2012 European Fixed Broadband, Internet Market and Forecasts

Report Cover Image

Last updated: 31 May 2012 Update History

Report Status: Archived

Report Pages: 472

Publication Overview

This report covers developments in Europe’s broadband and Internet markets, providing analyses, forecasts and data on DSL, cable and fibre technologies and on related regulatory measures.

The countries covered in this report include: Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine , United Kingdom.

Researcher:- Henry Lancaster
Current publication date:- May 2012 (7th Edition)

Executive Summary

Europe seeing continuing broadband migration to fibre networks

The European broadband market continues to develop solidly despite the ongoing economic turmoil. The market during the next two to three years will be characterised by the migration to higher-data services and from copper-based networks to FttH. Although growth will remain steady, in part fostered by government economic stimulus funding, regulatory measures to encourage competition, and consumer socio-economic dependence on faster connectivity, in some markets the adoption of FttH and high-capacity broadband may be slowed due to the absence of a ‘killer’ app which would warrant the additional cost involved for subscribers. Nevertheless, the collective growth in household data use, together with emerging high-end services and applications which will require FttH or upgraded DOCSIS3.0 technologies, will ensure the steady migration from DSL.

The main growth driver in coming years will be fibre, complemented by mobile broadband in the wireless broadband sector. The two are closely linked insofar as mobile broadband, largely based on LTE technology, requires that most traffic – generated in the home or office environment – is offloaded onto fibre backhaul. Most countries have developed programmes for FttH-based national networks, and some including Denmark and Finland are looking to provide widespread FttH-based 1Gb/s services by 2020.

Cable networks have also seen considerable subscriber growth as a result of operator investment in DOSCSIS3.0, which is now commonly providing up to 200Mb/s though some trials are pushing this to 400Mb/s. Consolidation within the market in key countries such as the Netherlands and Germany have provided the main cablecos with the scale to invest in broadband infrastructure and so deliver a more sophisticated range of bundled services.

Europe’s broadband market remains the largest in the world, with some 500 million subscribers. A number of Member States lead the world in terms of broadband penetration. By mid-2012 a number of EU countries had achieved full broadband coverage (Denmark, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, the UK among them), though in some instances there remain areas where broadband is unavailable in practice other than by satellite or mobile broadband alternatives.

Broadband development has also been stimulated by regulatory strategies to promote NGA networks in the region. As such, a range of measures have been introduced to ensure facilities-bases access, with regimes initially focussing on DSL networks before interest switched to fibre-based networks.

Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.

Related Reports

Share this Report

TMT Intelligence

A platform to scale your intelligence tasks

Monitor critical insights with our AI-powered Market Intelligence Platform gathering and analyzing intelligence in real time. With AI trained to spot emerging trends and detect new strategic opportunities, our clients use TMT Intelligence to accelerate their growth.

If you want to know more about it, please see:

TMT Intelligence Platform

Research Methodology

BuddeComm's strategic business reports contain a combination of both primary and secondary research statistics, analyses written by our senior analysts supported by a network of experts, industry contacts and researchers from around the world as well as our own scenario forecasts.

For more details, please see:

Research Methodology

More than 4,000 customers from 140 countries utilise BuddeComm Research

Are you interested in BuddeComm's Custom Research Service?

News & Views

Have the latest telecommunications industry news delivered to your inbox by subscribing to BuddeComm's weekly newsletter.

Unsubscribe