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The European Commission says it has achieved the objective of delivering basic broadband coverage to all by 2013, and is making good progress on other targets outlined in the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE). However, roll out of high-speed broadband in rural areas still lags behind.

European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said, “Most Europeans now live digital lives and they are hungry for more. We have solved the internet access problem. But the digital skills gap persists. Unless we all do more, we will face a digitally illiterate underclass in Europe.”

Coverage of next-generation access (NGA) technologies has doubled since 2010, according to the data. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of EU households have access to broadband connections capable of delivering at least 30 Mbps download speeds. These so-called next generation access (NGA) technologies include VDSL, cable DOCSIS 3.0 and FTTP.

At the end of 2013, cable DOCSIS 3.0 had the largest NGA coverage at 41.2%, followed by VDSL (31.2%) and FTTP (14.5%). Over the past year, the NGA coverage increased by eight percentage points, equaling 20.5 million additional households covered by high-speed NGA broadband technologies compared to 2012.

In 2013, VDSL was the fastest growing NGA technology (up from 24.9% in 2012) with upgrades of cable networks to DOCSIS 3.0 nearly complete and FTTP coverage increasing by only two percentage points. The Commission says this clearly demonstrates the shift in broadband strategy in many member states, where companies are focusing on upgrading of existing copper networks rather than on the more costly deployment of fiber-optic cables all the way to consumers’ homes.

Malta, Belgium, and the Netherlands are close to full NGA coverage. NGA coverage continues to be high (over 90%) in Latvia and Lithuania due to continued FTTP deployment, whereas VDSL and cable DOCSIS 3.0 are behind the high NGA coverage in Malta, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Italy, Greece, and Croatia lag in NGA coverage with less than a third of households having access to high-speed broadband in each of the countries.

Spanish FTTH broadband Market shows significant and promising growth as per the latest reports published by the telecom regulator CNMC. High speed broadband market has grown by 5.9 percent while the FTTH segment showed a growth of 84.7 percent. Broadband over Hybrid Fiber Co-axial segment showed negative growth. CNMC analyzed the data from January 2013 to January 2014.

The regulator's data shows that the total number of fixed connections in Spain has become 12.31 million for the broadband. This corresponds to 5.9 percent growth from previous year. Spanish fiber optic market is one of the active markets in Europe. Major telecom service providers such as Telefonica, Orange, Vodafone, Jazztel etc have been progressing well with their fiber optic network expansions across the country.

To stimulate the broadband market and speed up the deployment at the last mile, the telecom regulator had initiated measures to share the broadband infrastructures among service providers. Though there are concerns of monopolistic attitude of major telecom operators in the market, telecom regulator has ensured effective intervention and involvement in each and every business proposal to make the competition healthier and reasonable. In an open telecom market such as that of Spain's regulators need to focus on bringing more opportunities that would force the competitors to co-operate.

The current growth in FTTH subscribers in Spain is a result of the measures taken by the telecom regulator CNMC (former CMT is now part of CNMC). Activities and functions of former Commission for the Telecommunications Market are now integrated in the new National Commission of Markets and Competition.

A total of 39,485 new FTTH subscribers have been added to become 77,974 broadband subscribers. 27,601 new DSL subscribers and 10,888 new HFC subscribers were also added to the list.

As per CNMC's updates, there are 12,307,947 broadband subscribers. The regulator groups the broadband subscribers in to three categories such as DSL ( Digital Subscriber Line), HFC (Hybrid Fiber Co-axial) and FTTH (Fiber to the Home). DSL subscribers are grown by 4.3 percent and currently there are more than 9,616,776 (more than 9.6 million) subscribers. Telefonica alone has more than 5 million DSL customers. Telefonica's DSL customers have reduced by 3.4 percent, while other service providers could attract more customers to their DSL offers. DSL subscriber base was increased by 14.6 percent with Non-Telefonica providers.

There was a slight reduction in HFC customer base too. Current Spanish HFC subscribers are 2,036,623 numbers. This corresponds to a decrease of 0.7 percent. On the other hand FTTH segment shows a significant growth of 84.7 percent to reach a total of 654,548. Out of this Telefonica alone claims to have 643,197 subscribers. There are only 21,351 subscribers signed up with service providers other than Telefonica. Telefonica's FTTH subscriber segment showed a growth of 83.4 percent while the growth was 131 percent with other service providers, indicating that some of the Telefonica DSL subscribers might have opted for FTTH services offered by Non-Telefonica service providers.

