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France is nearing 1 million FTTH subscribers at the end of 2014, according to the latest broadband figures from regulator Arcep. The number of FTTH connections rose 67 percent last year to 935,000. This is equal to a network penetration of 23 percent of homes passed, an increase of 4 percent points in 2014.

In the last quarter of 2014, the total number of broadband connections of 30 Mbps or more, including both FTTH and VDSL, rose by 600,000 to 3.1 million. That is an increase of 50 percent year-on-year. Some 13.3 million homes could receive more than 30 Mbps at year-end, an increase of 20 percent year-on-year. This included 4.1 million passed by FTTH, up 37 percent from 2013.

The remaining broadband base, on speeds of less than 30 Mbps, totaled 22.9 million at year-end, stable year-on-year but a drop of 290,000 in the last three months of the year. In total, the French broadband market gained 305,000 subscribers in Q4 and around 1 million in the full year, to reach 26.0 million at the end of 2014

Spanish FTTH connections more than doubled in 2014, from 615,000 in December 2013 to 1.56 million at the end of 2014, according to the latest data released by telecoms regulator CNMC. In December alone, the 110,485 FTTH accesses more than compensated for the decline of other broadband technologies such as ADSL, which fell by 77,331 lines. The total number of fixed broadband lines stood at 12.94 million, a 5.9 percent year-on-year rise, with broadband penetration standing at 27.8 lines per 100 inhabitants. In 2014 as a whole, Telefonica gained a net total of 35,540 broadband lines, with other operators sharing an additional 568,970 lines and cable providers adding a further 117,210 lines.

Earlier in February, Tom Carpenter (Chief Executive Officer at M2FX) attended the 2015 FTTH Europe conference in Warsaw, where there seemed to be greater optimism around the European fiber market than in previous years. This was backed up by the annual IDATE figures released by the FTTH Council Europe, which showed that the number of FTTH (Fiber to the Home) and FTTB (Fiber to the Building) subscribers had increased by 50% between 2013 and 2014.

In total, this means that there are now 14.5 million FTTH/FTTB subscribers in Europe, with a further 14.8 million in Russia and the Ukraine. Strong progress was seen in countries such as France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Romania, while Germany is poised to enter the rankings, as it approaches 1% of homes subscribing to fiber. Lithuania continues to top the charts, with nearly 35% of households benefiting from fiber broadband, followed by Sweden and Latvia.

According to a related report from Heavy Reading’s Graham Finnie, subscriber numbers will double by the end of 2019 across the 44 countries he surveyed, which stretch from Iceland to Kazakhstan. This predicted 62 million high speed fiber to the home connections, which includes apartments in multiple dwelling units, will represent around 19% of the households in the region.

Patchy progress

That’s the good news. However, both studies pointed to a group of countries where FTTH/B has yet to grow significantly. Belgium, the Czech Republic, Austria and the UK each connected 20,000 new FTTH customers during 2014. Slow progress will make it difficult to hit the European Union’s Digital Agenda target of 50% of households receiving 100 Mbps broadband by 2020.

It is also sobering to compare European growth with other countries across the world. 85% of homes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and 63% of those in South Korea are FTTH subscribers, for example. New US rollouts mean that fiber broadband penetration rates there are ahead of many European countries, including France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK.

There are a number of reasons for the varied growth in FTTH within Europe. The economy within the Eurozone remains weak, leading to many operators putting fiber expansion plans on hold and some governments to scale back support for national fiber infrastructures. Perhaps most of all, there is no single killer app for FTTH. We’ve previously discussed some of the potential uses of superfast broadband, from 4K TVs to the Internet of Things, but they have yet to achieve mass-market penetration in Europe.

This leads to a dilemma for operators – they understand the need for FTTH, but high installation costs mean it is simply seen as too expensive to embark on now, rather than in the future. Many incumbents are looking at ways of squeezing more from their existing copper networks, such as G.Fast, and putting off replacing the last mile connection.

