Proximus announced that it reached the milestone of 1 million homes and businesses connected to fiber in Belgium.

On Monday June 27, the Atomium became the millionth building in Belgium to be connected to fiber from Proximus.

Belgium has the fastest fiber rollout rate in Europe, with an additional home or business added every 15 seconds.

A U.S. fiber investment forecast from RVA LLC calls for service providers to spend $125 billion over the next five years, exceeding the total amount that has been invested in fiber network since broadband providers first began deploying it.

Proximus in 2016 launched the Fiber for Belgium investment plan, representing an investment of more than €5 billion to roll out fiber to majority of businesses and urban centers in Belgium and to cover at least 70 percent of the Belgian population by 2028, Guillaume Boutin, CEO of the Proximus Group, said in a news statement.

Since 2021, the scope of the fiber project, the broadband technology of the future, has increased thanks to the creation of the joint ventures Fiberklaar in Flanders and Unifiber in Wallonia, which have enabled Proximus to step up the pace and also to extend its fiber network to areas with medium population density.

Proximus said more than one million homes and businesses are fiber-ready in more than 50 cities and towns in Belgium. Currently, 17 percent of homes and businesses in Belgium are covered by fiber. By the end of the year, this figure will have risen to 22 percent. The objective is to eventually offer a gigabit network for the entire population and businesses, Proximus said.

The network deployed by Proximus, Fiberklaar and Unifiber is completely open. 37 operators already have an agreement with Proximus to use these gigabit networks.

Alexander De Croo, Prime Minister of Belgium, said: “It’s a huge satisfaction for me to see how quickly Proximus and its partners are rolling out fiber to all three regions of the country. The investment is huge, as we’re talking about a total cost of €5 billion.”