Consumer broadband services reflect brand and network fragmentation across the region - With hundreds of ISPs active across Western Europe, and fierce competition in national markets, telecom operators have several options to stand out: pricing, connection speed, customer service, marketing efforts, aggregation of entertainment services and so on. With the capacity to craft very malleable consumer offers, it is no wonder that Western European broadband providers operate a wide variety of services. When looking in detail at tier-1 ISPs in the region, we can see that offering a diverse line-up of services hardly correlates to operators’ subscriber base. Spanish tier-1 telcos offer the most varied range of consumer offers, with an average of 20 different options for the country’s 4 main ISPs, depending on pricing, speed, and the number of landlines available.

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A grand total of 270 billion EUR will be invested in rolling out full fiber connectivity across Western Europe by 2030. This year will mark the end goal of the EU’s “Digital Decade” ambition that sets a double objective: all European households covered by a Gigabit network, and all populated areas covered by 5G. The peak of yearly investment will be reached next year, totaling a yearly cash influx of EUR 25.8 billion spent on expanding fiber coverage across the region. CAPEX in Germany and the UK will account for two thirds of the year’s investment. By contrast, capital spent on fiber rollout in both countries for 2020 only represented 30% of the cash invested across the region. Fiber rollout on a fast track to completion in France and Southern Europe Among the most advanced markets, we find France and Spain with over 80% of total premises connected to full fiber before the end of the year. Meanwhile, 90% of premises in Portugal are already connected to fiber.

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