March 25, 2021
14:09
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The homework of Proximus and its Swedish partner EQT to accelerate the roll-out of fiber in Flanders is finished. The joint venture that was set up for this purpose, Fiberklaar, aims at 300,000 households per year.
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Boutin is a man of partnerships and indicated at the time of the announcement that he would rely on two external partners for this ambition, each in a joint venture. Proximus is now the first to receive the green light for the partnership with its partner in Flanders, the Swedish investment fund EQT. The European authorities do not see any problem in the joining of forces, as a result of which it can take off commercially. More time is needed for Wallonia, where Proximus cooperates with Eurofiber.
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Fiber ready
In Flanders, after the green light, Proximus and EQT together keep the company Fiberklaar above the baptismal font. This should reach 1.5 million Flemish families by 2028. This effort involves an investment of 2.5 billion euros. For Proximus it is a big chunk of the glazing ambitions. The company will vitrify 2 million households on its own, so 1.5 million extra households run through Fiberklaar. In Wallonia, the joint venture still to be formed there must get fiber optic cable to 500,000 families.
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Fiberklaar must connect around 300,000 families annually to reach its goal by 2028. ‘That is the theory, but it will take a bit of construction in the first years,’ says Fiberklaar CEO Rik Missault. Missault has extensive telecom experience, including at Alcatel-Lucent. The company focuses mainly on the smaller cities, because Proximus has already focused on the major cities with its own projects. The figure of 1.5 million households will only go into the first phase until 2028, after which more is possible.
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Connection costs
To determine where Fiberklaar will start, the company adheres to the principle of ‘demand bundling’, which is already well established abroad. This means that the company only starts laying cables when there is a threshold of interested parties in a certain city or region. ‘We look at regions that are interesting, also in terms of demography, and enter into discussions with the city council. At the same time, we organize moments to convince people to subscribe to the concrete offer of providers. ‘
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It is better to have one good fiber optic network than three half.
CEO Fiberklaar
Rik Missault
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Fiber Ready sets the threshold at 20 percent of the people who must be convinced. One element that should convince people is the free activation. Fiberklaar drops the costs of connecting the home to the fiber optic network when it first offers people to step in. ‘In normal times, these costs, which amount to about 500 euros, are passed on to the operators themselves.’
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Despite that, Missault expects persuasion to be needed. ‘Although 70 percent will eventually switch to fiber optics.’
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Open network
Despite the involvement of Proximus, the fiber optic network is an ‘open network’. In other words, other operators can also offer their services via the network. Missault explicitly reaches out to other infrastructure players and operators. ‘It is better to have one good fiber optic network than three half.’ In Flanders, grid operator Fluvius is also working with fiber optics in a pilot project in five cities and municipalities. The telecom operator Orange Belgium offered all its services via the Fluvius network.
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The acceleration of fiber optic rollout by Fiberklaar should also put Belgium better on the European fiber optic map. Our country has only 8 percent fiber optic coverage, according to Fiberklaar. That is in stark contrast to the European average, which fluctuates around 40 percent according to the FTTH Council Europe. In some countries, such as Latvia, Lithuania and Norway, coverage even peaks above 90 percent. Partly due to its lag, Belgium is one of the fastest growers in the fiber optic country.
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