FTTH deployment in UK is less than one percent
It seems the broadband speed has a direct impact on take up of broadband which is shown by the report by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It is especially true in Asia Pacific region, where countries like Japan, Korea and Honking offer high speed broadband (100 Mbps) using fibre optic networks. The OECD report also says Japan offers the lowest tariff with respect to one megabit per second speed. In UK, not only the broadband price is more expensive than these countries, the broadband speed (average 10 Mb) is also much lower than the speed that is offered by Japan (100 Mbps).
The first official ranking of FTTH deployments in the world’s different countries issued by world’s three fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) councils puts Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan in top rankings with respect to the percentage of homes that receive broadband communications services over direct fiber optic connections. Accordingly, more than one-fifths of homes in Hong Kong are wired with FTTH. It is 19.6 percent in South Korea followed by Japan where 16.3 percent of houses are connected by FTTH.
According to the report, there are 11 countries from the FTTH Councils of Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America that have penetration of 1 percent or more in the ranking. Europe fared poor in the ranking while North America represented by USA was worse in terms of FTTH penetration. Only country in Europe that has more than five percent penetration of FTTH is Sweden while Denmark and Italy has a penetration of FTTH between 1 percent and 5 percent.
Unfortunately, UK does not figure in this ranking as only countries with penetration of 1 percent or more were included in the ranking. While the transition to FTTH is on fast pace in Asia Pacific and some of the countries in Europe, it is rather slow in UK and even the super fast broadband like ADSL 2+ Â is offered by a handful of broadband providers in UK like Be. BT’s proposed ADSL 2+ Â broadband is to be launched only in 2008.
It is worthwhile to go through the statement made by Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council North America:
“With this global ranking, it is now evident which countries are FTTH leaders and which are FTTH laggards. What is most interesting is how the leading economies in FTTH penetration are also those with clear public policies aimed at promoting deployment of next-generation broadband networks as a matter of strategic national importance.”