Moving the debate from theory to practice

It is in this area of cost focus that I think Europe is behind other regions, such as the Americas. The presentations at the FTTH Europe show were dominated by discussions at a macro level about the need for, and advantages of, fiber broadband, with very little about the technical considerations of installing networks. Many appeared pretty similar to those I saw either last year or even the year before. Given that everyone at the event works in the FTTH industry and understands the benefits, it is time to move the debate on. In contrast, the OSP Show in the US is much more practical, looking at how operators and installers overcome the cost challenges of fiber rollouts and manage CAPEX and OPEX budgets successfully.

Smart operators see the opportunity to win customers now, rolling out fiber – particularly in cities – in order to gain a first mover advantage. The growth we are seeing in subscribers demonstrates this, particularly with innovative projects that are being rolled out by new entrants and municipalities looking to compete with incumbent telcos.

However, more can be done; He’d like to see the FTTH Council Europe event recognize that the goalposts have shifted and to spend more time addressing the question “FTTH is really expensive – how do we make deployment more cost-effective?” That will help move the industry in Europe forward, and help expand the entire market.

Last year, I said that FTTH in Europe was still searching for a compelling event to kickstart growth. It may not have found it yet, but the strong figures show that progress is accelerating, and as more and more people see the benefits of FTTH, it should drive more interest and subscribers. What it needs is a renewed focus from the industry, led by the FTTH Council Europe, if it is to overcome the cost challenges that are holding it back.

1. Fiber to the Building (or Premise) continues to grow

The market demand for fiber broadband is there, and carriers are looking at how they can address it most cost-effectively. Consumers and businesses are keen to embrace faster speeds – Akamai's recent State of the Internet report found that the US had an average connection speed of 11.5 Mbps, behind the likes of Finland, Switzerland and South Korea.

This is driving widespread rollouts of Fiber to the Premise (FTTP), with high speed broadband connections to commercial and multi-tenant buildings (Multiple Dwelling Units – MDU). Getting fiber to individual tenants is then the next step, and can be complex and expensive, particularly in buildings with congested ducts and older infrastructure.

At the same time as subscribers are asking for the power of superfast broadband they do not want cosmetically ugly installations that clutter up their apartments with cables, so carriers are looking for equipment and techniques (such as pushable microfiber) that provide a fast, mess-free deployment.

2. Multiple players pushing fiber

Cable companies and traditional carriers are part way through the process of moving from their legacy coax and copper networks to fiber optic. Given the size of their infrastructure, this is always going to be a slow process, but the strong economy, consumer demand and entrance of new players – such as Google – is accelerating change. There have been plenty of announcements from carriers and cable companies, big and small, of new fiber deployment plans, and I expect this to accelerate in 2015. Examples include:

• Google Fiber announced the next step in its rollout at the end of January 2015, with plans to bring fiber to 18 cities across Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham;
• AT&T originally announced plans to bring its GigaPower 1-gigabit broadband service into 100 cities in 2015. However, the potential changes caused by net neutrality have caused it to put at least some of these plans on hold;
• After a successful launch in Omaha, CenturyLink has plans to expand FTTP further, including into Denver and Portland
• Verizon is nearing the end of its rollout of its FiOS fiber network, and estimates that it will have passed more than 19.8 million premises, though it announced in early February that some operations will be sold to Frontier Communications.
• Cox Communications has announced that it will bring 1 gigabit speeds to residential customers in all its markets by the end of 2016.

This is backed up by analyst figures – research organization RVA found that while the number of FTTH implementations in North America was broadly flat in 2014 compared to 2013, they are expected to grow dramatically by 2017, with new connections approaching 3 million households per year. This equates to annual direct investment of $4.7 billion, by 2017, by operators.

Coax and copper aren't going to disappear overnight, so carriers are investing their capex budgets where they see the biggest returns.

