Ricardo Sanfelice, marketing and products executive director for GVT, Brazil

Ricardo Sanfelice, marketing and products executive director for GVT Brazil, is speaking on Day One of the Broadband LATAM 2013 conference, taking place on 2-3 July 2013 at the Grand Hyatt, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Ahead of the show we find out why fibre is such an important focus for the Brazilian telco.

FTTH is clearly the optimal solution performance wise, but is clearly cost prohibitive. Does is make sense to invest in FTTH?

Large companies, such as GVT, have to invest in fibre to achieve a greater geographical footprint. Spreading to new areas using FTTH makes sense as the CAPEX may not be that different from laying the last mile with copper. There are also benefits from a lower OPEX due to lower maintenance cost on the network. Helpfully, GVT’s network architecture has a shorter last mile due as its architecture is based on FTTN (Fibre to the Node), where the fibre reaches the street cabinet near the customer premises. Therefore, the investment needed to migrate from copper to fibre is more affordable for companies such as GVT in comparison to the incumbents. While for GVT the last mile is an average of 400 metres, the incumbents have areas where they would need to replace up to 5km of copper.

What can be done to lower the cost of fibre roll-outs to make them more affordable?

A fibre-based solution is future proof and guarantees a virtually unlimited speed increase for converged services. GVT offers 150Mbps speed in FTTH fibre dedicated to the customer’s home, but it is still an expensive service for the majority of the population. However, GVT’s network topology, consisting of FTTH with GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network), including the CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) with integrated optical port, is already the same price as copper solutions. In order to keep control of costs, the company has to choose a suitable 2.5Gbps GPON project with predefined levels of splitters, a careful analysis of potential customers in the area and cost-effective CPE.

How far can copper-based technology be taken performance wise?

Copper and fiber will coexist for many years because it is already possible to reach 100Mbps with copper. But the offer of converged services at very high speeds, such as 300Mbps and IPTV, increases the need for fibre and therefore GVT is prioritising fibre for new investments in network expansion. 

What opportunities do cloud services provide for operators?

Cloud gaming is one of the services with the most potential for retail customers, enabling high quality entertainment for the customer at a low price. Another opportunity in Latin America is the lack of locally operating cloud storage services available and telcos have the infrastructure to provide this for their customers. Additionally, customers tend to use the higher speeds available at home to create their personal clouds, making their content accessible everywhere. Telcos could enhance this through their equipment that is already present in homes. In the corporate market, GVT aims to strengthen its reputation as an IT-based cloud managed service provider that can deliver virtual servers, email services, web hosting and more.

What is the most exciting developments you expect to see in broadband over the next 12 months?

The last few years showed a huge growth in connected devices (i.e. smartphones, tablets). We are engaged in providing access to fast wifi hotspots to improve the internet experience outside the home. This is not just a service for the customer, but is also an opportunity for fixed and mobile operators, where the traffic from mobile can be offloaded to fixed line telcos, unburdening mobile network cells. In the connected home, the fixed broadband connection will become increasingly important as the centre of the converged experience.

The new €20bn fund should transform access to ultra-fast broadband

François Hollande, president of the French republic and co-prince of Andorra, has promised an investment plan worth €20bn for the development of ultra-high-speed broadband in France, financed through a mix of private enterprise and state funds.

The plan is expected to give half of the nation’s citizens access to fibre-based high-speed services by 2017, and access to all within ten years, with the sale of 4G mobile spectrum expected to swell state coffers for the project.

Of the €20bn total, one third is to be provided by private companies targeting profitable urban areas, one third is to be co-financed by private operators and local authorities in less densely populated areas, and the final third is expected to be majority funded by the state.

The plan has already been welcomed by the advocacy body the FTTH Council Europe, following a dire few weeks for European fibre rollouts which saw the EU’s three per cent budget cut lead to the obliteration of a €9bn fund for fibre rollout in rural areas of the EU.

“The European Union government […] missed an opportunity to make a strong statement towards the importance of broadband and of the Digital Agenda in Europe,” says the FTTH Council Europe. “By reducing the Connecting Europe Facility budget, the European governments also took the individual responsibility to ensure a positive investment framework for future-proof fibre broadband in their countries.

“With François Hollande’s announcement on Wednesday, France made a clear statement that it is willing to take this responsibility. The FTTH Council Europe welcomes this decision and hopes that other EU countries will follow the example of France very soon.”

France currently languishes somewhere near the bottom of European rankings in terms of fibre penetration: a recent report revealed that the country presently finds itself in 18th place with a penetration rate of under three per cent, above the Czech Republic but below Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary.

