Posted: 15th Oct, 2007 By: MarkJ
The Sydney (Australia) based telecoms research outfit BuddeComm has released its latest global '
Fibre To The Home' (FTTH) broadband technology report. It notes that Asia currently leads the pack with Japan out in front, having grown from 1.5m subscribers during mid-2004 to around 10m in mid-2007 (32% of the country's total broadband subscriber base):
Apart from Japan, it comes as no surprise that the movement towards fibre in Asia has been occurring in the more developed markets. However, the adoption rate varies considerably from market to market. In South Korea, for example, the situation is complicated by the use of both fibre and fibre-hybrid infrastructure to deliver broadband services. Whilst number of FttH subscribers is relatively small in South Korea, there has been strong growth in FttC and FttN services, which in turn support other platforms to deliver service to the premises. Other Asian markets, like Singapore and Taiwan, are busy with pilot FttH networks and early commercial activity. Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom has an ambitious plan to cover the island with fibre and was aiming for 2.5 million FttH subscribers by 2011.
China has also been making positive statements about FttH roll-outs. Interestingly, the development of FttH sat in 11th priority position in China's five-year plan published in 2005. With the 2008 Beijing Olympics fast approaching, China Netcom said it was making extensive use of fibre as its broadband platform of choice in preparation. China Telecom has announced plans to have FttH established nationwide by 2010.
The US fibre-to-the-home (FttH) market reached more than two million subscribers by September 2007, according to figures released by the FttH Council and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). This amounts to more than 100% growth since September 2006, driven largely by Verizon's ambitious FiOS network deployment. The number of homes passed has grown by more than 50%, from around six million to nine-and-a-half million. The take-up rate has thus increased from around 15% to 20%, principally due to the active marketing of the networks in 2007.
Naturally markets such as Japan's have also seen related declines in xDSL (ADSL etc.) technology since FTTH's introduction. The full ABN Newswire summary can be found
HERE, although it doesn't appear to include any newer European statistics.