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Middle East Chapter of FTTH Council reports consistent growth for FTTH in its member countries in Middle East Asia and North African regions. The findings are summarized in a study conducted by iDATE for FTTH Council. The sixth annual conference of FTTH Council MENA region will be held in Dubai World Trade Center on November 24 and 25. iDATE is the research partner of FTTH Council. The annual conference will be held in UAE under the patronage of TRA.

United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia has shown noticeable growth for Fiber to the home technologies in MENA region. In UAE, Fiber to the home broadband technology has been promoted mainly by Etisalat. The deployment started somewhere in 2008 and has been continued till date making UAE to the top of the highest Fiber penetrated countries in the world in terms of percentage.

In Saudi Arabia, Fiber based broadband technologies are promoted by Saudi Telecom Company and Mobily. While STC is concentrating in FTTH, Mobily has been actively involved in FTTB and business enterprise solutions. Mobily is also active in providing fiber to the home broadband services in Saudi Arabia. The study also found that Saudi Arabia has strong potential to develop FTTH technology, with a current FTTH/B penetration of around 30 percent. Currently, KSA is making progress, with STC and Mobily having decided to deploy FTTH extensively around the country. In Oman, the recently announced broadband company has started its work to deploy broadband services in Oman. Fiber based broadband deployments were started in Kuwait as well, but the progress is not significant as in UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Qatar’s Ooredoo is focusing on massive deployment of fiber based broadband technologies. Qatar, where FTTH/B penetration rate is currently at over 55% percent, has also made great progress in covering most of the country’s territory, with a very fast adoption by the leading operator, Ooredoo. We have heard similar progress reports from Bahrain as well. With the rise in development of MENA region’s ICT sector, Fiber to the home broadband is leading the new generation and the way to innovation and technology. Middle East Asian countries need a future-proof infrastructure to answer the requirements of the new emerging perspective. Strategy planners in these countries are aware of the challenges in delivering 1 Gbps speeds to every household along with maintaining commercial success,he added.

In the North African countries, FTTH/B is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, there is a strong potential for this technology to develop in countries such as Egypt, Morocco and Algeria in the next 10 years to come.

The FTTH Council Middle East and North Africa is an industry organization with a mission to accelerate FTTH adoption by all broadband stakeholders through information and promotion, in order to accelerate the availability of fiber-based, ultra-high-speed access networks to consumers and businesses.

The Nepalese government has announced a new broadband policy aimed at bringing down the cost of entry level services to as low as 208 rupees ($2.08) per month by 2018.

The National Broadband Policy 2014 also sets the goal of connecting 45% of Nepal's households to broadband within this timespan, the Himalayan Times reported.

The government has set a target of expanding broadband access to 70% of village development committees, providing a 1Mbps or higher connection to 20% of public secondary schools and introducing broadband to all state-owned hospitals.

Initiatives will include ensuring adequate mobile broadband spectrum is available, promoting infrastructure sharing between operators and ISPs, and devising a low-cost subsidy program for underserved areas.

According to government statistics, the average broadband cost is 1,010 rupees per month, which amounts to around 17% of per capita income.

The policy aims to connect at least 30% of the population to broadband services with speeds of at least 512kbps by 2018, and deploy a fiber backbone connecting all 75 of Nepal's districts. By comparison, Nepal's total household internet penetration in 2013 was just 4.9%.

Irish national carrier eircom Group, which had previously focused on broadband access via fiber to the cabinet, now says it will roll out gigabit speeds via fiber to the home (FTTH). The service provider has targeted 66 communities for the new services, which will be provided “as demand for this connectivity emerges,” eircom says.

The FTTH deployment plan includes areas of all five major cities in Ireland, major regional centers, and every county town in Ireland. While detailed rollout plans for each community will be announced “in due course,” eircom says the FTTH roll out will begin in Cavan Town, Kilkenny City, and Letterkenny Town. Construction of the fiber-optic broadband infrastructure is expected to require about six months in each location.

“Today demonstrates the flexibility and scalability of our future-proofed fiber network. Building on our existing network design, end to end fiber connectivity supporting speeds of one gigabit, is the natural next step in the evolution of our network capability,” according to Richard Moat, eircom’s acting CEO.

In support of the effort, eircom says it has begun the construction of a technical trial of FTTH to assess the most cost-effective approach for rural subscribers and address the challenges of ribbon development. The trial will take place in Belcarra, Mayo and will launch in early 2015.

eircom has already tested and deployed FTTH technology in both an urban and suburban environments in Wexford Town and Sandyford, County Dublin.

The service provider says it has outlined its plans to the national regulator (ComReg) and the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (DCENR). Industry engagement will begin soon. Operators will continue to have the same open access to the fiber network alongside a suite of enhanced products with significantly increased speed profiles, eircom promises.

eircom says the FTTH deployment will run in parallel with its existing fiber investment program. In August, eircom announced an acceleration and extension of these plans to reach 1.4 million premises by the end of 2015. It also expanded the planned footprint from 1.4 million to 1.6 million homes and businesses.

However, eircom now believes it will complete the rollout of fiber to 1.6 million homes and businesses by the middle of 2016, six months ahead of schedule. Last month, the company’s fiber network reached 1 million homes passed.