Australia's National Broadband Network will eventually cover 93% of the country's population with fibre

Australia’s shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has won headlines again for his outspoken views on the country’s National Broadband Network, this time claiming that he believes Australians could be offered on-demand access to fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connections as part of the nationwide rollout of fibre-to-the-node (FTTN).

Speaking at the Kickstarter conference on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Turnbull pointed out that he was “not making a pledge on it here”, but added that he sees no technical reason why it would not be possible, citing the example of UK telco BT, which is taking a similar approach with its own fibre rollout.

NBN Co, the company mandated by the Australian government to design, build and operate the country’s FTTN network, revealed last month that it had slightly exceeded its target to have construction commenced or completed in areas covering 758,000 premises by the end of 2012.

The NBN Co team is now aiming to achieve its end June 2013 target of 286,000 premises passed, offering wholesale download speeds of up to 100Mbps to 93 per cent of Australian premises by June 2021, at a total cost of A$38bn ($39bn).

Telefónica will invest €300mn in fibre by 2015

Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica plans to invest more in its fibre broadband networks in major cities like Madrid and Barcelona this year, and also increase its fibre footprint in smaller cities like Bilbao and Seville.

In Madrid, the telco plans to extend its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network to new areas of the city like Alcorcón, Las Rozas, Boadilla del Monte, Villaviciosa de Odón, Torrelodones, Galapagar, Algete, Coslada, Valdemoro and Torrejón de Ardoz.

In Catalonia, the extra injection of funds will see the city of Gerona connected to fibre, as well as some of the larger towns and cities around Barcelona, such as Badalona, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sabadell, Castelldefels y Rubí.

Smaller cities poised to receive new fibre networks this year include Bilbao, Córdoba, Cádiz, Málaga, Pamplona, San Sebastián, Seville, Zaragoza and Valladolid.

Telefónica currently has around 300,000 subscribers to its fibre broadband services, with 22,000 added last November – a monthly record for the company.

The telco is budgeting around €300mn for this extra push to expand its fibre networks between 2013 and 2015.

Via Cinco Dias

Smart grids pose a big opportunity

Smart grids based on passive optical networking (PON) technologies are set to provide a $1.5-2bn opportunity for fibre and FTTx component and infrastructure vendors targeting China, according to statistics released Wednesday.

Forecasts from industry researcher Ovum suggest that a large opportunity exists in China, where the deployment of a PON-based smart grid would benefit OLT (optical line termination) equipment vendors such as Huawei, ZTE, Alcatel-Lucent, and FiberHome, along with the ONT (optical network terminal) box manufacturers and component vendors supplying fibre splitters, transceivers, BOSAs, PON MAC chips, and optical interface chips as well as cabling manufacturers, such as Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable (YOFC), Corning, and Prysmian.

A major driver is expected to be the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) which is pursuing a smart grid project that could also be part of a plan to become a communications service provider.

Julie Kunstler, Principal Analyst of Components at Ovum, believes that the ultimate goal of a fibre-based smart grid is to support advanced communications services. “Building a fibre-based smart grid communications network creates a very large market opportunity for PON vendors.

“This potential market is important, as Ovum forecasts declining PON OLT port shipments beginning in 2013, following major FTTx network buildouts in China,” said Kunstler. And while it is still early to predict the likelihood of the SGCC opportunity, several PON communications equipment vendors have developed products that meet smart grid requirements along with triple-play communications services.

Consequently, Kunstler’s recommendation to equipment vendors is to stay close to SGCC to understand its smart grid plans in China. “The cost pressures are likely to be brutal and vendors should continue to look for ways to reduce BOM (bill of material).”

JT has chosen Genexis’s FiberXport product family, capable of delivering broadband speeds up to 1Gbps, and equipped with four Ethernet ports and integrated Voice-over-IP.

Last year the States of Jersey endorsed JT’s plan to build an ubiquitous FTTH infrastructure, with a targeted switch off of the copper network by 2015 – which would position JT as one of the first Tier 1 operators to achieve such a feat.

So far, JT Group has passed over half of the premises on the island and fibre connected more than five per cent of the households. Genexis is working alongside technology partners Cisco, NetAdmin and Dimension Data on the project.

The network is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s gigabit passive optical network (GPON) technology, including GPON-enabled 7342 ISAM FTTU optical line terminals (OLTs) and optical network terminals (ONTs).

BTES’ OLTs connect to a 10 gigabit backbone via Alcatel-Lucent’s 7450 ESS switches and are aggregated through a pair of 7750 BSR routers to 10 gigabits of internet capacity.

