FTTH News

Australian service provider Internode has announced plans for a new fiber to the home (FTTH) broadband offering in greenfield customer locations. The services top out at 100 Mbps downstream and 40 Mbps upstream.

As well as offering fiber-based services at all National Broadband Network (NBN) sites, Internode says it will deliver FTTH to real estate developments in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and SA, through partnerships with wholesale providers OptiComm and OPENetworks.

The services start at AUS$49.95 for a 12/1-Mbps plan with a 30-GB data quota. “The new plans are ‘NBN-equivalent’ in terms of speeds, quotas and prices,” says Internode product manager Jim Kellett. “As well as more competitive prices, we’ve launched the new 12/1-Mbps level speed for fiber to the home customers and are delivering faster upload speeds with the standard services. We’ve also introduced the optional Power Packs and Business Packs so customers can tailor their fiber service to their particular needs.”

Existing FTTH customers using previous plans can maintain those service parameters. However, Internode will no longer offer those service plans to new customers.

Kellett added that Internode’s fiber services at Point Cook and South Brisbane would remain at higher prices than the new plans because of what he asserted were "uncompetitive" wholesale pricing from Telstra.

France Telecom today rounded out its domestic fiber rollout plans by adding Bouygues Telecom to its list of network partners.

The incumbent operator will offer Bouygues access to its fiber to the building networks in heavily populated areas, and has agreed wholesale cable access for less densely populated areas of France. The deal offers Bouygues access to 10.6 million homes in total.

A France Telecom statement called the agreement a “new milestone in the deployment of its networks and very high-speed broadband in France.” The telco penned similar deals with SFR and Iliad Group in the back half of 2011, as part of a goal to cover 15 million homes with fiber by 2020.

Separately, the operator is reportedly homing in on the sale of a second European division as part of a switch in focus to emerging markets. Hutchison Whampoa is in the frame to takeover Orange Austria in a deal that would value the cellco at €1.4 billion, Bloomberg reveals.

France Telecom holds 35% of the Austrian operator, with the remaining stake held by private equity firm Mid Europa Partners.

The sale would be France Telecom’s second in as many months, after it agreed to sell Orange Switzerland to Apax Partners for €1.6 billion in December.

Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom will spend TW$100 billion ($3.34 billion) over the next three years on high-speed fiber.

Chunghwa will take the first steps on a what it calls a G-generation upgrade this year, commencing with a 1Gbps trial program, CENS reported.

The trial forms part of a planned 10-year, NT$200 investment in Chunghwa's fiber and mobile broadband networks.

Chunghwa currently covers around 80% of Taiwan’s population with a 50Mbps fiber network, and through the three-year upgrade aims to reach 80% with 100Mbps speeds by 2015.

But a recent survey from Taiwan’s Consumers’ Foundation purports to show that the island’s broadband speeds are well below the global average, the China Post reported.

The report singles out Chunghwa in particular, alleging that the company’s advertised 1Gbps wideband service is at best the equivalent of a 50Mbps service.

The average Taiwan connection grants 13Mbps download speeds, compared to the 37.5Mbps global average, the survey claims.

In response to the criticism, Chunghwa has claimed its planned fiber upgrade will enable its broadband service to surpass those offered in Japan within 10 years.

Service providers added more new broadband and IPTV subscribers in the third quarter of last year than at any time since early 2009, according to the Broadband Forum. The figures, supplied by market research and analysis firm Point Topic, also show significant gains in FTTH and FTTx.

The Broadband Forum says that approximately 17.4 million lines were added in 3Q11. The new subscriber brought the global total to 581.3 million, a quarterly increase of 3.08% and an annual growth rate of 12.89%.

“These are very healthy figures for Q3 and they demonstrate the ongoing strength of the broadband market,” commented Robin Mersh, CEO of the Broadband Forum. “We are especially pleased to see the trend in fiber technologies beginning to take off. Our G-PON certification program, launched in Q3 and with first certifications already in place, has been very widely welcomed and this is an indication that the market is ready for much further growth in this area.”

The figures show xDSL remains the most deployed technology, adding more lines than any other in Q3. However, in percentage terms both FTTH and FTTx/hybrid technologies showed the largest growth with over 8% overall, compared to 2.2% for cable modems and 2% for DSL, the Broadband Forum reveals. FTTx added just under 19 million lines in Q3 2011, more than twice the number in the same period last year. Taken together, the market share for fiber technologies – now at 16% – is fast approaching cable’s 19.5%, according to the Forum.

Said Oliver Johnson, CEO of Point Topic, “Hybrid FTTx will be where the action is over the next few years. Consumers are showing signs of being ready to pay for faster connections and the hybrid solution set is a cost-effective way of getting relatively high speeds to them.”

