Singapore holds lead position in Omdia Fiber Development Index

LONDON, 5 October, 2022 – Singapore has again emerged as leader in Omdia’s Global Fiber Development 2022 Index, with maximum scores in seven of the nine metrics. It is closely followed by South Korea, China, the UAE, Qatar, and Japan. All territories in the leading cluster benefit from strong national broadband plans with ambitious targets around ultra-high-speed services.

Historically, several otherwise highly developed broadband territories that rank lower in the fiber index tended to suffer from less clear or ambitious national plans, providing weaker incentives for operators to invest. However, due in part to the COVID-19 crisis demonstrating how important broadband networks are, governments are now strengthening their broadband targets and increasing their focus and investments in fiber-based infrastructure.

Research Director Michael Philpott said: “Fiber investment is an essential metric for government institutions and other stakeholders to track. As a broadband-access technology, optical fiber provides an optimized, highly sustainable, and future-proof quality service. This superior level of quality is essential for the development of future digital services and applications across all verticals. 

“With increased efficiency stimulating greater innovation, high-speed broadband has been proven to drive not just consumer satisfaction but national economic indicators such as GDP and productivity. Only by maximizing investment in next-generation access can countries optimize their growth potential, and fiber-optic technology is key to that investment.”

Omdia’s Fiber Development Index tracks and benchmarks fiber a broad set of fiber investment metrics across 88 countries, including:

• Fiber to the premises coverage
• Fiber to the household penetration
• Fiber to the business penetration
• Mobile cell site fiber penetration
• Advanced WDM technology investment

Based on Omdia’s analysis of Ookla Speedtest data, the Index also quantifies the overall broadband quality of experience improvements driven by that investment, namely:

• Median download speed
• Median upload speed
• Median latency
• Median jitter

Michael Philpott and a team of Omdia analysts will be presenting and debating a wide range of upcoming telecoms issues and trends at Network X between 18-20 October 2022. Register for a media pass or request a virtual briefing here.