EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes has announced a public consultation looking for ways to make copper-based telecommunications networks less attractive to operators in a bid to spur investment in fiber. Since incumbents inherited copper-based networks when they were privatised in the 1990s the pace of investment in new, faster, fiber networks has been too slow for the Commission. It s now looking for ways to make copper lines less attractive.
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“FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) is gathering momentum in Europe, according to new figures from the FTTH Council Europe announced at the ongoing Broadband World Forum in Paris. In the first half of 2011, the region enjoyed a 24 percent rise in FTTH subscribers. At the end of June 2011, there were 4.6 million FTTH subscribers in Europe (which includes EU member states and various other countries) and 5.6 million subscribers in Russia and CIS countries. Total homes passed reached 39.8 million. Lithuania tops the European FTTH ranking with 26.6 percent of households subscribing to FTTH, followed by Norway, Sweden, Slovenia and Russia. (See Europe\\\\\\\'s Back in Love With FTTH and Brakes Stuck on Europe\\\\\\\'s FTTH Ride.)”
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A study of Anacom, the portuguese regulatory telecommunication organization, indicates that cable continues to dominate the preference of the clients, as far as pay-TV is concerned, with 50.9% of the market. Satelite keeps the second position in the ranking of used platform with 23.9%, while fibre and remaining technologies hold 19.2% of clients. Source: Diário Económico (Daily Economics Newspaper, 21 July 2011)

Despite a quarter-over-quarter decline in the global set-top box market, all major segments are up from this time a year ago in both revenue and shipments, indicating that the pay-TV market is rebounding after two years of significant declines. In 1Q11, evidence continued to mount that operators are in the early stages of implementing hybrid IP networks that offer the best of both OTT (over-the-top) and on-demand services combined with linear broadcast. As such, the hybrid segment of the market will experience the strongest growth over the next few years, expects Teresa Mastrangelo, directing analyst for video at Infonetics Research.
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Yesterday, the European parliament gave permission to release more radio-electric spectrum for wireless wideband in order to allow the quick deployment of new services and higher bitrates to the wireless Internet. Member States have still to agree on the initial proposal of the European Commission and, as such, a discussion on the matter is expected to take place till the end of May in a meeting of the telecommunication ministers. The target is to introduce wideband in the entire European landscape till 2013 and guarantee the universal access to high speed Internet till 2020.
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Six operators - Portugal Telecom, Vodafone, Zon, Cabovisao and Oni - responded to public consultation on the fourth-generation mobile auction. The companies confirmed that they submitted their contributions to Anacom, though did not reveal the content. Optimus, only through official sources, advanced that " additional questions were addressed. " Cabovisão was more concrete: expect the guaranteed Anacom " that prices and costs of acquisition of frequencies do not reach excessive values that load the industry, they discourage investment and that will be negatively reflected on customers." The operators have remained silent about the auction rules - only the PT did some considerations, arguing that there should be limits to the amount that each frequency operator can acquire. The service led by Zeinal Bava assured that the technology can deliver two to three months after the allocation of frequencies.
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There's no doubt that China Telecom has made significant investment and progress in Shanghai -- the local residents I spoke to agreed that when it is announced that a Chinese operator wil do something by a certain date, it gets done. SO they are expecting to have FTTH services offered to them by the end of next year. Currently, though, it seems that the FTT services are eing tested and trialled in a few select areas of Shanghai (which is enormous...) and so it may be that widespread commercial availability of high-speed FTTH-based broadband service packages will not arrive until 2012 in Shanghai. The question is, though, will people pay for the service when it arrives? The cost of living is already very high here - property (rental and purchase) prices in the center of Shanghai are equivalent to London -- renting a tiny 2-bed apartment in downtown Shanghai costs US$2,000-2,500 per month. That is way more than I ever expected!! Currently, it seems that a common experience in Shanghai is the use of a DSL service that was marketed as (up to) 10 Mbit/s and then get an average downstream connection of less than 1 Mbit/s because of the contention rates. So for sure people want greater broadband speeds and bundled services (Internet, VoIP, IPTV) but at what price? I imagine that 100Mbit/s will not be snapped up by too many unless it is offered at incredible monthly rates.
