Credit: FTTH Council Europe

On Thursday 23 April 2020, the Fibre to the Home (FTTH) Council Europe revealed the 2020 Market Panorama and the latest figures outlining fibre deployment trends in Europe prepared by IDATE; according to the publication, Luxembourg has a penetration rate of 21.4%.

The total number of homes passed with Fibre to the Home (FTTH) and Fibre to the Building (FTTB) in 39 European countries reached nearly 172 million homes compared to 160 million in 2018 with nineteen countries now counting more than two million homes passed. The main movers in terms of homes passed in absolute numbers were France (+3.5 million), Italy (+1.9 million) and Spain (+1.5 million). The top five of the annual growth rates in terms of homes passed was headed by Belgium (+307%), Ireland (+70.4%), Switzerland (+69.1%), the United Kingdom (+50.8%) and Germany (33.5%).

The coverage of both FTTH and FTTB networks in September 2019 was almost 50%. By September 2019, the 39 European countries reached a 49.9% coverage of FTTH/B networks while the 28 European Union (EU) member states reached 39.4%, compared to 46.4% and 36.4% respectively in 2018. This shows a clear upward trend from the September 2015 figures when the coverage was at 39.8% in EU39 and 27.2% in EU28. Moreover, the number of FTTH and FTTB subscribers in Europe increased by 15.0% since September 2018 with 70.4 million FTTH/B subscribers in September 2019.  

For its part, Luxembourg made the top 20 (19th) in the European FTTH penetration ranking with a penetration rate of 21.4%. Iceland became a leader in FTTH/B, championing the ranking with 65.9% followed by Belarus (62.8%). Sweden (56.8%) reclaimed the third position from Spain (54.3%) and assumed the last spot on the podium of fibre leaders.