KBRA Releases Research – Fiber ABS: Enterprise Fiber Takes Industry Beyond FTTP’s Last Mile

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--KBRA releases research discussing enterprise fiber, a growing segment of the fiber ABS universe. Since the market’s inaugural fiber ABS transaction in 2020, KBRA has rated over $14 billion in issuance from 11 issuers. While early transactions were dominated by providers of fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP), enterprise fiber providers have increasingly emerged as issuers of ABS. In this report, we compare and contrast FTTP and enterprise fiber, adding to our research in this sector.

Key Takeaways:

• The FTTP market was valued at $56 billion in 2024, considerably larger than the approximately $11 billion enterprise fiber market during the same period.
• While FTTP continues to represent the majority (55%) of KBRA’s rated fiber ABS issuance ($14 billion), enterprise fiber volume was robust this year, accounting for 84% of total issuance. KBRA expects issuance to continue rising as new issuers go to market and existing ones return to securitization for their financing needs.
• Enterprise fiber differs from FTTP in that the former has longer duration contracts, greater geographic diversity, and a commercial customer base, a proportion of which have investment-grade credit characteristics.
• In contrast, FTTP benefits from greater customer diversification and increasing adoption that should produce stable and rising revenue within a given ABS transaction’s geographic footprint. Further, some FTTP securitizations have longer term contracts with homeowner associations (HOA) and condominium associations (COA).
• To date, all KBRA-rated fiber ABS transactions have maintained stable ratings, with no downgrades.

Click here to view the report.

Recent Publications

• Data Centers: A Comparison of ABS and CMBS Structures
• Riding the Light: U.S. ABS Fiber Optic Securitizations
• ABS: Communications Infrastructure Securitization (CIS) Global Rating Methodology

About KBRA

KBRA, one of the major credit rating agencies, is registered in the U.S., EU, and the UK. KBRA is recognized as a Qualified Rating Agency in Taiwan, and is also a Designated Rating Organization for structured finance ratings in Canada. As a full-service credit rating agency, investors can use KBRA ratings for regulatory capital purposes in multiple jurisdictions.

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