For years, the broadband industry’s innovative energy focused on speed: faster downloads, higher throughput, more gigabits per second. But as online activity has been woven more deeply into the fabric of daily life, user expectations have shifted. Today’s success metrics place less emphasis on speed and more on quality, reliability and seamless experiences that adapt to user needs.

CableLabs has been working on fiber optics throughout this evolution because we view fiber as a valuable, practical technology for broadband networks today — and one whose role and value continue to grow. The industry’s progression from the Speed Era to the Experience Era — and now toward the Adaptive Era — reinforces why fiber optics has been, and remains, foundational to the future of broadband.

Fiber as a Foundational Technology — Then and Now

This evolution from the Speed Era to the Experience Era, and ultimately toward the Adaptive Era, requires deliberate changes in how networks are designed, built and operated. Seamless connectivity and intelligent solutions demand high-capacity, reliable infrastructure that can support new technologies and service offerings.

Fiber optics is a key technology enabling this shift. Fiber optics enabled the Speed Era by addressing growing demands for throughput and scale. As the industry moved into the Experience Era, those same characteristics became essential for delivering consistent, high-quality connectivity — and fiber optics will continue to be a key enabler as networks evolve toward the Experience and Adaptive eras.

Fiber Optics at CableLabs

Fiber optics is widely recognized as the preferred broadband solution for new network builds among municipalities, utilities, telcos and broadband operators. Its ability to support significant capacity growth and evolving technologies makes it a strong foundation for future broadband innovation.

At CableLabs, our work in fiber optics 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 the DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON (DPoE) specifications. Developed more than 15 years ago, DPoE enabled operators to use existing DOCSIS provisioning systems to configure and manage fiber-based customer premises equipment in much the same way they managed DOCSIS cable modems. This work helped reduce operational complexity, supported early FTTP deployments, and enabled the industry’s first 10 Gbps PON implementations — impacts that are still reflected in networks today, even as technologies continue to evolve.

Today, CableLabs’ fiber optics work continues across a wide range of specifications, research efforts and collaborative activities. This includes the Cable OpenOMCI 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 on specifying interoperable telemetry collection — supporting more observable, manageable and reliable optical networks.

CableLabs is also advancing the coherent PON specification, alongside research into PON security and the development of a complementary PON security specification designed to work in tandem with existing PON security mechanisms.

Beyond access networks, CableLabs’ advanced optics work includes coherent optics specifications, research into Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing (DFOS), advanced wavelength sources, wavelength switching technologies, hollow core fiber, and research into low-latency performance over optical networks.

Fiber Enabling the Experience and Adaptive Eras

Today’s users 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 seamless performance without interruption.

Fiber optics delivers the speed, reliability and capacity necessary to power these experiences and keep pace with rising demands. More importantly, it provides the headroom required for experiences we cannot yet anticipate.

Looking ahead, the Adaptive Era envisions networks that sense, learn and respond to user needs in real time. These intelligent, context-aware networks will require infrastructure capable of supporting advanced capabilities such as AI-driven network optimization, real-time sensing and self-healing. Fiber optics provides the high-performance foundation these innovations require, enabling proactive maintenance, adaptive bandwidth allocation and self-optimizing networks.

For all-fiber deployments today, passive optical network (PON) technology remains a widely used and effective approach, offering the scalability, resiliency and reliability needed to support current services. At the same time, CableLabs continues to research and evaluate advanced optical technologies that could complement or succeed PON as network requirements and economic considerations evolve.

Fiber Optics as the Path Forward

Fiber optics is the strategic enabler that prepares the industry for whatever comes next. As a critical component of CableLabs’ Technology Vision and its Network Platform Evolution theme, fiber optics provides clear priorities for innovation, aligns with end-user expectations for performance and reliability, and offers a forward-looking foundation for long-term planning.

As broadband continues to evolve through new eras, applications, services and user expectations will inevitably change. Fiber optics provides the stable, high-capacity foundation that allows networks to adapt. CableLabs’ long-standing investment in fiber optics positions the industry to move forward with confidence — building scalable, interoperable and future-ready FTTP networks together.