PROXIMUS : Brussels pedestrian zone soon a fiber highway!

10/06/2016

Today, Proximus is announcing the start of a pilot project in which fiber to the home will be rolled out for free in an existing residential area: the Brussels Anspach neighborhood. With this first in Belgium, Proximus continues to build on the telecom network of the future.

Proximus has been a pioneer in the field of broadband innovation for years. In 1999, Proximus was one of the first operators in the world to launch ADSL; in 2004, Proximus was the first operator in Europe to start building a national fiber network, was the first to launch VDSL2, and the first to apply vectoring technology to the copper network.

With about 21,000 km of optical fiber, reaching 25,000 street cabinets and offering fiber to the street corner to over 90% of the population, Proximus is number one in Belgium and among the world's top five for fiber coverage.

Since 2015, Proximus has proactively rolled out optical fiber to 80% of industrial areas in Belgium, as a result of which a large number of companies already have access to dedicated fiber (Fiber To The Business). Proximus also deploys Fiber To The Home (FTTH) in new residential areas across Belgium. With Fiber To The Home, fiber is also used in the last meters of the connection - between the street corner and the home - instead of the usual copper. The connection therefore runs from the exchange right into the home over ultra-fast optical fiber.

Today, Proximus is announcing the start of a pilot project in which Fiber To The Home will be rolled out in an existing residential area: the Brussels Anspach neighborhood. By no coincidence, Proximus wants to carry out the works at the same time as the infrastructure works of the City of Brussels, in order to minimize disturbance in the Anspach neighborhood. This is a first, in which everyone in the future pedestrian zone and the surrounding streets will, after the summer, have the opportunity to sign up free of charge for this fiber network of the future, even if they're not Proximus customers.

Fiber: the ultimate future proof fixed network

Proximus' networks substantially meet the current needs of residential and business customers. Indeed, even with the growth in data traffic and the number of connected devices, Proximus continues to offer to households and businesses stable and ultra-fast connections with high bandwidth: everyone can watch online HD content without a hitch, upload videos, photos and files to social media or the cloud at lightning speed, play games, work from home, shop online, etc. - all at the same time, without any impact on the connection quality or speed, even during peak hours.

However, Digital will grow exponentially in Belgium -as in the rest of the world - in the coming years. If today everyone is connected, by 2020, everything will be connected. Whereas the average Belgian today has three connected devices, this number is expected to increase to at least seven by 2020, with an estimated 50 billion connected things worldwide. More bandwidth will be needed for applications due to extra services (e.g. video, localization, identification, security and cloud-based services) and an increase in screen definition (from HD to 4K and later 8K). The required latency will be below milliseconds for services, applications, virtual reality etc.

To anticipate these exponential needs, Proximus is already paving the way for tomorrow's connectivity with next- generation networks, optical fiber, that will enable customers and partners (startups, residential, big enterprises,etc…) to step into this 4th Industrial Revolution.

Optical fiber is the ultimate future-proof technology that will allow us to meet customer needs in the long-term. By launching Fiber To The Home, Proximus brings the future into the customer's hands: symmetrical very high download and upload bandwidths (1 to 10 Gbps over time) allowing much faster download and upload of HD / 4K movies, photos, video games, big data, etc. and with a better image quality too. This technology is superior to any other existing technology. On top of that, optical fiber is the best ever solution in terms of latency.

Moreover, optical fiber has virtually unlimited capacity. Once installed, the network will never have to be transformed. This technology will be able to grow with the evolving trends and evolutions in the digital era.

Optical fiber: the technological standard of the future, for households and business

FTTH is the ideal home technology allowing to have all the family members using internet simultaneously, without loss of quality, to watch HD & 4K on all family screens, to share content instantly and making it accessible everywhere, connect as many devices as you like without any worries about speed, even during peak times, enjoy gaming with the best response time etc …

FTTH is an ideal business technology, with optimal response times for developing videos, gaming or software; all employees can surf and stream intensely and simultaneously without latency; enabling to work with heavy files (architects, …), superfast download & upload by multiple users, sharing of large files with colleagues and customers, work in the cloud without delays. Businesses with optical fiber benefit from a fast, stable and continuous connection, regardless of the number of users. This offers them a great deal of security.

Optical fiber: the technological standard of the future for every building, whether new or existing

In new building projects, optical fiber is the new standard of the future on which several operators can offer their services. Optical fiber provides a significant added value to buildings in both new and existing built-up areas, since bandwidth has become a basic need for residential and business customers alike.

Today, Proximus is announcing a first in Belgium for the roll-out of Fiber To The Home in an existing built-up area with homes and businesses, the Brussels Anspach neighborhood: By no coincidence, Proximus wants to carry out the works at the same time as the infrastructure works of the City of Brussels, in order to minimize disturbance in this neighborhood.

Always close to our customers

Over the coming weeks, Proximus will send an informative letter to all residents and businesses of the Anspach neighbourhood, even if they're not Proximus customers. After the summer, they will be personally contacted with more detailed information and they will get the possibility to sign up for a fiber connection point free of charge.

More information on www.proximus.be/anspach

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