It glows in the Swedish broadband fiber – Sydsvenskan

– The demand has increased exponentially throughout the market and I think a peak this year, says Anders Andersen, head of Telia’s fiber business.

Both companies buy existing metro networks when given the opportunity and cooperate with local authorities, village committees and associations. There is criticism of Telia for being too dominant, the company has a major advantage of sitting on old land agreements necessary to bury the fiber and Telia will select areas where the profit potential is greatest. Unsurprisingly keeps Anders Andersen not.

– I would say that land agreements is a problem for the whole industry and I find it difficult to see that we would have an advantage. Moreover, I can say that we choose areas where demand is greatest.

IP-Only, owned of the private equity firm EQT, focusing harder on the buy and expand the metro network, but also to build their own new networks. Last year, the company had approximately 100,000 residential customers connected. This year, IP-Only with a further 140,000 customers. This past year, there has been some problems, including in Hässleholm, where the municipality refused the company to dig for reasons of its own network. The matter is now being investigated by the Competition Authority.

– We own 34 metropolitan networks but is active in a total of 70-80 municipalities. There are a handful of municipalities that has a little strange view of the fiber in renewal and where Hässleholm is perhaps the most egregious example, says Jörgen Svanlind, director of fiber rollout of IP-Only.

As IP-Only is owned a rikskkapitalbolag are often issues about the long-term nature and it is also drawn parallels to health care where private equity firms in recent years received very harsh criticism.

– it usually never be a problem when we discuss with the local authorities. The question we often get is: What happens next? The answer to that is that EQT is sure to find the right owner, it can be about listing or a pension fund, we have also PTS governing this type of assets and how they are managed. PTS is the ultimate guarantor that this will also work in the future.

Mikael Ek, CEO Urban Network Association, is worried about the development of several bowl. Many local metro network drawn with poor economy and it also applies to municipalities as a whole. According to Mikael Ek is a declaration that the network companies are not allowed to operate outside the municipal boundaries, municipal energy companies were doing 20 years ago. The risk of the emergence of an oligopoly (few companies dominate the market) in the broadband market is obvious, he says.

– Do not urban networks the same exceptions as energy companies were in the mid-1990s, as will urban networks business is not going together and municipalities are forced to sell. Then there are basically only two buyers: Telia and IP-Only.