FTTx deployments in Europe


The following article presents an overview of the FTTx developments in Europe, focussing on existing offers or announced projects for residential customers. It can be considered there are basically three main types of connections based on fibre optic, FTTx referring to any of these:

• FTTH – Fibre To The Home: fibre optic is laid up to the end-users’ flats or offices, i.e. there are no traditional copper lines anymore. The term FTTO (Fibre To The Offices) is also sometimes used. It is not unusual that some providers use the term FTTH, when in fact they are using FTTB or indeed FTTC.

• FTTB – Fibre To The Basement/Building: fibre optic is laid up to basement of the end-users’ houses or offices. Then, within the building and in particular between flats, copper lines are still used in combination with VDSL and/or Ethernet technologies. Sometimes the acronym FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) is also used instead of FTTB.

• FTTC – Fibre To The Curb: fibre optic is laid between the operators’ local exchanges and the distribution cabinets that are usually found on the curbs (pavements) in the streets. The last meters between the cabinet and the end-users’ houses or offices are usually realised with VDSL on copper lines. FTTN (Fibre To The Node) is also a term fairly frequently used with the same meaning. More...

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