FTTH subscribers in Asia-Pacific up 35 percent in one year: FTTH Council

New figures have revealed that more than 300 million businesses and homes across Asia-Pacific now have access to fiber services – this reflects an increase of 36.8 percent when compared to 2013 figures.

The new data – released by IDATE and the FTTH Council Asia-Pacific – comes after the council’s annual conference in Jakarta which saw more than 200 companies from across 40 countries come together to focus on the successes and challenges of fiber installation in the region.

According to the figures, which include subscribers up until December 2014, there are now 115.8 million fiber subscribers in Asia and 338 million homes passed. This represents an increase of 35 percent and 36.8 percent, respectively.

“We are pleased to see this continued growth in fiber adoption rates and with 338 million homes passed we now know that there is still a great deal of room for growth in the market,” said Peter Macaulay, who was elected as the new president of the FTTH Council Asia-Pacific last month. “Smart Cities are being built upon fiber, including Fiber-to-the Home (FTTH), Fiber-to-the-Building (FTTB), Fiber-to-the-Node (FTTN) and Fiber-to-the-Antenna (FTTA), to support higher speeds and the increasing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices for the Smart Home. These technologies need the deployment skills available within the FTTH Council Asia-Pacific membership.”

The IDATE research also revealed the top eight countries for fiber deployment in terms of the percentage of homes passed. Japan came out top with 100 percent of homes passed, while South Korea and Singapore have 95 percent. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and China were also included in the top eight, while other regions demonstrated the huge potential for growth that still exists in the region.

“This is an exciting time for the council with new deployments in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Pakistan, in parallel with deeper FTTX deployments to support Smart Cities using cloud-based applications,” added Macaulay. “We are encouraged to see Asia-Pacific homes and businesses becoming more open to the benefits of high speed fiber with faster service creation and provisioning now possible with new fiber architectures.”