According to the latest research conducted by Dataxis, FTTx will be the strongest growing fixed broadband access in Asia-Pacific, growing at a CAGR of 35% during 2012-2022.
China is by far the biggest contributor to this growth, accounting for almost 80% of the FTTx connections out of total FBB numbers in 2016. The FTTx network in China is mainly built by three operators namely, China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom. China Telecom is the market leader with 117 million FTTx subscribers in June 2017. The three companies together provide FTTx connections to almost 80% of fixed internet subscribers in China.
Apart from China, other Asia-Pacific countries are also pushing for Next generation access broadband. Some of the next generation broadband plans are being rolled out in countries such as Singapore and Australia, which triggers the launch of new fibre only operators. In Australia, Vodafone is taking advantage of the National Broadband Network to implement its own fibre network. Another group, MyRepublic is sizing the demand for high speed Internet by proposing 100% optic fibre plans in New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.
With all the FTTx growth, DSL is the most affected, showing negative growth of 18% CAGR between 2012-2022. The second most growing BB access technology after FTTx will be cable which stands at 19% during 2012-2022. Dataxis forecasts that standard cable will start to decline from 2018 and China will be a significant contributor to high-speed cable technology (Docsis 3.0) growth too.