Vodafone records growth in fixed-line transfer volume

Vodafone has announced the data transfer volume for 2025 in its annual review. According to the company, Vodafone customers transferred a total of 54 exabytes, or 54 billion gigabytes, of data over their fixed-line connections. This represents growth of almost 10 percent compared to the previous year and a new record. There were significant differences between the various connection technologies: TV cable connections, which provide data rates of up to 1000 Mbit/s, had an average monthly transfer volume per customer household of 468 gigabytes. Households with DSL connections, which can deliver a maximum of 250 Mbit/s, only reached 340 gigabytes per month.

The main drivers for data volume are streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, or YouTube, as well as video content via YouTube or short videos on social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok. Other data-hungry applications include video conferencing in home offices and cloud applications. According to Vodafone, particularly intense load peaks are caused by live broadcasts of Champions League football matches.

Expansion to Counter Bottlenecks

In the cable network, numerous households are supplied via a shared segment, thus sharing the available capacity. This can lead to bottlenecks, especially during peak times. Last year, Vodafone increased the capacity for 620,000 cable households by installing 2,500 additional segments, thereby reducing the number of households per segment. In existing multi-family buildings and new development areas, the company installed around 70,000 new cable connections this year.

Vodafone refers to cable connections as "cable fiber optics." With this marketing term, the company likely wants to emphasize that cable connections can keep pace with fiber optic connections in terms of downstream speed. However, in the upstream, i.e., when sending data from the customer's perspective, cable technology currently only achieves 50 Mbit/s – whereas fiber optic connections commonly offer up to 500 Mbit/s in the upstream. Technically, the TV cable network is FTTC, i.e., Fiber to the Cabinet or Fiber to the Curb. Similar to FTTC technology like VDSL, the fiber optic network ends several hundred meters away from the actual connection, with the last section bridged by copper cable.

Own Fiber Optic Connections

Vodafone is also involved in laying its own fiber optic connections. 800,000 are under construction in 45 cities, and 450,000 have already been completed. However, Vodafone states the number of "homes passed," which also includes cases where a fiber optic cable runs along the street but the house in question has not yet been connected because a spur line is missing. This is often the case when a property owner has not granted permission to lay a connection.

Once the lines currently under construction are completed, Vodafone will be able to supply a total of 570,000 households directly with fiber optics; the remaining households can be connected via a spur line if needed. In total, Vodafone states that it can offer gigabit internet to over 30 million households, partly via its own lines and partly via leased lines. 11.4 million households are reachable via fiber optics in this way, while the rest are currently only reachable via TV cable. (uma)