"Hungary's Magyar Telekom has scaled back its targets for high-speed fibre-optic network expansion in 2009.MTel, the country's leading telecoms group, will connect 165,000 households to its high-speed fibre-optic network in Hungary by the end of the year, against its earlier target of 200,000, the company's Deputy CEO János Winkler told a press conference on Wednesday.
The Deutsche Telekom unit said last year it would invest HUF 40 billion between 2009 and 2013 on its new generation fibre and cable networks to provide faster broadband access.
Due to the global financial crisis, however, MTel will have to slow investment in upgrading its network, Reuters cited Winkler as telling a press conference.
"We had planned to have 200,000 households connected (by the end of this year) but then the recession hit."
Winkler said the new network, which costs about HUF 50,000 per household to install, was already available at over 120,000 homes and the company expected to have about 17,000 subscribers (about 10% of total connections) to the new service this year.
“[...] and I think even this (forecast) is ambitious," he added."
Source: Portfolio Online Financial Journal
03.09.2009