The FTTH Council Europe has issued a press release claiming the total number of Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) or Fibre-to-the-Building (FTTB) subscribers across Europe has increased by 22% over the last six months, and now stands at around 4.5 million, while over 26 million homes are now passed by FTTH/B connections. 74% of FTTH/B subscribers are concentrated in eight countries with Sweden in first place in terms of actual subscriber numbers, followed by France, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, The Netherlands, Denmark and Slovakia.
Lithuania remains at the top of the penetration table at 21% while two fellow new European member states-Slovenia (11.2%) and Slovakia (8.7%)-join it in the top five countries in terms of penetration. Italy (1.6%) and France (1.5%) are still near the bottom of the penetration rankings of 17 countries, in 14th and 15th place respectively, while the UK, Germany and Spain do not feature at all. Bulgaria (5%) shows the fastest progression through the penetration rankings rising to eighth place in the first half of 2010 from 16th, while the only new entrant to the list is Romania (1.6%) in 13th place.