Hungary’s largest telecoms company Magyar Telekom (MTel) yesterday announced plans to invest HUF40 billion (USD245 million) in next generation fibre and cable networks to deliver faster broadband access to customers by 2013. In a filing with the Budapest stock exchange the telco said: ‘Magyar Telekom plans to spend a total capex of HUF40 billion on its new generation access coverage rollout between 2009 and 2013.’ By that date MTel plans to have rolled out fibre-to-the home (FTTH) networks covering 780,000 households across the country, as well as upgrading its hybrid-fibre-coax (HFC) network, which currently covers 380,000 households, with EuroDOCSIS 3.0 technology. ‘The new corporate structure with its streamlined and integrated operations has laid down the foundations to offer high-quality bundled services both to our residential and business customers under the brands T-Home, T-Mobile and T-Systems,’ MTel said in its statement.

The company went on to say ‘The new network will offer higher bandwidth and improved cost efficiency, enabling Magyar Telekom to put a stronger focus on high-quality double/triple-play offers at competitive prices, resulting in improved sales and customer retention. On next generation networks with bandwidths of up to 100Mbps customers will be able to enjoy multiple bandwidth-demanding services such as HDTV, video-streaming and high speed internet access at the same time.’ Portfolio.hu reports that MTel intends to use mainly the FTTH G-PON (Gigabyte Passive Optical Network) technology in the fibre rollout. However, specific circumstances may require the use of different technologies on a case-by-case basis, it says.

Source:telegeography