Creative Ways to increase FTTH Penetration Rates

The case of Lyse Tele, reported in this article published in Telephony On-line provides yet another practice by operators (both public or privately owned) to stimulate FTTH take-up. I’ll jump on the opportunity and make a short introduction for some nice and creative ways used worldwide to increase FTTH penetration rates. These methods are also used to reduce deployment costs and investment risks for the operator:

Neunen, Netherlands: Onsnet is a public-private-partnership operating in the city. Fees for the first year were spared for all interested households. Due to that, 97% of the population subscribed in the first year and 80% remained connected on the network for the second year. Nicely done.

Ottawa, Canada: Customers are owning the fiber tail from the CO to their homes. Essentially, the residents property extends in the fiber cable laying from from their premises to the CO. That way the residents are assuming ownership of part of the network. This is a small pilot project running in a small part of the town.

Norderstedt, Germany: Wilhelm.net is operated by the local power utility company. Interested customers sign up in advance. If at least 40% of the population in a certain area or nearby village subscribes then the FTTH network is being built and passes through the customer’s premises

Lyse, Norway: Lyse Tele passes the FTTH network in front of the customer’s premises leaving a hatch available for the residents to connect to the network should they desire. Installation from the hatch to the building’s basement is done by the customers themselves with guidelines provided by the operator.

Anyone have a case/business model he/she like to share? I’m taking this discussion to the Public-Broadband Debating Group . Come on board!