The clouds of competition gather over the skies of six cities in North Carolina　as the country's one of the oldest and largest telecommunication service providers, AT&T takes steps forward to deliver gigabit services to its subscribers. AT&T said they have been talking with North Carolina Next Generation Networks (NCNGN) to deploy 1 Gbps broadband over fiber networks in the State.

Google had announced their 1 Gbps fiber broadband in North Carolina, where the Time Warner Cable has a significant presence. North Carolina would be the next broadband battlefield in the United States. The high speed broadband market is waiting for the launch of AT&T's U-verse GigaPower, where the internet giant Google is expanding their networks and cable giant　Time Warner Cable have already made their foothold. AT&T would be in direct competition with Google and Time Warner Cables to woo broadband customers in the state. AT&T U-verse is currently available in Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Asheville and surrounding areas. North Carolina is home to the telecommunication companies such as CenturyLink, Verizon, Birch, Carolina Digital Phone Cavalier, Deltacom, Windstream, Time Warner Cable, Charter, ATMC, TDS Telecom, Matrix, North State Communications.

In North Carolina, AT&T plans to offer its U-verse GigaPower fiber optic broadband services in Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh and Winston-Salem. Apart from connecting subscribers who join for U-verse GigaPower, the telecom service provider intends to provide free broadband services to around 3000 houses that the company identifies as under-served homes. The speed of free broadband services will be up to 3 Mbps. This indicates the social commitment of the communication giant.

AT&T target initially to connect 100 businesses and 100 public sites. Work will be started after getting necessary right of way and approvals. Broadband speeds of up to 1 Gbps would be an exciting experience for subscribers. Google offers its one Giga service at a monthly charge of US$70 and a construction fee of US$30.

NCNGN is a regional initiative focusing on the deployment of fiber optic networks in North Carolina. First launch of GigaPower was in Austin. The broadband speeds of that service is 300 Mbps. Subscribers of that service will automatically be upgraded to the 1 gigabit speed as it becomes available. AT&T plans to offer GigaPower in Dallas, the coming summer and have plans for San Antonio. 

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) has launched the country’s first 100Mbps FTTH network, while Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom reportedly plans to introduce its 300Mbps fiber service next month.

SLT announced that it aims to bring FTTH or FTTB to the nearly 500,000 subscribers to its broadband services.

The announcement states that the company wants to ensure that residential, business, public sector, carriers and ISPs in the country have access to 100Mbps speeds.

SLT will offer residential broadband packages offering 50Mbps and 100Mbps download speeds, and will also offer its existing Peo TV IPTV packages as an option.

Chunghwa Telecom meanwhile plans to launch 300Mbps downlink fiber services next month, DigiTimes reported. The plans will be priced at below TW$2,000 ($66) per month.

The operator also reportedly plans to increase the uplink speeds for its 100Mbps service to 40Mbps from 20Mbps, and for its 60Mbps plan to 20Mbps from 15Mbps.

Chunghwa Telecom has set a target of having 1 million 100Mbps subscribers – up from 450,000 today – by the end of the year. The company’s total fiber subscriber base is currently 2.71 million.

The operator first teased plans to introduce 300Mbps services in January, but did not give a timeframe.

Fibre to the home networks provide the most technologically advanced solution for broadband applications and services. We know this. Yet, in the next breath, some people say that we don't need advanced broadband networks to support the applications and services that we use today. Now, a study commissioned by the FTTH Council Europe provides evidence that, while it is possible to manage without advanced connections, FTTH users do much more with their broadband.

"For a long time as an analyst and researcher I felt we were missing a key part of the story, which is a quantitative confirmation that FTTH was the right way to go," explained Benoît Felten, CEO of consultancy firm Diffraction Analysis, which carried out the research. "This survey of FTTH/B consumers in Sweden is the first to provide that kind of evidence."

The results of the survey of 400 Swedish broadband users, carried out in December 2013, aimed to discover users' attitudes towards broadband. Sweden was selected because it is a mature FTTH market – if there is a difference then it is likely to show up there first. And it did. A full 45% of FTTH/B users declared themselves "very satisfied" with their broadband, compared to only 28% for DSL users. This is a very satisfaction high value for a survey of this type, says the analyst.

FTTH/B users were more satisfied than DSL users on all technical parameters, such as upload speed, download speed and reactivity (latency). Satisfaction levels were particularly high amongst gigabit subscribers (50%). Regardless of technology, satisfaction was much lower among users on connection speeds less than 100Mbps. Speed does matter!

The survey also investigated satisfaction with service pricing and willingness to upgrade as well as usage patterns and how they differed between FTTH/B and DSL users. The results will surprise you.

Download the Consumer Experience Survey presentation (PDF)

China plans to connect 30 million more homes with FTTH by the end of the year as part of the Broadband China program.

