Spain settings its sights on FTTH deployment

Spain may be famous for its history as a nation of incredible wealth, romantic traditions and a stunning combination of conflict and opulence. This storied past doesn't mean Spain isn't relevant in the contemporary global landscape, and the country's recent efforts to focus on fiber-to-the-home deployment is a clear indication of Spain's place as one of Europe's leaders. FTTH innovation has been hard to come by in much of Europe because economic conditions and advanced legacy telecom networks have contributed to major limitations in fiber uptake. However, many European countries are beginning to hop onto the FTTH bandwagon, and Spain is among them.

According to a recent recent network development plan released by Spain's government, the country is embracing FTTH deployment and will likely experience fiber dominance in just a few years.

Spain's FTTH plans
ThePlan de Telecomunicaciones y Redes Ultrarrápidas is a temporary strategy by Spain's government to create an environment that is conducive to increasing FTTH adoption around the country. At this point, the short-term vision for the plan extends through 2015, and the anticipated data for its full completion is 2020.

You may have noticed that Spain is not the only country that has focused on FTTH adoption in recent years, and the results have been mixed. While it is still too early to accurately discuss the success or failures of suchprojects, early indications point to significant political discussion surrounding FTTH decisions. In some cases, government FTTH projects have proven incredibly divisive because they involve heavy government spending on network deployment that may not lead to immediate revenue boosts. However, many projects that focus on legal guidelines that encourage FTTH growth have been embraced.

Spain is following the latter paradigm described. The new telecommunications plan is focused on creating a regulatory climate and promotional emphasis that will contribute to fiber-optic network deployment for fixed and mobile settings. Spain is also emphasizing efforts to encourage FTTH subscription among consumers and businesses.

Dealing with FTTH installation challenges
Ambitious projects like Spain's can put countries or even municipalities in a position for technological growth. However, deploying FTTH infrastructure does present major interoperability challenges in the telecom network. Fiber to Ethernet media converters can alleviate these issues by bridging signal compatibility gaps in a cost-efficient way. Furthermore, quality media conversion solutions do not detract from performance and can offer advanced functions, like quality of service, that are vital in telecom networks.

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.