OREANDA-NEWS. January 04, 2011. During the last year, the number of customers using the fiber-optic Internet access services provided by TEO LT, AB, the largest provider of integrated telecommunication, IT and TV services in Lithuania, increased by approximately 65 per cent and at the end of December exceeded 100 thousand.

A resident of Kaunas, who started using the ZEBRA FTTH Internet service at the end of December, became the one hundred thousandth user. On that occasion, the woman working as a consultant in a supermarket was awarded a laptop computer.

According to Darius Didzhgalvis, Chief Technology Officer and Deputy General Manager of TEO, the fast growth in the number of fiber-optic/FTTH Internet users is due to the possibilities provided by this technology and the rapid development of the next-generation network. "The FTTH network provides opportunities not only to browse the Internet at ultra-fast speeds, but also to watch HDTV or make telephone calls simultaneously", - D. Didzhgalvis said.

FTTH Internet services provided by TEO, the company which has developed the most extensive telecommunications network in Lithuania, are available for use to about half of the country’s population – 570 thousand households. Next-generation services are being developed at the fastest rate in the country’s biggest cities – they are available for use to approximately 86 percent residents of Vilnius, 95 per cent residents of Klaipeda, 75 percent residents of Kaunas, more than half of Panevezhys and Shiauliai residents.

It is planned that this year TEO investments in the FTTH network, which is being expanded in fifty cities of Lithuania, will amount to more than LTL 70 million. Total investments in the next-generation network will by the end of 2011 exceed LTL 325 million.

The FTTH network is being actively developed also in business centres and office buildings – by the end of 2012 leading-edge technologies will become available to businesses and organizations, which have their offices in more than one thousand office buildings and business centres.

According to the data released by the FTTH Council Europe, Lithuania is the country which deploys fiber-optic Internet technologies at the fastest rate in Europe. In the middle of 2010, fiber-optic Internet access was used by more than 21 per cent households in the country – almost twice as much as in Sweden, Norway and Slovenia, which, according to the published rating, take positions from 2 to 4.

The next-generation fiber-optic network is characterised by the potential to transmit data at very high speeds. At present, the speed of the Internet services currently provided by TEO to its customers is 200 Mbps (Megabytes per second). In the future, the Company’s fiber-optic access will enable providing services at the speed of several Gigabytes per second.

Many of TEO FTTH Internet users – approximately 88 thousand – currently use the FTTH (Fiber-to-the-home) technology, about 12 thousand – FTTB (Fiber-to-the-building). At the end of 2010, the total number of TEO Internet service users reached nearly 346 thousand.