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NEWS FTTH CONFERENCE REPORT


number of other countries reaching coverage in excess of 50 per cent: Portugal (64 per cent), Sweden (58 per cent) and Bulgaria (56 per cent). ‘According to the latest statistics, 53 per cent of Sweden’s households and businesses have access to at least 100Mbps,’ said Anna-Karin Hatt, Swedish minister for IT and energy. Coverage is one of the important factors covered by the FTTH digital agenda for Europe. Russia has achieved coverage of 45 per cent,


which is impressive considering that the country has more than nine million subscribers in 2013 and the size of country makes rollouts in areas of low population density expensive and time-consuming. Tere is a lot more to be done to reach the targets


set out by the FTTH council in their digital agenda; some countries, such as the UK and Ireland, have yet to reach the minimum one per cent of homes passed to be considered for the FTTH ranking. ‘We need to do more and I can’t help but feel that some policy-makers underestimate the danger of not getting to fibre to the home networks quickly enough,’ said Ahl. A number of countries have adopted FTTH


strategies and have begun roll-outs to the end users, but oſten these rollouts target the easiest homes and areas of large population density which has the effect of skewing the figures. Similar growth is unlikely in subsequent years as roll-outs move out to the harder-to-reach, more sparsely populated areas. ‘With 2.7 million households covered, most of


our [Sweden’s] low-hanging fruit has been picked. Te next two million households will be more difficult and more expensive to cover,’ said Hatt. ‘Te services of yesterday will not be possible


with the speeds of today,’ proclaimed Gunnar Hokmark, European MP, who addressed the audience during one of the plenary sessions immediately preceding the CEO panel. He continued: ‘We will not be leading with 30Mbps or


Panellists agreed that the next step for Europe was to begin rolling out 1Gbps services


even 100Mbps.’ Te message delivered by Hokmark was that, in order for Europe to lead the world in terms of broadband services, we need to have the infrastructure in place that will not only enable these services but allow room for growth in the future. ‘When you deal with FTTH, then think of 2020 and not 2010,’ said Hokmark.


CEO Panel Te CEO panel, which took place on the second day of the conference, featured a number of industry


Awards for Vodafone and Charles Kao


The FTTH Council Europe selected Vodafone and Sir Charles Kao to receive this year’s Operators Award and Individual Award respectively, for their contributions to FTTH adoption in Europe. Vodafone received the FTTH Operator Award in recognition of rolling out advanced fibre networks in Portugal, Spain and Italy as part of a large investment programme. Vodafone Portugal has


passed more than 750,000 homes with fibre, and this coverage is increasing daily with an aim to reach 1.5 million FTTH connections by mid-2015. In Spain, Vodafone has partnered with Orange to invest in fibre with the aim of reaching 800,000 homes and workplaces


in 2014, three million premises in 2015 and six million in 2017. The combined capital expenditure required to reach six million households and workplaces in Spain is expected to reach €1 billion. Sir Charles Kao won the


Individual FTTH Award. The FTTH Council Europe recognised the importance of his contribution to the birth of fibre-optic communications. Kao was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for ground-breaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication. The FTTH Awards ceremony brought the conference to a close. The conference will next be held in Warsaw in 2015.


CEOs who were posed questions on how the market is evolving and their predictions for the future. Tomas Langer, finance consultant for the


FTTH Council Europe, began by asking the panellists questions on a number of topics ranging from their views on Sweden’s dark fibre roll-out strategy, and how this had influenced competition to their views on FTTH versus FTTX. One of the interesting responses came from Ove


Alm, CEO at Skanova – who, when asked about FTTH versus FTTX technologies, replied: ‘You need all the tools in your toolbox.’ Clearly, this is not the message that the FTTH


Council would like to portray, but it gives a more realistic insight into fibre deployment strategies for a number of organisations that have adopted different methods to deliver ultra-fast broadband such as the UK (for example, see the FTTDP feature on page 22 ofFibre Systems). Federico Guillén, president of fixed networks for


Alcatel-Lucent, explained: ‘Tere is no single answer – fibre to the most economical point,’ when asked about FTTH versus FTTX. Members were asked to provide an insight into


the future speeds that will be needed based on their own experience. Panellists agreed that the next step for Europe


was to begin rolling out 1Gbps services, with some highlighting the fact that these services were likely to be much more symmetrical in terms of upload/ download than services currently available to end-users.l


Left, Gwen Kao collects the prize on behalf of her husband Charles. Right, Mario Vaz, of Vodafone


Issue 3 • Spring 2014 FIBRE SYSTEMS 9


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