Category : News

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.

Telefonica announced plans to boost investment in 2014 in order to take advantage of demand for faster data services and accelerate its sales growth. The company forecast capital expenditure of 15.5-16 percent of revenues this year, versus 14.5 percent in 2013. Revenues are expected to show "positive growth" in 2014, after a 0.7 percent organic increase last year. The EBITDA margin will remain under pressure, after dropping 0.2 points last year and 1.4 percent points in 2012. Telefonica said the margin could start to stabilise this year or fall by as much as 1 point if the company decides to spend on commercial opportunities.

The Spanish operator also reiterated plans to pay shareholders a dividend of EUR 0.35 per share in stock in the fourth quarter of this year and another EUR 0.40 in cash by mid-2015. For 2013, Telefonica paid EUR 0.35 last November and will offer another EUR 0.40 in Q2 this year. The company’s free cash flow was down to EUR 5.4 billion in 2013, from EUR 7.0 billion in 2012, mainly due to a doubling of spending on spectrum, to EUR 1.5 billion. Telefonica still met its net debt target for 2013 with a reduction of EUR 5.9 billion to a total EUR 45.4 billion or 2.36x EBITDA at end-2013. The company said it expects debt to drop to under EUR 43 billion by the end of 2014.

For 2013, the company reported revenues down 8.5 percent to EUR 57.1 billion, and OIBDA fell 10.1 percent to EUR 19.1 billion. Net profit was up 16.9 percent to EUR 4.6 billion, including a EUR 350 million writedown of the stake in Telecom Italia. In the fourth quarter, the company recorded a 1.8 percent organic increase in sales, as 10.3 percent growth in Latin America offset a 7.9 percent fall in Europe. Due to negative currency effects, reported revenues were still down 8.9 percent for the group to EUR 14.4 billion, and OIBDA fell 8.7 percent to EUR 5.0 billion.

In operating terms, the 9.4 percent quarterly growth in the postpaid mobile sector and 8 percent rise in pay-TV access boosted the group’s customer base to 323.1 million accesses by the end of December, a 2.3 percent year-on-year rise. Mobile broadband subscriptions increased 38 percent and now account for 29 percent of the group’s total mobile base.

Earlier Telefonica announced a EUR 1.5 billion cost-savings programme and a reorganization that gives chief operating officer Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete more executive responsibilities by overseeing operations across Europe and Latin America. The company intends to integrate its Europe, Latin America and digital divisions and create the new position of chief commercial digital officer.

ZTE Corp. (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ) says it has conducted a full-service commercial 10G GPON test for Spanish network operator Jazztel. The test verified GPON and 10G PON co-existence, which ZTE touts as proof that its 10G PON platform is "capable of supporting any service under all foreseeable scenarios."

Jazztel selected ZTE to supply GPON equipment for a nationwide fiber to the home (FTTH) network that began operations in October 2013 (see "ZTE provides turnkey FTTH network for Jazztel in Spain"). The service provider was interested in pathways to future capacity expansion.

"Jazztel needs to constantly innovate in order to provide our customers with the best possible service and ensure our competitiveness. The ZTE xGPON solution enables the expansion of our FTTH network capabilities in an effective manner," said Jazztel CEO José Miguel Garcia Fernández.

"We are delighted to have collaborated with Jazztel in completing the first 10G PON full-service commercial network test in Spain," summarized Xiao Ming, vice president of ZTE. "Our 10G PON solution will enable carriers to simplify their networks, improve broadband efficiency, and meet the ever increasing demand for ultra-high broadband to pave the way for revenue generation with tiered service categories. We are committed to working with carriers and other stakeholders to advance the proliferation of 10G PON applications."

The NOFN project aims to connect over 250,000 gram panchayats (local government institutions in villages or small towns) across India. The aim is to sow the seeds for an e-revolution in the rural parts of the country by empowering the nation to provide better e-governance, e-health services, and educational services at the grass roots level. Scheduled to be complete by September 2015, the project will provide high-speed broadband Internet to all 250,000 gram panchayats with speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

The NOFN project is being rolled out by Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), the special-purpose vehicle setup under India's Department of Telecom. BBNL has divided the project into six packages – East, West, North, South, Central, and Northeast – and separate bids have been accepted in each of the six zones. The total value of this project has been set at $3.3 billion.

The growth in the number of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) or fiber to the building (FTTB) subscribers is picking up in Europe, according to the latest figures presented at the FTTH Conference 2014 in Stockholm, Sweden. However, there is much work to be done before the region can be considered a mature market.

The total number of FTTH/B subscribers in Europe's EU28 increased by 29% in 2013 – substantially faster than the year before when growth was around 15%. In total, 13 countries in the European Union experienced growth in FTTH/B subscribers of greater than 30% over the past year, including Spain (64%), the Netherlands (43%), France, and Portugal (each 41%).

