Category : Blog

BT Openreach has formally debuted its set of Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) whole services, enabling competitive providers to higher speed fiber-based broadband services to their respective customer bases.

Offering a suite of speeds ranging from 40/2 Mbps to 330/30 Mbps, BT said this new set of wholesale products will “allow Communications Providers (CPs) to differentiate themselves in the market by offering a wide range of fibre products to suit the needs of small and medium businesses as well as bandwidth-hungry consumers.”

Until now, the FTTP services had been offered to competitive providers such as BskyB and TalkTalk on what it calls an “early market deployment” basis. Now, the new service will initially be available within the 15 exchange areas where BT has built out FTTP network infrastructure.

Beginning next spring, BT will make FTTP available “on demand” in areas that are already being served by its Fiber to the Cabinet (FTTC) network.

The service provider continues to make progress with its overall aggressive Fiber to the X (FTTX) roll out. To date, it has passed 10 million premises with an aggressive goal to pass about two-thirds of UK premises by 2014.

Mike Galvin, Openreach MD for Network Investment, said that while FTTC is a sound near-term method to provide higher bandwidth speeds over an existing hybrid copper/fiber network – some of the fastest in the world – and build propositions which help to grow the market for these higher-speed services.”

The European Commission (EC) is switching its fixed broadband focus from ensuring basic access for all to funding of fiber rollouts.

It claims good progress has already been made to ensuring basic broadband access for all citizens, a goal of the EC's Digital Agenda, and that the time has come to work out how to boost deployment of high speed networks instead. The Commission has opened a three-month consultation on proposals for public funding of fiber rollouts, and aims to adopt definitive guidelines in December.

"State aid control should support the Digital Agenda targets while maintaining incentives for commercial investments," says Joaquín Almunia vice president of competition policy at the Commission.

The proposals are more about clarifying existing broadband regulations, drafted in 2009, than radical change. They cover public backing of 100-Mbps networks, transparency in government-backed deployments, and generating investment in passive infrastructure.

Almunia alluded to the potential financial benefits of high-speed networks, explaining. "We need a dynamic framework for the application of EU state aid rules in this strategic sector that fosters investments." Such a strategy may include easing restrictions on rural investment, EC information states.

Digital Agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes issued a rallying call to member states over funding high speed networks in April, stating investment is essential to maintain growth in Europe's web economy, which she claims is growing faster than China's national economy. She predicted 5% of regional GDP will come from the digital economy within a few years

China Telecom is throwing its weight behind Alcatel-Lucent, as part of an effort to pass 100 million homes with fiber by 2015.

The operator has signed a €100 million deal with Alca-Lu covering fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network deployment in all 31 Chinese provinces, as it seeks to connect 30 million subscribers to high-speed broadband within the next three years. The deal builds on a similar agreement signed in July 2011, covering fiber rollout in rural areas.

Alca-Lu's local Shanghai Bell subsidiary will deploy the infrastructure firm's GPON and EPON-compliant fiber network kit for China Telecom.

Rajeev Singh-Molares, president of Alcatel-Lucent Asia-Pacific, says the deal highlights the firm's strength in FTTH and the "rapid expansion of broadband in China."

In an attempt to stay ahead of both rising bandwidth demand from its customers as well as the DOCSIS 3.0-enabled offerings of its cable MSO competitors, Verizon (NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) says that it will more than double the speeds of several of its FiOS Internet tiers and add two new tiers. One of these will support download speeds of 300 Mbps via Verizon's fiber to the home (FTTH) network.

Verizon’s current offerings include the following options (download/upload):

• 150 Mbps/35 Mbps
• 50 Mbps/20 Mbps
• 35 Mbps/35 Mbps
• 25 Mbps/25 Mbps
• 15 Mbps/5 Mbps.

In June, the portfolio will expand to (download/upload):

• 300 Mbps/65 Mbps
• 150 Mbps/65 Mbps
• 75 Mbps/35 Mbps
• 50 Mbps/25 Mbps
• 15 Mbps/5 Mbps

Verizon says it will wait to announce the price of each new offering until June as well. The new speeds will be offered in standalone and bundled packages.

"The ways we used the Internet and watched TV over the past 10 to 15 years have dramatically shifted," said Bob Mudge, president of Verizon's consumer and mass market business unit. "With the emergence of smartphones, smart TVs, Blu-ray players, tablets, and gaming consoles that also serve as over-the-top devices, consumers need more bandwidth to receive the highest-quality experience."

In a shot at the way cable MSOs provide bandwidth via hybrid fiber/coax networks and DOCSIS, Verizon said in a press release that its FTTH-enabled network "will provide customers with sustained speed and reliability of service, in contrast to intermittent speed boosts offered by cable-company competitors whose networks, unlike Verizon's, are not all-fiber optic."

"Our top FiOS speed will be twice as fast as anything America has ever seen," said Mike Ritter, chief marketing officer for Verizon's consumer and mass market business unit. "High-speed" Internet no longer is just for techies, as more than half of our residential consumers already use at least a 20-Mbps Internet connection. Streaming online video on an all-fiber-optic connection providing faster speeds is better and more reliable during peak Internet usage hours.

