The UK’s opposition party, Labour has announced a pledge to deliver free full fibre-broadband for all.
The Queen opened UK parliament this week with a speech that outlined the policy plans the government intends to put in place.
At the recent Conservative Party conference, chancellor Sajid Javid pledged to invest £5bn to support the roll-out of full fibre in the UK.
The latest FTTH Market Panorama figures, prepared by IDate, were released at the FTTH Conference in Amsterdam.
The FTTH Council Europe has called for an end to misleading fibre advertising in an open letter from president Ronan Kelly to telecoms ministers, who recently gathered in Brussels to adopt the new European Electronic Communications Code (EECC).
UK Chancellor Philip Hammond has announced the roll out of the Nationwide Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which is to provide vouchers worth up to £3000 for a small or medium sized business or £500 to residents to help with the costs of connecting to full fibre broadband.
Britain has a reputation as a backwater when it comes to fibre-optic broadband connections that reach directly into consumer’s homes. Currently, only two per cent of households in the country have access to full fibre connections. But that looks set to change. This summer, some £500 million of equity and new debt have been invested in alternative network providers in the UK.
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
