The FTTH Councils Global Alliance concluded its recent annual summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia bringing together senior leaders from fibre organisations across six regions to discuss the state of fibre deployment and adoption worldwide.
The event saw experts from the Fibre Network Council APAC, which holds the 2024 presidency, report a 7.1% increase in subscribers to 645 million and a 7.9% rise in homes passed to 815 million by June 2023.
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Demand for fibre in the APAC region has grown 6.3 times over the last decade, with China, Japan and South Korea identified as the most mature markets, with more than 80% of coverage.
High-potential markets such as India hold less than 30% fibre coverage, according to the APAC group, but the country has seen a 153% subscriber growth since December 2021 — with the country launching a project last week to increase digital services to underserved regions and communities.
Europe lags behind
The FTTH Council Europe reported positive fibre FTTH deployments on the continent, with 69.9% coverage as recently as September 2023.
Despite the high coverage percentage, however, only 34.7% of homes are effectively connected with key markets like Germany, the UK, Austria and Italy among those lagging.
The European leaders expressed belief that the EU’s Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA) will help expand fibre networks.
Signed in April, the GIA is an emerging EU regulation promoting the creation of more high-capacity networks.
“Implementing the Gigabit Infrastructure Act will be crucial for expanding fibre networks and reaching maximum coverage, alongside effective demand-side measures and a clear plan for copper switch-off to stimulate the adoption of fibre-based services, a prerequisite to driving the required private investments,” the FTTH Council Europe claimed.
US, Canada report fibre growth
The Fibre Broadband Association’s State of The North American Fibre Industry report showed that the region had record fibre deployments, with nine million homes passed during the year.
The U.S. ended 2023 with 77.9 million homes passed and 30.9 million homes passed with fibre, with fibre “take-rates” averaging 45.4% based on unique home passings.
The U.S. is in the early stages of the largest fibre investment cycle in the country’s history, as the government plans to connect every home by the end of the decade.
In Canada, meanwhile, fibre has now been deployed in 12.1 million homes with 44.6% “take-rates” against unique fibre home passings.
LATAM’s growth potential
The Fibre Broadband Association’s LATAM chapter published the FTTH Panorama LATAM 2023 report, which highlighted that Latin America and the Caribbean had 56.7 million fixed broadband FTTH accesses by the end of 2022.
The report suggests that the growth of FTTH technologies is expected to replace other fixed broadband technologies in the region, already serving 54 million households.
Countries with low FTTH penetration, such as Argentina, Colombia, and Peru were highlighted as opportunities for market development, with the LATAM chapter describing them as having “substantial growth potential.”
Connectivity demands reshaping Africa post-COVID
At the event in Malaysia, the Digital Council Africa reported that the “continent has seen an unparalleled digital metamorphosis” with increased demands for connectivity and mobile technologies.
The African contingent reported that the continent’s youthful population were leading the charge in demands for internet access.
However, issues with the continent’s terrain are proving to be a “formidable undertaking” with the Africa group also calling for better policy environments to attract further investment.
MENA growth powered by data centres
The Fibre Connect Council for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) used their reporting at the Summit to focus on the demand for data centres.
The group emphasised that data centres will be critical to drive AI and 5G deployments across the region.
They cited figures that the data centre market for MENA was valued at $5.57 billion in 2023 and will rise to $9.61 billion by 2029.
“As the backbone of digital transformation, these investments will be pivotal in shaping the future of technology and connectivity in the region,” the MENA group said.
In addition to the new data, the FTTH Councils launched a new website, aimed at grouping news and information from the various councils into one digital platform.
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