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News update


Ovum: Global FTTP subscriptions overtake DSL


Globally, 2016 represented a tipping point for broadband access, according


to market research firm Ovum. Over the year, the number of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) subscriptions surpassed DSL for the first time, growing from 297 million to 382 million. Ovum includes all flavours of DSL in its count, including fibre to the node and cabinet, which ended the year with 298 million subscriptions, down from 326 million at the start of the year. These data come from Ovum’s biannual Fixed


Broadband Subscription Forecast, which predicts that the number of subscribers on FTTP networks will keep growing steadily through 2021, at which point the technology will account for more than half of the 1.1 billion total fixed broadband subscriptions worldwide. Fibre’s performance globally is the result of


widespread FTTP roll-out in Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe, commented Kamalini Ganguly, senior analyst in Ovum’s Industry, Communications and Broadband practice.


Fibre’s performance globally is the result of widespread FTTP roll-out in Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe


Lithuania and Latvia have near complete coverage by FTTH networks, for instance, while massive deployments in China and Russia have seen millions of homes connected to fibre over the past few years. However, in Western Europe and North


America, where the incumbents tend to rely on upgraded copper access infrastructure, DSL is dominant – and will remain so over the next five years, Ovum believes. The advent of G.fast, which offers fibre-like speeds over short copper


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loops, will revive copper’s prospects, especially in countries such as the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Ovum expects DOCSIS 3.1 to do the same for cable networks – to prolong their useful life by boosting speeds to gigabit levels. ‘Ovum is not convinced that North America


and Western Europe will see a significant shift in favour of FTTP over the current five-year forecast period,’ Ganguly said. ‘However, we do expect to see continued investment in and roll-out announcements for fibre networks over this period, placing FTTP firmly at the centre of the future wireline broadband network in all regions.’ Even in the traditionally copper-based


regions, however, some operators have reached


their own corporate tipping points. Belgium incumbent Proximus recently announced a major FTTP roll-out – in this case to 50 per cent of households in its territory (see page 7). It follows a similar announcement by Altice Group, which is planning to start rolling out FTTP in its US cable footprint, bypassing the perhaps more obvious and easier upgrade to DOCSIS 3.1 in the process (see page 8). ‘Such announcements are not firsts and are


certainly not unique … but at a time when much R&D focus is on advanced wireless technologies, they do represent a renewed commitment to wireline broadband investment, that in Ovum’s view is likely to continue well beyond 2020,’ Ganguly said.


Issue 14 • Winter 2017 FIBRE SYSTEMS 5


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