UK chancellor of the exchequer, Philip Hammond, confirmed in the 2018 budget report that £200 million will be allocated to fund full fibre broadband connections in harder-to-reach and rural areas across the UK. This will allow for testing of new approaches to fibre rollout in rural areas, with the Borderlands, Cornwall, and Welsh valleys said to be amongst the first areas to benefit.
The recent Covid-19 pandemic has changed many areas of our daily life, from going to a place of work, how we spend our holidays, to eating out and socialising with friends and family. For fibre engineers, it has arguably had a much greater impact.
In 2020, video calls have become ubiquitous thanks to Covid-19, revealing many people’s ‘lousy home broadband’, according to Geoff Bennett, director, solutions and technology, at Infinera.
It’s reasonable to say that the biggest disruptive influence this year has been the global pandemic that still currently has a grip on our lives.
PIA has proven its value in a project to build a carrier-independent dark fibre route between Bristol and South Wales in the UK. Mark Weller explains
Koji Okamoto underlines the importance of rebooting test processes for the ‘new normal’
Geoff Bennett evaluates how 50 years of innovation in optical communications has more recently helped to bring light from the shadow of Covid-19
Guillaume Baral outlines some of the significant benefits of adopting a more agile, modular approach to product development for fibre networks
There is a massive commercial opportunity that fibre network providers are leaving in the ground, says Stuart Large
Mattias Fridström looks at the role of software and collaboration in maximising optical networks in the future
