UK still absent from global fibre rankings

The UK is lagging behind other countries such as Lithuania and Sweden in the deployment of super-fast fibre deployment according to the fibre-to-the-home council.

According to the most recent research from the FTTH Council, the deployment of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and the number of people signing up for the services is increasing in Europe but the UK still does not qualify to be included in the rankings, which only take into account countries that have FTTH to at least one percent of premises. The report covered the whole of 2011.

"Since the previous edition in June 2011, Europe has added more than 600,000 new FTTH subscribers. FTTH adoption is clearly growing [across the EU], in spite of the current economic climate," the report, released on Wednesday (PDF), said.

"FTTH roll-out has progressed at an annual rate of 41 percent in 2011, with more than 5.1 million FTTH subscribers and nearly 28 million homes passed at end-2011," it added.

Topping the list for European FTTH deployment is Lithuania, with just over 28 percent of premises on FTTH, followed by Norway with just under 15 percent and Sweden with nearly 14 percent. These three countries maintained their respective positions since the last report in June 2011, the FTTH Council said.

On a global scale, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Japan top the list, which has seen nine new entrants into the league since 2009. However, no new European countries have joined the rankings since that time.

"We are happy to see new economies joining the Global FTTH Ranking but we are concerned that there is no new entrant from Europe. On the positive side we see a steady growth in our region," Chris Holden, president of the FTTH Council Europe said in a separate statement on Thursday.

"Still there is a long way to go to reach the Digital Agenda targets of the European Union to ensure that more than 50 percent of the European households will use broadband connections of 100 Mbit/s or more in 2020," Holden added.