Minister of industry and information technology Miao Wei has announced a goal of having 200 million users connected under the FTTH program by the end of 2014, state-owned news agency Xinhua reported.

Other goals for the Broadband China Program this year include bringing broadband to 13,800 more villages and reaching 30% penetration for fixed broadband connections over 8Mbps.

Omantel, the state owned telecommunication service provider of the Sultanate of Oman announces that speed of the broadband services to its subscribers have significantly increased, thanks to the data carrying capacity of fiber optic cables. Optical fiber cable networks help service providers to deliver high speed services without affecting the monthly charges thereby benefiting end users. Enhanced end user experience is the key behind the successful business of a broadband service provider. Almost 90 percent of Omantel broadband customers get advantage of increased speed.

High speed broadband opens up a new list of opportunities and life changing applications that most of the people might not have even thought about. Broadband, especially delivered over fiber optic networks is an accelerator, for inclusive and sustainable growth. It opens new paths of creativity and new means to share the knowledge. Broadband widens learning opportunities. Its power is a known fact and was visible during the recent freedom movements in some Middle East and African countries.

Omantel has been investing heavily in building new telecommunication infrastructures throughout Oman in a bid to provide modern communication services to its subscribers. Omantel had invested in fiber optic networks as well. The expansion and construction of fiber optic networks took the operator closer to its subscribers. Fiber optic networks carry huge amounts of data generated by broadband applications. Omantel constructed Fiber to the home networks and rolled out many Multiple Service Access Nodes. All these developments enabled the operator to upgrade its speed significantly. The current offer of enhanced speed covers more than 90 percent of Omantel customers. The operator upgrades the uploading speed to 1 Mbps.

Omantel broadband subscribers at the basic plan with a download speed of 2 Mbps can enjoy a double speed of 4 Mbps. For customers of 5 Mbps, the new change is just an additional 1 Mbps to make a download speed of 6 Mbps. 40 Mbps customers get a 1.5 times boost in the speed, which is up to 60 Mbps. The changes come without any additional burden to the subscribers and this is the point of attraction. If the operator increases the speed by charging more from its users it would not have been news for us. There are two interesting points in this news;

1. Fiber optic networks enabled a service provider to offer higher broadband services to its existing subscribers free of charge,

2. The attitude of service provider itself. Here is a provider, who shares the benefits with the customers, thus showing its social commitment.

Broadband must be a social commitment. High speed broadband is a catalyst in national development especially in developing countries. High speed broadband has the potential to transform and take human civilizations to the next stage of evolution. There are many key issues to be addressed in the deployment of broadband such as whether it is a pure business, or is it a social commitment. If we approach broadband as a business, we would end up in increasing the digital divide. Data says, around 95 percent of telecommunications infrastructures worldwide are funded by private sectors. Then the difficult task would be to find the “Social commitment” element when we make business.

Last week, Google Fiber made another big pronouncement that it has added 34 more cities in nine U.S. metro areas to its list of potential fiberhoods. This, of course, generated a massive amount of publicity for Google Fiber in the U.S. and globally. In the meantime, across the Atlantic, the FTTH Council Europe held its annual conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where we learned that the Google Fiber network is not Ethernet FTTH, but (drum roll, please)…GPON!

When Google Fiber first declared its intentions several years ago to build a Gigabit-capable fiber access network in the city that made the strongest case for itself (i.e., Kansas City, USA), the assumption from the beginning was that Google Fiber would leverage an active, point-to-point Ethernet FTTH access network technology (and architecture) to deliver its symmetric, 1 Gbps connection to each household.In fact, Google Fiber extensively tested active/P2P Ethernet FTTH systems from multiple vendors (e.g., Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent and Zhone). However, over the past several years – not coincidentally, as the Google Fiber network was actually built out in Kansas City – there have been assertions from networking professionals and others (including knowledgeable Google Fiber customers) that the connections are in fact GPON.To be clear, the exception to this is the former iProvo network in Utah, which utilizes the legacy active/P2P Ethernet network built years ago under previous ownership, and which Google Fiber bought in April 2013 for $1 (USD).

So,does it really matter that Google Fiber is using GPON instead of active Ethernet?. For Google Fiber customers, the answer is no, as most end users care far less about technology than the service delivered.For network operators and their networking systems suppliers, however, it matters a great deal.The advantage of active/P2P Ethernet is that each end user is provided with a dedicated Gigabit Ethernet port at the operator’s central office, which can be 10/100 or 1000 Mbps (1 Gbps), in contrast to a PON system, where each optical line terminal (OLT) port serves multiple end users by virtual splits (hence, the point-to-multipoint PON architecture). Split ratios are variable, but are ideally in multiples of eight (e.g., 1:16, 1:32).

