Europe's Fixed Broadband Technologies Compared: What Works in Apartment Buildings

5 minutes and a half read time

October 26, 2026

In Europe's apartment buildings, the technology that wins is not the one with the best headline speed but the one that can get through the riser, the corridor and the front door at a sensible cost.

Fibre to the premises (FTTP) is now the most widespread fixed technology in the EU, reaching 74.1% of households in mid-2025, with gigabit-capable networks (FTTP plus DOCSIS 3.1 and higher) at 85.6%. But the street is only half the story. In a multi-dwelling unit (MDU), cable coax, telephone copper and in-building fibre all compete for the last 10 to 50 metres, and each comes with different costs, disruption and upgrade paths. Here is how Europe's fixed broadband technologies compare, and what each means inside an apartment building.

It is also the question at the heart of RISER, our European summit on connectivity and building technology for residential real estate, in Amsterdam from 6 to 8 April 2027.

The technologies at a glance

Fibre gives the most headroom, cable gives gigabit downstream without touching the walls, and copper and wireless are transitional or niche.

Speeds are typical technology capabilities, not guaranteed retail tiers. Shared technologies (PON, cable, FWA) split capacity across users.

How each technology works inside an MDU

The right answer depends less on the street network than on what is already in the walls, who owns it, and who has to agree to change it. Getting owners and operators to settle those questions together is why RISER puts both in the same room.

FTTH: the end state, with the hardest last 30 metres. Fibre to every flat is the only option that scales from 1 to 50 Gbps without new cabling, because XGS-PON, 25G-PON and 50G-PON reuse the same passive fibre. The cost is in the building: riser works, corridor trunking, drilling into each apartment and, above all, owner and co-owner consent. France shows one way through, with a single operator wiring each building and sharing that in-building fibre with rivals. Elsewhere, multiple operators wiring the same block, or none wiring it at all, are both common.

FTTB: fast to deploy, capped by the copper behind it. Bringing fibre to the basement and reusing in-building telephone pairs (VDSL2 or G.fast) or Ethernet avoids most works inside flats. Because MDU risers are short, G.fast can deliver close to gigabit speeds. It is why FTTB is widespread in large Central and Eastern European estates, and IDATE notes that high MDU density there makes fibre business cases easier. The catch: once a 10 Gbps PON arrives at the basement, the copper segment becomes the bottleneck, and telephone copper is on a policy clock.

G.hn and MoCA Access: the fibre-extension contenders. Where pulling fibre into every flat is impractical, the in-building segment is increasingly served by fibre-extension technologies rather than classic DSL. G.fast, long the default, keeps losing market share to G.hn, an ITU-T standard that runs over both telephone pairs and coax, delivers up to about 2 Gbps per port today with multi-gigabit versions in development, and can be managed much like a PON endpoint. In Europe, Genexis and Positron Access have partnered to bring G.hn-based fibre extension to apartments in the DACH region, and the Broadband Forum and HomeGrid Forum now certify G.hn Access equipment working alongside XGS-PON. On coax, MoCA Access offered a parallel route, but it has just suffered a setback: in September 2026 Nokia told InCoax it would stop investing in their joint MoCA-based offering and remove InCoax products from its portfolio, citing insufficient customer interest. Nokia is also stepping back from its G.fast product line. The message for owners and operators is that the fibre-extension market is consolidating, so the roadmap behind any standard or vendor chosen today matters as much as its speed.

Cable: gigabit today with no drilling. Many apartment blocks in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland already have coax to every unit, often installed under building-wide TV agreements. DOCSIS 3.1 turns that into gigabit downstream with no in-building works, which is a strong argument for owners. Upstream is the weak point. DOCSIS 4.0 addresses it, and VodafoneZiggo began Europe's first large-scale 1.8 GHz upgrade in central Amsterdam to prepare for it. But in-house coax networks built for TV may need new amplifiers and passives to carry 1.8 GHz, and some cable groups, Telenet among them, are choosing fibre over DOCSIS 4.0 for most of their footprint. In Germany, the 2024 end of the rule that let landlords bundle cable TV into service charges has also weakened the coax incumbency in rented blocks.

VDSL2 from the street cabinet: the legacy floor. Where the building is served over telephone copper from a street cabinet, speeds top out around 250 Mbps and fall with distance. It is still the volume base in late-fibre markets such as Germany, Italy and the UK, but it is the technology Europe is actively retiring.

Fixed wireless and satellite: useful, but rarely the building solution. 5G FWA can light up a block quickly or serve as backup, but indoor signal loss through concrete and a shared cell make it hard to serve dozens of flats at consistent quality. The Commission sees FWA and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite gaining in low-density and remote areas, not in urban MDUs. For a block of flats, one roof dish per household is impractical; IDATE sees LEO as a bridge where fibre is years away, not a fibre substitute.

Rules reshaping the building

EU policy is now pushing every MDU toward in-building fibre, on a timetable that runs to a proposed end-2035 copper sunset.

Under the Gigabit Infrastructure Act, new buildings and major renovations with permits filed after 12 February 2026 must have fibre-ready in-building infrastructure and fibre wiring, and multi-dwelling buildings also need an access point. The proposed Digital Networks Act goes further for existing stock: national copper transition plans by 2029, a phase-out between 2030 and 2035, and a final deadline of 31 December 2035 with limited exceptions. The text is still before Parliament and Council, but the direction is clear: VDSL2 from the cabinet has a shelf life, and FTTB set-ups that rely on telephone copper will come under the same pressure. What the copper sunset means for existing apartment stock is exactly the kind of question RISER, endorsed by Fibre Council Europe, is built to tackle.

EU fibre and copper milestones, 2025 to 2035

The last 10 metres: Wi-Fi inside the flat

Whatever reaches the apartment, residents experience it through Wi-Fi, so multi-gigabit access moves the bottleneck to the router behind a concrete wall. Wi-Fi 7 and the 6 GHz band are the practical answer, and spectrum is not settled. The EU's Radio Spectrum Policy Group recommended in November 2025 that 540 MHz of the upper 6 GHz band go to mobile, with 160 MHz held until WRC-27. The UK went the other way in July 2026, opening the upper 6 GHz band to expanded Wi-Fi use. In dense MDUs, where dozens of networks overlap, that decision will shape how much in-apartment capacity owners and managed Wi-Fi providers can deliver, and it is a debate owners should follow closely in the run-up to RISER.

The bottom line

For apartment buildings, the comparison comes down to three paths. Cable buildings can buy time with DOCSIS 3.1 and, in some markets, DOCSIS 4.0. Copper- and coax-wired buildings can move quickly with FTTB and fibre extension, increasingly G.hn rather than G.fast, but will need a long-term fibre path. And every new or majorly renovated building is now on fibre by law. Owners and asset managers who treat in-building fibre and managed Wi-Fi as long-term building infrastructure, rather than something an operator will sort out, will have the most options.

These choices are exactly what we will debate at RISER, the European summit on connectivity and building technology for residential real estate, produced by Maravedis with HanseCom Media & Communication and endorsed by Fibre Council Europe (formerly FTTH Council Europe). RISER takes place in Amsterdam from 6 to 8 April 2027, with around 300 participants, roughly half property owners and asset managers and half connectivity and technology players. Calls for speakers and sponsors are open at risereurope.com.