2021.09.17 – Open Broadband News

Fiber for the future! FTTH to reach more than 300 million European homes by 2026

 The FTTH Council Europe has released two reports: the latest figures of the Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) Forecasts for 2021 and 2026 and an overview of fiber deployments in rural areas. The market forecasts cover 39 countries and provide individual analysis for 15 countries.

Numbers are consistent with previous estimates and plan for around 197 million homes passed for FTTH/B in 2026 in the European Union, and the United Kingdom compared to 118 million this year, with Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Italy to experience the most remarkable growth.

“This trend will be intensified by new usage patterns which are encouraging operators to migrate to FTTH solutions, capable of delivering new services while contributing to the sustainability challenge,” said FTTH Council Europe Director General Vincent Garnier.

Play it! 5G edge networks to propel cloud video to new heights – according to insight

 5G edge networks will drive cloud video revenues from $5 billion in 2019 to $67.5 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 67%, according to insights from ABI Research.

At the same time, 5G and edge networks will drive 119 million cloud gaming users by 2025. “5G edge networks bring new capabilities allowing Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to develop innovative applications, services, and revenue streams in the media and entertainment domain,” the market research firm said in a statement.

Edge computing will play a critical role in enabling these use cases by decentralizing network traffic while centralizing processing capabilities. 5G and edge networks in the context of gaming, will unlock a fully immersive environment with multiplayer collaboration for accessing and playing the same game simultaneously, it added.

Egypt in major digital transformation as more than 60 million receive broadband upgrade

 Dr. Amr Talaat, Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology has announced plans to provide more than 60 million people in rural areas with high-speed Internet under an ambitious drive to unlock new pathways for economic growth.

He said the country will spend US $360 million on FTTH for a million households as part of that programme.

Egypt has already invested more than $2 billion to increase the average Internet speed in major cities from 6.5 to 42.5 megabytes per second – a sevenfold increase in two years. The country will continue to upgrade its metropolitan Internet infrastructure to level up its economy.

prpl Foundation releases prplMesh R2 open-source software for enhanced Wi-Fi Coverage

 prpl Foundation, a community-driven consortium, dedicated to the harmonization of open-source network architecture, has announced the release of its prplMesh 2.0 software stack, eligible for Wi-Fi Alliance (WFA) EasyMesh Release 2 certification, for both Agent and Controller roles.

Collaboration within the prpl community and with Broadband Forum has led to this important milestone. The prplMesh stack is designed as platform-independent, leveraging open standards and open APIs, and is currently ported onto both prplWare and RDK-B router operating systems.

Len Dauphinee, President of the prpl Foundation commented: “Service Providers increasingly rely on open-source software solutions to best manage the complexity of supporting, updating, and remotely managing their disparate inventory of various CPE devices deployed in the field. This second release of prplMesh further enhances the Wi-Fi experience for both service providers and their subscribers with new features that improve the capacity, functionality and manageability of smart mesh networks deployed in homes.”

US slips from top list of countries for fast broadband in 2021, data shows

 Broadband keeps getting faster, but not in the United States. That’s according to new speed test data from Ookla, showing the US dropping from the top ten countries in terms of fixed-broadband speeds. It’s been a steady slide: Ookla’s data shows the US slipping from eighth place in 2019 to ninth in 2020 – before disappearing from the chart this year.

The countries topping the list for the fastest fixed broadband are Monaco, making an impressive leap to first place in 2021 from tenth place in 2020, followed by Singapore and Hong Kong. Globally speaking, overall mobile download speed jumped 59.5% in the last year, and fixed broadband increased by 31.9%. The only country to appear in the top ten for both fixed and mobile speeds was South Korea.

EU telecoms welcome 2030 Policy Programme with strong focus on 5G and innovation 

ETNO, the Association representing Europe’s leading telecom operators, has welcomed the proposal for a “2030 Policy Programme – Path to the Digital Decade” unveiled by the European Commission. As EU institutions move to advancing the proposal, EU telecom operators call for a strong prioritization of 5G investment and the development of European infrastructures and services.

In ETNO’s view, the new 2030 Policy Programme has the merit of bringing together three key innovative approaches. Firstly, it foresees much welcomed coordination and accountability processes to help harmonize national digitalization plans. This includes also requesting more certainty on the future availability of spectrum for 5G and 6G.

Lise Fuhr, ETNO Director General, said: “Commissioner Breton and EVP Vestager put forward a strong digital strategy for the next decade, which prioritizes EU investment in digitalization and innovation. We now need to ensure that regulatory action at the EU and national level is coherent with such objectives. This is crucial to accelerate the necessary digital and green transitions.”