Active/P2P Ethernet is superior in terms of delivering dedicated, symmetric bandwidth, but the reality is that very few end users are going to utilize a dedicated Gigabit Ethernet port, especially on a “24/7/365” basis. Simply put, dedicating a GigE port to each user is not only extremely expensive, but vastly underutilized in terms of traffic throughput, even for heavy users.

Google Fiber’s choice of GPON to deliver 1 Gbps symmetric services makes sense on several levels, the most important being capital costs. In addition to the central office cost of 1 GigE port (on an Ethernet switch or OLT) for each end user, the expense of “stringing up” hundreds (let alone thousands) of dedicated optical fibers on the aerial plant in Kansas City, for example, is dramatically higher compared to a GPON network, where each OLT port serves multiple end users (again, 16, 32, etc.), and the PON network has a much smaller fiber density in the field.

In closing, it is important to remember that Google Fiber is not the only Gigabit service provider to leverage GPON technology/architecture, or even the first. In the United States, Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Electric Power Board (EPB) was the first to offer symmetric Gigabit services (to a sizeable serving area, that is), and in China, Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) has offered the world’s cheapest ultra-broadband, Gigabit connection to its primarily residential end users at approximately $29/month.Both of these operators have offered these services for at least four years, well ahead of Google Fiber (incidentally, both are using Alcatel-Lucent’s GPON systems).As more operators begin to offer Gigabit connections, they will undoubtedly leverage GPON systems and architectures to deliver these ultra-broadband services.

EU members have reached agreement on a draft directive aimed at reducing the cost of rolling out broadband networks. Digital Agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes said the agreement between the European Parliament, Commission and Council on the text of the legislation will lead to significant savings in the cost of civil engineering. The Commission proposed in March 2013 the new rules, which it says can save up to 30 percent on the cost of roll-out. The European Parliament will vote the formal approval of the agreement in April, and the Council of Ministers will follow in June.

The legislation aims to ensure that all new buildings or those undergoing major renovation are equipped for next-generation broadband, standard access on reasonable terms is available to all infrastructure (such as existing ducts, conduits, manholes, cabinets, poles, masts, antennae installations, towers), network operators are allowed to negotiate access agreements with other infrastructure providers, and the process of granting permits, especially for masts and antennas, is simplified and shortened to a maximum six months.

Virgin Media is boosting the top quoted speed of its broadband service to 152Mbps, twice as fast as the quickest BT consumer fibre connection, while it is also increasing the speeds of its slower packages.

Existing customers will have to opt in to receive the boost, but those currently receiving 120Mbps will be able to upgrade to the new fastest speeds, while those on 60Mbps can now get 100Mbps and those on 30Mbps will be able to receive 50Mbps, which Virgin Media claims is the fastest entry level services in the UK.

The Liberty Global-owned firm says one of the reasons it is offering the upgrades is because peak internet use has risen by 55 percent in the past year and 1,000 percent since it was formed in 2007 as a result of a merger between Telewest and NTL.

Virgin Media speeds

“Overwhelmingly people tell us the internet is a force for good,” says Virgin Media CEO Tom Mockridge. “From daily life to the bigger aspects of society, culture and economic growth, digital is making a significant, positive difference to people’s lives. We’re supercharging our incredible network to ensure that Virgin Media customers can make the most of the online world.”

Virgin Media first announced its intention to upgrade its speeds last November, but at the same time announced its prices would increase by an average of 6.7 percent. However despite the increases, the increase in bandwidth is being welcomed by analysts.

“To take advantage of Virgin’s new speeds, existing customers must opt in, but at no extra cost – nor do they need to sign up to new contracts. And new customers can sign up for the boosted speeds at current prices, too. “It’s a very good deal,” says Marie-Louise Abretti, broadband expert at uSwitch.

Parental controls

“However, Virgin’s fibre optic network only reaches around half of UK homes. And, while some Virgin customers will be enjoying three-figure speeds, there are remote rural areas of the UK still stuck in the broadband slow lane, contending with patchy connections and sluggish speeds. More needs to be done to bring faster broadband to the whole of Britain, and not just urban areas.”

Virgin Media will also be providing new customers parental controls in the form Web Safe, which will be offered at the time of installation, and claims to block age-inappropriate websites. The new controls will also be offered to existing customers and work with F-Secure SAFE.

“Parents will now be able to make a simple choice to activate family friendly filters that will cover all devices connected to the family’s home internet,” says Culture Secretary Maria Miller.