With the completion of its broadband upgrade project six months ahead of schedule, Orange Belgium announced that it has become the first telecom provider in Belgium to offer a nationwide gigabit network, enabling Belgian customers to enjoy broadband speeds of up to 1 Gbps on its Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) network. Orange reported that 95% of Belgian residences can now access gigabit speeds.
Orange Gigabit Network
By mid-2024, Orange Belgium hopes to have achieved its objective of offering 1 Gbps extremely high bandwidth coverage to every Belgian. The purchase of telecom operator Voo, the updating of VOO’s HFC network, and Orange’s long-term agreement with Wyre, a joint venture between Telenet and Fluvius, all contributed to the acceleration of this aim.
The company stated that the ‘Lead the Future’ strategy, the Wyre wholesale deal, and the acquisition of Voo were all announced six months prior to this first milestone. Furthermore, Orange Belgium is dedicated to updating the HFC Network and bringing Gigabit connection to rural regions through its own investments and federal subsidies.
Satellite Connection
By the end of 2025, Orange Belgium wants to link an additional 100,000 locations with gigabit speeds. Orange Belgium intends to introduce a next-generation solution via satellite in 2024 for the remaining population for whom extremely high broadband speeds are not currently accessible.
10 Gbps FTTP
Additionally, the company wants to offer a technology-neutral, across the country, future-proof 10 Gbps internet service by aggressively growing its HFC network and using the most recent DOCSIS standards. Orange Belgium projects that Fiber To The Premises (FTTP) will reach as much as 66 percent of its network by 2040.
FTTP Test
Furthermore, in the first quarter of 2024, Orange Belgium will carry out a Proof of Concept (POC) for the installation of FTTP for around 12,000 homes in the metropolitan regions of Liege (which includes portions of Grace-Hollogne and Saint-Nicolas) and Brussels (particularly Ixelles).
By 2040, the objective is to have 75 percent of the country’s landmass covered by end-to-end fiber through the combination of Wyre’s FTTP network and VOO’s 66 percent FTTP network.
Orange Belgium and VOO commented on the milestone, saying, “Our Hybrid Fiber Coaxial network now delivers 1 Gbps speeds, surpassing our original schedule by six months, thanks to the exceptional efforts of our VOO network teams.” Ninety-five percent of our customers countrywide have access to 1 Gbps connection thanks to the HFC technology. In order to get ready for the future, we are initiating XGS-PON 10 Gbps fiber optic pilots in Wallonia and Brussels and actively testing multigigabit speeds on HFC.”
