Lithuania leads in fibre

The latest European Fibre To The Home (FTTH) market panorama for the full year of 2011 was presented this week at the FTTH Conference in Munich. At the conference, it was shown that since June last year, Europe has added more than 600 000 new FTTH subscribers, with Lithuania rising as much as 3%.

FTTH adoption is clearly growing across Europe, in spite of the current economic climate: FTTH/B roll-out has progressed at an annual rate of 41% in 2011, with more than 5.1 million FTTH/B subscribers and nearly 28 million homes passed at end-2011. In the ranking of leading FTTH economies with more than 1% penetration of households, the top three haven’t changed since the previous edition, with Lithuania (28.3% penetration), Norway (14,7%) and Sweden (13,6%) in the lead. Countries that have significantly improved their positions include Norway, number two, which confirms that Scandinavian countries remain dynamic, Latvia, and Turkey, now ahead of Italy. Hungary has dropped two positions, now lagging behind Estonia and Portugal. Household penetration in Lithuania has gone up a full 3% since the previous edition, in Norway, the rise amounted to 2% and in Sweden just 0.4%. Compared to the last market panorama, the average increase in the top 10 countries was 1.23%. Although Spain is not included in the FTTH Ranking , it is likely to be included in the foreseeable future as it has witnessed the largest growth for 2011, with +184%. “It is good to see that FTTH adoption continues to grow, even in times of economic uncertainty””, states Hartwig Tauber, Director General of FTTH Council Europe. “”However additional efforts are required to bring Europe on track to reach the Digital Agenda 2020 ultra-fast broadband targets with fibre-enabled connections.”” The UN’s Broadband Commission for Digital Development has stated that every country should have a national broadband plan by 2015, claiming Internet should be seen as a human need and a right, and that broadband contributes to economic growth and job creation. And the European Commission proposes to spend ‚Ǩ9.2 billion from 2014-2020 on high-speed broadband and related services, with ‚Ǩ7 billion available for investment in infrastructure. The reshuffle of FTTH leading economies remains an ongoing process, and now time is of the essence to secure a sustainable future for the European economy.

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