For many years, the broadband industry’s innovative energy has focused on speed: faster downloads, higher throughput, and more gigabits per second. But as online activity has become more woven into the fabric of daily life, users’ expectations have changed. Today’s metrics for success place less emphasis on speed and more on quality, reliability, and seamless experiences that adapt to user needs.
CableLabs has been working on fiber throughout this evolution because we view fiber as a valuable and practical technology for today’s broadband networks – one whose role and value continues to grow. The industry’s progress from the Age of Speed to the Age of Experience – and now towards the Age of Adaptation – reinforces why fiber optics is, and continues to be, the foundation of the broadband future.
Fiber as a foundational technology – then and now
This evolution from the Age of Speed to the Age of Experience, and ultimately toward the Age of Adaptation, requires intentional changes in how networks are designed, built, and operated. Seamless connectivity and intelligent solutions require reliable, high-capacity infrastructure that can support new technologies and service offerings.
Fiber optics is a key technology to enable this transformation. Optical fiber has enabled the age of speed by meeting increasing demands for throughput and scale. As the industry moves into the Age of Experience, these same characteristics have become essential to providing consistent, high-quality connectivity – and fiber will remain a key enabler as networks evolve toward the Age of Experience and Adaptation.
Fiber Optic at CableLabs
Optical fiber is widely recognized as the broadband solution of choice for building new networks between municipalities, utilities, telecom companies and broadband operators. Its ability to support significant growth in capabilities and cutting-edge technologies makes it a strong foundation for future broadband innovation.
At CableLabs, our fiber work spans the full lifecycle of fiber to the premises (FTTP) networks. This includes architecture, operations and management, interoperability, access technologies, provisioning and deployment efficiency – all focused on helping operators deploy and operate fiber networks at scale.
One example of CableLabs’ early work in fiber optics is DOCSIS’ provision of the EPON (DPoE) specification. Developed more than 15 years ago, DPoE enables operators to use existing DOCSIS provisioning systems to configure and manage fiber-based customer premises equipment in the same way they manage DOCSIS cable modems. This work helped reduce operational complexity, support early FTTP deployments, and enable the industry’s first 10 Gbps PON implementations – impacts that are still reflected in networks today, even as technologies continue to evolve.
Today, CableLabs’ work in fiber optics continues across a wide range of specifications, research efforts, and collaborative activities. This includes the OpenOMCI Cable Specification and ongoing interoperability events that help ensure consistent, interoperable FTTP deployments across vendors and operators. CableLabs has also published reports on optical network operations and management and continues to work with vendor partners to define an interoperable telemetry stack – supporting more observable, manageable and reliable optical networks.
CableLabs is also developing coherent PON specifications, along with researching PON security and developing complementary PON security specifications designed to work alongside existing PON security mechanisms.
Beyond access networks, CableLabs’ advanced optical work includes coherent optics specifications, research in distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS), advanced wavelength sources, wavelength switching technologies, hollow core fiber, and research into low-latency performance over optical networks.
Fiber to enable experience and ages of adaptation
Users today don’t want to think about their network connection. They simply want it to work – everywhere, on any device. Whether they are video conferencing from home, streaming entertainment across multiple screens or relying on smart devices to manage daily life, the expectation is smooth, uninterrupted performance.
Optical fiber provides the speed, reliability and capacity needed to run these experiments and keep up with increasing demands. Most importantly, it provides space for experiences that we cannot yet anticipate.
Looking to the future, the Adaptive Age envisions networks that sense, learn, and respond to user needs in real time. These context-aware smart grids will require infrastructure capable of supporting advanced capabilities such as AI-driven network optimization, real-time sensing, and self-healing. Optical fiber provides the high-performance foundation these innovations require, enabling proactive maintenance, adaptive bandwidth allocation, and self-optimizing networks.
For today’s all-fiber deployments, Passive Optical Network (PON) technology remains an effective and widely used approach, providing the scalability, flexibility and reliability needed to support existing services. At the same time, CableLabs continues to research and evaluate advanced optical technologies that can complement or succeed PON as network requirements and economic considerations evolve.
Optical fiber is the way forward
Fiber optics is the strategic enabler that prepares the industry for whatever comes next. As a critical component of CableLabs’ technology vision and the theme of its network platform evolution, fiber provides clear priorities for innovation, aligns with end-user expectations for performance and reliability, and provides a forward-looking foundation for long-term planning.
As broadband continues to evolve through new eras, applications, services, and user expectations will inevitably change. Optical fiber provides the stable, high-capacity foundation that allows networks to scale. CableLabs’ long-term investment in fiber enables the industry to move forward with confidence – by building scalable, interoperable, and future-ready FTTP networks together.