At the sharp end, network planners and installers are therefore looking for ways of bringing down the cost and complexity of fiber rollouts so that they can deliver on the plans that were announced in 2014.

3. Municipal deployments growing

There are wide discrepancies across the country when it comes to broadband access – research from the US Census and Pew Research points to a patchwork of speeds and availability between metro, suburban and rural areas.

Unsurprisingly, capex budgets from traditional carriers are being invested in projects with the biggest business benefits, which potentially leaves some communities trailing. To help plug this gap, President Obama announced plans, in January, to make it easier for communities and citizens to gain access to fiber broadband.

At the same time, figures from the FTTH Council Americas demonstrate the quantifiable benefits that gigabit fiber brings to communities. A Council study found that 14 areas it surveyed with gigabit broadband boasted GDP that was $1.4 billion higher than their comparable neighbors.

Many municipalities are therefore building out networks across their towns and local areas to meet untapped needs and deliver the benefits that high speed broadband connections can provide to their citizens, businesses and their own operations.

m2fx is involved in the extremely successful municipal rollout in the City of Loma Linda in Southern California. With 21,000 residents and a reputation as a healthcare center, Loma Linda has cost-effectively deployed a city-wide network within budget and tight timescales, using micro trenching and pushable fiber. Medical facilities are now able to share data in real time, enabling remote diagnostics and faster medical care, while new businesses have moved to the City thanks to the power of the network.

Given the success of trailblazers, such as Loma Linda, they expect to see many more municipalities deploying their own fiber networks to encourage new businesses to an area, make it an attractive place to live and enable greater efficiency and new services from government.

The US fiber market is currently incredibly dynamic, with a combination of increased competition, greater demand and growing investment meaning that 2015 is likely to be an extremely busy year for everyone involved.

The number of fibre to the home (FTTH) and fibre to the building (FTTB) subscribers in Europe has soared, increasing by 50% over the 12 months ending December 2014, according to the latest update to the FTTH Ranking announced at a press conference held at the FTTH Conference in Warsaw.

There are now nearly 15 million FTTH/B subscribers on the European continent (14.5 million to be exact) – not including Russia and the Ukraine, which would add a further 14.8 million homes to the total (source: FTTH market panorama prepared by IDATE for FTTH Council Europe).

"This is phenomenal progress, and it proves that FTTH/B is poised to become THE mass market broadband product in Europe, even though there is still a long way to go to reach the Digital Agenda Target of 100 Mbps for 50% of Europe's households by 2020!" said Karin Ahl, President of the FTTH Council Europe.

Although there were no new countries in the FTTH Ranking, there is a new momentum in Germany where alternative operators like Deutsche Glasfaser are pushing ahead with fibre deployment. The country is now very close to entering the FTTH Ranking – if progress continues at this rate, Germany is likely to reach the qualifying threshold of 1% of homes subscribing to fibre sometime in 2015.

Good progress was also reported in countries like Romania, Spain, France, Netherlands and Portugal. However, a number of European countries are still holding back on their fibre roll-outs and are missing out on the economic and social advantages that FTTH can bring. Countries like Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic or the United Kingdom connected fewer than 20,000 new FTTH customers during the whole of 2014.

The FTTH Council Europe also announced today that dstelecom (dst group) and Dik Wessels received this year's FTTH Operators Award and Individual Award, respectively, for their outstanding efforts to accelerate the adoption of FTTH in Europe.

Portuguese operator dstelecom, represented by Xavier Rodriguez-Martin, member of the board, received the FTTH Operator Award in recognition for rolling out advanced fibre networks in rural areas located in the north and south of Portugal. With an investment of €90 million, dstelecom group has installed more than 9000 km of optical fibre cable to cover more than 50% of the households in these regions.

In awarding Dik Wessels the FTTH Individual Award, the FTTH Council Europe recognized the importance of his role in the investment in FTTH infrastructure by the family's investment group Reggeborgh. Dik Wessels is the initiator behind Reggefiber BV and Deutsche Glasfaser GmbH. The success of this innovative strategy has been confirmed by Reggefiber's penetration in the market in the Netherlands and its recent acquisition by KPN.

