Downturn doesn’t affect home fibre plans
Over 2 million people in Europe now are in possession of fibre broadband direc to to home, according to a survey.
The latest figures on Superfast Broadband delivered by Fibre to the Home (FTTH) has revealed that there was an 18% growth over 2008.
The sustained growth has suggested that economic downturn has not affected plans to build the fibre infrastructure. Sweden is top – ranking in rolling out this technology, with 10.9% of customers using fibre.
The president of Europe’s Fibre – To – The – Home Council, Karel Helsen, said that that growth matched the prediction that had been renewed after the credit crunch started to take its toll.
These figures in 2009 are in line with the forecasts made recently, said Helsen.
The FTTH Council expects that, by 2012, 13 million people in 35 European countries will have fibre broadband. These services will result in 100 Mbps broadband connections, Helsen said.
In Europe, over 233 projects were being carried out to lay these cables. Most of them, said Helsen, were being run by small net firms or local governments. Local governments’ interest in FTTH has come about due to the social and economic benefits that it brings.
The delay inherent or the low latency of fibre networks has ensured that broadband can be used in a number of innovative ways, Helsen said.
Though most of the FTTH services unveiled early were present only in particular cities, Helsen said, there were a number of FTTH services which were spreading out to more rural areas for e – learning and e – health projects.
Studies done separately have shown that the FTTH infrastructure could have a direct impact on the economic output of the particular area, Helsen mentioned. Germany, UK and France were yet to get into the top ten list of FTTH – enabled nations, which is quite a surprise.
Source - BBC News
