2021.02.19 – Open Broadband News
Join our Telco Connected Home webinar next week!
When – 10am EST (4PM CET) Monday, February 22nd
Following the success of the recently published January 2021 ‘Future Telco-Connected Home Survey’ we would like to invite you to our follow up webinars that will go into more depth and drive the conclusions based on service provider real life use cases and deployment trends. Tackling key Connected Home trends and subjects such as:
- What the opportunities for Wi-Fi managed home or business will look like in 2021, and what technology advancements are supporting this?
- How will service providers enable and meet the demands of ever-increasing growth in device management inside the home, and what the demands of smart home, other IoT and application service providers mean to the Telco operator plans.
- What is the opportunity for homeworking as well as residential services and delivering a quality of service to meet specific application service demands?
Speakers for this webinar are Michael Shaw, Chief Executive Officer at Axiros and Tuncay Cil, Chief Strategy Officer at ASSIA.
Copper path can lead to fiber dividends says Broadband Forum
For telecom operators and service providers seeking to roll-out future-proofed fiber-grade services, Broadband Forum has published its latest technical report to help ensure that homes and businesses have access to faster, more reliable broadband connectivity by harnessing the copper infrastructure.
The TR-419 (Fiber Access Extension over Existing Copper Infrastructure) report shows how fiber-based access can be provided to customers by utilizing existing copper infrastructure as opposed to the installation of fiber to end-users’ premises, which may not be economically or physically viable. FTTep (Fiber to the extension point) lets service providers deploy fiber-grade services by leveraging the last meters of copper to extend the fiber network without lowering quality when compared to complete FTTH (Fiber to the home) networks.
“Fiber network technology promises multi-gigabit broadband services, and investment is only set to grow as the industry looks to enhance businesses’ and end-users’ connected experience,” said Broadband Forum’s Director of the Physical Layer Transmission Work Area Herman Verbueken. “With higher costs associated with installing fiber directly to the premises, by adopting the FTTep architecture operators and providers will be able to deliver ubiquitous connectivity to all corners of customers’ homes and commercial premises.”
TR-419 can be viewed here.
Nearly a quarter of US fixed broadband households planning upgrade
Findings from research firm Parks Associates reveal that in Q3 2020, more than 50 per cent of US broadband households reported that their broadband usage has increased since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
While consumers report broadband performance is keeping pace with the increased demand, in Q3 2020, 24 per cent of fixed broadband households reported plans to upgrade their speed in the next six months, compared to 18 per cent in Q2 2020.
“Broadband upgrade plans indicate many households see some COVID-19-related changes as permanent,” advised Steve Nason, Research Director, Parks Associates. “For video services, OTT service stacking has been particularly pronounced, with 45 per cent of US broadband households subscribing to three or more OTT services. Many consumers are planning to add new services such as Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max, and Peacock as a permanent part of their OTT service portfolio, beyond the traditional Big Three: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu.”
Denmark revealed as most connected nation worldwide
A new ‘Internet Accessibility Index’ ranks Denmark as the most connected nation, and Burundi the least. The index, from BroadbandChoices, looks at a range of factors to determine a nation’s connectivity ranking including download/upload speeds, internet access percentage, affordability, mobile coverage, free Wi-Fi hotspots, and more.
The United States’ and United Kingdom fell down the rankings at 13th and 28th place, respectively. The US’ average speed is 34.13 Mbit/s while the UK’s is just 20.06 Mbit/s. Prior to the pandemic, one of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s key pledges was to provide the whole UK with full-fibre broadband by 2025. The current average speeds show both the slow progress of the rollout while also highlighting the need for faster infrastructure. 30 countries, predominantly in Sub-Saharan Africa, suffer from download speeds of under 1 Mbit/s.
Rob Baillie from BroadbandChoices commented: “Our research shows a significant divide in not just the quality of internet access around the world but also its inclusivity, with a significant number of people being priced out of the market – potentially having huge ramifications on education and employment prospects. While there have been significant advances in communications technology in recent years, more needs to be done to connect rural and economically challenged communities, however, doing so will likely require higher levels of investment and more innovation than we’re currently seeing.”
1-Gig and 1 terabyte user numbers at all time high
It’s no secret that overall broadband data consumption has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, but a new study from OpenVault shows that “power users” – those who consume at least 1 terabyte (TB) of data per month – have almost doubled.
According to OpenVault’s Broadband Insights Report (OVBI) for Q4 2020, 14.1% of weighted average subscribers consume over 1 TB per month, up 94% from 7.3% in Q4 2019. Meanwhile, “extreme power users” – defined as broadband customers who chew up at least 2 TB per month, now represent 2.2% of all subs, a 184% increase from OpenVault’s Q4 2019 study.
Meanwhile, average upstream bandwidth usage in December 2020 reached 31 GB, a 63% increase over the year-ago period. This upward trend has caused cable operators to prioritize capacity needs for the upstream on their widely deployed hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) networks, spurring them to pursue “mid-split” or “high-split” upgrades that boost the amount of spectrum dedicated to the upstream.
Calls for UK Government to set out ‘workable plan’ regarding broadband
The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has just published its Annual Monitoring Report 2021, which among other things calls on the UK Government to set out a “workable plan” for ensuring that the hardest to reach homes and businesses can “get the benefits of high capacity broadband” (i.e. Gigabit speed connectivity).
At this point the Government may well point to the recently published draft procurement strategy for their new £5bn UK Gigabit Broadband Programme, which among other things set out their plan (including an initial release of £1.2bn in funding) for ensuring that Gigabit-capable (1000Mbps+) networks could reach a “minimum” of 85% UK coverage (currently 37%+) by the end of 2025 and then getting “as close to 100% as possible.”
Sir John Armitt, Chair of the NIC, said: “We anticipate that publication of the National Infrastructure Strategy will catalyze decision making and investment across all sectors, helping to address the challenges of levelling up the UK’s economic geography and achieving net zero. Infrastructure can also help create the conditions for a market led recovery from the major economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
For Press and Analyst inquiries, contact Proactive PR at broadbandforum@proactive-pr.com
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