Börse Express – Who wants me? Fiber optic expansion is progressing in Austria, but there is still room for improvement when it comes to demand
RTR Internet Monitor Annual Report for 2021 just published
Vienna (OTS) – With an increase of more than 234,400 connections compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of almost 1.3 million potentially servicable connections based on fiber optic technology were counted in Austria at the end of 2021. In more than 75.0 percent of these, the fiber optics reach into the apartments of the end users.
The degree of coverage of households in Austria with FTTH connections increased by 20.5 percent in 2021 and totaled 24.2 percent at the end of 2021. “This means that 24.2 percent of all Austrian households could be supplied with fiber optic technology. Unfortunately, this is not yet used to this extent,” explains Dr. Klaus M. Steinmaurer, Managing Director of RTR for the Telecommunications and Post department, and explains, “The top five federal states in terms of coverage are Salzburg, Tyrol, Vienna, Upper Austria and Lower Austria.”
Leading providers of FTTH: A1, Energie AG Oberösterreich, Salzburg AG and Wien Energie
Based on the almost 950,000 FTTH connections that can potentially be supplied, A1 has a market share of 31.4 percent, Salzburg AG has a market share of 15.0 percent, Wien Energie GmbH has 13.1 percent and Energie AG Oberösterreich Telekom GmbH has 4.8 percent . Measured by the number of active FTTH connections, A1 holds a market share of 36.8 percent, profit from the Energie AG Oberösterreich Group with 15.7 percent and Wien Energie GmbH with 6.5 percent.
Extensive supply, but hardly any demand
Of these 950,000 FTTH connections, around 190,000 FTTH fiber optic connections are in active demand throughout Germany. These numbers make it clear that supply and demand for fiber optics are very far apart. “Although we can fall back on an extensive supply, there is still a lack of demand today. This is mainly due to the existing alternatives, both fixed and mobile. Especially in federal states with a strong cable TV coverage and a significant mobile phone coverage, the high-quality fiber optic offer is only little used. This can lead to the fact that the broadband capacities in demand appear to be low compared to the actual ones, especially where mobile communications are used very intensively,” says Steinmaurer and says, “Obviously, users currently do not see any additional benefits from more expensive products higher bandwidths. But I am convinced that this will change soon.”
The RTR Internet Monitor annual report is available on the RTR website at[[[[https://www.rtr.at/internet-monitor-2021]
(https://www.rtr.at/internet-monitor-2021) published and contains
Extensive market data on fixed and mobile broadband, evaluations from the RTR network test and analysis of data from the Central Information Center for Broadband Supply (ZIB).
About the RTR
The Broadcasting and Telecom Regulatory GmbH (RTR) is 100 percent owned by the federal government. Its core tasks are the promotion of competition in the media, telecommunications and postal market as well as the obvious goals in the KommAustria and Telecommunications Act. It is managed by two managing directors and is divided into the two departments “Media” (Dr. Roland Neustädter) and “Telecommunications and Post” (Dr. Klaus M. Steinmaurer). More information is below www.rtr.at released.