The FTTH Conference was opened by Andrzej Halicki, Polish Minister of Administration and Digitization and Iwona Wendel, Undersecretary of State for the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development. The event, which attracted nearly 3,000 participants from 85 countries, hosted 95 exhibitors and over 130 high-quality presentations and case studies from renowned industry speakers. A keynote speech by Anna Herold, Member of Cabinet, Cabinet of Günther H. Oettinger, Commissioner for Digital Economy & Society, European Commission followed opening ceremony speeches by Magdalena Gaj, President of the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE), Prof. Fatima Barros, Chairman of Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and Karin Ahl, President of the FTTH Council Europe.

The 13th edition of the FTTH Conference will be held in Luxembourg on 16 – 18 February 2016.

Posted by Tom Carpenter | Jan 14, 2015 in m2fx blog

Following on from my half year report back in June 2014, I thought it is worthwhile to share my views on what has been happening across the Fiber to the Home (FTTH) market, with a particular focus on last drop connections, as well as looking at what I believe 2015 has in store.

The positive news is that growth appeared to continue throughout the second half of 2014. CRU's bi-monthly report on the fiber cable market stated that the high level of fiber demand seen at the start of the year remained solid through to the 3rd Quarter of the year. CRU forecast that more than 300 million km of bare fiber will be shipped during the year. For me, this is a staggering quantity – equivalent to the diameter of our planet's orbit around the Sun or enough fiber to circle the Earth 24,000 times.

Encouragingly, the main reason for growth was backbone FTTx deployments, which means there is a whole load of fiber backbone out there waiting to be connected up to properties in 2015.

Our own experience echoes CRU's positive predictions. We saw strong sales growth in all regions where we operate for our pushable fiber, in-building and fiber broadband products. Across the industry fiber cable related material lead-times continued to increase throughout the year, showing rising demand.

America

m2fx saw strong sales expansion in the United States during 2014 and believes this will continue through 2015. My colleague Larry Malone is going to talk about the market in a separate, future blog, but I'll give some high level commentary, centered around the net neutrality debate.

In an attempt to protect net neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has stated that it is considering reclassifying broadband internet as a common carrier service – like the telephone – and giving the regulator greater power to control prices and services.

This is potentially impacting plans, although Time Warner has said that regardless of what the FCC does on net neutrality it finds the broadband internet market very attractive.

Google appears to be supporting the FCC drive as it believes that reclassifying would allow it to gain rights of access to utility poles and other related fiber infrastructure such as ducts, conduits and rights of way currently enjoyed by incumbents. Earlier in the year Google Fiber announced expansion to a further 34 cities – however, at the time of writing, Google has not released deployment dates for any cities on the short list.

The FCC intend to vote on net neutrality in February 2015. With conflicting interests among the various stakeholders it will be interesting to see what the final proposal will be. Interesting times ahead.

However, given demand and the plans already announced, regardless of the eventual net neutrality decision, we believe that FTTH rollouts will accelerate throughout the United States this year.

Europe

In Europe there are patches of growth when it comes to FTTH, but so far there haven't been the widespread rollouts that other regions have seen. In mainland Europe, the market still appears to be flat, with Ireland and to a certain extent the UK, bucking the trend.

In the UK, BT has continued to accelerate its rural fiber broadband rollout throughout 2014, although there are several more years to go with this program.

Over in Ireland, 2015 is looking to be a pivotal year for fiber connections with both Eircom and the ESB/Vodafone launching major FTTH rollout plans. ESB/Vodafone has announced a 500,000 premises rollout utilizing ESB's powernet work infrastructure, whilst Eircom is launching a directly competitive aerial fiber network in 66 Irish towns.

After its acquisition of Ono, Vodafone has reduced its FTTH aspirations in Spain although its stated target of 2 million homes connected in 2015 still counts as a major rollout.

