FEATURE GIGABIT EUROPE
The rise of gigabit broadband in Europe
Teresa
Mastrangelo investigates why operators in Europe are going for gigabit broadband
I
nterest and demand for gigabit broadband is on the rise with more than a hundred known deployments worldwide. But while the spotlight has mostly shone on North
America over the past year, there is growing activity in Europe too. To answer the question of who deploys
gigabit broadband and why, Broadbandtrends recently interviewed 88 broadband operators around the world about their plans for providing and deploying gigabit broadband services. Gigabit services were defined as at least 1Gb/s in one or both directions – download or upload. North American operators formed the
largest group of respondents, but there was also a significant response from operators in Europe (18 per cent). To some degree, this breakdown reflects the lower volume of gigabit operators in Europe, but we see that situation changing quite rapidly. Although gigabit broadband is not
synonymous with fibre to the home (FTTH), the majority of gigabit networks around the world to date have been delivered over FTTH. With the relentless advancement of cable and
14 FIBRE SYSTEMS Issue 6 • Winter 2015
copper-based technologies, it’s easy to forget that FTTH has been gigabit-capable for a very long time. Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) launched its gigabit broadband services to city residents nearly a decade ago in 2005.
Going gigabits
Presently, the majority of FTTH subscribers within the EMEA region lie in Eastern Europe, with Russia claiming the most subscribers of any country within this market. However, when we look at this from a gigabit perspective the view is – perhaps surprisingly – sometimes quite different. One of the first countries to deploy FTTH,
Sweden now has a plethora of service providers offering gigabit services over municipal fibre networks, which are enabled either by the municipal network provider themselves, or by third-party open access wholesalers. Labs2 subsidiary Bredband2 claimed to be first to offer gigabit speeds to residential customers in 2004 – for housing association HSB Skåne in the city of Lünd. Portugal also saw early gigabit action, with
cable operator Zon Multimedia announcing in 2009 the availability of a 1Gb/s service for home users on its GPON fibre network. Portugal Telecom responded that it too would launch gigabit service the following year, but reconsidered, rolling out 100Mb/s service instead, and later increased the maximum speed to 400Mb/s. Perhaps if that scenario were to play out again today, it would end differently!
In the UK, a country notorious for having
relatively little FTTH coverage, gigabit provider Hyperoptic will soon reach more than 75,000 homes spanning 480 sites, with a target to pass half a million homes by 2018, while CityFibre is targeting Tier 2 cities with FTTH. In the north, community project B4RN is bring gigabit broadband to villages in a sparsely populated region. In the island state of Jersey, JT has connected around 12,000 properties under its Gigabit Jersey programme, which plans to roll out gigabit broadband to all 42,000 homes and businesses by the end of 2016. More recently we see a battle brewing in
Ireland as Vodafone, in a €450 million joint venture with Irish power utility company ESB, announced plans to roll out gigabit broadband to 500,000 homes, while Eircom countered with an announcement that it would bring gigabit connectivity to 66 communities across the country. Meanwhile, Magnet Networks has already been experimenting with gigabit broadband through its Project Leap in Dublin. Over the last year or so, we count at least
six further European operators that have launched gigabit service – including Lyse Telecom in Norway, Latvia’s Lattelecom, Free in France, POST in Luxembourg, RCS&RDS in Romania, and Swisscom in Switzerland – and many more are making plans. Spanish incumbent Telefonica said in October 2014 it has started to install XG-PON equipment, which will be used as a basis to offer symmetric gigabit services to residents.
@fibresystemsmag |
www.fibre-systems.com
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