FTTH Council shines a light on copper holdoutsFTTH Council shines a light on copper holdouts

The FTTH Council Europe, in collaboration with analyst firm Cullen – which specialises in regulatory insights – has assessed the progress that 27 Member States plus the UK have made towards decommissioning their legacy networks.

It has also ranked 20 of them according to the percentage of incumbent lines no longer based on copper – information was unavailable for eight of them (see chart below).

Portugal and Sweden lead the way, having migrated 97% and 95% percent of lines respectively off copper. They are closely followed by Spain on 93%.

In all of these cases, copper networks are either in the process of being decommissioned, or no new orders are being accepted for copper-based lines.

Nations towards the top of the FTTH Council's ranking share a few common traits, like setting a target date for their copper switch-off, and/or making their decommissioning plans publicly-available.

That tends not to be the case for the majority of the countries that rank towards the bottom of the table.

The laggards include Germany (5%), the Czech Republic (5%) and last-placed Greece (4%).

"We believe that fibre networks are fundamental to the digital transformation of Europe," said FTTH Council Europe president, Roshene McCool. "Phasing out copper networks for fibre infrastructure will lower energy consumption and reduce overall operating costs, therefore making a great contribution to the achievement of the EU's Digital Decade objectives."

The FTTH Council's findings tally with those of a survey of 31 European telco watchdogs published by BEREC in December.

Only 10 of them expressed confidence in being able to reach the EU's copper switch-off target in time, while the remaining 21 were unable to provide any kind of guidance on when they might do so.

Now, just because an incumbent is dragging its feet about decommissioning its copper network, it doesn't necessarily mean they are also taking their time about rolling out fibre, right?

Wrong.

A quick look at the FTTH Council's most recent ranking for fibre coverage – which admittedly dates back to September 2023 – reveals the same names appear at the same ends of the table. Portugal, Sweden and Spain are in the top six, while Germany, the Czech Republic and Greece are all in the bottom four. It's a similar picture when it comes to take-up of fibre services, with the exception of the Czech Republic which is enjoying some mid-table mediocrity.

The data suggests then that a slow migration away from copper is symptomatic of a general lethargy when it comes to deploying next-generation, ultrafast broadband networks.

Vincent Garnier, director general of the FTTH Council, said: "As European institutions shape their policy agenda for the 2024-2029 cycle, this new and comprehensive analysis will support the digital transformation of Europe's economy and aid the development of an efficient and sustainable high-performance connectivity ecosystem."

Putting it more bluntly, as the EU's new commissioners get down to work, reports like one this could help them light a fire under a few regulators.