Fiber to the Home, FTTH | Fiber to the Home (FTTH) in Latin America

Fiber to the Home (FTTH) in Latin America

Many articles have been written about fiber to the home programs in Asia, the US and Europe. But what is the outlook for Latin America?

In the 2007 the estimated broad band penetration in Latin America (Central and South America) is estimated to be around 10-15% of the households.  This is relative low to e.g. North America where the degree of penetration is estimated at 55-65% for the same year.  However, this offers tremendous opportunity. Densely populated areas in the US and Europe are beginning to get covered with fiber networks, while dense and developed ares in South America (e.g. Sao Paulo in Brazil) are hardly covered. If you look at FTTH network deployments in South America, Telefonica and Telmex have some projects running and have plans for deployments in the future. The current status is though that FTTH basically still has to start in Latin America. Expert opinions vary, but by 2014 Latin America could catch up to around a penetration degree of 40%. It is expected that in terms of penetration percentages Colombia, Mexico and Argentine will be leading. In absolute subscribers Brazil will be the leading nation. Current broadband penetration in Brazil is estimated at 5% for 2009, and for narrow band this percentage is around 20% for the same year.  Triple play (data, voice, video) will be the majority of the services consumers will subscribe to.

Though FTTH is still in an infancy state in South America, expectations for the future are high. Though certain deployment projects have been delayed, countries as Brazil have not been hit that hard by the current financial crisis. This means investments, though delayed, will continue.

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