FTTH Council Europe warns against ‘fake fibre’
November 14, 2018
The European Parliament has gathered in Strasbourg on November 15th to approve the new European Electronic Communications Code, which will soon become the new legislative framework for telecommunications.
The FTTH Council Europe welcomes this vote on a new framework which provides the National Regulatory Authorities with the guidance and the tools to reflect Europe’s ambition to become a fully connected Gigabit Society.
“While the entire ecosystem is changing, with Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality applications leading the innovation path, Europe needs to step up its efforts and give a real push to infrastructure investments in Europe. We believe the Code creates a more investment-friendly environment as well as ensures the regulatory certainty needed to foster efficient and competitive investments in future-proof digital infrastructures, not only from traditional business models but also from new innovative infrastructure models, e.g. wholesale-only” stressed Ronan Kelly, President of the FTTH Council Europe. These digital highways will be the key foundation of a European Gigabit Society and the FTTH Council Europe commends the co-legislators for placing the promotion of investments and take-up in very-high capacity networks based on fibre or equivalent at the core of the objectives of the new framework.
“We believe that fibre is the only future-proof foundation enabling fixed and wireless gigabit networks as well as all new innovative digital technologies and services, however the words “fibre” and “fibre speeds” are increasingly used in advertisement while the advertised product is not genuinely a full fibre connection but still uses copper at some points of the network” highlighted Erzsébet Fitori, Director General of the FTTH Council Europe. This confusion is misleading for the consumers and prevents them from making an informed choice about the products available to them, and also risks hindering fibre take-up, which could in turn affect innovation and weaken the business case for investments”.
The FTTH Council Europe therefore calls on the policy-makers to take the necessary actions to prevent misleading fibre advertisement. It is not only in the interest of the citizens and the businesses but also in the interest of Europe’s global digital competitiveness and sustainability that fibre-related products are not subject to misleading advertisement.