“Fibre is the infrastructure for the age we are living in”
No surprise from this headline that you’ll find me at the FTTH council conference in Luxembourg this week. I’ve just heard from the morning’s speakers and this statement came from Gunnar HÖkmark, member of the European Parliament. Commenting on the glimpse of the FTTH global ranking results, shown by Ana Pesovic of the FTTH council board, Gunnar told us all that whilst Europe was making progress, we could be doing a whole better. After all, with an average of 39% FTTH/B coverage across Europe, there is a huge room of improvement. He also pleaded with the audience to leave the phrase “megabits” in the past and start using “gigabits” as standard measurements.
It’s my first time attending this conference so I am intrigued to see what I can learn from 2 entire days focused on FTTH discussions (I will let you know!). This morning put into perspective how Europe compares with the rest of the world in terms of coverage, and an insight into some of the key challenges which the FTTH council see in deploying even more fibre. They are calling for regulation which encourages and supports FTTH deployment, to provide a network they deem fit not just for the future, but for our current digital economy. They state that there was a whopping 5 million new FTTH/B users in 2015.
Ana used a quote “the world is going mobile, but mobile is going fixed” in reference to 5G’s future dependency on fibre backhaul. Obviously in the age of 5G where many are expecting IoT, Homes, Healthcare and Automobiles (to name a few) to be reliant on a fast and consistent connection, the fixed network infrastructure will be the crucial core to this new world. With 5G goals set for as early as 2020, It will be interesting to see how big a theme that fibre plays out to be next week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Emma Hosgood
Portfolio Manager, Broadband World Series
broadbandworldforum.wordpress.com 
What a shame that so called Digital Britain is getting left so far behind. The monopoly telco here markets their pathetic FTTC as ‘fibre broadband’ and the feckless regulator and even more useless ASA allows them to get away with it. It is good to see more EU countries grasping the physics of the situation and laying real fibre. Until we get some politicians and civil servants who are prepared to listen then we’re doomed to stay tied to the obsolete copper for infinity.