Attention in the second quarter turned broadband access, with French regulator Arcep prioritizing rural 4G access, Ireland mulling a national fiber network, and Telecom Italia seeking improvements to its nationwide copper infrastructure.

 

French regulator Arcep set tough 4G license terms requiring operators to commit to speedy rollout of services in rural areas. Almost two thirds (63%) of the country’s landmass is defined as ‘rural’, equal to 18% of the population.

 

The requirement didn’t deter France Telecom, Iliad, SFR and Bouygues Telecom bidding a total of €936 million for 4G spectrum in the 2.6GHz band in September. All four are also in the running for 800MHz spectrum, the auction of which opened in December.

 

Satellite operator Eutelsat also focused on rural broadband access during the quarter, opening services on its high throughput KA-SAT bird. The satellite offers peak data rates of 10Mbps in the downlink, and connects to PCs and Macs via an Ethernet cable.

 

Officials in the Republic of Ireland kept their attention on fixed-line broadband, commissioning energy firm ESB to establish a trial fiber network that it hopes will pave the way for a nationwide network in the future. The move followed the establishment of a test laboratory for fiber services in 2010.

 

Meanwhile Interoute, which operates a pan-European fiber network, revealed it turned its first profit on the back of high demand for a unified ICT service launched in 2010, and extended cloud services.

 

Telecom Italia, meanwhile, focused on improving its national copper network, detailing plans to pump up to €8.7 billion a year into the infrastructure over the next two years.

 

Japanese firm Fujitsu unveiled plans to deploy fiber to the home in the UK, using BT Openreach infrastructure in April. The plan bore fruit in November when the firm hooked up its first customers to a trial network, which it claims is first of its kind in the UK.