European firms still reliant on copper for broadband

Although access to broadband has improved across the European Union, a new report commissioned by the European Commission has found that broadband firms and operators are still heavily focused on the use of old copper lines.

Rather than investing in the installation of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) lines, the report found that more than three-quarters of homes in the EU are gaining 30Mbps broadband speeds via dated copper networks.

Covering 28 EU member states, the research also found that 75.9 per cent of households had access to high-speed broadband by the end of the first half of 2016. However, 12.8 million new households were delivered their internet over next generation access (NGA) networks which used copper lines to deliver very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL) technology over the last mile into the homes.

In their report, the European Commission summarised that this could indicate that many operators are still failing to invest in the more expensive fibre networks in order to avoid replacing their older delivery lines.

Commenting on report's conclusions, Alzbeta Fellenbaum, principal analyst at IHS Markit, who was responsible for managing the research project on behalf of the European commissions said

"Since 2013, VDSL has been the fastest growing fixed broadband technology tracked by the study, and some countries have seen dramatic year-on-year growth in VDSL," he said.

For example, the report found that VDSL coverage in Italy increased by 33.6 per cent in the 12 months leading to the middle of 2016, while Germany, Hungary and Slovakia also saw a similar level of growth.

"This reflects the preference of operators in these countries to prioritise their deployment strategies on upgrading existing VDSL networks, rather than investing in the typically more expensive FTTP technology," he added.

(Image: Kings Sutton)