According to Omdia’s Global Fibre Development Index, by 2026, the percentage of the global population that is connected to the internet will increase from 58 per cent to 70 per cent. Of the 70 per cent, 30 per cent of the population will have access to the internet via a mobile device, and 40 per cent will have a home fixed broadband connection. Although the connectivity divide is closing, speed and service inequalities are unfortunately widening.
In Latin America, for example, although 44 per cent of the population will have access to fixed broadband services by 2026, only 5.3 per cent will be on a connection delivering 500Mbps or more, and only 1 per cent will have speeds of more than 1Gbps. In addition, at the other end of the spectrum, only 9 per cent of the African population will have access to fixed broadband, with 84 per cent of those users limited to speeds of less than 30Mbps.
Meanwhile, Singapore continues to lead Omdia’s Fibre Development Index in 2021, followed by South Korea, United Arab Emirates, China, and Qatar. The first European countries in the ranking are Spain and Sweden in seventh and eighth position. They are closely followed by Luxembourg and Romania. The US heads the Americas region and is positioned 18th in the world overall.
As a broadband access technology, optical fibre provides an optimised, highly sustainable, and future-proof quality service. Greater investment in advanced, full-fibre broadband networks, is essential to closing this digital divide. To track the market, Omdia created the Global Fibre Development Index in 2020 that monitors investments in fibre across all parts of the network on a country basis. The Index covers 81 territories and is updated annually. Beyond coverage and household penetration, the benchmark tracks and ranks all elements of fibre network investment, specifically fibre access, mobile fibre backhaul, core fibre backhaul, and overall fibre QoS, which is currently measured by overall average downlink and uplink speed.
Commenting on the report, Michael Philpott, research director, Omdia, said, “Beyond economic benefits, an all-fibre network has significant environmental benefits over both xDSL and hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) networks. In 2019, Telefónica (Spain) stated that its FTTH network was 85 per cent more energy efficient than its old copper infrastructure. The operator said its FTTH initiative had saved 208GWh over three years, representing a reduction of 56,500 tons of CO2 emissions. As countries move to a greener future, fibre-optic-based communications must be part of that plan.”
Omdia brings its significant expertise in and coverage of broadband infrastructure, technology, strategy, and telecommunication regulations to bear in the development and analysis of the fibre development index. The index has now been recognised by ETSI’s F5G group as being best practice for measuring fibre development.
