KPN is serious about FTTH

One last post before my vacation: KPN's FTTH plans. I sort of hinted at their increasing efforts over the last few months. After the Q2 results, two readers directed me to some interesting stuff. First, Reuters ran the story on KPN's estimates:

Smits said KPN generated about 140,000 euros ($220,300) of core profit per year from fixed-line services from an average neighbourhood of 1,000 homes -- but the profit was shrinking.

"We reckon that if we do 1 million euros of investment in those 1,000 homes, we can hook everybody up to Fibre to the Home and go to 250,000 euros EBITDA, and increasing," he said.

"That's a business case. The only issue is that this is a spreadsheet -- the question is: Does it work in the real world?"

Second, Dutch daily Trouw (here is a Google translation) quotes the company promising to hook up the entire (rest) of the city of Amsterdam. KPN is now looking to OPTA (the Dutch NRA) for some clear regulation.

Some remarks:

• It will as come no surprise to readers of this blog.
• It is quite clear that Reggefiber forced KPN into this advanced strategy.
• It makes BT, DT and FT look quite dumb. KPN acknowledges the value of open networks, because one important thing counts: the utilisation rate.
• Let's see how KPN's share price moves over the coming months. Was all this priced in, or are we going to see a dip? Will investors be as smart as KPN's management and acknowledge the True Value of the investments?
• What will happen to KPN's foreign assets (Base in Belgium, E-Plus in Germany)? Stuff to chew on.
  

Back in August!