cablemedia2006v6_1 20/06/2016 17:04 Page 5
MONITOR
Cable Europe: “Fibre not the only way”
he European broadband cable
industry is best placed to satisfy
future bandwidth demands,
according to Matthias Kurth, Executive
Chairman, Cable Europe. Speaking at the
Huawei DOCSIS 3.1 Forum in Cologne,
Kurth noted that at a political level,
much of the focus is on fibre networks,
but he said it was not the only way to
bring Gigabit broadband
quality to consumers in
Europe. “I often hear
‘fibre, fibre, fibre,’ but I
don’t hear ‘DOCSIS 3.1’.
Perhaps this name is not
very appealing,” he said.
He declared that there was
a need to bring DOCSIS 3.1
more to the attention of the
public, politicians and
regulators and others as a
better way to bring broadband in a quick and
easy way to many Europeans than to roll out
fibre to the home everywhere. “There are some
T
countries in Europe that are a little bit ahead
with FTTH, but in Germany, the biggest market
in Europe, only 1.4 per cent of homes have
FTTH. People expect to have high
broadband service in 70 to 80 per
cent of homes.”
Kurth’s main argument is:
“Take advantage of the existing
infrastructure’ that is already in the
ground with a
sophisticated
technology like
DOCSIS 3.1. That’s a
quicker time to market. We’re
not only talking about the best
technology in the world, we’re
also talking about how we can
do that with CAPEX that is
available for members of Cable
Europe and the companies who
are selling. They don’t have
unlimited amounts of money to spend and
they need to spend their money very wisely
following the customer demand.”
“I often hear
‘fibre, fibre,
fibre,’ but I don’t
hear ‘DOCSIS
3.1’. Perhaps
this name is not
very appealing.”
European cable
digitisation continues
Following 2013, when the
total number of digital cable
TV subscribers in Europe
exceeded analogue for the
first time, Europe’s cable
operators have continued to
upgrade their networks,
according to findings from
IHS. Out of 56.5m total TV
subscribers at the end of
2015, digital represented
60.8%, up from 56.5% in 2014.
Internet subscribers rose
from 31.8m to 34.1m, an
increase of 7.5%, while
telephony subscribers rose
from 25.1m to 26.8m, an
increase of 6.5%. Total Revenue
Generating Units (RGUs) rose
from 113.2m to 117.4m, an
increase of 3.8%.
Similarly, total analogue
subscription revenues have
fallen from €3.8 billion in 2011
to €2.6 billion in 2015, 2014
(€2.9bn).
Digital subscription TV
revenues at €8.5 billion were
8 Cable Media
up from €7.7 billion in 2014,
with total on-demand revenue
reaching €407m, up from
€339. 9m in 2014.
Total triple-play revenue (TV,
Internet, Telephony) was €22.9
billion, up from €21.4 billion in
2014, comprising total TV
revenues of €11.5 billion; total
Internet revenues of €7.1
billion and total telephony
revenues of €4.2 billion (2014:
€10.9; €6.5 and €3.9
respectively).
He said it was important for members of
Cable Europe to work with the vendor
community, with a “unique opportunity” right
now. “It’s a whole new wave of
investment coming up,” he declared,
“everybody needs to have a
replacement strategy for the future.”
He admitted that there were
challenges in undertaking such
upgrades. “Networks in Germany
have not been built to be broadband
networks. They have been built to
distribute TV signals to many
people; one to many. It was already a challenge
to make them bidirectional; it was a challenge
to make them broadband fit and it will be the
next challenge to bring them to Gigabit speeds.
We have to be honest about that. There needs
to be a lot of changes in the network backbone
to bring the functionalities closer to the
customer.” According to Kurth, this was a good
sign. “We have now the choice of how to do it;
how to be fit for the next ten years at least in
broadband upgrades.”
the cable industry has
adopted as its next
generation solution to
address increasing capacity
requirements.
Gainspeed’s Virtual CCAP
solution would strategically
diversify Nokia’s product
portfolio for cable access
customers and expand Nokia’s
footprint in this growing
market. Upon the closing of the
planned transaction, Gainspeed
would become part of Nokia’s
Fixed Networks business
group.
Nokia expand cable
footprint with
Gainspeed buy
Nokia is to acquire Gainspeed
a US-based start-up
specialising in DAA
(Distributed Access
Architecture) solutions for
the cable industry via its
Virtual CCAP (Converged
Cable Access Platform)
product line. Gainspeed is
widely regarded as the
industry leader in DAA, which
Virtual CCAP enables cable
operators to meet growing
customer demand for highspeed data services and IP
video. With Virtual CCAP, cable
operators can increase the
capacity of their existing HFC
(Hybrid Fibre Coax)
infrastructure and rapidly
deploy new services, while
simultaneously reducing space
and power requirements in the
headend. At the same time,
customers can cost-effectively
migrate their networks to a
software-driven, all-IP
architecture. With the
acquisition of Gainspeed, Nokia
would have an extendible and
flexible platform that can host
the future innovations of the
cable industry.
“We are very excited to have
Gainspeed, the technology
leader in its field, joining us,”
commented Federico Guillèn,
president of Nokia’s Fixed
Networks business group.
“Cable is one of the fastest
growing areas in our fixed
networks business, and we are
committed to delivering a
complete solution set to cable
operators. Gainspeed’s Virtual
CCAP perfectly complements
our leading fibre access
solutions for cable MSOs.”
The planned transaction is
expected to close in Q3 2016,
subject to usual closing
conditions.
ADVANCED TELEVISION