Lithuania Tops EU FTTH Ranking

BRUSSELS -- The latest FTTH panorama update at end-June 2012 was just unveiled at a press conference held at Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam.

The update, prepared for the FTTH Council Europe by IDATE, ranks the 22 FTTH economies where more than 1% of the households are FTTH/B subscribers.

Europe (EU27+91) reported a solid 16.4% increase in the number of FTTH/B subscribers during the first half of 2012 and FTTH/B coverage across Europe continued to grow rapidly (16%). By mid-2012, EU27+9 had some 5.95 million FTTH/B subscribers and 32 million homes passed.

Furthermore, Russia offers huge market potential, with 5.2 million FTTH/B subscribers and 15.8 million homes passed. Ukraine has over a million FTTH/B subscribers - an increase of more than 85% during the first semester of 2012. New players are expected to deploy FTTH/B in CIS countries soon.

In the ranking, the top three remains unaltered. Leader Lithuania has reached over 30% penetration, followed by Norway (18%) and Sweden (14.5%). Spain entered the ranking at 20th position (1.42% penetration), following a 44% subscriber increase in first half of 2012. Despite the country's challenging economic situation, operator announcements (from Telefonica and Orange Spain, amongst others) suggest fibre is still considered a solid investment. FTTH from Telefonica and competition from cable operator Ono have clearly enhanced the Spanish market. Uniquely for southern Europe, Asturias' local government adopted a type of open access network usually found in Scandinavia, rolling out FTTH early on, instead of waiting for private investors.

Luxembourg (1.46% subscriber penetration) is another new entry. State-owned P&T Luxembourg appears set to realize ambitious government objectives: 80% of all households passed with 100Mbps by end 2013, and 100% at end 2015. Other FTTH players use P&T's infrastructure on a wholesale basis.

FTTH Council Europe