FEATURE: FTTH IN EUROPE
pragmatic approach, but clarity is necessary.’ Mikael Sandberg, chairman of open access
Gigabit fibre provider VXFIBER – which had success with its open access full-fibre broadband model in its native Sweden, and launched in the UK last year – agreed that the move will not be a quick process. ‘Te implications and process for the copper switch-off will take some time to be finalised, as there are many areas that affect such a decision. In the UK, Ofcom will ensure that the vulnerable are not leſt without communication for emergency services and such like. Switch-off won’t start before every consumer has a legal right to request a broadband service, which will happen in the UK under the broadband universal service obligation (USO). BT, as the universal service provider elect, and the retail ISP, is obliged to find the most economically efficient solution to this question.’ However, explained Sandberg, we should
remember that whilst the telephone line service may be coming to an end, it won’t remove copper from the network. ‘Copper broadband is likely to still exist in 2025,’ he said. ‘Tis is because we won’t all have moved to fibre to the home. Te UK is way behind its European friends when it comes to this. Te question is, do we need telephone lines and do we need to replace them with IP VoIP? Other countries, such as the Nordics, who have direct fibre, simply use mobile telephones as their primary telecommunications device. Maybe this will be the experience in the UK.’ Collins takes a pragmatic approach on the
countries are similar, they are all at different stages. ‘I’m not suggesting there should be a “one size fits all” type of guideline from Europe,’ she explained, ‘but some ground principles would be very useful, and ultimately there should be some sort of roadmap. It’s not the same everywhere, you can’t and shouldn’t slow down Spain. At the same time, you can’t switch off copper where fibre isn’t there. It’s obvious this has to be a reasonable and
issue of switch-off. He said: ‘Tere are some important components to market structure to consider, when we think about copper switch-off. At the moment, if you assume that Openreach owns all of the copper network across the UK, and it covers all of the country, you could say that it has a 100 per cent share of copper. In a full fibre world, the competitive effects of full fibre, and companies entering into building alternative fibre networks, could mean it’s possible we see this market share reducing to 50 per cent or less. If there is to be a programme to switch off copper, it has to be done in a way which equally benefits Openreach, where it is building its full fibre networks, and the competitors, where they are building full fibre networks and Openreach is not.’
A decision on CityFibre’s judicial review of the UK Advertising Standards Agency’s decision on how the term ‘fibre’ is used in broadband advertising, is expected soon
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Return on investment For Collins, such a programme needs to be implemented as soon as possible, in order to migrate consumers to full fibre and get good returns for investors, sparking more confidence. ‘Having a parallel running copper network, where there is a fibre network built, doesn’t make sense,’ he stated. ‘Terefore, the copper networks should be decommissioned. But to get to that, does BT Group have to be able to consume fibre networks from any provider, not just Openreach? Or, can the provider selectively decide where it shuts the copper network down? Tose two points are essential in working towards a copper switch-off.’ Returning to the relation between consumer demand and investment confidence, one thing
on which parties firmly agree is the need to ensure that consumers are educated about what they are buying. Tis is a hot topic across Europe, but particularly in the UK, where the issue of advertising has raised many headlines. Fitori said: ‘It is very clear that it would be important to have a common understanding across Europe that when you advertise your network, you should tell the truth about what that network is. If it is full fibre, then it is fine to advertise it as fibre. If it’s not full fibre, then you should not advertise it as fibre, and, for me, the issue is as simple as that. Nobody is blaming anybody about investing or not investing in this context, it is simply about if your network is not fibre, don’t try to call it fibre.’
What’s in an advert? Tis is also an issue close to Collins’s heart, as CityFibre has an ongoing judicial review of the UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) decision on how the term ‘fibre’ is used in broadband advertising. ‘Our starting point,’ he said, ‘is if we want customers to move to full fibre networks, then, as much as possible, you want the consumer to voluntarily make the move. You don’t want to be in a position in 15 years’ time that nobody moves and you have to force them on and shut the copper network down. Success would look at when you come to shut the copper network down, or customers have already moved over to the fibre network. ‘If a company has already used the word
“fibre” to describe things that have a litle bit of fibre in the network, but ultimately the customer is still connected on the copper cables, consumers will be confused. How would you put into that mix, something that is genuinely full fibre, what do you call it that makes it clear to consumers that there is something beter? We’re not going to get the migration on the fibre networks at the pace or speed that could happen, unless consumers are given accurate and easy information to determine and make choices themselves.’ Te FTTH Council called for an end to
misleading fibre advertising, in an open leter from president Ronan Kelly to telecoms ministers as they gathered in Brussels to adopt the EECC. ‘Te FTTH Council has seen this not just as a problem in the UK but also the other countries,’ continued Collins. ‘You have some markets which have taken steps to solve this problem – France brought in legislation to say that only full fibre networks can be called fibre, and Italy introduced a simple traffic light system that has to go on adverts, which is very simple. Red if it’s all copper, amber if it’s part-fibre part-copper and green if it’s full fibre.’ Collins stated that a decision is likely soon. ‘All
it will be,’ he said, ‘is if the court decides in our favour, the ASA will be sent back to the drawing board to reconsider its position. In parallel with taking our challenge to the ASA, we’ve been working with the government and Ofcom on the importance of these issues overall. ’When they’re starting to think about the
implementation of the FTIR, they need to make sure that the consumer journey behind is also considered.’ n
Issue 23 n Spring 2019 n FiBRE SYSTEMS 13
CityFibre shutterstock
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