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FEATURE GIGABIT EUROPE
European Commission milestones do not encourage gigabit broadband
all of its citizens, which currently number some 527,000, to have a minimum of 1Gb/s downstream access. State-owned incumbent POST, formerly P&T Luxembourg, launched its 100Mb/s LuxFibre service in September 2011, and in May 2013 boosted speeds to a gigabit. Te second difference is competition. In
How did we get here?
Although we see plenty of activity, gigabit broadband in Europe has been slower to take off than in North America. Tis reflects the fact that the market situation is quite different from the US. We found there are really three key differences between North America and Europe as it relates to gigabit broadband deployment. Te first is regulatory – the European
Commission’s Digital Agenda set milestones that do not encourage the deployment or the necessity of gigabit broadband. Instead they set a requirement for universal coverage with
30Mb/s broadband and half of all subscriptions to be for 100Mb/s connections or faster by 2020. Current generation technologies – whether cable-based or copper-based (including VDSL2 vectoring and G.fast) are sufficient in their support to provide both fast (30Mb/s) and ultra-fast (100Mb/s) broadband. Where such top-down political incentives
are provided, operators respond. In Luxembourg, for example, in 2010 the government set targets to provide, by 2015, 100 Mb/s downstream and 50Mb/s upstream to all households. By 2020, Luxembourg wants
North America cable operators continue to outpace telecoms operators in terms of both subscriber acquisition and speeds. In the most recent quarter (3Q14), cable operators served 57 per cent of broadband subscribers, who typically receive speeds between 25Mb/s and 100Mb/s; while the majority of DSL subscribers receive speeds below 10Mb/s, according to data from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In contrast, there are only a handful of countries within Europe where there is significant competition from cable operators – most rely on local loop unbundling of the copper plant. Cable operators haven’t been completely leſt
behind. Hybrid fibre coax (HFC) networks based on DOCSIS 3.0 or later can in theory support a gigabit downstream, providing that the necessary upgrades are made. However, until recently most operators haven’t been ready to make the investment in gigabit speeds – perhaps they have been waiting for the improved capabilities of DOCSIS 3.1, expected to arrive this year. Finally and perhaps the most influential
driver has been Google Fiber. Yes, there are other operators that have been offering 1Gb/s broadband services longer than Google; but
Issue 6 • Winter 2015 FIBRE SYSTEMS 15
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