Taken from The Broadband Coverage in Europe 2023 Report - a study prepared for the European Commission DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology
by OMDIA and Point Topic Ltd.
National coverage by broadband technology
As of mid-2023, all Belgian households had access to at least one fixed broadband service, and NGA coverage was near-universal, reaching 99.6% of total households, compared with the EU average of 92.9%, and 93.6% of rural households – well above the EU average of 78.7%. Additionally, 96.0% of Belgian homes were passed by fixed Very High Capacity networks (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1), above the EU average (78.8%) and recording a 17.7 percentage point growth compared to mid-2022. Rural fixed VHCN coverage reached 51.4% of rural households, below the EU average of 55.7%.
Regarding individual technology coverage at a national level, DSL availability remained near universal with 99.9% of homes passed by DSL networks. The Belgian incumbent operator has upgraded substantial portions of its legacy copper networks to new technology standards offering higher speeds, so that by mid-2023, VDSL and VDSL2 Vectoring technologies passed 96.5% and 43.8% of Belgian homes, respectively – representing much higher coverage levels than those observed in the EU, where VDSL services were available to 52.6% of total households while just 38.7% had access to VDSL2 Vectoring high-speed broadband services. However, the incumbent has begun the process of decommissioning its copper network as it ramps up its fibre deployments and in areas where fibre networks are rolled out, VDSL services are no longer available, leading to decreasing VDSL and VDSL2 Vectoring coverage trend.
As of mid-2023, cable modem DOCSIS 3.0 was the second most widely available fixed technology in Belgium, with services available to 95.6% of households, while Belgium was also one of the study countries where operators have made considerable progress with DOCSIS 3.1 network upgrades. By mid-2023 nearly all of the cable networks were upgraded to the DOCSIS 3.1 standard and 95.4% of Belgian homes were passed by DOCSIS 3.1 networks, well above the EU average of 33.6%.
With Belgian operators having historically focused on upgrading their legacy copper and cable networks, Belgium’s FTTP coverage remains the lowest among all study countries, passing 25.0% of homes at the end of June 2023, representing a coverage increase of 7.8 percentage points, since the previous study.
For mobile broadband coverage, 5G services were available to 40.4% of Belgians with all three leading mobile operators – Proximus, Telenet and Orange activating their 5G networks. Proximus, which launched Belgium’s first 5G services in April 2020. Coverage of 5G networks in the 3.4–3.8 GHz frequency bands reached 14.2%, below the EU average of 50.6%.
Within the rural regions of Belgium, DSL remained the most widely deployed fixed broadband technology, with 97.4% of rural homes passed – 30 percentage points above the EU average of 67.4%. Moreover, VDSL coverage (84.1%) stood at more than double the average EU level (37.8%). Cable modem DOCSIS 3.0 was available to 53.9% of rural households – above the EU average of 9.5%. Most cable networks in rural areas have been upgraded to the DOCSIS 3.1 standard, with coverage of 49.0%, well ahead of the EU average for rural coverage (5.3%). There has been some progress in rural FTTP coverage, which grew by 7.0 percentage points, though FTTP coverage remains limited with just 7.3% of rural homes passed by FTTP networks at the end of June 2023.
Regional coverage by broadband technology
There is a clear contrast in the availability of gigabit-capable fixed VHCN services along regional lines. While nearly all Flemish regions over 99%, availability across the various Walloon regions was much lower and more varied.
FTTP coverage remains low across all Belgian regions, ranging from less than one percent to more than half (57.0%) in Brussels and 47% in the Brugge region. There were only three other regions (Antwerpen, Oostende, and Gent) where FTTP coverage reached more than 40% of households.
In terms of rural coverage of fixed VHCN networks, similar to the total coverage levels Flemish regions again record much higher coverage than Walloon regions, where coverage ranges from less than three percent coverage to 79.5% of rural households in the Nivelles region.
Data tables for Belgium
Note: The 2023 figures represent the state of broadband coverage at the end of June 2023. The 2022 (end of June) and 2021 (end of June) figures are drawn from the previous studies conducted by IHS Markit, Omdia, and Point Topic.
All restatements are highlighted in italics.
Taken from The Broadband Coverage in Europe 2023 Report - a study prepared for the European Commission DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology
by OMDIA and Point Topic Ltd.
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