TEO LT, AB - Notification on material event

The number of TEO fiber-optic Internet users has surpassed that of broadband DSL

Seven years after the commencement of the next-generation fiber-optic (FTTH)
network construction, the number of TEO LT, AB fiber-optic Internet access
users has surpassed that of the DSL technology-based Internet access. The
next-generation high-speed Internet provided by TEO LT, AB, the largest
provider of integrated telecommunication, IT and TV services in Lithuania, is
already used by more than 179 thousand customers. DSL Internet access is
currently used by about 177 thousand customers. 

TEO fiber-optic Internet access, which is about 35 times faster than DSL, is
accessible to 94 per cent residents of multi-family apartment houses and
one-tenth of residents of individual houses in Lithuania. TEO predicts that
over the next 5-7 years, FTTH Internet will be used by over 300 thousand
customers of the Company. 

Lithuania, which has a particularly extensively developed fiber-optic network,
is the leader in Europe in terms of this technology. According to the most
recent data released by the FTTH Council Europe, in Lithuania fiber-optic
Internet is used by over 30 percent of the country's population. In the second
place - Sweden, where about 23 per cent of the population have FTTH access, in
the third place - Bulgaria with 17 percent of the country's population. The
good indicators of Lithuania are the result of intense competition among
Internet service providers in the deployment of fiber-optic Internet. 

The successfully developed fiber-optic Internet also determines the fact that
Lithuania still remains a country with one of the world's fastest internet
connection. According to the data published by Speedtest.net in December,
Lithuania, where the average data transfer rate is 41.03 Mbps, is among the top
ten countries with the fastest Internet access in the world. Lithuania ranks
among the top three European Union countries in terms of the Internet speed. 

According to Darius Didžgalvis, Chief Technology Officer of TEO, the Company
installed the first fiber-optical access connections as far back as 2006. Then
fiber-optic cables were laid only up to the house and then conventional cables
were used to install the further Internet connection up to each individual
apartment. Since 2007, fiber-optic cables are installed up to the user's
computer. At present, the length of the cables of TEO fiber-optic network,
which is used for provision of services to residents, exceeds 63 thousand
kilometres. "Currently, we focus more on individual houses, mainly in the big cities and
their suburbs. The fiber-optic network provides the opportunity not only to use
the ultra-fast Internet, but also to provide a wide range of high-quality
services. In addition, the frequency of faults occurring in this network is two
times lower than in the conventional network", - D. Didžgalvis says. 

Due to the constant growth of the use of smart devices as well as the volumes
of data transmitted over the Internet, high-speed Internet access is becoming
an increasingly important part of households and forms an integral part of the
modern way of life and meaningful leisure. 

The growing data needs are best satisfied by the fiber-optic technology - it
allows achieving the data transfer rate of up to 40 Gbps. The easiest way to
understand this speed is to compare how long it takes to download the data to
fill a standard CD (700 MB). With a fast DSL connection, this amount of data
can be downloaded in 10-20 minutes. With a conventional FTTH Internet
connection, it takes less than a minute. With a 40 Gbps data transfer rate, it
is possible to download the data to fill 3 CDs in a few seconds. 




         Antanas Bubnelis,
         Director of Corporate Communication Unit,
         tel. +370 5 236 75 37