The growth rate in subscribers (29%) was greater than the increase in homes passed (22%). The FTTH Council Europe views this positively, because it indicates that FTTH is becoming more attractive to consumers. "It is good news for operators, who all need to see a better return on their investment. It is also good news for end users, because a larger subscriber base will encourage more companies to develop services and applications, and help drive down consumer prices," the organization said.

When countries outside the European Union are included – what the FTTH Council Europe calls the EU39 – the growth rate was even higher. Russia alone counts almost 9 million subscribers, of which 1.4 million were added in 2013. The largest FTTH/B markets in the European Union are France and Sweden, which exceed 1.2 million FTTH/B subscribers each, while the Ukraine has 1.3 million subscribers, and Turkey has 1.1 million.

These numbers sound impressive, but the FTTH/B market has a long way to go in many countries. According to analyst firm Heavy Reading, a country only reaches the “fiber maturity” when 20% of its households are FTTH/B subscribers. This is an important metric, because it indicates that a country has a subscriber base large enough to sustain development of new services for high-speed networks. So far only nine countries around the world have reached this threshold, and only three of them are European – namely Lithuania, Sweden and Latvia.

"We need to do more and I can't help but feel that some policy makers underestimate the danger of not getting to fiber to the home networks quickly enough," said Karin Ahl, President of the FTTH Council Europe, in her opening speech at the FTTH Conference. "The world is changing faster and faster. If we look at advanced economies like the United States, then by some measures 70% of the value of their economy is composed of firms that did not exist 30 years ago".

"In this changing world we need more than flexible labor markets and great education systems if we want to keep up. We also need the right infrastructure … If a city or a country doesn't have the right infrastructure, then investments will be made elsewhere."

The latest survey conducted in Hanoi and HCM City, the two biggest FTTH service markets in Vietnam, has found that only 7 percent of businesses use FTTH, a very low figure if noting that the proportion is 37 percent in South Korea, 21 percent in Hong Kong and 50 percent in Singapore.

Advanced technology inaccessible to users

FTTH has been utilized in Vietnam for seven years. From the very beginning, it was believed to replace ADSL technology, because it allows Internet users to better access Internet-based facilities, such as watching films or TV programs, playing games.

However, it seemingly would take a longer time than initially expected to make FTTH more popular to people. One of the biggest barriers that keep clients away is the high fee.

Though mobile network operators have been trying to encourage people to use FTTH by offering fee discounts, the number of FTTH has not seen considerable increases. People believe that the FTTH service fee is still not low enough, while ADSL still has been "acceptable"

Analysts have pointed out that one of the other problems is that the products are not diversified enough to satisfy different groups of customers. FTTH has been automatically understood by people as the "luxurious" or "high end" service, which is reserved only for the big enterprises with strong financial capability.

The monthly subscription of millions of dong proved to be unaffordable to the majority of Vietnamese families. Therefore, most of them still use ADSL even though they have been warned about the upcoming end of the ADSL era.

Popularizing high end services

Despite the low percentage of FTTH service subscribers, telcos still hope that they have great opportunities to develop in the home market.

Analysts have commented that the service provider who can provide services at reasonable fees will be the winner in the market competition.

At a workshop about the future of the Internet economy held in late 2013, experts affirmed ADSL will not be able to satisfy the services of the future due to the low and unstable quality.

A question was raised that which technology will replace ADSL? Two options were predicted: FTTH with outstanding advantages, or Internet on TV cable system.

FTTH proves to be the most perfect solution, except the high service fee. If the problem can be settled, FTTH will surely be the growing tendency among Internet users.

In fact, telcos have been moving ahead with their plans to target medium class clients and individual clients instead of focusing on high income earners as they did previously.

The military telco Viettel is believed to be the pioneer in popularizing FTTH service. The subscribers of Eco FTTH of Viettel now have to pay VND350,000 a month only to use the 12 Mbps bandwidth, just a little higher than the ADSL subscription fee. Other big guys are believed to join the race of lowering the service fee soon, which will heat up the FTTH market.

High speed broadband services through Fiber-to-the-home comes to the southern city of Spain, Seville. The Orange Spain made an announcement that its FTTH services would be available to houses in East Seville, Parque Alcosa, San Pablo, Pino Montano and Amate. The service provider targets an initial coverage of around 180,000 houses.

Orange is in partnership with Vodafone to bring fiber optic broadband services to the houses and businesses in Spain. We have reported the co-operation of these service providers for their mutual benefit that would be eventually good for the subscribers to get faster and cost effective broadband. The telecom regulatory authority of Spain, CMT had taken measures that brought the competing service providers under an umbrella of co-operation and share their networks each other.

The project cost of the fiber optic network to provide broadband services to Seville is around Euro 15 million. Orange plans spread this network to the areas of Triana, Los Remedios, Nervión, San Bernardo, Arenal and the city centre at the second stage of network development. The partners for FTTH deployment in Spain, Orange and Vodafone have plans to lay next generation networks in 50 major cities in Spain. Through these networks they intend to provide high speed broadband services to 6 million households and businesses.

