Between 2021 and 2026, the FFTH Council Europe estimates that fibre homes passed will grow from 7 million in 2021 to 25 million by 2026. This places a major onus on the whole industry, from operators to suppliers.
By 2021, France already had 21 million homes passed with FTTH. Omelcom has been a key stakeholder in France’s FTTH rollout strategy, selling several hundreds of thousand Aerial subscriber nodes, several million FTTH outlets,& …

Between 2021 and 2026, the FFTH Council Europe estimates that fibre homes passed will grow from 7 million in 2021 to 25 million by 2026. This places a major onus on the whole industry, from operators to suppliers.

By 2021, France already had 21 million homes passed with FTTH. Omelcom has been a key stakeholder in France’s FTTH rollout strategy, selling several hundreds of thousand Aerial subscriber nodes, several million FTTH outlets,  Fiber optic connections and multimedia in home distribution cabinets.

The lessons from the French market are simple: when the rollout accelerates, the stakes in terms of cost optimization, speed of installation and installation quality become paramount.

This phase is a true “Industrialization” of FTTH deployments. The challenge here is to continue the rollout in an « industrial » way, allowing to perform fast and massive FTTH building connections at the optimum costs while using the best-in-class products. Rollout methods must evolve to take into account these new constraints. Equipment that is used for the connections is a critical element in the overall performance: not only in terms of the cost, but ease of installation and speed are also major elements.

The cost of connecting a new building can be reduced by shortening average installation time as well as rationalizing the number of boxes within the dwelling. At the same time, the connection quality has to be ensured and guaranteed through well-devised products that are comprehensive and intuitive in terms of fiber management.

Omelcom has now brought this expertise to Germany with great success, the other major growth market in Europe alongside the UK, and already made significant inroads there. In Germany, the development of the optical fiber is mainly done underground, using micro-conduit cables, high tech IP68 underground boxes, compact multi dewelling boxes and OTO’s (Optical termination Outlets) that Omelcom produces and in the end will facilitate the use and deployment.

This experience of the French and German markets is now being brought to the UK. In the UK, the existence of Openreach’s PIA (Physical Infrastructure Access) data means that operators will utilise the existing infrastructure in terms of poles and ducts to minimise costs where feasible.

A number of operators including Openreach are using micro-ducts to speed up the roll-out of their new Gigabit capable FTTP technology. This can cause problems for the industry, with particular emphasis on the need to provide effective sealing. Our experience of micro-ducts in Germany has enabled us to ensure that we often provide the sealing as an integrated element in the connectivity box. This has led to developing larger boxes for the German market than we have traditionally supplied in France and we are therefore very well placed to meet the needs of the UK market.

With its strong focus on innovation, supporting the customers in their quest for excellence, Omelcom has already systems adapted to the UK market and is always seeking to develop new ones for its customers and in general for the UK market.