UAE is leading the global FTTH market, said FTTH MENA Panorama study.

UAE has the highest FTTH penetration rate with 67.7 percent in the region, as well as globally, while Qatar is in second position with 57.6 percent and Saudi Arabia in third position with 25.9 percent.

The FTTH/B average penetration rate in the MENA region has reached 41.5 percent, while UAE leads the market at 67.7 percent.

Iraq is a high potential FTTH market, said the global study released on Tuesday. The significant and dynamic markets are UAE, KSA, Qatar and Oman. Markets with significant announcements and progresses are Morocco and Tunisia. Steady markets with few evolutions are Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine.

FTTH players Meditel in Morocco and Tunisiana in Tunisia — in North Africa — are willing to deploy and operate FTTH networks in dedicated neighbourhoods.

According to the study, there were at least 41 FTTH/B projects in the MENA region in September 2014. Subscribers in the MENA region reached over 1.7 million, an increase of 33 percent from the previous year, while the number of homes passed by FTTH/B was above 4 million, an increase of 355 percent from the previous year.

“The growth in FTTH/B coverage and take up rate is led by the dynamism of the GCC countries, most notably the UAE and KSA markets, where FTTH coverage is exhaustive,” said Suleiman Al Hedaithy, chairman and board member of the FTTH Council, Middle East & North Africa.

Some of the key drivers for the increase in FTTH adoption are the mobile backhaul, as fiber becomes necessary to deal with the development of new mobile networks, as well as new housing programs and the national plans of governments in the MENA region.

Ooreedoo and Vodafone, which are willing to acquire infrastructure deployed by QNBN program, are driving Qatar’s high penetration in FTTH.

Baburajan K
[email protected]