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The communications industry is undergoing a massive transformation. It is so fundamental, it will affect every person and every business on the face of the planet in the next 10 to 15 years. You can look at it as the third wave, comparable with the way railroads, automobiles, and planes transformed life in the 20th century. Every application of BSS/OSS will move from legacy to one global, virtual, seamless IP world, based on IP and wireless. The Internet that emerged as a mass medium in the 1990s wasn’t designed for this and at the moment we’re only applying quick fixes. We need networks and an Internet that are designed for sextuple play – that is quadruple play (phone calls, broadband, IPTV, and mobile), plus sensory-based services (for example, applications in medicine and construction), plus financial services. These two new categories cannot tolerate latency in the networks, nor packet loss. Real-time and reliable are the key words here. We need to be thinking now how we change the Internet to support these types of functions. Top 10 technology trends 1. IP networks must be ready for sextuple play, including wireless services 2. Security requirements must move from reactive – defensive – 3P model (proactive, predictive, preventative) onto the offensive – otherwise there will be problems of biblical proportions 3. All future IP services will be designed for three screens – mobile, TV, and PC 4. Wireless Internet access will be big – driving better modes of mobility with Wi-Fi and 4G/5G achieving explosive growth 5. Sensor networks will proliferate – machine IP addresses will overtake host computers 6. Video requirements now drive IP network design 7. Broadband wireless will be common – locality is now important for presence and advertising – not routing 8. Cloud network capacity and cloud computing will replace static resource provisioning – the concept of none will mean plug and play networks in the future 9. Privacy becomes consumers’ biggest concern as technology gets closer to realizing services as seen in the movie Minority Report 10. Next gen speech recognition and natural language understanding will redefine the human machine interface Extracted from “Perspectives (2011/12), TM Forum”
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Tests are continuing, the investments do not stop. This is what can be said of the fourth generation mobile services, also known as LTE. TMN came out highlights in the area, and soon after, Optimus has followed in his footsteps. The operator of Portugal Telecom reports on the implementation of a program of expansion and modernization of its network. Currently, 85% of TMN sites are connected via optical fiber, thus allowing a sustained evolution to fourth generation. The operator also highlights the performance of pilots involved in this technology field. It is also an objective of the PT group to improve its performance in environmental terms. Adoption more efficient technologies and sustainable reduction of energy consumption, as well as the reduction of spaces for installation of equipment support will be possible through the improvement of networks. Who does not want to get behind the TMN is the Optimus. The operator has just announced that tests concerning LTE with download speeds of 60 Mb on the mobile Internet and download of 150 Mb per user has successfully completed. Such as TMN, also the operator of Sonae speaks about a plan to improve its mobile telecommunications network, having already chosen in 2010, the access network solution SingleRAN Huawei to modernize the GSM network. " We can be sure about saying that we are ready to provide the most advanced services technology that is allowed, having already performed tests " live " this technology with our main suppliers," to show the fonts Optimus LV. The operator says, moreover, that the new technology will be a reality next year. " As soon as conditions are met technical and regulatory framework for the " deployment " massiveness of LTE technology, which we hope they happen next year, Optimus includes in its offer a wide range of compatible devices with the fourth generation " . Optimus offers a technology which allows to download a music album of 650 Mb in 12 seconds or a movie in 60 minutes (300 Mb in less than a minute). Besides, 5 Mb files can be sent through mail in less than two seconds.
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Portugal Telecom received the Innovation Award in the \"FTTH Deployment and Operation of Networks\" yesterday in Milan. This prize is related with the best fiber optic network in Europe. The award was presented in the Lombard capital at a ceremony attended by the Head of the FTTH Council Europe - an association that brings together companies in the ICT industry working in the European market for optical fiber - Chris Holden and chief executive of PT, Zeinal. \"This prize, awarded under the Innovation Awards organized by the FTTH Council Europe, to which Portugal Telecom has applied to the project\" Ultra Broadband Business and Network Transformation in Portugal Telecom, \"it recognizes the commitment of PT on modernizing infrastructure telecommunications in our country through the implementation of an optical fiber network to the home, who has strengthened with 600 000 additional homes this year, \"added the company led by Zeinal Bava. The PT currently has over one million dwellings covered with fiber optics, following the investment in the implementation of a FTTH network started in April 2009.
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The future is fiber optics and operators do not stop innovating. Digital television channels in HD and 3D, free calls to dozens of countries at certain times, Internet more than 100 megabytes and a huge variety of technologies. Triple play packages already are not limited to TV, Internet and telephone calls. If the option is common to all video club operators, Meo can also have music and games. For those who are familiar with iTunes, the music service Meo has several points in common with it. Access to games is free, but only during the first month of membership. The monthly price is 55.49 euros. The article also makes a summary of the proposals from operators Vodafone Casa TV, L and the Clix Fibra 30 Zon Iris.
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Portugal keeps a good score in optical fibre rankings. If we have in mind the dimension of the country, Portugal is well positioned in Europe in terms of subscribers. However, the 160 thousand in optical fiber only represent 10.3% of the total amount of houses with access to such networks. “Portugal has performed a quick deployment of its infrastructure network and now it’s time to go to the market”, says Hartwig Tauber, general director of the FTTH European Council, which is having its annual conference in Milan, Italy. Hartwig Tauber further praises Portugal, by saying that it’s one of the few countries where operators and government have agreed in the deployment of Next Generation Networks. FTTH data information point out to a total of 160 thousand subscribers in the fiber networks by the end of the last year. Moreover, based on estimations done by IDATE, by the end of December, Portugal Telecom had 120 thousand fiber clients, while Sonaecom reached 21 thousand, Zon achieved 9 thousand and Vodafone 8 thousand, figures not confirmed by operators.
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