point fueled by the federal BEAD program and the all-consuming rise of AI.

Themed “Light Years Ahead,” according to numerous reports from those in attendance, the underlying take-away was that the buildout boom is far from over and the easy part is mostly behind us.

FBA President and CEO Gary Bolton opened the conference with a state-of-the-industry address.

In doing so, he framed both public and private fiber investments as not being merely about broadband infrastructure, but as the backbone of an exploding AI-driven economy.

Underscoring the central role and growing importance of fiber optic networks, Bolton told attendees:

“We are entering a thinking economy. Value is created by turning information into intelligence and acting on it instantly.”

He set out to quantify the expansive nature of fiber connectivity, noting that across the U.S. more than 100 million homes now have access to fiber Internet – with 11.8 million households connected in 2025 alone.

Image

As reported by Telecompetitor, Bolton said, there are now over 1,500 active fiber providers operating nationally, with 42 new market entrants and 715 providers that doubled their footprints in just the past six months.