August 9, 2006 Boston, MA --
The U.S. now ranks second behind Japan in terms of countries with the most FTTH subscribers. Ovum-RHK defines FTTH as a fiber connection leaving an end office or exchange and connecting directly to a home or premises without a DSL or LAN connection in between.
"Solid demand for advanced broadband services like the triple play continues to drive the need for more bandwidth and an infrastructure that can adequately accommodate those services," said Ken Twist, vice president, Technology Consulting and Broadband Network Strategies groups, at Ovum-RHK. "In the near term, Verizon will continue to drive the FTTH market."
2Q06 highlights:
- FTTH subscriber growth over 1Q06 equaled 34 percent
- Verizon accounts for approximately 81 percent of all FTTH subscribers
- AT&T, Qwest, CLECs, independent operating companies (IOCs), and municipalities accounted for the remaining 19 percent of FTTH subscribers
- FTTH growth over 4Q05 equaled 66 percent
- AT&T, Qwest, and Verizon are currently deploying BPON.
- CLECs, IOCs, and municipalities currently deploy a mixture of BPON, EPON, and active Ethernet technologies.
2Q06 FTTH subscriber growth continued to pick up steam in the U.S., adding approximately 118,000 subscribers largely driven by Verizon's 110,000 FiOS subscriber additions. The U.S. now ranks a distant second with approximately 463,000 FTTH subscribers behind Japan which, at the end of 1Q06, had over 5.4 million FTTH subscribers.
There are currently over 900 cities/communities with FTTH deployments in the United States. Verizon is deploying FiOS in 730 communities; AT&T, Qwest, the CLECs, IOCs, and municipalities account for the rest. Among the RBOCs, Qwest has the least amount of FTTH activity, deploying selectively in Pinnacle Peak, AZ; Columbine and Aberdeen, CO; and Riverton UT.