European FTTH climate could soon heat up

Have you ever been in one of those frustrating meetings where there are two people who are both trying to do the same thing, have different ideas of how to do it and can't seem to figure out how to get to the end result? These are the type of maddening negotiations that lead to events like the NHL lockout. It is also the core problem with some facets of the European fiber to the home market.

According to a recent Computing.co.uk report, many people have wondered if there is simply a lack of investment activity going on in the European FTTH market. This, in fact, is not the case. Instead, the investors and groups building the networks all want the same thing, but can't seem to find each other. The FTTH Council Europe is trying to solve this problem.

Considering the communications gap in the European FTTH market
Hartwig Tauber, general director for the FTTH Council Europe, told the news source that there are plenty of investors looking to get involved in FTTH projects in Europe. However, investors and groups working on FTTH networks have different perspectives on the industry and have not been able to properly connect. The FTTH Council Europe is hoping to close these gaps moving forward.

"Because of the financial crisis, people say there is no money for fiber broadband, but it has been the other way around," Tauber told Computing.co.uk. "Those institutional investors who are looking for long-term secure investments are also starting to look into fiber as a long-term proposal."

The problem, Tauber told the news source, is that investors are looking to sponsor large projects and much of the FTTH work in Europe is being done by smaller groups. The major investors do not have the ability to identify these small organizations, while the groups sponsoring local FTTH projects lack the skills needed to get the attention of large investors and handle the relationship. This is limiting FTTH spending in Europe, but is something the council is hoping to resolve, creating growth opportunities in the sector.

Making the most of FTTH projects
Maximizing the benefits of FTTH investment often depends on building the networks as efficiently as possible. Fiber to Ethernet media converters play a major role in this process and can help groups sponsoring projects more cost-effectively develop FTTH infrastructure. The technology resolves any interoperability issues that occur when the fiber network has to attach to copper-based Ethernet systems, something that is a common need in FTTH installations.

Perle has an extensive range of Managed and Unmanaged Fiber Media Converters to extended copper-based Ethernet equipment over a fiber optic link, multimode to multimode and multimode to single mode fiber up to 160km.