Orange launches symmetrical 100-Mbps Fibre Pro service via FTTH

Orange says it will leverage its fiber to the home (FTTH) network to offer “Fibre Pro”, a symmetrical 100-Mbps service. The French communications services provider will target the offering primarily at small businesses and high-end “professionals” in its home market who require high speeds to access cloud-based services.

Fibre Pro service includes fixed-line telephony, Internet, and television, as well as such features as a personalized URL, a fixed IP address, an “e-mail for professionals” service, and digital fax. Orange also will offer technical assistance for setting up the network in customer offices as well as dedicated customer support.

Prices for the service will start at 69 euros per month with a 12-month commitment. The price includes communications to fixed-line telephones and mobile devices in France and abroad.

Orange also reiterated its goal to roll out the FTTH network on which Fibre Pro is based to 3,600 French municipalities (communes) across 220 agglomerations by 2015.

PT Telkom to spend $2.3b on HSBB project

Indonesia’s PT Telkom has announced plans to spend 21.19 trillion rupiah ($2.3 billion) through to 2015 on a national high-speed broadband network project.

The state-owned operator aims to cover 497 cities nationwide with a network providing peak speeds of between 20Mbps and 100Mbps through its “true broadband” project, Jakarta Post said.

The company has already passed around 1.7 million homes through the project, which launched in June, and aims to pass 13 million by end-2015.

PT Telkom is also improving its backhaul infrastructure, and has completed deployment of a fiber backbone spanning over 26,000km, and encircling Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Denpasar, Mataram and Kupang.

In addition, Telkom will begin work on its own 5,500km subsea cable system, the Sulawesi and Maluku, Papua Cable System (SMPS), in late 2012.

Announcing the budget for the true broadband project, Telkom president director Rinaldi Firmansyah told local media the additional infrastructure is required to support the operator's transition to its new telecom, information, media and edutainment (TIME) model.

The company aims to boost revenue from information, media and edutainment VAS from 9% in 2011, to 15% by 2015.

BT chief predicts 90% fiber coverage in six years

BT chief Ian Livingston claims fiber broadband offering download rates of 100Mbps could be rolled out to 90% of UK homes over the next six years.

Investment in fiber is crucial to boosting overall broadband access speeds in the country, and will help to cut the number of homes restricted to a maximum of 2Mbps from around 12% of homes currently to less than 2%, Livingston told UK prime minister David Cameron and government ministers yesterday.

The BT boss predicts the UK will become one of Europe’s leading lights in high-speed broadband, thanks to a combination of the telco’s investment and government funding. The UK has allocated £530 million (€618 million) of public money to boost rural broadband deployments, and last week detailed a £100 million pot to create ten high-speed urban hotspots.

“Super-fast broadband can be a catalyst for economic growth,” Livingston says, adding “The government has been a great supporter in recognizing that this type of infrastructure investment can drive the UK’s long term growth.”

Ovum: FTTx PON, CMTS shipment up, DSL flat in 3Q11

Ovum says its preliminary estimates for the third quarter of 2011 indicate the fixed broadband access equipment market remains healthy. Annualized shipment volumes remain at or near record levels across the FTTx, DSL, and CMTS segments, the market research and analysis firm asserts. However, while volumes in the FTTx PON and CMTS segments were up from last year, the DSL market was flat.

Meanwhile, the quarter also marked the beginning of 10G EPON shipments, thanks to ZTE Corp. This first shipment doesn’t represent the opening of a 10-Gbps floodgate, however. “Prices for 10G equipment remain high, so we expect shipment numbers to stay small for some time,” Kamalini Ganguly, Ovum analyst, said. “Nevertheless, it is an important milestone in the quest for higher bandwidth capacity.”

In its new Market Share Alert: 3Q11 FTTx, DSL, and CMTS report, Ovum says that sequentially, PON OLT shipments contined to grow, but at a slower pace than in recent quarters. DSL and CMTS markets experienced double-digit sequential declines. Seasonality in North America played a role in the CMTS decline, as did other factors such as declining legacy ADSL port shipments and DSL ports shipped in conjunction with fiber-to-the-building (FTTB).

The sequential declines were particularly high in South & Central America, but this does not indicate that growth has stopped, according to Ovum. Said Ganguly, “Annualized shipments remain high in South & Central America despite large sequential declines across the DSL, CMTS, and PON market segments in 3Q11. Even YoY growth was double-digit negative or close to it in the DSL and CMTS markets. But the long-term outlook for this region remains bright.”

Turning to the supplier realm, Ovum reports that Huawei maintained its lead in the PON OLT and ONT/ONU markets, with 40% and 30% shares respectively. Huawei also led the DSL market with a 35% share. Within DSL rankings, Ericsson moved up to fourth position for the first time in many years while ADTRAN moved up to sixth. Cisco remained on top of the CMTS market with 56%.

Top vendors within the different niches in descending share order included:

  • PON OLT: Huawei, ZTE, Fiberhome, Alcatel-Lucent, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo
  • PON ONT/ONU: Huawei, ZTE, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Alcatel-Lucent, Sumitomo
  • DSL: Huawei, ZTE, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, ADTRAN
  • CMTS: Cisco, Arris, Motorola.