Over one million users in western Europe have subscribed to
fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband services, new research
estimates.
The Telecom Markets report for Informa
Telecoms & Media's Broadband Subscriber Database noted that
FTTH represents only 1.4 per cent of western Europe's 79
million-plus broadband subscriptions.
But the nascent business models behind the networks are already
having a " significant impact" in Scandinavia.
FTTH is a next-generation network access technology that uses
optical fibre in the last-mile connection to provide broadband
services which are tens, or even hundreds, of times faster than
conventional alternatives.
FTTH is most advanced in Sweden, where the technology is used for
650,000 broadband subscriptions, or over 27 per cent of the
country's 2.3 million residents.
The study pointed out that the 150 municipal networks serving these
customers tend not to be owned by conventional telecoms operators,
but by utilities or local authorities.
Generally speaking, there is less interest in building FTTH
networks from conventional national telecoms operators, which argue
that the approach is too expensive to carry out on a widespread
basis.
The majority of former state-owned monopolies, for example, have
instead committed to fibre-to-the node.
These networks use fibre for part of the last-mile connection and
the traditional copper network for the final leg to the home, which
generally limits commercial speeds to 50Mbps.
France
Telecom and its domestic competitors, Iliad Telecom and
Neuf
Cegetel, are notable exceptions, having each begun to roll-out
out FTTH in cities and suburbs across France.
"Apart from France, Scandinavia and The Netherlands, there is no
immediate prospect in western Europe that FTTH services will enjoy
widespread availability," the study stated.
"In part, this is due to a lack of initiative from utilities and
local authorities, but also because markets are dominated by
incumbents and cable operators which have no incentive to make
hefty investments in brand new infrastructure."