In Belgium, Belgacom ran some trials connecting up some 400 households. However, no date has been announced for a commercial FTTH rollout.

In Italy, FastWeb has announced plans to extend its FTTx network – with a mixture of FTTC and FTTH connections to 100 new cities, targeting 2.3m connected homes by the end of 2016. However rumors persist that FastWeb owner, Swisscom, has put the telco up for sale with (surprise) Vodafone being mooted as a likely acquirer.

Middle East Reorganizations

Middle East demand slowed slightly in the second half of the year, due to a combination of telco reorganizations, acquisitions that fell through and the launch of new initiatives that I'd expect to accelerate rollouts in 2015.

Saudi Arabia remains the largest market in the region with two competing, large scale FTTH rollout programs from STC and Mobily.

The internal reorganization at STC that I mentioned in June is now more or less complete. STC has now consolidated its installation contractors, moving from 50 plus separate installation contracts to approximately a dozen broad regional master companies. We believe that STC will now accelerate FTTx home connections throughout 2015.

Mobily has also consolidated the number of installation companies that it uses. However, after the recent suspension of the Mobily CEO for auditing errors that wiped out previous profits and the likely investigation we think it probable that FTTx investment will slow over the coming months.

In Qatar, the attempted purchase of state owned Qatar National Broadband Network (QNBN) by Vodafone caused multiple in-building installations to be delayed. Vodafone has since announced that it has terminated plans to acquire the network. We believe that with this deal falling through many of the in-building network installation projects will recommence during over the next 6 to 9 months.

In Oman, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced FTTH tenders in April 2014, following up with the announcement of the creation of a state owned optical fiber network company. While it is quite early days, it looks like the government view's FTTx broadband networks as a vital investment for the country. Currently, the focus is on a fiber backbone, but we feel confident that this will move towards direct fiber connections in number of major cities in the next 12-18 months.

Finally, UAE still has the highest fiber connection rate in the world – 85% of dwellings have a FTTH connection. This will surely drive Etisalat – Mobily accounting issues notwithstanding – and Du to drive rollouts throughout the region over the coming years.

Africa continues expansion

As we've previously discussed, we are excited about the African market, where we see a mixture of regional multi-nationals (MTN, Vodacom) and smaller national FTTH rollouts.

Liquid Telecom has continued its expansion throughout sub-Saharan countries throughout 2014. This is likely to continue through 2015 and beyond. We are now also beginning to see local incumbents such as ZamTel in Zambia release FTTH tenders to compete.

In South Africa, MTN and Vodacom continue to focus on backhaul, with limited final connections. However, this looks likely to change in 2015. Vodacom has announced that it will acquire internet provider Neotel in order to speed up the connection of fiber to homes and businesses. Telkom S.A. is attempting to sell its mobile infrastructure to MTN – and this is likely to leave the company with the funds and a renewed focus on upgrading its fixed lined network to fiber and Fiber to the Premises (FTTP).

MTN conducted pilot FTTH installations in June 2014, and is now offering on-demand fiber connections to gated communities starting 2015.

Earlier in the year Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) announced the acquisition of last-mile fiber optic company Conduct and it has been conducting modest last drop rollouts ever since.

In Namibia, Telecom Namibia trialed FTTP services for businesses and consumers with download speeds of up to 120Mbps in limited areas around the capital Windhoek, and nearby city Swakopmund. It is very early days, but the company has stated that it plans to expand the service to other towns and business districts in Namibia.

General:

2014 was a strong year for m2fx and FTTH and we see that accelerating in 2015, with perhaps the exception of mainland Europe. It will therefore be interesting to see the latest report on FTTH country rankings when it comes out at the FTTH Council Europe conference in February in Warsaw – the risk is that Europe is being left behind when it comes to superfast broadband and the benefits it brings.

