There are now nearly 15 million FTTH/B subscribers on the European continent (14.5 million to be exact) — not including Russia and the Ukraine, which would add a further 14.8 million homes to the total (source: FTTH market panorama prepared by IDATE for FTTH Council Europe).
“This is phenomenal progress, and it proves that FTTH/B is poised to become THE mass market broadband product in Europe, even though there is still a long way to go to reach the Digital Agenda Target of 100 Mbps for 50 percent of Europe’s households by 2020!” said Karin Ahl, president of the FTTH Council Europe.
Alternative Operators Push Fiber Deployments in Germany
Although there were no new countries in the FTTH Ranking, new momentum was apparent in Germany where alternative operators like Deutsche Glasfaser are pushing ahead with fiber deployment. The country is now very close to entering the FTTH Ranking – if progress continues at this rate, Germany is likely to reach the qualifying threshold of 1 percent of homes subscribing to fiber sometime in 2015.
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Good progress was also reported in countries like Romania, Spain, France, Netherlands and Portugal. However, a number of European countries are still holding back on their fiber roll-outs and are missing out on the economic and social advantages that FTTH can bring. Countries like Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic or the United Kingdom connected fewer than 20,000 new FTTH customers during the whole of 2014.
FTTH Operators Award: dstelecom (dst group)
The FTTH Council Europe also announced that dstelecom (dst group) and Dik Wessels received this year’s FTTH Operators Award and Individual Award, respectively, for their outstanding efforts to accelerate the adoption of FTTH in Europe. Portuguese operator dstelecom, represented by Xavier Rodriguez-Martin, member of the board, received the FTTH Operator Award in recognition for rolling out advanced fiber networks in rural areas located in the north and south of Portugal. With an investment of €90 million ($102 million), dstelecom group has installed more than 9000 km (5593 miles) of optical fiber cable to cover more than 50 percent of the households in these regions.
FTTH Individual Award: Dik Wessels
In awarding Dik Wessels the FTTH Individual Award, the FTTH Council Europe recognized the importance of his role in the investment in FTTH infrastructure by the family’s investment group Reggeborgh. Dik Wessels is the initiator behind Reggefiber BV and Deutsche Glasfaser GmbH. The success of this innovative strategy has been confirmed by Reggefiber’s penetration in the market in the Netherlands and its recent acquisition by KPN.
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