The number of Dutch households with a fiber optic connection increased in the third quarter of last year by 290,000 to over 5.3 million. 2.39 million subscriptions were connected to fiber optic networks. That’s an increase of 11,000 from the second quarter. At the same time, the number of copper subscriptions fell by 6,000 to 2.25 million.
Internet connections via fiber optics are much faster than existing infrastructure such as cable or (an upgrade of) copper network. However, the number of cable subscriptions is still the largest at 3.83 million. This is a decrease of 20,000 from the previous quarter.
The Hague is the municipality with the highest number of addresses where optical fiber is available: over 150,000. Of these, less than 20 percent actually have a fiber optic subscription. Ameland, Harderwijk and Waalre are the municipalities with the highest number of fiber optic connections: between 70 and 80 percent.
KPN has so far accounted for the largest share of fiber roll-out in our country: between 60 and 65 percent. DELTA Fiber’s share is between 15 and 20%. Open Dutch Fiber accounts for 5 to 10 percent.
The Telecom Observatory also reports data on the use of cell phones: for example, it appears that the number of text messages sent has grown by 6.3 percent, to 613 million. The number of minutes of mobile calls fell by almost 10% to 9.8 billion. Data usage over a mobile connection increased by 6% to 428 million gigabytes.
