Fiber to the Home, FTTH

Several telcos in Asia will deploy subsea fiber optic network

Several Asian telcos have joined forces and will deploy a new submarine fiber optic network, which will be called the Asia-Pacific Gateway. The objective is to have this new network deployed by 2011 , it will link the major economic areas in Asia.

The APG network will connect Japan, Korea, mainland China, Taiwan, Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The signatories to the agreement for the development of the gateway are China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, NTT Communication (Japan), Vietnam Post and Telecommunications (VNPT), Korea Telecom (KT), Philippines Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) and Telekom Malaysia. The telcos will jointly finance and own the APG network.

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Optical fiber USB cable

June, 2009 – Various European suppliers have put their hands together in the Eurostars Optical Link project. The optical projects has the objective  to develop the next generation ultra high bandtwith connectors, including the USB 4.0.

The Optical Link partners will develop low-cost technology for optical cables, among other by combining ICs and PICs with microlasers and detectors.  The whole project is funded and the Eurostars Program, a joint initiative of Eureka and the European Community. It has  a duration of 24 months and will start July 1, 2009.

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Fiber to the home broadband keeps on expanding in Asia

Broadband technologies as fiber to the home have experiences tremendous growth the last years. In anticipation of future growth and bandwidth capacity requirements operators like NTT in Japan have invested large amounts in their networks. Growth in the Asean countries varies quite a lot by country. For instance Hong Kong has been an early adaptor of FTTH and the penetration grade is high, well over 20% at the moment.  Countries with low penetration grades are for instance China and India, though China is gearing up and investing a lot in fiber networks.  Besides Hong Kong also Japan, South Korea and Taiwan occupy the top positions in fiber to the home deployment.  It might be surprising for some of you that Asia is leading in FTTH, and both Europe and the US are following.  The US is catching up though and large investments by Verizon and AT&T have increased the penetration in the US as well. In Europe the Scandinavian countries are leading, while Germany and France are investing more in FTTH networks. Ranking lists are made up by the Fiber to the Home council.  This council is organized in European, American, Apac and Latin American sections. Overall estimates are that almost 70 million homes are passed by fiber infrastructure, meaning the people who live in those homes could subscribe to services like high speed internet, HDTV etc.  Around 25 million households are actually subscribed to those services at the moment in Asia. So far in Asia Video has been the main driver for growth for FTTH networks. There is a growing demand for HDTV (high definition TV) as well as other high speed services as gaming and real-time internet services.

Anybody involved in fiber is excited about the current state of the industry. Despite the economic downturn caused by the financial crisis, still major investments are made in fiber deployment. This indicates the strenght of the industry, its major players with their long term strategy, as well as high expectations of economic return.  Long term visions are needed, as high deployment costs have been one of the main factors of the -relative- slow growth of fiber to the home networks.

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What are the benefits of Fiber to the Home (FTTH)?

Many have heard of internet, or HDTV, or fiber to the home (FTTH) networks. But many may consider FTTH as the next technology hype, perhaps unaware of the benefits and large potential FTTH has.  Though FTTH is getting beyond its infancy state. In the USA there are now over 6 million subscribers of services of fiber networks, many via Verizon FioS or AT&T U-verse services.  In Japan the number of subscribers is more than double of the USA, worldwide there are over 30 million subscribers.
First of all, and most important, FTTH offers so much bandwidth capacity that grow in data demand (TV, internet, phone) for the next decades will be covered.   FTTH is ready for future demand, like for instance 3D high definition TV still being developed at this moment.   Or just imagine the growth in online games that has taken place during the last years.  FTTH will be able to provide gigabits per second, via a very reliable network.  Everybody who has seen a demonstration of a fiber to the home network vs. a copper/DSL network is sold on the concept.

Historically costs of deployment have been an issue to move FTTH forward. As every house or condo has to be connected separately high costs were involved.  Costs have been coming down a lot through smart engineering, e.g. development of pre- connectorized cables. The economics for large FTTH, FTTC, FTTP, FTTN or other FTTX deployment for service providers like Verizon and AT&T is working out.  End-customers in general pay at least 20% more for FTTH services than for DSL or other copper based services, but this premium is well worth the investment for what you get in terms of additional data capabilities and speed.

The main telecommunications companies have been deploying fiber to the home networks in the most populated areas in the USA. Think New York, San Francisco, Houston, Boston etc. Via the stimulus money provided by the Obama government more money will be available as tax cuts and grants for small rural municipalities to deploy their own fiber networks.  This means in future the fiber infrastructure will be all over the US and more services are expected.

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Hard times for telecom equipment manufacturers…

During the last weeks many telecom equipment providers have announced their Q1-2009 earnings. And it did not look that good. Perhaps some of us thought that when Verizon and AT&T  announced their very reasonable Q1 figures (both for wireless and wireline like FTTH), the telecom equipment manufacturs must be doing ok as well. Nothing is further from the thruth:  Alcatel-Lucent announed a loss of US$400 million,  Nokia-Siemens showed similar figures and Ericsson did somewhat better, though still far from where is could and should be.  Cost cutting is the motto and perhaps some further consolidation in the telecommunications equipment industry is needed as well.

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Fiber to the Home overview by Verizon

This video is a bit older (2007), but still gives a nice overview of fiber to the home depolyment by Verizon. Verizon offers FIOS in many locations, FIOS is a true example of a fiber to the home program, where the fiber really runs to the homes. Check out their video on <a href=” </a>.

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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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Why is FTTH needed?

The FTTH council explains what Fiber to the Home is, and why it is so important. It is an older video, but gives a nice overview though:

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