The members of the FTTH Council Asia-Pacific have chosen Shanghai as the location for their Annual General Meeting on September 20-21. Members will take advantage of the meeting to learn more about the FTTH activities and opportunities in China. Dr. Shoichi Hanatani, President of the FTTH Council Asia- Pacific, and Senior Director Hitachi Communication Technologies says, "The Asia-Pacific region has by far the largest deployment of broadband fiber access networks in the world, but most of this is concentrated in just a few countries. Much remains to be done to complete the transition from the constraint of copper loops to the enormous capacity and rich services that are only possible on optical fiber-to-the-home networks." The introduction of FTTH is a global phenomenon. The enormous capacity of optical fiber access allows businesses and residents to fit all of their Internet, Telephone, and TV-Video services on a single access cable, reducing costs and encouraging the creation of further new services. The Council is a group of leading telecom, networking, and infrastructure companies whose mandate is to promote the extension of fiber access across the Asia Pacific region including Greater China, Korea, Japan, SE Asia, India, Thailand and Australia/New Zealand. The Asia-Pacific group is the newest such Council, having been formally registered as a non-profit organization early in 2005. It maintains close working links with the existing FTTH Council organizations in North America and Europe. FTTH Council members represent all areas of broadband industries, including telecommunications; computing, networking; system integration; engineering; and content-provider companies; as well as traditional telecommunications service providers, utilities and municipalities. Mr. Hiroshi Yatabe of Furukawa Electric Co., Chair of the Council's Market Development team said: "We have commissioned research to identify precisely how many FTTH subscribers and networks there are throughout Asia-Pac. Early numbers indicate that Asia-Pac has far more FTTH subscribers than all the other regions combined. When we add the networks being built in China today, it's clear that many parts of Asia will soon have the most advanced telecommunications infrastructure in the world." Mr. Iftikhar Jami, Board Member of the Council and Director of Marketing and Strategy for Alcatel Asia-Pac added: "Our participation in the Council gives us the insights we need to do business throughout the region. It's a great way to learn about the various countries and establish business relationships."