Our key policy priorities

The FTTH Council Europe considers that fibre networks are fundamental to the digital transformation of European economies and that the objectives of the Digital Decade need to be reached in a timely fashion.

To this end, the FTTH Council Europe considers it essential to maintain a favourable regulatory framework for fibre investment in a competitive environment. The existing framework has delivered, and is delivering, good results in terms of fibre deployment and in our view, in Europe, concerns are mostly on the demand side of the fibre market.

Among our key policy priority is copper switch-off, which would give a clear signal to the sector and investors, have  positive impact on FTTH roll-out and adoption, and have advantages in terms of energy efficiency and operational costs. This is why the FTTH Council Europe launched the Copper Switch-Off Tracker.

Browse below our key objectives that in our view should be at the core of the current  2024-2029 EU legislative and regulatory cycle.

Our positions as FTTH Council Europe

Reducing uncertainty on the demand side

Reducing uncertainty on the demand side

Clear policy objectives, such as progressive copper switch-off, encourage investment in fibre networks. Learn how these measures boost productivity and support the green transition.

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Maintaining a Competitive Environment

Maintaining a Competitive Environment

Effective competition drives innovation and network expansion. Explore our strategies to promote fair market practices and prevent monopolistic behaviour in fibre network development.

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Facilitating Fibre Network Deployment

Facilitating Fibre Network Deployment

A favourable regulatory environment is critical for fibre deployment. From reducing barriers to infrastructure sharing to implementing cost-reduction measures, Europe needs to further develop a fibre-friendly ecosystem.

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Supporting the Green Transition

Supporting the Green Transition

Transitioning to fibre networks offers significant energy savings and environmental benefits. We advocate for integrating fibre networks into the EU taxonomy to unlock green financing opportunities.

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Ensuring Spectrum Availability for In-Home Connectivity

Ensuring Spectrum Availability for In-Home Connectivity

In-home Wi-Fi is the backbone of digital usage. Proper allocation of the 6GHz spectrum is vital to ensure faster and more reliable connectivity for European households and businesses.

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Digital Networks Act

Digital Networks Act

We welcome the Digital Networks Act’s focus on investment and competition, supporting regulatory stability through the SMP process. We support a balanced copper switch-off protecting consumers, tailored access remedies reflecting national realities, and constructive engagement to accelerate FTTH deployment and strengthen sustainable competition.

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Cybersecurity Act

Cybersecurity Act

The FTTH Council Europe supports stronger security and resilience in Europe’s telecom network and services market, understands that the proposed Cybersecurity Act is part of the broader strategy aimed at guaranteeing Europe’s strategic autonomy and security, and is willing to cooperate with European Institutions to achieve this objective.

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Main publications and assets by the Policy & Regulation Commitee

 

 

Green Home Solution for Sustainability Targets

Member company: Huawei
Country or geographical scope: Global
Company type: Vendor/Reseller
Product/service category involved: ONT for FTTX

Abstract

Copper Migration to FTTx is already the consensus of telecom industry, now as the latest solution, FTTR (Fiber To The Room) extends the fiber to each room and allows users to enjoy stable gigabit connections and seamless roaming throughout the house, furthermore, it can also bring significant power saving and emission reduction value to the end users, indirectly to the operator, we call it green home solution. Based on Huawei practice, we found out each FTTR ONT uses only 0.37 kWh per day and saves 38.5 kWh every year comparing to traditional ONT plus repeaters, that is, the green and environment-friendly design enables users to enjoy better network experience with 20% less power consumption. In 2020, Huawei FTTR ONTs (OptiXstar series) are in service in more than 40 million households worldwide, saving over 1.5 billion kWh of electricity and reducing CO2 emissions by more than 730,000 tons, equivalent to planting more than 30 million trees.


Context

High-speed broadband service applications continue to emerge, and innovative services such as ultra-high-definition online video, online education, and telecommuting place higher and higher requirements on network bandwidth, latency, and jitter, driving users' demand for broadband packages to move upward,and further lead to the accelerated development of fiber-optic broadband networks. However, a large-scale survey found that limited by the network defects of the home information network, the high-bandwidth package service capabilities provided by the operators have not been fully utilized, and there is a situation of "1000MB home access is easy, but 100MB room access is difficult".

Solutions

In order to solve the problem of home network, the industry has proposed a new generation of home networking technology based on optical fiber - FTTR (Fiber to the Room). The FTTR all-optical Wi-Fi solution directly extends the optical fiber to each room, which can achieve more than gigabit coverage in the whole house. It is the key to building a high-quality home information infrastructure and indicates the development direction of gigabit home networking.

Results

Compared to conventional fixed broadband access technologies, full-fiber-based FTTR internet access is based on the innovative technologies that enable consume less energy and reduce the dependence on non-renewable resources like copper to achieve the reduction of carbon footprint target. Based on the passive nature of PON network architecture, fiber-based network enables to save energy consumption up to 30% than the traditional copper-based network cable. In addition, because of physical features of fiber cable, such as more durable and less susceptible to harsh environmental conditions as well as lightweight and compact in size (the size of fiber cable is only 15% of traditional copper cable), there is no need to replace the existing indoor optical fiber cable when upgrading the network. A full-fiber network can save mineral resource use and waste, reducing climate and environmental risks.

Last but not least, with FTTR, the master optical modem of each line integrates the functions of optical modem and WIFI router to reduce the number of electronic devices in use whilst saving energy consumption by 50%. The annual energy consumption saving of a typical master optical modem can reach 105 KWh per year. In addition, the power consumption of panel type slave modem is also ultra-low, barely 1 KWh of electricity for 5 days. Each slave modem can save 38 KWh per year, reducing 30% of power consumption than traditional modem.

Conclusions

Copper Migration to FTTx is already the consensus of telecom industry, now as the latest solution, FTTR (Fiber To The Room) extends the fiber to each room and allows users to enjoy stable gigabit connections and seamless roaming throughout the house, furthermore, it can also bring significant power saving and emission reduction value to the end users, indirectly to the operator, we call it green home solution. Based on Huawei practice, we found out each FTTR ONT uses only 0.37 kWh per day and saves 38.5 kWh every year comparing to traditional ONT plus repeaters, that is, the green and environment-friendly design enables users to enjoy better network experience with 20% less power consumption. In 2020, Huawei FTTR ONTs (OptiXstar series) are in service in more than 40 million households worldwide, saving over 1.5 billion kWh of electricity and reducing CO2 emissions by more than 730,000 tons, equivalent to planting more than 30 million trees.

Further reading 

Huawei OptiXstar ONT and FTTR Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FVc9RvwtMk

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