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Broadband Access
FTTX lights the way
Worldwide FTTX grew 23 percent, says IDATE
by Sean Buckley
A recent IDATE report confirmed that the number of worldwide FTTx subscribers grew by more than 23 percent between December 2007 and June 2008.
While Asia-Pacific continues to take the lead in the FTTx race, Europe and North America are also seeing increased FTTx subscriber growth. Led by aggressive incumbent telephone operators, including AT&T, Belgacom, and Swisscom, the U.S. and Europe continue to ramp up their respective FTTN VDSL-based deployments.
In Europe, the story is all about France and Norway — two markets that are seeing increased activity by both large incumbents and competitive FTTx providers. Both regions reported an increased uptick in Fiber to the Home (FTTH) and Fiber to the Business (FTTB) subscribers in the first half of 2008.
Consisting of FTTH, FTTB, VDSL and Fiber to the Last Amplifier (FTTLA), the global FTTx market represented 28.2 million subscribers as of the end of June 2008.
Out of this mix, FTTH and FTTB accounted for more than 90 percent of the world’s fiber subscriber base. VDSL, while only accounting for 4.5 percent of the FTTx as of June, is growing in popularity amongst incumbent operators that are looking for a transitional strategy for their existing copper plant.
Asia, Europe and U.S. take charge
Given the region’s population density, Asia Pacific continues to see the largest increase in new subscribers. Led by Japan with 13 million subscribers, Asia Pacific currently makes up 80 percent of the world’s FTTx subscribers.
However, Europe and the U.S. are making progress. Both regions have seen the largest customer growth FTTH/B with respective growth rates of 32 and 38 percent.
In the past year, Europe has been catching up with Asia and the U.S., but regulatory issues have been a major challenge for European FTTH/B providers.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has dominated the North American FTTx market with Verizon adding 500,000 new customers for its FiOS FTTH service, while AT&T has seen a 137 percent increase for its VDSL-based U-Verse service.
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