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As result of its annual study for the MENA FTTH market Panorama, FTTH Council MENA announced during their 4th annual conference in Doha, Qatar on 12 and 13 December 2012 the UAE as number One in the Global Ranking of Homes penetration. UAE is taking the lead of the Global Ranking with FTTH penetration rate of 64.8 per cent

The ranking covers all countries with at least 200,000 households where the penetration of FTTH/B has reached 1% of the total number of homes.

In June 2012, 32 countries were members of the Global Ranking with South Korea leading around 57% of Homes subscribing to FTTH and UAE has been included for years in the Global Ranking at top places to reach the top 1 in 2012.

Furthermore, three others MENA countries are entering the Ranking KSA, Qatar and Jordan.

“I am proud to mention in this occasion and based on our research as of the end of September that four Arab countries have entered the global ranking of being among the top 36 countries in the world of fiber homes passed and homes connected, and they are UAE, Saudi, Qatar, and Jordan, and also very proud to mention that the number one rank was occupied by the UAE. This is a clear testimony that our region indeed does have lots of potential and capability,” said Mr Faris Awartani, Chairman of FTTH Council MENA during the opening of the conference in Doha.

It is worth to mention that the MENA region is the home of the highest Take Rates of homes subscribed versus homes connected with an average of 41% comparing to France, UK and Switzerland as per IDATE the Consulting & Research partner of FTTH Council MENA.

BT says that it plans to pass an additional 1.2 million premises in the upcoming phase of its fiber-optic broadband network deployment. When the phase is completed, BT says its fiber-optic network footprint will encompass approximately 19 million premises.

The new deployment phase will see Openreach, BT’s local network deployment arm, upgrade 99 new exchanges by Spring 2014. The targeted exchanges serve approximately 600,000 premises, mostly in Scotland, the Midlands, the North East, and North West of England. Openreach will reach another 600,000 premises in BT’s existing footprint with new fiber-optic cable infrastructure as well.

BT says that it has identified 1,700 exchange areas across the UK that will make up the majority of its commercial fiber footprint. It plans to reach additional exchanges with the help of the British Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) program.

Said Mike Galvin, managing director, NGA at Openreach, “Our fiber deployment continues to gather pace. Our engineers are working round the clock to hit our ambitious target of reaching two-thirds of UK premises with fiber during Spring 2014 – at least 18 months ahead of the original timetable. The work doesn’t stop there, however, as we are also helping to roll out fiber to other parts of the country working in partnership with local authorities as part of the BDUK activity.”

The fiber-based broadband network comprises both fiber-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) and fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) technologies. BT did not reveal how it will split the upcoming deployments between the two technologies. However, it noted that this spring, Openreach will begin to make FTTP commercially available on demand in areas where it has deployed FTTC.

Telecom operators such as France Telecom and Vivendi have been slow to invest in such projects because of the cost.

“High-speed broadband will strengthen the competitiveness of our companies and the quality of our public services,” President Francois Hollande said on Wednesday in a speech outlining the plan. “It is an opportunity to preserve and develop employment.”

High unemployment and belt-tightening from companies and consumers have brought the French economy to a standstill.

Hollande has said growth this year will fall short of his government’s 0.8 percent target, pushing deficit-cutting goals further out of reach.

Three tranches of more than 6 billion euros each will fund the planned network rollout, Hollande said. One will come from network operators, one from a mix of operators and local government and the last from state and local-government money.

Local governments’ outlay will be funded using tax-free, regulated deposits gathered by state bank Caisse des Depots.

By 2017, the end of President Hollande’s first term, 50 percent of the country will be covered under the plan.

Hollande’s predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy announced a similar plan, worth 4.5 billion euros, as part of a post-crisis stimulus package. But operators’ reluctance to invest outside big cities meant it never got off the ground.

The new plan offers a different route by allowing operators to share rollout costs in less profitable areas. ($1 = 0.7487 euro) (Additional reporting by Julien Ponthus and Leila Abboud; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

Russia sees a dramatic 42% increase in the number of FTTH subscribers, while more steady growth of 15% is reported in Europe, where Lithuania and Sweden lead the way.