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (AP) – Wading into a states’ rights dispute over Internet access, President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for the repeal of laws that prevent local communities from creating their own broadband networks.

Obama, for the second time in three months, cast himself as an antagonist to large cable and telephone companies that provide the bulk of the nation’s Internet service.

Obama said faster speeds would create jobs and allow local businesses to compete in the global economy. “Today high-speed broadband is not a luxury, it’s a necessity,” Obama said from a storage area at Cedar Falls Utilities, with shelves full of coiled wire and other equipment.

Obama is encouraging the Federal Communications Commission to pre-empt state laws that stifle competition and said his administration will work to cut red tape so more communities can get connected.

“In too many places across America, some big companies are doing everything they can to keep out competitors,” Obama said in Cedar Falls, which he credited with having one of the fastest networks in the world after fiber optic upgrades throughout the city. “Today, I’m saying we’re going to change that. Enough’s enough.”

Obama said his administration will provide technical and financial assistance to towns and cities that want to improve Internet service for their residents. The modest proposals do not require congressional approval and are part of a series of measures Obama is rolling out before his State of the Union address next week.

His stance is at odds with major cable and telephone companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc. that currently provide Internet service, often with little or no competition. Obama has already angered the industry by calling for new FCC rules that treat Internet service providers as public utilities.

An industry lobbying group, CTIA-The Wireless Association, said its members are committed to expanding broadband but criticized Obama’s approach.

“The president’s focus today on using taxpayer money to compete with commercial providers, which are pouring billions in private capital every year into U.S. broadband infrastructure and jobs, is the wrong path forward,” association president Meredith Attwell Baker said in a statement. “The wireless industry has invested $100 billion in the last four years alone. In such a vigorously competitive market, government-owned networks would only serve to chill private-sector investment, tilt the competitive playing field and harm consumers.”

Nineteen states place restrictions on municipal broadband networks, many with laws encouraged by cable and telephone companies. Advocates of those laws say they are designed to protect taxpayers from municipal projects that are expensive, can fail or may be unnecessary.

The National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures have urged the FCC not to pre-empt state laws on broadband.

The FCC is already considering requests for Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina, to prevent state laws from blocking the expansion of their broadband projects. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in June that local communities that want to provide their own broadband service “shouldn’t be stopped by state laws promoted by cable and telephone companies that don’t want that competition.”

A new White House report says that while 94 percent of Americans living in urban areas can purchase an Internet connection of 25 megabits per second, only 51 percent of Americans in rural areas have access to such Internet speeds.

The report also says that because of lack of competition three out of four Americans lack a choice for such Internet service.

“Tens of millions of Americans have only one choice for that next-generation broadband. So, they’re pretty much at the whim of whatever Internet provider is around,” Obama said.

The White House also announced that the Commerce Department would promote greater broadband access by hosting regional workshops and offering technical assistance to communities. The Agriculture Department also will provide grants and loans of $40 million to $50 million to assist rural areas.

A council comprising more than a dozen government agencies will also seek to remove regulatory and policy barriers that hinder broadband competition, the White House said.

Wireline companies wanting to tap into Connect America funding will have to deliver broadband speeds of at least 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream, the FCC has ruled.

These new speeds, up from 2011’s 4 Mbps down/1 Mbps up, make certain that rural consumers get the same broadband speeds that 99 percent of urban Americans receive, the FCC said in a press release.

Other portions of the 2011 provisions also had to be tweaked to accommodate the new speeds. Among these, the FCC said, are provisions:

• Increasing the terms of support for price cap carriers from five to six years and possibly seven

• Increasing flexibility in the build-out requirement as long as recipients reach out to Americans that were previously unserved

• Forbearing from certain universal service obligations in low cost census blocks where price cap carriers are not eligible to receive Connect America support and census blocks where there’s competition

• Requiring recipients that decline Connect America support in a state to continue to deliver voice service to high cost census blocks until replaced through competitive bidding by another subsidized carrier that will deliver voice and 10/1 broadband

In a company statement, Windstream praised the FCC, calling the new order "another major step toward expanding robust broadband service to Americans in rural, high-cost areas."

