Of course, FTTH news always catches my attention.
Total Telecom quotes FTTH Council Asia Pacific president Bernard Lee’s statement that the FTTH subscriber count in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to reach 100 million in late 2014.
In South Africa, TeleGeography reports that MTN SA has connected it first FTTH subscribers in Monaghan Farm, 30 km north of Johannesburg. Telkom SA also announced its FTTH plans in suburbs of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town. And Vumatel, in addition to its potential 2,100-home deployment in the Parkhurst suburb of Johannesburg, has announced plans to roll FTTH out to 200,000 homes across 100 locations in South Africa.
In the U.S., Lightwave reported about the progress of the municipal FTTH network in Loma Linda, California (all businesses and 1,600 houses are on-net, with 800 more home connections expected in the next 3 years) and the upgrade of Blue Valley Tele-Communications’ FTTH network serving 7,500 customers across 17 communities in Kansas.
Elsehwere in the U.S., Ethernut reports that a third neighborhood in Ridgeland, MS has passed C Spire’s 45% preregistration threshold required to qualify for deployment of 1 Gbps FTTH.
Richard Jones’ The Business of NGA/FTTX linked to a great telecompaper article noting that Telefonica’s 100,000 new Movistar customers in April and May bumped its total number of customers in Spain past the 800,000 mark.
And in Réunion, TeleGeography reports that Zeop has lit its FTTH network in Beausejour. Because how often do I get to mention Réunion Island?!
That’s just a sampling of recent FTTH announcements. So much going on in so many places! And yet, since I covered the industry in its early stages, I’m always drawn to industry updates.
Hope you’ve enjoyed the recent news excerpts assembled above.
And just for kicks, I’ll close this post with a “Throwback Thursday” link to a February 2002 CED article called “FTTx: An Unreal Reality Takes Shape,” which cited numbers from my 2001 KMI report on the FTTH industry (and in which I’m quoted).
Telecom and Tech.com 