ip coverstory.qxp
11/3/13
17:34
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“If we look at the development over the last 30 years we have seen a new rapid emergence of telecoms connecting the world at a pace that no one could have believed, with capacities that no one would have dared to plan for and with services that we either didn’t foresee or rather saw as phenomena in the world of Flash Gordon. Just look at the figures: Mobile devices will outnumber humans this year, 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet in 2020. In 2016 networks will be carrying 130
exabytes of data each year, equivalent to 33 billion DVDs. The Internet has changed the logics of media, politics, revolutions, culture, business and finance as well as the global economy and individual access to knowledge and information. The Internet has changed the world in the same way that electricity and the light bulbs changed the world more than 100 years ago.” “The remarkable thing is that we now, for the first time, are seeing a development where technical devices and services no longer are designed and created from the logic of the
past. Contrary to typewriters that later became computers, or mobile phones that were inspired by the traditional phone, today's tablets, smart phones or smart devices have been designed in line with the opportunities and the logic of today's modern information technologies. It is the information and knowledge services of today that are forming the design of the devices, not the logic of the past,” he claimed. CONCLUSIONS. “This leads me to my first conclusion that new services, innovations and information flows must be able to grow, flour-
Russia leads in Euro fibre race
European fibre to the home (FTTH) deployment continues to grow steadily, but the gap between the leaders and laggards is increasing, according to the latest figures from the FTTH Council Europe, revealed during the industry organisation’s FTTH Conference. Russia has emerged as a clear fibre leader in the region. The country added 2.2m new FTTH subscribers in the second half of 2012 – more than all of the 27 Member States of the European Union combined – to reach a grand total of 7.5m fibre-connected homes. This corresponds to a dramatic increase in FTTH subscribers of more than 42%. Across the EU27 countries, the number of FTTH subscribers continued to grow at an accelerated rate of 15% in the second half of 2012. During this period, Europe added 820,000 subscribers in total, bringing the number of fibre-connected homes to 6.24m. Scandinavia, Baltic countries and the Netherlands contributed 26% of these new subscribers, Eastern European economies 33%, and France and Portugal 30%. The top five ‘dynamic’ economies, where not only subscriber growth in the past year was high but also where new 2012 subscribers represented the highest proportion
of total subscribers at end2012, were Turkey, Ukraine, Spain, Bulgaria and Russia. In Turkey, subscribers more
with 22.6% of homes having FTTH subscriptions. In the ranking, 10 nations can now claim more than 10% FTTH
than doubled in the last year. Spain, new entrant in the FTTH ranking since June 2012, also confirmed its dynamism. In terms of household penetration, the dominant fibre nation remains Lithuania, which already has 100% coverage of FTTH and over 31% of homes connected to fibre. Sweden takes second place in the European FTTH Ranking,
penetration, up from seven in June 2012. In order from the top they are Lithuania, Sweden, Bulgaria, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Denmark and Portugal. “Eastern Europe and Scandinavian countries have reinforced their position as fibre leaders, and the disparity between the early and late adopters is becoming even
more apparent,” said Karin Ahl, president of the FTTH Council Europe. “These FTTH leaders are gaining an economic advantage over their less well-connected neighbours. Good communications infrastructure helps to retain existing businesses and attract new ones. Fibred-up nations can make a head start on deploying new services like remote health care and smart grid technologies. Countries that delay the roll out of FTTH are looking at a serious lost opportunity to prepare for their economic future.” According to the FTTH Council, many of the major western economies are still dragging their feet over fibre. Italy and Spain remain at the bottom of the FTTH ranking, and once again, Germany and the UK failed to qualify. The number of fibre connected homes in the UK stands at less than 0.1%. The FTTH Market Panorama, which is updated twice a year by IDATE for the FTTH Council Europe, records the number of subscribers in each country across the continent of Europe, and ranks them according to the percentage of homes taking a direct fibre connection. The panorama includes both FTTH and fibre to the building or FTTB, an approach suited to apartment blocks where the building’s existing cabling can be used to make the final connection to the customer.
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