Sweden, Norway and Slovenia are the leaders in the first official European ranking of FttH penetration (fibre-to-the home) published by the FttH Council Europe. The ranking shows the percentage of homes that receive broadband communications services over direct fibre optic connections.
More than 80% of the total homes connected to FttH across Europe can be found in just six countries.
The ranking shows smaller countries leading the way in FttH connections. Mid-term projections show, however, that bigger economies are closing the gap.
In the largest countries, FttH has still a long way to go. Joeri Van Bogaert, president of the FttH Council Europe comments: “We see evidence that the larger economies are clearing the gap quickly. This trend is very clear in France, for instance. A documented overview of this uptake will be unveiled by the Council in February 2009 during our annual conference in Copenhagen.”
According to the new market research conducted between June 2007 and June 2008, France demonstrated the highest growth of any European nation, with over 118,000 new subscribers during this time period. Norway took second place with over 69,000 new subscribers, whilst Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Slovenia all followed with over 30,000 new FttH subscribers.
The full list of European FttH ranking: Sweden 8.28%; Norway 7.22%; Slovenia 4.7%; Iceland 3.90%; Denmark 3.11%; Finland 1.73%; The Netherlands 1.4%; Italy 1.34%; Estonia 0.99% and Latvia 0.99%.
Compared with other continents, Europe still lags behind in the number of FttH homes connected, according to a recent study from IDate. Worldwide, subscribers have now exceeded 28 million, with FttH and FttB accounting for more than 90% of the total. VDSL – effectively FttC – accounts for just 4.5%.
Whilst Asia dominates the numbers, subscriber growth in Europe in the first half of 2008 was 32%, perhaps indicating that the gap is closing.
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