With a rise of almost 1.5% in the year, the proportion of broadband subscribers in Asia continues to increase. Results from other regions were more muted, although both Europe and the Middle East and Africa saw better numbers in Q3 than in the same period in 2010. The Americas also performed better in Q3 than Q2, with overall net additions in subscriber lines rising by 309,518.

Asia continues to dominate with over 10.3 million more subscriber lines added in the quarter, higher than in Q2 and the same quarter in 2010. With over 246 million lines in total, Asia now has 42.34% of the total market share in broadband.

IPTV subscribers grew by 6.06% in the third quarter of 2011 and now total 54.4 million globally, the Broadband Forum added.

Xfone, Inc. (NYSE Amex and TASE: XFN) connected its first fiber customer in Slaton, Texas further expanding the Company’s new “PRIDE” fiber-to-the-premise Network.

Xfone’s ongoing fiber build out, when completed, is expected to reach 19 new communities bringing the total FTTP passings to approximately 50,000. The Company is funding the expansion of the fiber network using approximately $100 million in federal stimulus funding.

To date, Xfone has established its FTTP network in Lubbock, Levelland, Smyer, Wolfforth, Littlefield Burkburnett, Brownfield and Whitharral, Texas, providing customers in those communities access to voice, video and internet services using high speed broadband.

Mr. Guy Nissenson, Xfone’s President and CEO, commented, “We are making excellent progress establishing our state of the art fiber network in new communities and are pleased to have begun adding customers in Slaton. We continue to see excellent adoption rates as we bring our high speed triple play offering to new markets, as customers recognize the value and convenience of the high speed bandwidth we provide. Consumers are increasingly reliant on the internet; both in residential and business applications, and the speed and accessibility of our network meets their expectations. Construction of the PRIDE Network continues to move ahead and we look forward to bringing advanced broadband to more customers in the coming weeks”.

Orange says it will leverage its fiber to the home (FTTH) network to offer “Fibre Pro”, a symmetrical 100-Mbps service. The French communications services provider will target the offering primarily at small businesses and high-end “professionals” in its home market who require high speeds to access cloud-based services.

Fibre Pro service includes fixed-line telephony, Internet, and television, as well as such features as a personalized URL, a fixed IP address, an “e-mail for professionals” service, and digital fax. Orange also will offer technical assistance for setting up the network in customer offices as well as dedicated customer support.

Prices for the service will start at 69 euros per month with a 12-month commitment. The price includes communications to fixed-line telephones and mobile devices in France and abroad.

Orange also reiterated its goal to roll out the FTTH network on which Fibre Pro is based to 3,600 French municipalities (communes) across 220 agglomerations by 2015.

Indonesia’s PT Telkom has announced plans to spend 21.19 trillion rupiah ($2.3 billion) through to 2015 on a national high-speed broadband network project.

The state-owned operator aims to cover 497 cities nationwide with a network providing peak speeds of between 20Mbps and 100Mbps through its “true broadband” project, Jakarta Post said.

The company has already passed around 1.7 million homes through the project, which launched in June, and aims to pass 13 million by end-2015.

PT Telkom is also improving its backhaul infrastructure, and has completed deployment of a fiber backbone spanning over 26,000km, and encircling Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Denpasar, Mataram and Kupang.

In addition, Telkom will begin work on its own 5,500km subsea cable system, the Sulawesi and Maluku, Papua Cable System (SMPS), in late 2012.

Announcing the budget for the true broadband project, Telkom president director Rinaldi Firmansyah told local media the additional infrastructure is required to support the operator's transition to its new telecom, information, media and edutainment (TIME) model.

The company aims to boost revenue from information, media and edutainment VAS from 9% in 2011, to 15% by 2015.

BT chief Ian Livingston claims fiber broadband offering download rates of 100Mbps could be rolled out to 90% of UK homes over the next six years.

Investment in fiber is crucial to boosting overall broadband access speeds in the country, and will help to cut the number of homes restricted to a maximum of 2Mbps from around 12% of homes currently to less than 2%, Livingston told UK prime minister David Cameron and government ministers yesterday.

The BT boss predicts the UK will become one of Europe’s leading lights in high-speed broadband, thanks to a combination of the telco’s investment and government funding. The UK has allocated £530 million (€618 million) of public money to boost rural broadband deployments, and last week detailed a £100 million pot to create ten high-speed urban hotspots.

“Super-fast broadband can be a catalyst for economic growth,” Livingston says, adding “The government has been a great supporter in recognizing that this type of infrastructure investment can drive the UK’s long term growth.”