Page 31 - PCCAJournal3rdQuarter2011

urope had 10 million ﬁber-to-the-home and building (FTTH/B) subscribers as of the end of June, with Russia accounting for more than half of the total, according to the lat-est ﬁgures published by the FTHH Council Europe.

“We have overtaken the U.S.,” said Nadia Babaali, presenting the numbers at Broadband World Forum in Paris, France, in September. North America had 9.5 mil-lion connections at the same date, she said; Europe had 4.5 million subscribers a year earlier, compared with 8.6 million in North America.

“Asia is clearly leading [with 46 million connections as of mid-2011],” she added. The Middle East has just 0.3 million subscribers.

The EU35 markets, excluding the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), had 4.6 million connections out of 25.1 million homes passed. That take-up rate of 18.3 percent of homes passed is down from the 19.4 percent the region recorded in mid-2010, which, according to Babaali, is a sign that “expanding the network has been a priority for operators in Europe.”

The CIS countries—Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan—count 5.6 million subscribers between them. And for the most part it is Eastern European countries that are showing the way to their Western counterparts. Lithuania leads Europe in terms of penetration mea-sured as a percentage of population, having “just reached over 25 percent during the last six months,” Babaali said. The Nordic markets of Norway and Sweden also rank highly, but penetration stands at less than 15 percent. France and Italy come in at 17th and 18th respec-tively in the European table, which ranks countries with 200,000-plus households and ﬁber penetration of more than 1 percent. Germany, Spain, and the U.K. fall below this 1 percent benchmark and for that reason do not fea-ture.

“We have two new entrants in the FTTH ranking: Hun-gary and the Ukraine,” Babaali noted. Of the top 20, 11 are Eastern European markets, she added. “Eastern European countries are driving the growth for FTTH in Europe.” The data for the FTTH Council’s European ranking is provided by iDate.