Introduction

Fibre to the home is growing at a near-explosive rate

Every company faces the problems of mature markets, disappointing revenues and tough decisions on investment. Everyone agrees that fibre delivers the best network experience, but until recently most companies rejected fibre as too costly.

Now, 15 of the world’s largest phone companies have decided fibre to the home is a solution. Why are so many now investing so heavily?

Here are some highlight statistics:

On 26^th July 2018, AT&T announced it will pass 5 million locations with fibre to the home in the next 12 months, after reaching 3 million new locations in the last year.[1] Fibre is now a proven money-maker for the US giant, bringing new customers every quarter.
Telefónica Spain has passed 20 million premises – over 70% of the addressable population – and continues at 2 million a year.
Telefónica Brazil is going from 7 million in 2018 to 10 million in 2020.
China’s three giants have 344 million locations connected.[2]
Worldwide FTTH connections grew 23% between Q1 2017 and Q1 2018.[3]
In June 2018, China Mobile added 4.63 million broadband customers, nearly all FTTH.[4]
European FTTH growth in 2017 was 20%.[5]
In India, Mukesh Ambani intends to connect 50 million homes at Reliance Jio.[6]

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Even the most reluctant carriers are now building, including Deutsche Telekom and British Telecom. In 2015, BT Openreach CTO Peter Bell said FTTH was “impossible” for Britain because it was too expensive.[7] Now, BT is hiring 3,500 engineers to connect 3 million premises, with 10 million more homes under consideration.[8]

Credit Suisse believes that for an incumbent, “The cost of building fibre is less than the cost of not building fibre.”

Contents:

Executive Summary
Introduction
Fibre to the home is growing at a near-explosive rate
Why the change?
Strategies of leading companies
Frontrunners
Moving toward rapid growth
Relative newcomer
The newly converted
Alternate carriers
Naysayers
U.S. regionals: CenturyLink, Frontier and Windstream
The Asian pioneers
Two technologies to consider
Ten-gigabit equipment
G.fast
The hard question: How many will decide to go wireless only?

Figures:

Figure 1: Paris area fibre coverage – Orange has covered most of the capital
Figure 2: European fibre growth
Figure 3: Top five European incumbents, stock price July 2016 – July 2018
Figure 4: DT CEO Tim Höttges and Bavarian Prime Minister Dr. Markus Söder announce a deal to fibre nearly all of Bavaria, part financed by the government

[1] https://www.fastnet.news/index.php/11-fib/715-at-t-fiber-run-rate-going-from-3m-to-5m-year

[2] https://www.fastnet.news/index.php/8-fnn/713-china-1-1b-4g-400m-broadband-328m-fibre-home-rapid-growth

[3] http://point-topic.com/free-analysis/world-broadband-statistics-q1-2018/

[4] https://www.chinamobileltd.com/en/ir/operation_m.php

[5] http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/PressReleases/2018/PR%20Market%20Panorama%20-%2015-02-2018-%20FINAL.pdf

[6] https://www.fastnet.news/index.php/11-fib/703-india-unreal-jio-wants-50m-ftth-in-1100-cities

[7] G.fast Summit May 2015

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/01/bt-openreach-hire-3000-engineers-drive-to-fill-broadband-not-spots