"As recently as 2005, video was less than 10 percent of Web traffic," Ritter added."By the end of this year, we expect it to be 50 percent, growing to 90 percent in just a few years."

Verizon says "the majority" of its customers – those connected via GPON rather than BPON — will have access to the two fastest-speed options of 150 and 300 Mbps. At least some customers with BPON connections who "qualify" for GPON connections can have their BPON ONUs replaced with GPON equivalents to receive the top-speed services.

The company says it currently passes more than 13.7 million customers in parts of nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states plus parts of Florida, Texas, California, and the District of Columbia. That total eventually will reach 18 million Verizon asserts.

Telefónica and Madrid City Council have announced that the Spanish communications service provider plans to bring 100-Mbps broadband services to 1.3 million households and companies via fiber to the premises (FTTP) before the end of the year.

The FTTP infrastructure roll out has already begun in the districts of Hortaleza, Arganzuela, Moncloa-Aravaca, and Fuencarral-El Pardo. Telefonica expects that by year end, it will have passed more than 80% of homes and corporate offices in the area. Outside of the capital, Telefónica already has connected homes and businesses in such towns as Pozuelo Madrid, Majadahonda, San Sebastian de los Reyes, Tres Cantos, Las Rozas, Alcobendas, and Alcalá de Henares, with more than 100,000 active customers in total.

Throughout the country, Telefonica says it had passed 1.3 million potential subscribers by the end of the first quarter of this year, three times the amount passed at the same time last year. The service provider says it has more than 200,000 subscribers to its FTTP-enabled services.

Telefónica Spain says it has assembled a team of 2,200 to ensure the success of the deployment.

Asia-Pacific is home to 75% of the world's FTTH/B customers, with the region's subscriber base growing strongly last year, research shows.

The FTTH Council Asia Pacific has published research showing that the number of APAC FTTH/B subscribers grew 28% in 2011 to 58 million.

Total FTTH/B coverage grew nearly 73% over the same period – by the end of the year, more than 175 million of the region's homes have been passed by fiber.

The research, conducted by IDATE, identified around 90 fiber projects across the region. It shows that incumbent operators have typically taken the lead in fiber deployments, accounting for 67% of APAC homes passed by FTTH/B.

Japan is still the leading FTTH/B market in APAC – and the world – but FTTH Council Asia said the market has reached maturity. Japan also lags behind South Korea and Hong Kong by market penetration.

While China's penetration is currently only around 5%, deployments are growing rapidly, and the market is expected to soon overtake Japan as the world's largest.

Taiwan is another leading FTTH/B market, with penetration approaching 30%. Subscribers are also growing rapidly in Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia.

APAC is also home to ambitious state-led fiber projects in Australia, Singapore and New Zealand.

While the research shows that that these projects accounted for less than 1% of total APAC homes passed by FTTH/B in 2011, the lofty subscriber goals could help APAC maintain its lead in fiber deployment.

Australia's NBN aims for 93% FTTH population coverage by 2021, Singapore's NG-NBN is targeting 95% coverage by mid-2012, and New Zealand's Ultrafast Fibre (UFB) project seeks to provide 75% population coverage by 2019.

In terms of technology choice, PON accounted for 92% of the region's FTTH/B rollouts at the end of 2011.

FTTH Council Asia said APAC operators are favoring FTTB over FTTH, because it allows them to avoid the issues attendant with deploying fiber on private premises. FTTB deployments accounted for 64% of rollouts as of the end of the year.

Bell Aliant (Toronto: BA-UN.TO) reported Q1 2012 net income of CAD 87 million (USD 88 million), up from CAD 84 million (USD 85 million) in the same period a year ago, a result of strong IPTV and next-gen service growth in the quarter.

However, revenue remained flat year-on-year at CAD 682 million (USD 693 million) in the three months ended 31 March 2012, while quarterly EBITDA fell by 1.2 percent to CAD 325 million (USD 330 million).

The service provider's earnings per share and adjusted earnings per share in the quarter were CAD 0.38 (USD 0.39) and CAD 0.45 (USD 0.46) respectively, up from CAD 0.37 (USD 0.37) and CAD 0.44 (USD 0.45) in the same quarter of 2011.

A key point in its Q1 growth cycle was its ongoing buildout of both IPTV services and its FibreOP Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network into a number of additional markets throughout the quarter.

"FibreOP is playing a key role in the turnaround, with our first quarter results particularly strong in FibreOP territories," said Karen Sheriff, president and chief executive officer, Bell Aliant, in the earnings release. "Over 500,000 premises in Atlantic Canada now have access to FibreOP services."

