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
Fixed broadband coverage at the national level in Sweden remained in line with the EU average, with 96.4% of homes passed by at least one fixed broadband network at the end of June 2023. However, with just 76.2% of rural households having access to fixed broadband services, Sweden remained below the EU average of 92.2%. NGA broadband services were available to 90.4% of all households and 65.3% of rural households.
Overall coverage of fixed VHCN (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1) remained significantly above the EU average at both rural and national level, owing to Sweden’s high coverage of FTTP. By mid-2023, 88.5% of Swedish homes were passed by networks capable of delivering gigabit speeds, while such services were available to 65.2% or rural households.
BEREC-defined VHCN coverage reached 92.3% of all households and 71.4% of rural households, exceeding the total EU average level but below the rural EU average level.
By mid-2023, FTTP was the leading broadband technology in Sweden, increasing by 2.4 p.p. and reaching 83.9% of households, compared to 77.7% of households covered by DSL networks. As the incumbent Telia continued with its deployment of fibre and gradual switch-off of copper networks, DSL decreased by 5.1 percentage points year-on-year, as did VDSL (by 0.9 percentage points). By the end of June 2023, 17.6% of Swedish households had access to VDSL broadband services. As in previous years, there were no VDSL2 Vectoring deployments reported in Sweden.
Cable modem DOCSIS 3.0 stood at 33.5% of homes passed at the end of June 2023. DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades have gained momentum in the twelve months to mid-2023, growing by 26.2 p.p. and reaching 26.5% of households.
Availability of 5G services improved dramatically over the study period with 5G coverage increasing by 70 percentage points compared to mid-2022 and at the end of June 2023, 90.3% of Swedish households had access to at least one 5G network. Availability of 5G services in the 3.4–3.8 GHz band also increased considerably, growing from 9.7% in mid-2022 to 64.5% in mid-2023.
Looking at broadband availability in rural Sweden, DSL coverage continued to fall, recording a 15.7 p.p. decrease compared to mid-2022. With just 26.6% of rural households covered by DSL networks, FTTP was the most prevalent access technology reaching 65.2% of rural Swedish households, following a 5.6 p.p. increase during the study period.
Rural VDSL and cable modem DOCSIS 3.0 coverage remained negligible, with both remaining below 1.0% of coverage, at 0.2% and 0.3% respectively.
As was the case on a national level, rural 5G coverage increased considerably and reached 67.0% of rural households at the end of June 2023 compared to just 0.5% recorded in mid-2022. However, rural coverage of 5G networks using the 3.4–3.8 GHz band remained limited with just 5.3% of rural Swedish homes passed.
Regional coverage by broadband technology
At the end of June 2023, fixed VHCN (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1) coverage (which in the absence of DOCSIS 3.1 equals FTTP coverage) in all Swedish regions fell between 77% and 95%, with the capital region of Stockholm recording the highest coverage level.
Since coverage of DOCSIS 3.1 remains very limited in Sweden, regional FTTP coverage shows a similar pattern to the fixed VHCN (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1) coverage.
In terms of rural fixed VHCN (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1) coverage, 10 out of the 21 regions recorded coverage levels higher than 65% of rural households.
Data tables for Sweden
Note: Because of the NRA’s data collection cycles, data for Sweden each year represents the most recent available data, which is for 1st October of the previous year, e.g. the 2023 figures represent the state of broadband coverage on 1st October 2022. The 2022 and 2021 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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