Matt Polka, president-CEO of the American Cable Association (ACA), added that organization’s support for the change as well. “ACA may differ with the FCC on select aspects of the program but not the overall direction, and we intend to continue to work with the FCC to ensure unserved consumers get high-speed broadband in an efficient and fiscally responsible manner,” said a statement attributed to Polka.

AT&T (NYSE: T), Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) opposed changing the broadband definition because 4 Mbps was sufficient, an Ars Technica story said.

Interestingly, while the FCC believes that rural communities deserve 10 Mbps broadband speeds, the nation’s most densely populated state feels that 4G speeds meet consumer broadband demands.

The Board of Public Utilities (BPU) ruled earlier this year that Verizon was no longer obligated to provide broadband to New Jersey residents who can access broadband service from cable TV providers or via wireless 4G service. Residents in pockets of the state without cable or wireless broadband were given the option to petition Verizon for service but would only get broadband if at least 35 people in a single census track agreed to sign contracts for a minimum of one year and pay $100 deposits.

Verizon at the time called the ruling “great news for the state’s consumers.”

The Thai government has announced plans to set up a National Backbone Holding Company that would own and operate telecom assets nationwide.

The planned company would seek to reduce redundancies in network equipment and reduce the prices for broadband services, the Bangkok Post reported.

A national backbone holding company could inherit the 150,000km of fiber owned by state-owned operators TOT and CAT. It may also include the 50,000km of fiber owned by private players and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.

Infrastructure from private players could potentially be included as part of the operators' build-operate-transfer concession agreements.

According to the report, the holding company would operate all existing telecom network assets, renting the network to operators. The holding company would have a telecom tower and fiber optic network company within its banner.

The planned new holding company would form part of Thailand's new digital economy strategy, which aims to improve broadband penetration and address broadband blackspots.

But the panel tasked with developing the digital economy policy has acknowledged that legal technicalities could make setting up a telecom holding company a difficult prospect.

State-owned operator CAT recently signed an agreement with private telco DTAC covering evaluating network sharing arrangements, which could go on to form part of the holding company plan.

China is opening up its booming fixed broadband market to private firms in an attempt to increase competition in a market that has been dominated by China Telecom and China Unicom.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on Wednesday launched public consultations on a proposal to allow private enterprises to provide fixed broadband services in the country during a three-year trial period.

Under the proposal, privately owned Chinese enterprises with a minimum market capitalization of 20 million yuan ($3.2 million) and more than three years of experience in the telecom industry would be able to apply to participate in the trial to provide fixed broadband services including FTTH to consumers .

Private companies, when their applications are approved, could either directly build broadband infrastructure, or lease network infrastructure via the three stated-owned incumbents – China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile – to operate as service providers.

Currently, China's broadband market is dominated by China Telecom and China Unicom. In 2011, China Unicom and China Telecom were embroiled in antitrust investigations for alleged abuse of dominance in the broadband market.

Earlier this year the country's anti-monopoly regulator, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said it is evaluating an anti-monopoly case against the duo and will make a ruling soon.

The plan will be tested in 16 major cities – Taiyuan, Shenyang, Ha'erbin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Xiamen, Qingdao, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Chengdu.

Interested parties will have until December 16 to participate in the MIIT's consultation period for the proposal, according to an announcement posted on the regulator's website.

The trial is the MIIT's latest attempts to further liberalize the telecom sector. The Chinese government first announced in June 2012 that it plans to progressively open the telecom sector up to private investment.

The MIIT has since given out MVNO licenses to 33 privately-owned companies to resell mobile services with the incumbent carriers under a two-year trial, in a move to bring more competition to the country's mobile market.

In January, the ministry also announced plans to allow foreign investment in seven telecom VAS segments within the Shanghai Free Trade Zone.