Members of the FTTH Council Europe are active in every segment of the fibre to the home (FTTH) value chain. The Deployment and Operations (D&O) Committee is the place where technology experts come together to discuss, debate and educate the broader telecom ecosystem and help industry stakeholders understand how to deploy high quality full-fibre networks, addressing the large variety of challenges they face throughout Europe.

From design and planning, to optimal technology selection, roll out of operations, testing and maintenance, our key publication, the FTTH Handbook, brings together state-of-the-art information and recommendations to help every FTTH professional in the industry. Its 9th edition was unveiled on 15th September 2021 during the FTTH Virtual Conference 2021; it is already available for members of the FTTH Council Europe on a complementary basis and can be purchased by the general public here.

5G is fibre’s best friend! The D&O Committee has undertaken two valuable pieces of research to evaluate the potential benefits that are brought about through converged planning of FTTH and 5G backhaul networks.  We presented the results of these studies in a recent webinar, you can access the replay here.

More recently, the Committee has produced a white paper which details the reasons underpinning our position in favour of full-fibre compared to alternative broadband technologies. 

 

 

Sustainability Committee Drives Sector Progress on CO₂ Benchmarking and EU Taxonomy Inclusion

Since the beginning of 2025, the Sustainability Committee has been working actively to encourage as many Council members as possible to join the FTTH Eco Platform. To date, more than 30 companies have joined — a strong achievement that the Committee aims to expand further by the end of 2025 and into 2026.

This summer, the Sustainability Committee launched the collection of CO₂ emissions data from participating organizations. Members have been asked to share their corporate carbon footprints, while manufacturers are also invited to provide life cycle assessment (LCA) results for record-keeping purposes. The collected data serves as the foundation for sector-wide calculations, providing participants with valuable, actionable benchmarking insights and enabling a clearer understanding of the fiber sector’s overall CO₂ footprint in Europe.

The first consolidated results will be shared with participants in November and further discussed during the Sustainability Committee meeting at the upcoming General Assembly.

The Sustainability Committee has consistently highlighted the importance of ensuring that the fiber sector is included in the EU Taxonomy. A key step toward this objective is the development of the Code of Conduct for the Sustainability of Telecommunications Networks. Over the summer, the European Commission opened its final consultation round on the second draft of this Code. Encouragingly, several of the FTTH Council’s comments submitted during the first consultation were adopted and reflected in the updated version.

The Sustainability Committee submitted additional input on the second draft at the end of September, and it is expected that by 2026, it will become clear whether the fiber sector will be formally integrated into the EU Taxonomy.

Help us create a brighter future!

Join the Fibre Council Europe
today and benefit from Europe’s
largest ecosystem of fibre players