BBWN Bites: 183M European premises are fiber fed, says FTTH Council

Also in this roundup: Rural UK homes paying more for less; Cox coughs up 25 additional Mbit/s; SpaceX, Google partnership; FCC declares 'help has arrived.'

• FTTH Council Europe issued a report this week assessing the progress of fiber rollouts across the continent. The report presents data compiled by IDATE, for fiber deployment and take-up as of September 2020 for EU39, which includes Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the UK. The report found that nearly 183 million premises have been passed with fiber, up from 163 million in September 2019. European countries also claim 82 million fiber subscribers, up from 70 million in 2019. The most progress on the total number of homes passed was seen in France, which added 4.6 million; followed by Italy (+2.8 million), Germany (+2.7 million) and the UK (+1.7 million). France also came in first for adding the most FTTH/B subscribers (+2.8 million), followed by Russia (+1.7 million) and Spain (+1.4 million).

  The data showed an overall uptick in "alternative" providers, with 39% of homes served by incumbent ISPs in 2020 as compared to 41% in 2019. "Municipalities/utilities and alternative ISPs cover many remote and isolated areas" enhanced with public funds and incentives, says the report. While growth has accelerated, FTTH Council Europe predicts that there are some upcoming hurdles in fiber's path, including a direct challenge from 5G in high-spectrum bands, labor shortages and existing red tape.

• The team at Broadband Savvy – a consumer group that helps British households improve their digital connectivity – conducted a survey revealing that rural UK households are paying 76% more for slower broadband speeds than their urban counterparts. The group worked with OnePoll in April 2021 to look into broadband speeds across the UK, surveying 2,000 people. In addition to rural households paying 76% more for Internet, the group said that suburban households pay 22% more. Furthermore, urban households receive speeds 3% slower than what's advertised, while suburbanites receive speeds 19% slower and rural households receive 28% slower speeds on average.

• Google and SpaceX announced a partnership to make official their world domination host Starlink LEO satellite operations within Google data center properties. The companies say that this will enable critical enterprise applications to be delivered virtually anywhere. "Applications and services running in the cloud can be transformative for organizations, whether they're operating in a highly networked or remote environment," said Urs Hölzle, senior vice president of infrastructure at Google Cloud, in a press release. "We are delighted to partner with SpaceX to ensure that organizations with distributed footprints have seamless, secure, and fast access to the critical applications and services they need to keep their teams up and running." The new capability will be available to enterprise customers later in 2021.

• Cox Communications this week said that it will make permanent a speed boost that it gave to customers using its low-cost Connect2Compete package during the pandemic. The company had increased download speeds from 25 Mbit/s to 50 Mbit/s in March 2020 and says it will keep them that way. "We initially provided an internet speed boost to our Connect2Compete customers to ensure families could continue learning and working from home without interruption," said Pat Esser, president and CEO of Cox in a press release. "Although many restrictions are being lifted and people are heading back to schools and workplaces, we want to make sure regardless of circumstance, our customers can have the internet bandwidth they need to be successful." Connect2Compete is open to families with school-aged children who are enrolled in government financial assistance programs. Cox Communications is also one of the 800-plus providers participating in the FCC's Emergency Broadband Benefit program, launched this week.

• In addition to launching the Emergency Broadband Benefit program, allowing eligible households to sign up to receive a $50 discount on monthly broadband service, the FCC also adopted rules to implement the Emergency Connectivity Fund: a $7.17 billion program to help connect schools and libraries. The program, funded by the American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021, will enable schools and libraries to purchase equipment and connectivity. In a blog post entitled "Help Has Arrived," FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel called the Emergency Connectivity Fund "the largest single effort in our nation's history to make sure students have access to the broadband and devices they need for school," and the Emergency Broadband Benefit "by far the largest-ever broadband affordability program we've ever had." Adds Rosenworcel: "Adopting rules for an unprecedented program and going live with another is not a bad week's work for the FCC. It's an even better week for the millions of Americans who will benefit from these programs."

— Nicole Ferraro, contributing editor and host of "The Divide" and "What's the Story?" Light Reading