FTTH CONFERENCE 2013, LONDON, 20 February 2013 – European fibre to the home (FTTH) deployment continues to grow steadily, but the gap between the leaders and laggards is increasing, according to the latest figures from the FTTH Council Europe, presented during a press conference held during the FTTH Conference 2013 at London's ExCeL exhibition centre today.

Russia has emerged as a clear fibre leader in the region. The country added 2.2 million new FTTH subscribers in the second half of 2012 – more than all of Europe’s 27 Member States combined – to reach a grand total of 7.5 million fibre-connected homes. This corresponds to a dramatic increase in FTTH subscribers of more than 42%.

Across the EU27 countries, the number of FTTH subscribers continued to grow at an accelerated rate of 15% in the second half of 2012. During this period, Europe added 820,000 subscribers in total, bringing the number of fibre-connected homes to 6.24 million. Scandinavia, Baltic countries and the Netherlands contributed 26% of these new subscribers, Eastern European economies 33%, and France and Portugal 30%.

The top five "dynamic" economies, where not only subscriber growth in the past year was high but also where new 2012 subscribers represented the highest proportion of total subscriber at end-2012 were Turkey, Ukraine, Spain, Bulgaria and Russia. In Turkey, subscribers more than doubled in the last year. Spain, new entrant in the FTTH ranking since June 2012, also confirmed its dynamism.

In terms of household penetration, the dominant fibre nation remains Lithuania, which already has 100% coverage of FTTH and over 31% of homes connected to fibre. Sweden takes second place in the European FTTH Ranking, with 22.6% of homes having FTTH subscriptions. In the ranking, ten nations can now claim more than 10% FTTH penetration, up from seven in June 2012. In order from the top they are Lithuania, Sweden, Bulgaria, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Denmark and Portugal.

"Eastern Europe and Scandinavian countries have reinforced their position as fibre leaders, and the disparity between the early and late adopters is becoming even more apparent," said Karin Ahl, President of the FTTH Council Europe. "These FTTH leaders are gaining an economic advantage over their less well-connected neighbours. Good communications infrastructure helps to retain existing businesses and attract new ones. Fibred-up nations can make a head start on deploying new services like remote health care and smart grid technologies. Countries that delay the roll out of FTTH are looking at a serious lost opportunity to prepare for their economic future."

Many of the major western economies are still dragging their feet over fibre. Italy and Spain remain at the bottom of the FTTH ranking, and once again, Germany and the UK failed to qualify. The number of fibre connected homes in the UK stands at less than 0.1%.

The FTTH Market Panorama, which is updated twice a year by IDATE for the FTTH Council Europe, records the number of subscribers in each country across the continent of Europe, and ranks them according to the percentage of homes taking a direct fibre connection. The panorama includes both FTTH and fibre to the building or FTTB, an approach suited to apartment blocks where the building’s existing cabling can be used to make the final connection to the customer.

To be included in the FTTH Ranking, a country must have more than 1% of households connected to FTTH and more than 200,000 households.

Media note: A high-resolution graphic showing the economies with highest penetration of FTTH/B can be downloaded on www.ftthcouncil.eu/ftth-conference/welcome/media-news

As if there weren’t enough items on the agenda, attendees at next week’s FTTH Council Europe FTTH Conference suddenly have something new to talk about: the likelihood that the European Union will not fund broadband infrastructure deployments over the next seven years.

The decision to reduce the items in Neelie Kroes’s toolkit over the next seven years to “a good scolding” not only diminishes her influence, but calls into question the will of Europe to extend broadband access to those not easily reached economically via current wireline technology. It particularly clouds the future of fiber to the home (FTTH) as the medium of choice for super-fast broadband in the region, since fiber-optic broadband networks represent the most expensive option available.

