ACM Telecom Monitor Q2 2021: one in two households has a fiber-optic connection

One in two households in the Netherlands already has a fiber-optic connection. This is one of the conclusions in the most recent Telecom Monitor of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). The acceleration in the roll-out of fiber-optic, which ACM observed at the start of the year, has continued into the second quarter. With 220,000 new connections added in the second quarter (which is 20,000 more than in the first quarter), over 4.1 million households (out of 8 million) now have fiber-optic connections to their homes. Of those households, 1.8 million have actual broadband plans using fiber-optic.

Broadband

Broadband over fiber-optic is thus gaining ground, particularly on copper (DSL): the number of broadband plans using copper connections has gone down by 15,000 to 2.3 million.  The number of households with broadband plans using cable has remained stable at 3.5 million.

The market shares of the broadband providers remained unchanged in the second quarter: KPN and VodafoneZiggo remained the largest broadband providers with market shares between 35 and 45 percent. T-Mobile’s market share in the second quarter of 2021 was between 5 and 10 percent, and Delta Fiber’s market share was between 0 and 5 percent.

Television

Fiber-optic is also gaining ground in the television services market. In the second quarter, the number of television plans using fiber-optic has risen by 50,000 to 1.4 million. For the first time in years, the number of television plans over cable has dropped slightly below the 4 million mark. The number of digital-television plans (for example over DSL, DVB or satellite) also continues to decrease, and has dropped to 1.95 million.

Telephony

In the second quarter, there were 22.6 million active sim cards (plans and prepaid), which was 1.4 percent more than in the first quarter. Mobile-data consumption went up by 16 percent to 309 million gigabyte. At the same time, the number of mobile voice minutes dropped by 7 percent to 12.2 billion minutes, while the number of text messages went down by 7 percent to 560 million.

The number of voice minutes using a landline has dropped to 2 billion. That is 20 percent less than the sudden spike that was observed in the second quarter in 2020 around the time of when the first COVID-19 restrictions were introduced.

About the Telecom Monitor

Each quarter, ACM publishes the market figures for the telecommunication sector in its Telecom Monitor. Based on data from the most important market participants in the telecom industry, the Telecom Monitor gives an overview of the trends and developments in mobile services, fixed telephony, broadband, television, business network services, and bundles.