Spanish service provider Telefónica has chosen Huawei to supply 10-Gbps capable XG-PON equipment to support provision of symmetrical 1-Gbps fiber to the home home (FTTH) services. The operator expects to use the new equipment to launch the 1-Gbps services next year.

The new deployment is one of the few publicly announced examples of XG-PON use. While 1-Gbps FTTH services provision has become increasingly popular, the overwhelming majority of carriers are using the current generation of PON technology, most often GPON.

The selection of Huawei to supply the XG-PON technology came after the two companies successfully tested the systems on Telefónica’s network.<

The increase in transmission rates opens the door for a variety of new services and video viewing experiences. For example, Huawei suggests that Telefónica will enable customers to select the camera angle from which they prefer to view a football match. Support of next-generation transmission technologies, such as 4K video, should be possible as well.

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) says it will offer a line card and complementary optical network terminal (ONT) for its 7360 Intelligent Services Access Manager FX platform that will support time- and wavelength-division multiplexed PON (TWDM-PON). The upgrade will support four wavelengths of 10 Gbps each.

The systems provider says it has worked since 2010 with Vodafone to co-develop the technology. The two parties have conducted a TWDM-PON trial as well.

"Individuals and businesses are showing an ever increasing demand for access to high speed data and services across mobile and fixed networks," explained Vodafone's Matt Beal. "TWDM-PON is groundbreaking technology that will give us greater control over network capacity and increased flexibility when provisioning new services. We have worked closely with Alcatel Lucent to develop the technology and we look forward to evaluating it on our network in Spain."

In addition to a system's 40-Gbps capacity, TWDM-PON offers such additional benefits as the ability to deliver different services over each wavelength and to support high-speed dedicated services, according to Alcatel-Lucent. TWDM-PON can be implemented on current GPON fiber-optic networks alongside existing services to offer "pay as you grow" capabilities, the company adds.

"TWDM-PON promises a far greater return on investment than previous generations of fiber access technologies," said Julie Kunstler, principal analyst, intelligent networks, with market research and consulting firm Ovum via an Alcatel-Lucent press release. "Its increased capacity and flexibility support more than just higher bandwidth services; it provides the platform for innovative operational and business models, making TWDM-PON extremely interesting to wireline and wireless operators."

Telkom Indonesia plans to triple its broadband spending in 2015, as part of its support for the government's five-year broadband plan.

The operator has committed to investing 45 trillion rupiah ($3.7 billion) on broadband rollouts next year, the Jakarta Post reported, citing president director Arief Yahya. The commitment is more than double the size of the company's total typical annual capex budget.

Around half of the spending will be allocated for Wi-Fi rollouts, 30% will be spent on backhaul cables, fiber networks and satellites, and the remainder will go towards convergence efforts.

The Indonesian government last week launched the Indonesia Broadband Plan, which aims to provide affordable access to the majority of the population by 2019. The project has an estimated total cost of 278 trillion rupiah, part of which will come from taxpayer funding.

The government aims to provide mobile broadband access to all of the country's urban population and 52% of the rural population.

The project also seeks to make fixed broadband accessible for 30% of the urban population and 6% of the rural population.

According to former ICT minister Tifatul Sembiring, Indonesia's telecom sector has so far contributed 10% of the country's total economic growth.

GPONDoctor will organize a FTTH training week, starting on October 20th and with a duration of 5 labour days.

This edition will consist on two courses, one oriented to Fiber Optic communication and the second very intense on GPON protocol and services.

Both courses have been designed to have a balanced combination of theory and practice.

We will count with PhD Prof. Joseba Zubia who will lead the Fiber Optic communications course and with the experts from GPONDoctor team that will be in charge of the FTTH GPON course, sharing their experiences in conformance and interoperability testing.

Both courses will be hold in our premises in Spain. Address: Parque Tecnologico Bizkaia, ED 700. 48160, Zamudio (BIZKAIA). Spain.

Should you be interested to attend, please fill the "Registration Form" located at the end page of each course brochure and send it by email to:

enrique.areizaga@gpondoctor.com. 

Brochures of the courses can be downloaded from the links below:

Fiber Optic communications training course brochure

FTTH GPON training course brochure

A new U.S. study quantifies fibre to the home's contribution to jobs and the economy. It is well known that the Internet has been an economic catalyst, boosting productivity and innovation, creating jobs and raising incomes around the world. Numerous studies have documented the benefits of "the first transformative leap in Internet connectivity", as always-on broadband replaced dial-up. Now the preliminary results of a study carried out by consultancy firm Analysis Group for the FTTH Council Americas point to a definite and quantifiable impact of next-generation speeds.

Specifically, they studied communities in the U.S. with access to gigabit speeds – the sort of speed only available over a fibre network – representing a 100-fold increase in Internet throughput speeds for households and small businesses. The study examined the relationship between availability of gigabit broadband services and economic activity at the community level.

"The study results suggest that gigabit broadband communities exhibit a per capita GDP approximately 1.1 percent higher than the similar communities with little to no availability of gigabit services. In dollar terms, this suggests that the 14 gigabit broadband communities studied enjoyed approximately $1.4 billion in additional GDP when gigabit broadband became widely available" said Heather Gold, president of the FTTH Council Americas.

"Every community should be a gigabit community," she concluded.

Download a copy of the study