Assuming the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) remains as is (it still must be ratified by the European Parliament), the burden for meeting the Digital Agenda’s goals will fall squarely on each member-state. Given the varying levels of fiscal health among these countries, it seems likely that “broadband for all” may not be equally high on each country’s list of things to do.

The first consequence will be fewer new initiatives. The subsequent consequence in some cases will be funding shortfalls for existing initiatives.

Service providers therefore should expect to have more responsibility for meeting broadband goals thrust upon them. In turn, we can expect these service providers to whine even more loudly about government regulations as a disincentive to investment. Current programs will slow, and new ones will take longer to begin.

And with funding likely more difficult to scrape together until the regional economy improves significantly, we’re likely to see more emphasis on “economical” broadband approaches. That means more fiber to the cabinet and less fiber to the home. It may also mean increased reliance on mobile broadband approaches.

The European FTTH community knows what it’s up against. “By reducing the financial envelope down to €1 billion for telecommunications, there will be no room for the support of fibre infrastructure investments,” said FTTH Council Europe President Karin Ahl in response to the MFF.

“Now that the EU Member States have failed to realize the importance of the digital part of the Connecting Europe Facility, the role of the FTTH Council Europe on the investment and financing side will be even more important – and we are looking forward to face this challenge,” she concluded

The council had better be up for the challenge. The battle for fiber-based broadband in Europe just took a turn for the worse.

One of the main objectives of the U.S. government is to encourage fiber-based broadband networks to provide high-speed digital broadband access that will help stimulate economic growth in the 21st Century. At the same time, the Government’s focus is to create a green environment to save energy.

Toward that end, major utility providers are deploying smart grids at a very fast pace to overhaul and modernize their existing grids. Simultaneously, utility operators want to establish intelligent telecommunications that facilitate the needs of effective power distribution, intelligent monitoring and better management of power at consumer premises.

With FTTH being deployed by many providers, it would be ideal for telecom operators and utility companies to more aggressively work together to accelerate a smart grid roll out. This would avoid the cost and complexity of building and maintaining two separate communication networks. Extending the FTTx network to smart grid infrastructures allows utilities to collect real-time data, perform on-demand outages, and monitor the power utilization.

Change Is Upon Us

Historically, utilities have had no proper communication channels. Some utility operators leased E1/T1 links while others relied on xDSL circuits. The bottom line is this: A fast and reliable infrastructure is critical for Utility smart grids that require data and power to move upstream and downstream. That’s where smart meters come into play. They facilitate nearly real-time, two-way communication.

Currently, telecom operators consider Fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) as the best method to deliver their telecom services to subscribers. FTTx has many network varieties, depending on the termination point: premises (FTTp), home (FTTh), curb/cabinet (FTTc), or node (FTTn). FTTx has the advantage of bringing innovative high-speed telecom services such as IPTV, Video-on-Demand, voice, high-speed data access, infotainment and edutainment while also providing some bandwidth for utility services.

With these FTTx architectures, fiber-like, high-speed, low-latency networks are ideally suited for a variety of smart grid applications including on-demand meter reading, outage management, and continual power quality monitoring.

In addition, fiber networks are capable of handling data intensive applications such as distribution automation and demand response, which enables utility companies and their customers to interact near real-time in load shedding, price signaling, other conservation, and cost-saving activities.

SmartComms Is What?

The good news is there is now a way utility and telecom providers can help each other. This solution is called Smartcomms, which is a solution for utility service providers to monitor the meter reading with real-time data consumption at the centralized management location.

In addition, this process can potentially:

• Detect service related problems.
• Change the tariffs as per the consumer requirements.
• Limit or increases the pumping capacity.
• Deliver accurate invoices to provide specific information for monitoring and energy management purposes.

Smartcomms Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), with high-speed and redundant fiber optic communication network refers to systems that measure, collect and analyze energy usage from advanced devices (i.e. electricity meters, gas meters, and/or water meters) through optical fiber communication media on request or a pre-defined schedule.

