FTTH Global Ranking Update

COPENHAGEN -- The number of economies where fibre to the home has established a significant and growing market presence has nearly doubled over the past 18 months, according to an updated global ranking issued today by the FTTH Councils of Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America.

The ranking, issued twice a year since 2007, was released today at the FTTH Council Europe’s annual conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. It tracks the level of FTTH market penetration in economies where more than one percent of households are connected directly into high speed fibre networks. In all, 20 economies met this threshold, up from 14 in July 2008 and 11 in July 2007.

The growth is largely due to the entry of several European countries in the ranking, as fibre to the home deployment begins to expand across that continent and the total number of FTTH subscribers in Europe approaches two million.

Asian economies maintained their leadership in FTTH market penetration, as South Korea (44% of the market), Hong Kong (28%), Japan (27%) and Taiwan (12%) continued to hold the top four places respectively.

Meanwhile, Japan remains the overall leader in terms of the number of fibre-connected homes at 13.2 million, followed by the United States (6.05 million) and the People’s Republic of China (5.96 million).For the first time, the Councils' ranking includes the breakdown for each economy between fibre to the home connections, where fibre is run all the way to individual residences, and fibre to the building (FTTB) connections for which the fibre terminates at a multi-unit dwelling and a non-fibre local area network (LAN) delivers service to the individual subscribers. In addition, FTTB subscriber numbers have been added to the totals for the United States, which accounts for much of the substantial increase in that country's totals since the previous ranking in July 2008. Copper-based broadband access technologies (DSL, FTT-Curb, FTT-Node) are not included.

FTTH Council Europe