BRUSSELS, September 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Europe enjoyed a 24% rise in the number of Fibre-to-the-Home subscribers in the first half of 2011, according to the latest figures from the FTTH Council Europe, announced today at the Broadband World Forum in Paris.

The region, excluding Russia, numbered 5 million FTTH/B subscribers by the end of June 2011, out of a total of 28 million homes passed. Russia added 964,000 new FTTH/B subscribers during the first half of 2011, giving the country a total of 5.15 million subscribers. Including Russia, Europe therefore now has 10.2 million FTTH/ B subscribers for 39.8 million homes passed, representing a 22% rise from year-end 2010.

Baltic countries and Europe's new member states have played an important role in driving FTTH/B growth: Hungary and the Ukraine are the latest countries to enter the Council's European FTTH Ranking at 11^th and 16^th places respectively.

The Hungarian market, with 235,055 FTTH/B subscribers and a 6% subscriber penetration rate, is very fragmented: lots of FTTH/B players are only active in local areas.  Magyar Telekom is the largest player, with 290,000 FTTH homes passed by mid-2011 and an ambitious plan to provide up to 100 Mbps to 30% of the country's households by 2013.

The Ukraine has 450,000 FTTH/B subscribers and a 2.2% subscriber penetration rate. Vimpelcom is the main private FTTB player in the country.

Lithuania still leads the European FTTH Ranking with 26.6% of households subscribing to FTTH/B, followed by Norway, Sweden, Slovenia, Russia, Slovakia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Estonia and Denmark, in that order.  Each of the top ten FTTH nations has a penetration rate of at least 6%.

In contrary, many of Western Europe's largest economies continue to fall behind; neither the UK, nor Germany nor Spain features in the Ranking.

The complete Ranking for 2011 will be presented at the FTTH Conference, to be held in Munich from 14 to 16 February 2012. For further information please go to http://www.ftthconference.eu.

Note: The European FTTH Panorama is commissioned from IDATE by FTTH Council Europe. The FTTH Ranking covers all countries with at least 200,000 households, where FTTH/B penetration has reached at least 1% of the total number of homes. This includes FTTH, where the fibre connection reaches the household, and FTTB, where fibre terminates inside the boundary of a multi-tenant building. 

http://www.ftthcouncil.eu  

SOURCE FTTH Council Europe