A typical Smartcomms network consisting of several different components including:

• Meter and modules.
• AMI communications link consisting of FTTx (optical fiber) network, collectors, data concentrators or meter take off points with the network management system.
• A MDM application to handle the large volumes of interval data. An advanced meter will collect the reading of all different utilities such as electricity, water, gas, and heat by means of a Home Area Network (HAN) communication link. Those readings, collectively or individually, will be sent to a data concentrator, which acts as a local collector of the information for a particular street area.
• The HAN/LAN communication is connected through the existing FTTx network. The data from the data concentrator is then sent to the Network Management System (NMS) or data center for computation and billing purposes.

In a nutshell, fiber optic connectivity offers very high bandwidth over extended distances for utilities looking to improve their smart grid communications. It is the perfect network infrastructure to facilitate device-to-device connections for utility operators. With telecom providers looking for additional revenue and utility companies looking for ways to improve their two-way data collecting efforts, a stronger partnership between the two will benefit both.

As the industry gears up for the FTTH Council Europe’s 2013 conference in London February 19-21, Lightwave European Correspondent Kurt Ruderman asked fiber-optics analyst Richard Mack of CRU International to evaluate the European scene in 2012 and to discuss his outlook for fiber and cable in 2013, particularly as it relates to FTTx in Europe.

Lightwave: What were the key developments that shaped the European fiber-optics market in 2012?

Mack: Even though several important economies in Europe were struggling with recession, the region's optical fiber and cable industry fared reasonably well in 2012 – better than in 2009, when the recession had a greater effect on telecom capital spending.

For one thing, the large fiber and cable firms have broad-based businesses. That is, they have sales organizations in other regions, and in many cases there are subsidiary or joint-venture factories in other regions. Exports of optical cable by Europe's factories were higher in 2012 than in 2011.

One development in 2012 was that we saw the effects of consolidation. It was first full year of the new Prysmian Group, which combines Prysmian and Draka. The group's new product and marketing campaigns highlighted the combined product family for telecom, including FTTx applications.

Tyco and ADC, which merged about the same time as Prysmian and Draka, progressed with the consolidation of their strengths in interconnect and passive hardware.

There were important developments in the optical cable industry’s product portfolio, especially innovation aimed at FTTx applications. This has been a key segment in terms of market growth, and the manufacturers have addressed new opportunities with new cable designs and features aimed at making the cable easier to install.

In the fiber industry, bend-insensitive fiber has become well established for cables to be installed in MDU buildings for FTTH. There are several new cable concepts for simplifying the installation of fibers inside buildings — ways to attach the cable to walls, ways to enter the cables and break out fibers for each floor of a building, etc. ITU standard G.657.A2 fiber has become well accepted for inside-building applications, and ITU G.657.A1 is being widely used in outside-plant applications.

Another important driver for fiber came from continued growth in 4G mobile usage, which requires more backhaul and backbone capacity, as well as fiber-optic systems for cell towers, including pre-terminated cable systems, and hybrid power-and-optical cables for linking the radio heads

On the technology side, there was also impressive progress with 100-Gbps transmission systems. Equipment manufacturers, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena, Huawei, Infinera, NSN, and others, announced 100-Gbps system deployments on both terrestrial and undersea cable routes. In both markets, the systems have been used to upgrade the capacity of previously installed fiber-optic cable, not only new fiber.

Lightwave: Why was 2012 a reasonably good year in fiber compared with the region's economic condition?

Mack: We would not say that the fiber business is entirely immune to the poor health of Europe's economy (GDP growth, etc.), but we would point out that fiber is also driven by other factors that are far more positive than GDP trends – bandwidth growth, the EU's drive for broadband connectivity (the EU Digital Agenda), efficiencies in data transport for rail, utility, and other infrastructure, etc. One good example is Spain, which is among the European markets with weakest GDP growth, and where the incumbent, Telefonica, went ahead with plans to deploy FTTH in Barcelona and Madrid to improve its infrastructure, boost revenues for broadband services, and to improve its operating expenses.

Lightwave: How did 2012 compare to 2011?

