Broadband in Sweden 2006 - PTS-ER-2006:22

15/06/2006

PTS has been directed, under its Terms of Reference, to report on the development of the build out of broadband in Sweden. This assignment has to some extent been a recurrent task over the years but has been extended in the Terms of Reference for 2006. As in previous years, the assignment requires an assessment to be conducted of how rapidly the build out is progressing in various parts of Sweden and also for an estimate to be made of the number of subscribers, which are reported on in this preliminary report. PTS is also required to identify impediments regarding the establishment of infrastructure with high transmission capacity in all parts of Sweden and also to propose or implement measures where called for. The investigation should contain an international comparison and have a broad European perspective. A final report on this part of the survey will be presented in conjunction with the annual report for 2006.

The assignment of assessing the rate of build out and estimating the number of subscribers has been completed through a questionnaire survey directed at the Swedish municipalities and companies that provide network capacity and broadband subscriptions. The result shows that the opportunities for obtaining broadband are continuing to improve. The level of coverage for the copper network, which is the network that reaches most users, now amounts to approximately 93%. Even though there is coverage in virtually all of Sweden, this does not mean that all households can obtain broadband at the same time. This results from technical restrictions such as for instance when telecommunications exchanges are not adequately upgraded. PTS estimates that there are in total 2.5 million broadband accesses that are ready for delivery. This means that just more than half of Sweden’s households could obtain broadband immediately. The growth in the number of households who actually choose to acquire broadband subscriptions has been somewhat greater during 2005 compared with the preceding year. Just more than 1.7 million households currently have broadband subscriptions. This represents an increase of 40% during 2005. Connections with at least 2 Mbps now constitute at least half of all subscriptions, compared with 40% in December 2004. The survey also shows that there is a clear link between the size of districts and the extent to which these have access to various forms of access networks for broadband. Districts with less than 250 inhabitants have significantly poorer access to networks compared with larger districts.

There are consequently still areas and places in Sweden that do not have access to broadband or have few operators. As these areas are often located in particularly sparsely populated areas, where it is unprofitable to build out the broadband networks, the question arises of whether the build out will occur on a market basis. One problem is that it is currently unclear what is meant by ‘good access to broadband’. Consequently, PTS considers that strategies and concrete goals are required for the future build out of broadband. Further investigation is required to identify goals and the measures that could possibly be applied to satisfy the need for broadband in all parts of Sweden. This also involves among other things how the preconditions for long-term sustainable competition can be achieved in areas where there is no parallel establishment of IT infrastructure and also possible problems with the openness of networks owing to restrictions by local stakeholders that effect the availability of the access network infrastructure. Considering the fact that the analysis and measures within these areas are to a large extent dependent on each other, PTS intends to investigate the issues involved in more detail.