OECD – OMG... Same old full-fiber trends

"Nothing to see here" is what you could be forgiven for thinking after poring over the latest full-fiber stats from the OECD, a "club of mostly rich countries" (as The Economist magazine likes to say).

The usual suspects remain at the top of the full-fiber broadband penetration league: South Korea and Japan (see chart). Scandinavian countries, along with Lithuania, Spain, Iceland, Latvia and New Zealand, are still playing catch-up but – somewhat encouragingly – slightly closing the gap.

The latest OECD report, based on figures from June 2019, gives these up-and-coming countries a pat on the back. A mixture of increased competition, it says, combined with "good regulation and policy" – as well as new infrastructure investment – have apparently enabled them to keep them within touching distance of Asia's full-fiber top dogs.

Percentage of fiber connections in total fixed broadband, June 2019.

A look at the lower end of the OECD chart also reveals some familiar faces. Germany and the UK, despite their respective governments making loud noises about the importance of full-fiber investment, remain among the laggards.

The UK had a meager 2.3% full-fiber penetration as of end-June 2019, which represents a slow crawl upwards from the microscopic 1% rate two years previously. Germany fared only slightly better, posting a feeble penetration rate of 3.6% (up from 2.1% two years ago).

Across the 37 countries studied in the OECD report, the share of fiber in total broadband rose only slightly, to 27% (as of June 30, 2019): It was 24% a year earlier. Lack of eye-catching full-fiber movement, said the OECD, helps explain the "still-wide gap" between countries at the higher and lower ends of the chart.

— Ken Wieland, contributing editor, special to Broadband World News