Mack: The amount of cabled fiber (multimode and singlemode) installed in Western Europe rose 5% from 2011 to 2012. This was far better than the negative growth in GDP. The amount installed in Eastern Europe dropped from 2011 to 2012 by 3%, due to a downturn in Russia's demand. The amount of cabled fiber installed in the Eastern European markets excluding Russia showed an increase of 15%. In addition to the increased quantity of cable, 2012 saw progress in a wide range of application environments, requiring a diverse array of fiber and cable types for FTTH, FTTB, blown installation, etc. This drove R&D into new small-diameter cable types, easily installed cables, etc.

Lightwave: What were the big European projects in 2012?

Mack: Even though Russia's demand was down, the FTTH projects underway in Moscow and other Russian cities were still big projects, using a lot of fiber. Russia's demand was still more than 6 million fiber-km in 2012, even though Russia's demand in 2012 was down more than 10% from 2011, which was a very strong year in Russia.

We also saw progress in FTTx deployments in several important markets. Last year in Turkey, both Turkcell Superonline and Turk Telecom were installing FTTH systems. In the Netherlands, KPN is progressing city-by-city with its FTTH programs at a healthy pace. Ukrtelecom has FTTH projects in Ukraine. In the UK, BT Openreach, which mainly is installing FTTN and using FTTH for a small percentage of premises passed, is ahead of schedule with its multi-year program.

Lightwave: What are the top European fiber markets?

Mack: In terms of the amount of cabled-fiber (in fiber-km) installed, the top 10 markets in order of size are Russia, Germany, France, the UK, Turkey, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, and Ukraine. These 10 accounted for 74% of all fiber installed in Western and Eastern Europe. (In this segmentation, Eastern Europe includes all of the former Soviet republics.)

Lightwave: What are the big drivers for fiber?

Mack: The main driver is broadband service for residential customers and small-and medium enterprise premises. Simply put, fiber lets the service provider offer faster Internet service. For residential customers in some countries, IPTV is an important component of the broadband-services menu. Fiber also lets the service providers gain some operational benefits.

Broadband services over FTTx networks have been the main driver for fiber optics in Europe for several years now. It is also the same driver in much of Asia, North America, and parts of Latin America, and Australasia. In India, Africa, and other parts of Latin America, backbone routes are a more significant driver. In China, mobile infrastructure has been the biggest driver (accounting for the most fiber and the most growth in recent years), although FTTH is also a major factor in the China market.

Lightwave: What were the big obstacles to fiber deployment in Europe in 2012?

Mack: Generally, the obstacles for fiber deployments have to do with cost, competition, and government policies. The cost problem is that VDSL can meet the EU Digital Agenda targets in many locations, and it gives a conservative carrier a safe way to offer broadband with less risk of stranded investment or having to share fiber infrastructure. When the new vectoring technology and the somewhat older pair-bonding technologies are used with VDSL, the bit rates can meet the Digital Agenda targets. In some countries, there is also a competitive CATV-industry offer for broadband, based on DOCSIS technology.

In France, for example, Iliad-Free cut back its FTTH deployments, possibly due to a new focus on mobile in 2012. SFR's demand was down a little, and Orange (FT) was flat. The complex regulations imposed by ARCEP in recent years may have contributed to the slower progress, as the carriers are required to explore joint investment or mechanisms for sharing infrastructure, depending on whether the deployments are in one of several types of "zone" or regions of population density.

Lightwave: What is the outlook for 2013?

Mack: The main observation about the European market is that it is a highly diverse group of about 50 countries. There are some small markets, such as Andorra, Iceland, and Jersey, that have been aggressive with FTTH. There are some large markets, such as Germany and UK, that have been conservative with FTTH, and more willing to pursue FTTN and "partial-fiber" access network architectures. The largest market, Russia, has been aggressive with FTTB, and recently with FTTH, and this has made it the largest market in Europe — more than twice the cabled fiber installed per year as the next largest in recent years.

