Fiber Contractors Have a Payroll Problem Before They Have a Revenue Problem

A mile of underground fiber can cost around $95,000 to deploy. Much of that money has to be spent before the contractor gets paid.

That’s the working-capital problem sitting underneath America’s fiber buildout.

Crews, machinery, materials and subcontractors all have to be paid while completed work makes its way through approval, invoicing and eventually payment.

The Fiber Broadband Association and Cartesian’s latest study puts the median cost of U.S. fiber deployment at $18 per foot underground and $8 per foot aerial. That’s roughly $95,000 and $42,000 per mile respectively. The research drew on operators and contractors working across 38 states.

For a contractor running several crews across multiple projects, the question isn’t simply how much work it has won. It’s how much of that work it can afford to carry while waiting to get paid.

Most of the cost is people

This is what makes the working-capital problem particularly acute.

The same research found that labor accounts for 72% of underground fiber deployment costs and 64% of aerial deployment costs. Median labor costs alone were $12.23 per foot underground and $4.50 per foot aerial.

Labor doesn’t wait for the customer payment cycle.

Crews expect to be paid. So do subcontractors. Fuel, equipment and other operating costs continue while completed work moves through documentation, approval and invoicing.

Put several projects into the field simultaneously and a growing fiber contractor can therefore find itself consuming more cash precisely when business is going well.

Building fiber is getting more expensive

That gap matters even more when costs are rising.

In the Fiber Broadband Association study, 92% of respondents reported higher deployment costs during 2025. Looking into 2026, 88% expected costs to rise again, with labor and materials among the main drivers.

Construction method matters too. Underground fiber remains substantially more expensive than aerial deployment, while trenching, plowing and directional boring each produce different cost structures.

For contractors, however, the underlying problem remains the same: costs are incurred while the work is being delivered. Cash arrives later.

More work can require more working capital

This is one of the peculiarities of infrastructure contracting.

Winning another project doesn’t necessarily improve the contractor’s immediate cash position. It can do the opposite.

More miles mean more labor. More labor means more payroll. And if several completed invoices remain unpaid at the same time, a substantial amount of the contractor’s working capital can become trapped in accounts receivable.

It is part of the same wider working-capital problem facing cell tower and fiber contractors.

The invoice can become part of the solution

Once work has been completed and an eligible invoice raised, invoice factoring can convert that receivable into working capital rather than leaving the contractor waiting for the customer’s payment cycle.

That money can go back into payroll, equipment, subcontractors or the next section of network.

TowerCap can advance up to 85% of eligible invoice value. Clients can choose which invoices they want to factor, without committing to a minimum factoring volume.

Customer concentration doesn’t automatically rule a contractor out either. TowerCap is comfortable considering facilities where one customer represents a very large share, or even all, of the eligible receivables.

For qualifying businesses, factoring can also be structured on a non-notification basis.

The problem isn’t a shortage of work

More than 60% of U.S. households now have access to fiber, and another 11.8 million homes were passed during 2025. Fiber was also selected for 63% of eligible locations under the BEAD program.

There is plenty being built.

For the contractors doing that building, the constraint can be much more immediate:

How many miles can you afford to have under construction before the previous miles have been paid for?