European incumbent operator Telekom Slovenije plans to spend up to €450 million (US$620 million) between now and 2015 on a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) rollout in an effort to deliver high-speed access capabilities to 70 percent of households in the small Eastern European country of Slovenia.

    The plan is just one of a number of fiber rollouts across Europe that aim to bring true high-speed access to a continent that is fragmented in terms of its broadband access capabilities, competitive environments, and regulatory regimes.

    Many of Europe's fiber access plans are being driven by utilities, municipalities, and local collectives, but telcos are now becoming more involved, with carriers such as Telekom Slovenije set to help drive Europe's FTTH connections towards the 8 million target set by the FTTH Council Europe . (See FTTH Council Sets Euro Target, Amsterdam Fires Up Muni Broadband, FT Fleshes Out FTTH , Iliad Plans €1B FTTH Build, and Neuf Launches 50-Mbit/s FTTx.)

    There's only so much Telekom Slovenije can do to help towards that target, though, as Slovenia, situated east of Italy and south of Austria, has a population of just 2 million.

    But the national carrier wants that population to benefit from broadband access as good as any in the European Union, which it joined in 2004. (See LR Insider Analyzes Eastern European Telecom Market.)

    Telekom Slovenije, which calls its FTTH project F2, plans to spend €50 million ($69 million) this year taking fiber to 50,000 homes in Slovenia's main cities, running new cables through its extant ducts for the initial phase of the rollout.

    The carrier's total planned capital expenditure budget for the year is €220 million ($303 million), so it is dedicating more than 20 percent of its 2007 capital outlay to F2.