KPN outlined its plans to invest in a converged fixed and mobile network at its Capital Markets Day in Rotterdam. The Dutch operator said 30 percent of premises on its fixed network can already access speeds of 1 Gbps or more, and the aim is to take this to 45 percent by the end of 2021, using a combination of fibre and Gfast. Over the same period, the mobile network will be prepared for the launch of 5G.
KPN has rolled out fibre in 80 percent of its footprint, covering 30 percent of addresses with FTTH and another 50 percent with FTTC. The upgrade of the copper network will be completed next year. Using FTTC and vectoring, KPN will offer customers speeds up to 100 Mbps. Vplus will raise that to 240 Mbps, and bonded Vplus to 400 Mbps. The latter will be available across the network.
Only the areas covered by FTTH are now able to deliver gigabit speeds, and KPN plans to expand this footprint to 45 percent of premises, equal to around 1 million more lines. Part of the expansion will come in new-build areas, and for other areas, KPN will assess by postcode or area if an upgrade of the network will result in increased revenue.
This marks an acceleration from its strategy in recent years of focusing more on the copper network, with FTTH only rolled out for new-build homes. Since 2014, the company has added only around 300,000 homes passed to the fibre network, for a total of around 2.3 million.
The future upgrades will use PON and Gfast technology. Gfast works over short copper lines (dozens of metres), using more frequencies for a faster speed over existing copper pairs. The equipment must still be placed close to the customer, making the technology suitable for apartment buildings. For the fibre expansion, the operator will gradually transition to PON.
Mobile ready for 5G
KPN provided limited details on its mobile plans. Mobile data traffic is growing at around 55 percent per year, and KPN is investing in the network to meet that demand. The capacity per sector should be four times more by the end of 2021, said COO Joost Farwerck.
To support the growth, KPN is investing in massive MIMO antennas, while also replacing a large part of the network with 5G-ready and future-proof equipment. With the new-generation RAN, the company can use dynamic and flexible spectrum deployments, also to phase out 3G over time. This will make activation of 5G possible through a software update.
KPN expects the next spectrum auction to take place in early 2020 and the 3.5 GHz band to be sold later, in 2022 or later. In the meantime, the company is already working on 5G use cases with partners and in a number of 5G field labs. Edge computing capacity is being tested in cooperation with business end-users.
Simplification in a converged network
KPN expects significant cost savings from its ‘Simplify’ strategy to upgrade and simplify the network. It currently works with five core networks and expects to reduce this to two. This should halve the operational costs as well as save around 28 GWh in electricity.
The operator expects to scale back to two IT stacks, one for Consumer and one for Business. Network virtualisation (SDN-NFV) will play an important role in this. At the moment, less than 5 percent of all functions are virtual, and the aim is to take this to 50 percent in 2021. All the server hardware will be as much as possible purchased as ‘white boxes’.
With a unified OSS, it will be a matter of minutes to connect a new customer to broadband, rather than the current two weeks.
The heart of the operation is a small number of National Core locations and 160 Metro Core sites. The mobile network will also be driven from these locations. Furthermore, KPN is shutting down legacy systems such as PSTN, ISDN, SDH/STM and eventually the 3G network.
KPN said it still has around 160,000 users on ISDN and 450,000 over PSTN. A campaign is planned to transition them to newer technology. Once PSTN and ISDN are discontinued, KPN can take the historic step of shutting down the copper network in areas covered by fibre.
