Q&A VINCENT GARNIER
EUROPEAN FTTH NETWORKS GROWING AND GREENER
With FTTH rollouts across Europe well under way, and the FTTH Council Europe’s annual conference and expo which is taking place on 23 -25 May in Vienna, the Council’s Director General Vincent Garnier discussed the state of FTTH in Europe and the Council’s latest initiatives with Optical Connections editor Peter Dykes .
Are you expecting a massive rise in homes passed or connected when the new Market Panorama
In which areas of the fibre industry is the public and private finance being invested, and what
market only where it makes sense, such as in areas where deploying networks is not commercially viable. Where to draw the line between which areas should be left to competition and which ones does it makes sense to use public money? Sometimes it is a balancing act. Fixed Wireless Access will no doubt be used as an alternative to FTTH in some rural areas, but how much traction do you think it will have in urban areas? PD
PD
PD
is published?
are the deciding factors?
I think the pace of the last years has been quite solid and we are expecting a continuation of that
In most of Europe we’re seeing a lot of investment being poured into fibre deployment, with most
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growth rate for the foreseeable future. 2022 is going to be a very strong year and we expect that to continue for the next three years and that’s what will appear in the forecast when we release it in May. One reason why the growth is continuous is that even though some countries might plateau to some extent, for example, France has already reached close to 85% its rollout plan and will become asymptotic at some point, Germany, Italy and the UK are behind that curve and are still enjoying a very strong growth and will do so in the years to come.
of it coming from the private sector. Fibre networks are perceived by investors interested in long term positions as a safe and predictable long-term investment and something which would give them a stable return. So, a lot of private pension and infrastructure funds are now looking at fibre after having maybe looked at towers or other kinds of utilities. We see, of course, public investments. Our position at the council is that we want to be careful to make sure that public investments are channelled towards a future proof network, but also be added to the commercially driven part of the
The way we look at it in the Council is that, first of all, FTTH is at many levels a superior
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solution compared to fixed wireless access, it is fully passive, so therefore, it’s much more robust. There is no risk of interference and no risk linked to active components which can malfunction. It also has a much lower
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| ISSUE 29 | Q2 2022
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