POST Luxembourg: 50 percent of all homes in Luxembourg now connected to fibre-optic network

A milestone in ultra-fast Internet in Luxembourg

LUXEMBOURG, 22-Feb-2016 — /EuropaWire/ —  As early as 1997 POST Luxembourg realised the advantages of fibre-optic technology for residential subscribers and since then has been developing and laying “hybrid cables” – data transmission cables that contain both the regular copper lines and fibre-optic. The aim was to create the conditions to be able at a later date to offer far faster data transmission to POST customers via a still-to-be-created FTTH network (FTTH = Fibre To The Home).

For ten long years the fibre optic “slumbered” beneath the ground, but in 2007, when the time was ripe both technically and financially, it was finally activated. This enabled POST Luxembourg to reach around 20% of Luxembourg households with its GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) optic fibre network practically overnight.

6 to 7 percent of homes connected yearly since 2010

In order to offer an open network that allowed other telecom operators access to customers’ fibre-optic, “point-to-point” architecture was used, and thereafter each customer had up to 4 fibre-optic lines available. In 2010 the day of the new P2P FTTH network (Point to Point – Fibre To The Home) dawned; since then 6 to 7 percent of all Luxembourgish households have been connected yearly.

Since 2010 POST Luxembourg has laid over 13,000 km of fibre-optic cable with more than 800,000 km glass fibres – if these glass fibres were laid around the Equator they would encompass the globe 20 times!

50 percent of all homes connected – 25 percent in active use

Thanks to this forward-looking plan by POST Luxembourg, it was possible to connect 50% of households to its high-speed network by the end of 2015. FTTH network technology enables POST Luxembourg to offer its customers a high-speed Internet service with transmission rates of 1 Gbit/s download and 500 Mbit/s upload, putting every comparable network in the shade.

Around 25 percent of connected households are already actively using the “ultra-fast Internet”, and of course the cloud and TV services of POST Luxembourg, as well as WiFi services set up for citizens by the company on behalf of local authorities, are also largely benefiting from the phenomenal transmission rate.

Fifty percent of new connections have therefore already been created – however POST Luxembourg will continue to work intensively to equip the Grand Duchy for the information technology future. And it is already possible to forecast that the 60 percent mark will be reached in 2017!