Almost halfway there! Europe’s FTTH coverage nears 50%

Access to fibre broadband has been increasing steadily across Europe for years now and the latest report from the FTTH Council Europe shows that the continent will very soon reach the 50% milestone.

 

The report covered the year leading up to September 2019, showing an increase in fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) connections of 12 million in that time span, raising total coverage to 172 million.

 

This total equates to 49.9% of the homes in the 39 European countries covered in the report. 

 

Fibre broadband subscription is still increasing too, with total subscribers topping 70 million, a 15% increase when compared to the same period the previous year.

 

However, the level of coverage between countries still varies massively. Iceland – somewhat unsurprisingly given its small and relatively localised population – holds the top spot for FTTH subscribers, with 65.9% of the population. Meanwhile, Austria languishes at the bottom of the list, with a combined FTTH/FTTB subscription rate of just 1.9%.

 

The UK notably fares little better, with just 2.8%.

 

Western Europe is, however, leading the charge when it comes to rapid build outs, with France adding the most new connections (3.5 million homes), with Italy and Spain duking it out for second place (1.9 million and 1.5 million homes, respectively).

 

One notable driving factor for this increase is the growing role of government and local authorities in ensuring increased coverage. 

 

“Competitive investments in very high capacity networks should […] remain a high political priority and we look forward to working with the EU institutions, national governments and [national regulatory authorities] towards removing bureaucratic and other barriers from the way of network deployment. Access to very high capacity networks faster and more cost efficiently benefits everyone,” said Erzsébet Fitori, director general of the FTTH Council Europe.