In 2012, there were some signs for stronger commitment to spending on fiber in 2013 among key carriers in Germany, Italy, and Spain. With progress in these markets, along with a resumption of growth in Russia, and steady progress in other markets such as Turkey, Netherlands, Switzerland, and France, there is the potential for an increase of 5% to 10% in the amount of cable installed.

Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica plans to invest more in its fibre broadband networks in major cities like Madrid and Barcelona this year, and also increase its fibre footprint in smaller cities like Bilbao and Seville.

In Madrid, the telco plans to extend its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network to new areas of the city like Alcorcón, Las Rozas, Boadilla del Monte, Villaviciosa de Odón, Torrelodones, Galapagar, Algete, Coslada, Valdemoro and Torrejón de Ardoz.

In Catalonia, the extra injection of funds will see the city of Gerona connected to fibre, as well as some of the larger towns and cities around Barcelona, such as Badalona, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sabadell, Castelldefels y Rubí.

Smaller cities poised to receive new fibre networks this year include Bilbao, Córdoba, Cádiz, Málaga, Pamplona, San Sebastián, Seville, Zaragoza and Valladolid.

Telefónica currently has around 300,000 subscribers to its fibre broadband services, with 22,000 added last November – a monthly record for the company.

The telco is budgeting around €300mn for this extra push to expand its fibre networks between 2013 and 2015.

Operators of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks could find success beyond triple-play service provision. Strategy Analytics says its 4Q 2012 survey of broadband households in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the U.S. has identified surprising interest in and willingness to pay for remote monitoring and control systems in addition to professionally monitored interactive security services.

Over 50% of households without security are willing to pay for professionally monitored services if combined with monitoring and control capabilities, according to Strategy Analytics' Smart Home Strategies (SHS) advisory service report, "Smart Home Systems: Consumer Adoption and Attitudes."

Strategy Analytics' research also revealed significant willingness to pay for remote healthcare and energy management services if the price is right. Potential adoption of smart home services is highest in the U.S., UK, Germany, and Italy and less so in France, with the exception of retail DIY monitoring and control. Remote healthcare services have the greatest market potential in Italy, providing that recurring fees are kept under $10 per month.

"The percentage of broadband households with both the interest in and willingness to pay for selected connected home solutions is higher than expected," said Bill Ablondi, director, Smart Home Strategies advisory service, Strategy Analytics. "We believe that growing smartphone and tablet use is accelerating consumers' desire to be connected to everyone and everything important in their lives, including their family and homes."

The research quantified fees consumers are willing to spend for the selected services and the attitudes and behaviors most indicative of potential adoption.

The percentage of broadband households willing to pay for selected smart home capabilities in the US and major Western European countries is as follows:

• 55% are willing to pay for self-monitored security
• 54% are willing to pay for professionally monitored security
• 47% are willing to pay for remote monitoring and control
• 32% are willing to pay for remote healthcare services
• 30% are willing to pay for remote energy management.

Market research firm RVA LLC predicts in a report released today that direct investment in North American fiber to the home (FTTH) deployment will reach $4.7 billion annually by 2017. Altogether, the market will be worth $18 billion across the next five years, RVA asserts. Meanwhile, operators will see FTTH services revenues grow to $4 billion by 2017, almost half of the cumulative $9 billion North American service providers will see over the same fiber-year period.

The report, North American Fiber to the Home and Advanced Broadband Review and Forecast to 2017, tracks both FTTH deployments and consumer demand for high-bandwidth services. The report states that deployment growth will continue over the next five years despite the wrap-up of the ARRA broadband stimulus program, the evolution of the FCC’s Universal Service program to the Connect America Fund, and potential continuation of past economic uncertainties. Market expansion will come via what an RVA press release described as “a diverse group of small to large providers” who will supplant Verizon as the primary market catalysts. Meanwhile, the deployment focus will shift from overbuilds to greenfield applications over the five-year forecast period, RVA says.

On the user end of the equation, RVA also expects the number of subscribers for high-bandwidth services ranging to the 1-Gbps will increase rapidly. These high-bandwidth users will create an important market for for application, software, and programming developers.