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 26th 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