World’s Fibre Pioneers Must also Lead on 5G

The world’s leading players in the fixed line, full fibre broadband networks must also be prepared to lead on fifth generation mobile networks, according to the FTTH Council of Europe. The FTTH Council has launched its 5G-Fibre convergence project, which aims to raise awareness of the issue and forge closer collaboration between fibre infrastructure owners and mobile network operators.

“This year the FTTH Council Europe holds the Presidency of the FCGA (FTTH Councils’ Global Alliance). “Together with our colleagues from the different regions of the world (APAC, Africa, LATAM, MENA, USA), who are gathered in Brussels today, we are launching this 5G-Fibre convergence project, which aims at quantifying how much dependency on fixed fibre infrastructure the next generation of wireless networks will have. The involvement of our Sister Councils brings a huge added value to our work as we will benefit from their experiences and best practices from all over the world.” Said.  Ronan Kelly, President of the FTTH Council Europe.

Fast 5G deployment will be contingent upon rapid fibre network densification, as Erzsébet Fitori, director general of the FTTH Council Europe, explains:

“It is important to understand that the prerequisite of swift 5G deployment is significant fibre densification. Therefore, the leaders in fibre today will be best placed to lead also in 5G deployments in the near and mid-term future. Countries such as Spain, Sweden and Portugal are amongst the top performers in fibre whereas other leading EU economies urgently need comprehensive fibre strategies and to step up investments in order to catch-up in the global fibre-5G race. Today only 33 per cent of European homes can have a fibre connection. We cannot leave 67 per cent of European homes behind, it is our collective responsibility now to make good use of the objectives and tools of the new Electronic Communications Code in order to inject more capital for competitive fibre investment into the European market.”  – Total Telecom