Iceland is leading in using optical fiber cable in Europe

Iceland is in the forefront of Europe for the fourth consecutive year in terms of the number of   optical fibre connections (FTTH). In total, 76.8 percent of households in Iceland are connected, followed by Spain with 73.6 percent and Portugal with 71.1 percent. Our Nordic cousins Sweden and Norway have 67.5 percent of households with optical fibre connections, Denmark 43 percent and Finland 43 percent.

This is reported in an article by Erik Figueras Torras, the director of Míla , which appeared in Morgunblaðið yesterday. Erik refers to the FTTH Council Europe, a forum for companies whose main objective is support for the development and implementation of access networks via optical fibre cables in Europe.

He says that much of Europe has a significant way to go to establish connection to homes and businesses via optical fibre. France is doing well, with over 55 percent of households with an active connection to optical fibre. By contrast, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom are way behind. In Italy, only 12.5 percent of households are are connected via optical fibre, in Britain it is 11 percent, and in Germany the percentage is even lower, at 7 percent.

“This comparison with Europe shows how far we have come in terms of access to high-speed connections for households and businesses. It underlines our success in implementing optical fiber connection to our homes in a sparsely populated country, ” says Erik in the article.

Vision and commitment

However, he says Iceland’s success is not self-evident, but is based on strong corporate initiatives, strong administration of telecommunications and competition regulatory authorities and the vision and commitment of political leaders to the importance of connections across the country.

“It is of great importance for the standard of living in Iceland and the competitiveness of the Icelandic economy to maintain this advantage in the telecommunications infrastructure. But even though the country is doing well and we are the leading the European nations in this matter, there is still ways to go to connect the whole country. We can do better there and connect more rural areas to the future of fast and effective communications,” he says.

He also says that Míla is working hard to implement optical fibre connections to the country’s homes and that the company will invest more this year in fibre optic cable connections in homes and businesses than ever. The company has previously announced that it will invest in the development of a communications infrastructure for up to ISK 30 billion over the next five years.