Here's a breakdown of the service provider's key metrics:

• Wireline losses: As expected, local voice service and long distance revenues service and long distance revenues declined CAD 14 million (USD 14 million) and CAD 9 million (USD 9.14 million), respectively, in the Q1 2012. Overall Network Access Services (NAS) were down 5.4 percent at the end of March 2012 from Q1 2012, due to cable competitors luring away subscribers with their own triple play bundle packages. However, it did narrow residential net NAS losses to 26,000 from 29,000 Q1 2011. Meanwhile, business net NAS declines increased to 9,000 in the first quarter of 2012 from 4,000 in the same quarter of 2011, a factor it attributes to wholesale and enterprise contract losses in addition to the competitive activity and business customers' movement to IP-based technologies.
• Broadband, Internet services: Internet revenue increased CAD 9 million (USD 9.14 million), or 7.5 percent, in Q1 2012 over Q1 2011. The service provider reported that residential high-speed average revenue per customer (ARPC) grew 7.7 percent from Q1 2011. Broadband subscribership also rose in Q1. At the end of March, Bell Aliant had 902,000 broadband customers, up 2.8 percent from the same period in 2011. Its bet on FTTH continued to also pay off in Q1 as it added 13,000 FibreOP customers, reaching 59,000 total customers at the end of March. A good portion of the FibreOP net adds were customers migrating from DSL and Fiber to the Node (FTTN)-based networks.
• Video services: Fueled by new applications like its Facebook TV app, IPTV revenue continued to rise in the quarter with CAD 17 million (USD 17.3 million) in revenues and a total of 85,000 customers at the end of March 2012. FibreOP TV specifically added 11,000 new customers in the quarter to reach 52,000, a portion of which included customers migrating from Bell Aliant TV. Overall, Bell Aliant added 8,000 TV subscribers in Q1 2012, up from 4,000 in the same quarter last year.

The service provider said it is sticking with the revenue and growth forecasts it issued in February.

In late morning trading on the Toronto stock exchange, Bell Aliant's stock was down 1.95 percent at CAD 26.18 (USD 27).

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) may have begun to wind down its FiOS rollout, but in the first quarter of 2012 the service provider saw an uptick in both subscribers and its average revenue per user (ARPU).

During Q1 2012, Verizon added a total of 104,000 broadband subscribers, reaching almost 8.8 million in the quarter. It also added 108,000 new FiOS TV customers, ending the quarter with a total of 4.35 million subscribers.

FiOS continues to be one of the telco's wireline growth engines, representing 63 percent of its consumer wireline revenues in Q1 2012.

Growth of FiOS has gotten the attention of Strategy Analytics, which argued in its latest Service Provider Quarterly Recap and Guidance: Verizon CYQ1'12 report that the telco's Q1 performance will set the stage for further FiOS growth in 2012.

The analyst firm forecasted that Verizon's FiOS broadband subscribers will surpass the 5.6 million mark by year's end. Likewise, the growth of the FiOS TV business will result in almost five million subscribers by the end of the year.

Jason Blackwell, director of Service Provider Strategies (SPS) at Strategy Analytics, said: "Over the coming months, the company is going to shift from an expansion strategy to work even harder on converting customers in its existing footprint to FiOS Broadband and TV services."

Already, the telco has been vocal about driving more of its DSL customers to FiOS.

Fran Shammo, CFO at Verizon, said during the company's Q1 earnings call that it plans to drive three initiatives with FiOS: increasing ARPU, increasing service costs, and rebundling products. He added that it would try to find ways to get customers off copper-based DSL and onto FiOS where possible, saying it was "better for us long-term."

The fifth edition of the FTTH Handbook, unveiled at the FTTH Conference 2012 in Munich earlier this year, has been extensively revised, and contains several important new chapters. But even though the Council's Deployment & Operations Committee has packed even more technical information into the Handbook, the total number of pages has not increased, so that the reader is not overwhelmed with information.

The new chapter on network planning describes the complete process of preparing to deploy the FTTH network, from the early strategic decisions about where to roll out the network and what kind of architecture will be used, to the creation of detailed network plans that the engineers and installers will work with during the deployment process.

The chapter on in-building cabling explains the technical details and general considerations relating to the installation between the building entry point and the wall socket where the customer connects to fibre, using a reference model based on international standards.

This year the FTTH Handbook has also been translated into German. Printed copies were distributed at the FTTH Conference in Munich, but if you missed out, then please download it from our website.

Read the FTTH Handbook on the Wiki >

Download the FTTH Handbook in English >

Download the FTTH Handbook in German >

BT has nearly doubled the speed of its Infinity-2 fiber broadband service to up to 76 Mbps for free – but only if existing customers agree to a contract extension.

The company will also provide upload speeds of up to 19 Mbps on the plan, served by its FTTC technology. The previous peak downlink speed was 38 Mbps.

The lower-tier Infinity-1 plan will have a new peak speed of up to 38 Mbps, and an uplink of up to 9.5Mbps.

But BT confirmed to The Register that existing customers will have to agree to a new 12 or 18 month contract in order to take advantage of the upgraded speeds.

A BT spokesperson told the site that the speed boost requires a “regrade” from the company.

BT passes around 7 million premises in Britain with its Infinity network, and the company aims to increase that to 10 million this year. The company has committed £2.5 billion (€3.03 billion) to fiber upgrades.

BT rival Virgin Media provides up to 100Mbps services to 13 million homes, and plans to increase this top speed to 120Mbps