With around 1.5 million population, Seville is the fourth largest city and is one of the historically important cities in Spain.

The Consumer Electronics Show indicates that 2014 will be the year when connected devices will generate increased demand for fibre to the home.

By Nadia Babaali, Communications Director, FTTH Council Europe

If all you want to do is email your boss or look at funny cat pictures on the web then today’s broadband will probably serve you well enough. But the Internet is capable of doing so much more in terms of productivity and entertainment.

Nowhere is the Internet’s potential more apparent than at the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas in January each year. The annual gadget show throws a spotlight on technologies that could be coming to your home in the near future. Major themes at this year’s show included 4k Ultra HD TV with razor-sharp pictures thanks to a resolution that is four times that of typical 1080p HD TVs. Also mooted to be the next big thing are 3D printers, which allow anyone to create an object simply by downloading a design from the Internet. Another trend highlighted was the connected and smart home. From televisions to toothbrushes, it seems there is no device that isn’t worth connecting.

Pundits confidently predict that 2014 is the year when connected home devices will hit the mainstream. They point to the fact that major firms like Google are getting behind home automation technology – as evidenced by the search giant’s recent agreement to pay $3.2 billion for the start-up Nest, which makes a smart thermostat that learns its owner’s behaviour.

Our prediction is that these products will also generate increased demand for fibre to the home connections. In fact, they may not reach their potential without them.

Right now, connected home technology is mainly (although not exclusively) the domain of the more affluent home owner, but the appeal is growing. As the market matures, it will drive down prices, making connected home services accessible to the average consumer. Government incentives to conserve energy will also push connected devices into millions more homes across Europe.

Although an individual device may not need a lot of bandwidth, the sheer number of devices in every home will place unprecedented demands on the network. Connected home devices use outgoing bandwidth (from the user to the network), which is often poorly specified in current broadband networks. Low latency (minimal time delay) and network resilience (the ability to maintain an acceptable quality of service, even when faults occur in the network) are also important requirements for many “smart” applications. It is dangerous to assume that the current broadband access networks can support the massive increase in online activity happening in every home. And some emerging applications WILL need a lot of bandwidth. Producers of Ultra HD TV are looking at how they can get their content to consumers. 4k movies can require more than 100GB of storage – which is far in excess of the 25GB capacity of a single-layer Blu-ray disk and the 4.7GB available on a DVD. Manufacturers are counting on online distribution, but will this be practical if it takes hours (and your entire monthly bandwidth quota) to download a single movie?

The connected home will need better connectivity. The connected home will need fibre. 

A combination of supply-push and demand-pull will boost the embryonic fiber-optic broadband market in Latin America from 2.2 million accounts in 2013 to 11.8 million accounts in 2018, according to a new report from market research firm Pyramid Research.

"Across Latin American markets with sustained economic growth and rising GDP per capita, such as Brazil and Mexico, the demand for more bandwidth, better performing networks, consumer video and cloud-based enterprise services is expanding," said Daniele Tricarico, analyst at Pyramid Research. "Nonetheless, Pyramid Research believes that supply-push forces are playing the decisive role in the growth of fiber broadband."

Supply-side contextual factors include regulatory frameworks that push operators to deploy fiber, increasing competition from cable companies and from mobile operators deploying LTE, and the need for fixed operators to innovate to thrive in increasingly competitive markets. In the absence of such supply-side pressures, even when facing growing demand for superfast broadband, operators are less likely to make the substantial investments needed to offer fiber broadband service, Tricarico says.

Wednesday 27 November 2013 | 11:09 CET | News

Fibre-optic connections are growing at a record pace in Spain with the sector registering 24,654 new subscriptions in September to reach a total of 509,316 connections, according to data released by telecoms regulator CNMC. Although FTTH take-up has increased significantly in recent months, the September figure represents the highest ever monthly rise, the total number of lines representing a 88.2 percent increase on September 2012. The growth is mainly due to the expansion of fibre coverage throughout the country, led by Movistar, which has pledged to cover 3.8 million households by the end of the year.

The fixed-line sector in general registered a record increase of 96,517 new subscriptions in September due to the continuing popularity of broadband and fixed telephony packages. The total broadband base now stands at almost 12 million (11,997,271), with a year-on-year increase of 5.8 percent. Alternative operators accounted for 73 percent of new subscriptions in the sector (70,290), cable operators added 15,351 new lines, while Telefonica accounted for 10,880 lines.

The increase in fibre optic and overall fixed line subscriptions came alongside a sharp drop in mobile phone lines, which were down 64,002 in September to 52.13 million, a 3.8 percent year-on-year decrease. In terms of operators, Movistar shed 153,069 lines, followed by Vodafone (56,791 lines) and Yoigo (15,555 lines), while Orange attracted 41,081 customers and MVNOs added some 120,332 new lines. The total number of mobile lines ported in September was 498,000.