BTES’ ONTs are capable of providing advanced IPTV video services along with traditional cable television, telephone and up to one gigabit per second of internet bandwidth.

The new network is ten times faster than the US Federal Communication Commission’s National Broadband Plan calling for 100Mbps speeds for 100 million households nationwide by 2020, and offers similar speeds to that offered by the Google Fiber network in Kansas City.

This white paper will show that legacy Point-to-Point (PtP) architectures alone are no longer sufficient to support the modern RAN. That’s not to say, however, that there is no place for such technology in the modern backhaul environment; quite the opposite is true. In order to successfully and efficiently supply the RAN with backhaul, an operator must expect to adopt several technologies, including PtP, and implement them on a case-by-case basis.

While every backhaul technology exhibits distinct advantages, as well as some constraints, none of them can be considered as a ‘catch all’ solution. However, an optimum solution can be achieved by leveraging synergies between two best-of-breed technologies: P2MP and P2P.

The key message to take away from this paper, is that there is no ‘silver bullet’ when it comes to backhaul—operators will have to adopt several technologies, deploying each where most appropriate.

Telecom Argentina is moving ahead with its FTTH plans

Italy’s Prysmian Group has won a contract with Telecom Argentina to supply and install an optical network that will provide the passive infrastructure for the first part of its new fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network.

The contract will involve building a network which will serve 4,000 homes and which will have an initial take-up/connection rate of just under 40 per cent.

Work is expected to start immediately, with installation contractor Valtellina Sud América being employed to conduct the system installation activities.

Telecom Argentina is currently expanding its broadband services by deploying a FTTH network based on GPON technology, and is addressing three different urban scenarios: the closed (condominium) environment, individual new buildings (MDU), and open neighbourhood configuration.

This initial project is the first stage in Telecom Argentina’s plan to roll out high-speed broadband, focused mainly on the city of Buenos Aires across all three infrastructure scenarios, in response to growing consumer demand for faster broadband services.

Prysmian already operates a major copper telecom cable production facility in the plant of La Rosa, and won the contract with Telecom Argentina after an open tender process which attracted bids from system suppliers around the world.

Products to be supplied as part of the contract include all of the necessary optical cables – which contain Prysmian’s in-house produced optical fibres, both standard G652 and BendBright G657, bend insensitive technologies – together with a wide range of passive connectivity components in order to provide the full end-to-end passive network.

“As Virgin and BT continue to grow their super-fast subscriber numbers they are being joined by other players,” said Oliver Johnson, CEO of Point Topic. “From traditional giants like Sky to the smaller alternative networks, the super-fast technologies are on the way to supremacy in the UK market.”

As the fibre-rich connections which power these services continue to proliferate, older technologies such as copper-based DSL are losing popularity, according to the report: the first half of 2012 saw a tipping point where for the first time, DSL started to lose subscribers overall.

“Copper isn’t finished, it’s still an important part of the UK’s broadband strategy, but the days of sub-superfast are numbered,” added Mr. Johnson. “Super high-bandwidth options – whether delivered over co-axial cable by Virgin Media or over a hybrid copper/fibre network by other players – are now where the consumer sees the future.”

However, there is a long way to go yet: there are still more than 16.3 million subscribers to standard bandwidth products, and they won’t all be persuaded to upgrade their connections anytime soon.

Point Topic’s data shows that the UK now has 21.3 million fixed broadband lines. While just 175,000 connections were added in the second quarter of this year, there were over 600,000 new super-fast subscribers compared to the previous quarter.

Johnson added: “Virgin Media is responsible for the majority of these super-fast gains. They have been upgrading and upselling their customer base very successfully over the last 18 months. BT is now joining the party with 150 thousand new super-fast customers in the quarter, their best yet, and their network is now being used by other players like Sky and TalkTalk to add to the number of high-bandwidth customers in the UK.”

The UK government has set a target of 90 per cent of all homes having access to super-fast broadband connections by 2015, with universal access to speeds of at least 2 Mbps. However, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport conceded earlier this week that it is likely to miss the first target due to procurement delays, with rural areas most likely to be affected.

However, despite these delays, the UK appears on track to have super-fast connections available to the vast majority of households by 2015, and universal access to connections of at least 2 Mbps.

A report from the UK’s House of Lords surprised many last week by recommending that the terrestrial television broadcasting system be moved entirely onto broadband networks in order to free up spectrum for mobile operators, and if these suggestions are taken seriously then there is an added incentive for the UK government to ensure universal access to speeds of over 2 Mbps in the mid-term.