Europe still IPTV leader, FTTx sees strong growth, says study

Global IPTV homes numbered 55 million at the end of the third quarter of 2011, with Europe accounting for 23.5 million of those, according to the latest figures compiled by Point Topic for the Broadband Forum.

DSL broadband homes in Europe numbered 125.8 million at the end of September, up 9.2 million year-on-year. Cable broadband homes numbered 25.8 million, up by two million. FTTH homes numbered 3.2 million, up 0.7 million, while FTTx homes (including VDSL and FTTB) numbered 9.8 million, up by four million.

Oliver Johnson, CEO at Point Topic, said: “The future of Europe, at least for the next five years, is going to be dominated by FTTx.  The cost of full fibre (FTTH) deployment, particularly the last mile, is prohibitive and so the industry and consumers need a stepping stone which is provided by hybrid solutions such as FTTx.  FTTx provides a significant increase in bandwidth and an efficient use of existing infrastructure and allows the welcome continued amortisation of costs.”