FEATURE FIBRE TO THE HOME
Diffraction Analysis discovered that FTTH subscribers became net contributors to the internet, uploading more material than they downloaded. FTTH customers also subscribed to more services, utilising three to four times more bandwidth overall than their DSL-connected counterparts. As bit-rate requirements continue to grow, the
ability of broadband technologies to evolve to meet future needs is of paramount importance. Te FTTH Council Europe believes that infrastructure upgrades should be carried out with a long-term view, especially where public money is involved.
Myth #4 FTTH is too expensive, and the business
case is too risky
European telecoms operators, including incumbents and large alternative operators, invested a combined €24.8 billion on fixed network infrastructure in 2011. If the level of investment remains stable, then this would add up to €216 billion of new telecoms investment by 2020, and this sum doesn’t include any government subsidies that might be available to connect remote areas. Te European Commission estimates that the cost of achieving all the Digital Agenda targets – to provide 30Mbps broadband for everyone and get half of homes subscribing to connections of 100Mbps or more – lies between €180 and €270 billion. Te FTTH Council Europe’s own estimates put the cost at the lower
@fibresystemsmag |
www.fibre-systems.com
Europe’s ranking of economies with the highest penetration of fibre to the home/building plus LAN
end of this range, at around €202 billion. Does the total amount of investment still seem insurmountable? Financial analysts considering this issue believe
that the investment is available; the real question is how to tap into it. Long-term investors, such as pension funds and the European Investment Bank (EIB), have expressed their interest in funding FTTH infrastructure. Indeed, the EIB has already
The global ranking of economies with the highest penetration of fibre to the home/building plus LAN
made several investments in FTTH networks, including Portugal’s three big operators – Portugal Telecom, Sonaecom and ZON Multimedia – and Reggefiber in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, not all FTTH projects match the investment criteria of the long-term investors, but the FTTH Council Europe intends to foster greater compatibility between the two groups. Infrastructure investors prefer projects with low
risk and strong contractual commitments. A monopoly FTTH infrastructure with a 30-year lifespan and ‘anchor’ tenants on long-term contracts fits that profile nicely. However, the equipment used to light up the optical fibre, which is likely to need upgrading on a much shorter lifecycle of five to seven years, bears much higher risk. One way around this issue is to separate the ownership and/or the operation of the infrastructure from the network technology, as has been done in New Zealand. Another, slightly different problem is that a
significant portion of FTTH deployment in Europe is being carried out by local organisations that are too small to attract the attention of the big institutional investors, while at the same time their investment needs are too large and too special to be handled by local banks. Te FTTH Council Europe is actively addressing this problem through a series of ‘Investor’s Days’ that bring FTTH projects and investors together to find mutually acceptable solutions. One possibility is to aggregate smaller projects into compatible groups, and then help to translate their business plans into terms
10 FIBRE SYSTEMS Issue 1 • Autumn 2013
FTTH Council Europe
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36