2021.05.21 – Open Broadband News

Altnet rollouts drive Europe’s FTTH/B boom

Europe is starting to look like a region with decent digital foundations: The latest report by research house IDATE for the FTTH Council Europe shows that 52.5% of homes in the region (comprising of 39 countries) were able to subscribe to a fiber broadband connection at the end of September 2020, either directly via a Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) line or as part of a fiber-connected multi-dwelling building (FTTB).

Alternative operators are responsible for the majority of the build-out, accounting for 57% of premises passed thanks to the growing numbers of fiber broadband network build specialists in countries such as Germany and the UK (for example, Cityfibre and Community Fiber), where rollout and uptake rates are still trailing much of the rest of the region (though catching up): IDATE has identified about 400 FTTH/B initiatives across the 39 nations in its study. Incumbent network operators account for 39% of homes passed (down from 41% a year earlier), while municipalities and utilities account for the remaining 4%.

An interesting note was added at the end of the report about Fixed Wireless Access (FWA): While there are many positive trends in Europe’s fiber broadband sector, including favorable regulatory regimes to help advance national digital plans and technology advances, IDATE Principal Analyst Roland Montagne notes that “Gigabit Capable FWA (60Ghz) is becoming more common in isolated areas, thus will delay FTTH deployments in some regions,” and that in addition to the competitive alternative of DOCSIS 3.1/4.0 as deployed by the cable operators and advances in Gfast technology to prolong the useful life of copper, “5G technology used in high spectrum bands (26 GHz) can directly challenge FTTH in the fixed residential market.”

Testing, testing! Technical challenges in building repeatable Wi-Fi Tests 

EE Times spoke with Lincoln Lavoie, Principal Engineer at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) in regard to Wi-Fi testing presenting engineers with any number of challenges. With the Broadband Forum’s TR-398 Issue 2 testing, the primary focus of the work is around testing the access point (AP) devices under test (DUT) since they would be deployed in the field. This approach is taken to allow results and measurements to better correlate with how the DUT will perform in the field. In this testing scenario, creating a stable, well-defined, and controlled RF test environment is critical.  In the test setup used at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL), the RF environment of the DUT is controlled inside a semi-anechoic faraday chamber.

The typical role of the faraday chamber is to prevent transmission of RF signals from inside to out of the chamber and vice versa. Secondly, the construction of the chamber with a radio absorbent material (RAM) lining helps to greatly reduce the reflection of the RF signals transmitted by the DUT. Added into the chamber is a number of near-field antennas, establishing the RF link with the DUT and the test setup. The semi-anechoic nature of the chamber ensures the signals captured by the antennas are the direct path (non-reflected) signal from the DUT. The same is also true in the reverse, with signals transmitted from the near field antenna also not being reflected inside the chamber.

This test setup provides the lab with a repeatable, controllable Wi-Fi test environment that can leverage automation systems to control and capture data from the T&M equipment to evaluate the performance of an AP device under test and determine pass/fail marks against the absolute performance requirements defined in TR-398 Issue 2. Equipment vendors and service providers are using this test plan to validate hardware and software before rolling it out into the network deployments, improving the end customers’ experiences with Wi-Fi and broadband overall.

Download speeds soaring! Ofcom Sees Average UK Fixed Broadband ISP Speeds Hit 80Mbps

Ofcom has published somewhat of a preview for their annual study into fixed line UK broadband ISP speeds, which reveals that the average (mean) download speed of home connections has risen by 25.3% since last year to 80.2Mbps. Upload speeds have also jumped by 54% to 21.6Mbps.

Only 8% of consumers were found to have average speeds of less than 10Mbps and 78% are on “superfast” or better packages with download rates above 30Mbps (just 5% of connections deliver an average of 300Mbps or more). Naturally, old copper ADSL broadband lines had the lowest average speed of 10.3Mbps.

Ofcom also reported that there has been a 54% increase in the mean average upload speed of UK residential broadband services since the last report, which is largely down to the take-up and growing coverage of faster technologies (FTTP etc.).

Finally, while average speeds in rural areas remain lower than in towns and cities, more than half (60%) of rural households could still get speeds of over 30Mbps during peak hours of the day, compared to almost three quarters (74%) of urban households.

5G Broadband Speeds Could Be Difference Between Wired and Wireline For The Home

Broadband speeds may be the difference between whether households use wireline fiber internet or mobile 5G wireless services, according to an analyst.

Tony Lenoir, a Senior Research Analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence says Internet service providers not only must meet the increased demand for broadband access nationwide, but also meet an increased demand for faster internet speeds – lest people must choose between fiber and 5G. Another Senior Research Analyst at S&P, Mohammed Hamza, noted that in Western Europe, while broadband expansion was still growing across every market, this growth is expected to slow as they become increasingly saturated. According to Hamza’s data, he expects that Fiber will begin to overtake DSL in 2026.

According to Hamza, five to seven percent of would-be consumers are in rural areas that make fixed broadband deployment challenging, “This is where government aid plays a critical role. Hybrid technologies have also come into play to plug that gap using 4G over DSL.” Much like in the U.S., to provide service to the hardest to reach communities, it often takes a combination of broadband strategies to make service possible.

Fantástico! Millicom deploys its first Open RAN network in Colombia

The adoption of Open RAN technology is beginning to take concrete form in Latin America. Millicom has announced the launch of an Open RAN network in rural areas of Colombia, through its subsidiary Tigo. The company will rely on its 4G infrastructure to deploy Open RAN and thus reach 362 rural sites.

“For Millicom, offering Open RAN technology based on O-RAN standards represents an important milestone. Not only does it mean connecting more people in rural areas, starting with Colombia, but it also provides an innovative approach to reduce costs, increase flexibility and drive efficiency by diversifying our supplier portfolio,” said Xavier Rocoplán, Executive Vice President, director of technology and information at Millicom, who also expressed the intention of reaching other Latin American countries with this technology.

G’day mate! NBN reveals plan for 900,000 FTTP connections

Nearly one million homes and businesses across Australia can soon have access to much faster internet speeds, NBN Co has confirmed. The announcement, part of a wider $3.5 billion investment, heralds the conversion of 900,000 Fiber to the Node (FTTN) connections to speedier Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) technology.

NBN Co claims the FTTP can deliver download speeds of up to 1 Gbps. In a statement, the company said it was also planning to start similar full fiber upgrades to some customers served by Fiber to the Curb (FTTC). The further rolling out of FTTP to 900,000 homes will help lift generally poor internet speeds experienced across Australia.

For the first time, some suburbs and towns in Tasmania, the ACT and Northern Territory – long left out in the internet wilderness – will finally be able to access improved FTTP connections. NBN Co Chief Executive Stephen Rue said he was “very pleased to announce the latest list of suburbs and towns across Australia – from Byron Bay on the eastern tip of New South Wales to Yokine in Western Australia.”