FTTH Council welcomes cost reduction measures
March 27, 2013
The FTTH Council Europe has welcomed the proposed cost reduction regulation to reduce the roll out of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) in Europe. The FTTH Council Europe has pledged to review the proposed text and to work with legislators to provide information, support and advice as deliberations of the Regulation begin.
The FTTH Council Europe believes that European authorities should take a more active role in supporting the deployment of fibre-based networks and cost reduction measures can help if done correctly.
Europe needs FTTH if it is to achieve not only the targets set out in the EU2020 Strategy document and the European Digital Agenda but also to plan for service delivery beyond that time horizon. Fibre is the only future-proof infrastructure capable of supplying guaranteed bandwidths of 100 Megabit per second and higher for both downloads and uploads.
“We need to see some joined-up thinking if we are to achieve best in class networks in Europe,” said Hartwig Tauber, Director General of the FTTH Council Europe. “We need Member States to actively plan for FTTH in more detail and to enable those plans. This proposed regulation has the potential to be a big step in the right direction”.
“The European approach relies on private investment where commercially possible and state investment where it is not,” said Karin Ahl, President of the FTTH Council Europe. “However, even without committing significant funds, States can take sensible steps to reduce costs and extend the reach of future proof fibre networks to many more of their citizens. FTTH networks can greatly enhance public service delivery as well as quality of life”.
The FTTH Council Europe pointed out that several countries, including France, the Netherlands and Portugal, have already taken big strides in terms of setting out a vision of how FTTH networks might develop and putting appropriate policy and regulatory measures in place including measures to reduce deployment costs.