News

FTTx markets making swift progress

02/06/2010
41 million FTTH/B subscribers worldwide in 2009 and an expected 52 million in 2010
FTTx Watch Service


There were no major upheavals in the global Ultra Broadband market in the second half of 2009, and it continued to develop steadily in most parts of the world in terms of subscriber numbers and homes passed.

“But beyond these figures that reflect the current situation, there have been several announcements from private operators and governments that have confirmed the interest in very high-speed access in most parts of the world,” says Roland Montagne, Head of IDATE’s Telecom Business Unit.

According to IDATE Senior Consultant, Valérie Chaillou, “The FTTH market’s growth momentum carried on into the second half of 2009, pushing the global base to close to 41 million FTTH/B subscribers by year-end, which marks a more than 16% increase in six months”(*).

Over the next five years, this momentum is likely to translate into a significant increase in the number of homes passed: by the end of 2014, there will be close to 306 million homes passed for FTTH/B around the globe, of which more than half will still be located in Asia and 18% in Western Europe.

• On the matter of subscribers, Eastern Europe, which has already pulled ahead of Western Europe, with 3.5 million FTTH/B customers, compared to around 2 million in the west, is forecast to have an even bigger subscriber base than North America starting in 2012. Some countries in that part of the world, such as Lithuania, have a particularly dynamic market and, in addition to swift and vast rollouts, are managing to persuade the eligible households to subscribe to ultra high-speed access offers.

• Elsewhere, and especially in Asia, marketing the services has become operators’ primary concern, since coverage rates have already reached the saturation point in the most advanced markets. HKBN in Hong Kong is the operator marketing the most competitively priced offer of anywhere in the world: 1 Gbps for 26 USD a month.

• In 2014, 18 countries will have deployed optical fibre networks to more than 50% of homes, which is 10 more than at the end of 2009.

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* FTTx subscriber numbers increase to 63 million when we include the following technologies: FTTH/B, VDSL, FTTLA, FTTx+LAN.


Top 10 countries in terms of FTTH/B subscribers, end of 2009

Rank # Country = FTTH/B Subscribers
1 # Japan = 17 140 000
2 # South Korea = 9 228 300
3 # USA = 5 700 000
4 # Russia = 3 040 000
5 # Taiwan = 1 675 000
6 # Hong Kong = 770 000
7 # China(1) = 710 000
8 # Sweden = 537 100
9 # Italy = 325 000
10#France = 308 200
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(1) Not included are the roughly 17 million FTTx +LAN subscribers in China.
Source: IDATE

Top 10 FTTx operators around the world at the end of 2009 (in number of subscribers)

Rank # Operator / Main technology & architecture = FTTx Subscribers
1  # NTT (Japan) / FTTH/B GEPON = 12 779 000
2  # China Telecom(1) / FTTH - FTTx+LAN EPON LAN/DSL = 11 160 000
3  # China Netcom(2) / FTTH - FTTx+LAN EPON LAN/DSL = 5 590 000
4  # KT (South Korea) / FTTB EPON/GEPON = 4 630 000
5  # Verizon (USA) / FTTH BPON/GPON = 3 430 000
6  # SK Broadband (South Korea) / FTTB/LAN GEPON = 3 032 099
7  # ER Telecom (Russia) / FTTB = 2 140 000
8  # AT&T (USA) / FTTN VDSL2 = 2 100 000
9  # Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan) / FTTB GEPON = 1 639 824
10# LG Powercom (South Korea) / FTTH/B EPON/GEPON = 1 566 206
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(1) of which 560,000 FTTH subscribers and 10.6 million FTTx/LAN subscribers.
(2) of which 90,000 FTTH subscribers and 5.6 million FTTx/LAN subscribers.
Source: IDATE