In December 2019, the European Commission presented the European Green Deal with the ambition of making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, boosting the economy, improving people's health and quality of life, caring for nature, and leaving no one behind.

Digitalisation will be at the core of this ambitious program and fibre is key to align the digital and sustainability agendas. As the most sustainable telecommunication infrastructure technology, full-fibre is a prerequisite to achieving the European Green Deal and making the European Union’s economy more sustainable.

The need to work collectively towards a more sustainable society has become a strategic objective of policy makers and the vast majority of private organisations alike. With this context in mind, the sustainability Working Group of the FTTH Council Europe has been created with two key objectives:

  • Promote full fibre as the most sustainable access network technology and enabler of multiple applications which can contribute to reducing the carbon footprint of our activities. Remote working and learning being the most obvious examples.
  • Support all stakeholders of the Fibre to the Home value chain in their efforts to make their respective activities more carbon neutral.

Insights from the Committee

 

 

Copper Switch-Off Tracker - Decommissioning copper in the European Union, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom

This new study conducted by Cullen International for the FTTH Council Europe, analyses the situation and progress toward deactivating the legacy copper network in 27 EU member states, the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland. The document presents the developments that emerged in 2025. This is the second edition of the analysis and includes a comparison with the fi ndings of the first edition.

A very diversified picture emerges. Incumbent operators in some member states have started switching off their copper network, while others have not yet publicly declared their intention to do so. In Norway and Spain, the incumbents completed the copper switch-off. In 14 countries, the incumbent operators have a plan for complete copper switch-off. In eight of these 14 countries the plans are publicly available, while in others (e.g. Portugal) the plan is confi dential. 


Main figures

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