Swedish-owned telecommunications and pay TV company TeliaSonera added 110,000 TV subscriptions during the second quarter of 2011 to reach 1.1 million, while expanding its plans for triple play services across the Baltic region.
Of that 1.1 million subscribers, 488,000 are in Sweden, but TeliaSonera plans to achieve a more even spread across the whole Baltic region, including the remaining Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Finland, as well as other neighbouring countries of northern and eastern Europe. The plan is to connect 2.3 million homes directly to fibre by the end of 2014, and as part of the same deployment extend VDSL2 services to a further 800,000 homes in Sweden by 2013. VDSL2 requires deployment of fiber closer to the homes to shorten the maximum length of the final copper loops to typically 1Km or less. There is no specific distance limit, but over longer loops in excess of 1.6Km, VDSL2 performs no better than the ADSL2 broadband services that many operators have today. At 1Km, VDSL normally delivers 50Mb/s, rising to 100Mb/s over 0.5Km. Because VDSL2 requires build out of fiber, it is often deployed at the same time as FTTH. Fiber tends to be extended all the way to the home in areas of higher wealth and population density, while stopping at street cabinets in other areas served by VDSL2.
