The latest June 2009 'FTTH Council Europe' statistics for Fibre to the Home (FTTH) fibre optic broadband connections show that the service has grown by 18% since the last report in December 2008. FTTH is where a 100Mbps+ fibre optic cable is connected directly to the home, though you won't see the UK on this list.

Sweden once again manages to take the top spot with 10.9% of its broadband connections being based off next generation FTTH technology. It is followed by the familiar likes of Norway and Slovenia, while new entrant Slovakia takes the place of Italy, which drops out of the top 10.



The council anticipates that 13 million people across 35 EU states will be connected to FTTH style broadband services by 2012, with many delivering speeds of 100Mbps and potentially going even faster in the future.

However the UK is notable by its absence from the list, though this is hardly surprising. i3 Group is still developing their rollout in Bournemouth and Dundee, BT only has very minimal plans for FTTH/P deployments and the other operators are too small (Ask4 etc.) to make much of a national dent.

Those that shake their heads and point towards BT's forthcoming FTTC rollout should take note that it only takes the fibre optic cable to a street cabinet (VDSL2 is used to deliver the "last mile" over existing copper cable) and not directly into homes, thus the speeds will be slower and it is not true FTTH.

The same can also be said for much Virgin Media and its cable platform, which despite the advertisements, is often not a true FTTH product either and rarely takes fibre optic cable directly from start to finish into homes. It is perhaps closer in style to FTTC than FTTH.