2 December 2020 16:00-16:05 Session

This session combines results from a 2020 study in Germany exploring market drivers, inhibitors, and financial challenges with various progressive ideas in the banking sector to help advance FTTH in Germany.  We will explore a fully digitalized end-to-end concept involving all project stakeholders to help increasing overall project efficiency.

The technological part will recap on the latest traffic development, key applications, and technology trends and how all that influences networking designs and solutions.

2 December 2020 16:05-16:20 Session

- HCOB Survey
- Survey on demand & willingness to pay

Fibre in gold rush fever - how the banks are still feeling confident! Making an FTTH roll-out bankable by getting a deeper insight into drivers for willingness to pay and take-up rates

Fibre infrastructure is a very hot market for equity and debt investments. Despite cherry-picking and ambitious land-grabbing, there is still a huge need for investments, notably in rural areas and it is the Altnets and regional players which seem to be well positioned to accelerate such rollout. Given the CAPEX intense nature of the business model, securing financing is crucial to realize projects.

One of them is just demand. What could be done to boost take-up-rates over time? Are the Altnets doing enough when designing the networks to enable just plug & play for the late-rising end-users? Are the people willing to pay enough?  Do the users already see the added-value of a fast broadband internet connection? And if not, when will the penny drop?

These questions have been addressed by the first survey on this issue launched by Hamburg Commercial Bank in cooperation with Hochschule Bremen. The survey has been conducted during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic when everybody has realized the importance of being digitally connected. The results will also be presented and discussed in this session.

2 December 2020 16:20-16:25 Session

2 December 2020 16:25-16:35 Session

• Ongoing strong need for fiber investments, particularly in rural areas
• Numerous local players are well positioned to accelerate rollout (telco experience & stakeholder relations)
• As FTTH rollout is CAPEX intensive, securing suitable funding is key for local players to realise strong growth potential
• While public subsidies are targeting municipalities, this insight focuses on financing options for private fiber projects
   ○ Equity, debt, junior debt and pro & con analysis
   ○ Suitable financing at different project stages
   ○ Prerequisites for (debt) financing

2 December 2020 16:35-16:40 Session

2 December 2020 16:40-16:50 Session

A fresh look at the potential of a digitalized end-to-end concept involving all project stakeholders throughout the entire value chain.

• Positive impact from digitalization of the entire value chain
• All stakeholders working on a unified digital data base
• Providing access to all relevant rollout data (planning, financing, surveying, approvals, engineering, logistics, documentation)
• Importance of planning fiber connection points and future demand including 5G, WLAN, etc. 
• Network design essentials in the context of government funded projects

2 December 2020 16:50-16:55 Session

2 December 2020 16:55-17:05 Session

FTTH technology and market outlook 
• Assessment of the continued growth in traffic, its key applications and the impact of Covid-19. 
• What prevented mass adoption of fiber-based network solutions for many years and why is this changing now? 
• New network technologies are advancing and will serve the growing demand for bandwidth and offer network optimization potential.
• Network convergence is steadily increasing with fiber-based solutions virtually everywhere including 5G. 

The massive use of high-bandwidth applications such as HDTV/4k TV streaming, gaming and cloud computing are continuously driving Internet traffic upwards. Covid-19 and lockdowns are raising awareness of the value of high-speed Internet access. The massive use of home office and home schooling is leading to a further increase in data volume.
Many economies in Western Europe are still lagging Asian countries in terms of fiber optic expansion. We will discuss various parameters that have delayed FTTH rollout, ranging from costs, competing technologies and customer demand.
New technologies that enable higher speeds and focus on a huge increase in symmetric data streams enable the cost-efficient implementation of ultra-high-speed networks and also support the further convergence of broadband access networks and mobile backhaul structures. Disaggregated access systems and the implementation of SDN in the access network enable high flexibility and shortened service creation cycles.

2 December 2020 17:05-17:30 Session