Business

Independent fibre structure providers should be allowed to fill in gaps left by BT, according to a report by the House of Commons Rural Affairs Committee.

Rural businesses, schools and households have fallen behind their urban counterparts when it comes to broadband access, according to the Rural Communities report published today. The roll-out of superfast broadband to 90 per cent of rural areas will be delivered late, and it is unclear when the target of universal access to 2Mbps broadband will be achieved.

New data shows a fast increase in broadband adoption in OECD countries – with a particularly steep acceleration in the use of fibre.

Figures just released for the international economic organisation of 34 countries, for the year to December 2012, show a steady trend increase in fibre adoption – with the share of fibre subscriptions in fixed broadband increasing to 14.9 per cent (up to 48.7 million fibre broadband lines). Fibre grew by 12.7 per cent in 2012, four times as much as fixed broadband at 3.27 per cent.

The USA's The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is claiming to have developed a hollow optical fibre that can transmit data 30 per cent faster than conventional broadband fibre.

DARPA says the design, which uses a hollow, air-filled core, improves performance by forcing light to travel through channels of air, instead of the glass around it.

Ireland's Electricity Supply Board (ESB) is planning to build a super fast fibre network, and is currently looking for a partner for the initiative.

ESB is aiming to connect nearly half a million homes in the first phase of the development, mainly in towns outside the main metropolitan areas of Dublin and Cork and at speeds of up to 150Mbps.

The Irish Times newspaper reports that Vodaphone and BT are interested in collaborating in the project, which could start in the early part of next year, but both firms have declined to comment on the matter.

IT and telecoms services provider Modrus is gaining a new fibre infrastructure from CityFibre, one of the UK’s leading independent fibre infrastructure providers.

Connecting its head office and main operating centre in the city of Bournemouth with its three datacentres in London, the new link will replace Modrus’ existing BT connection to become its new primary link, enabling the company to improve its customer service with faster server set-ups.

Adtran a US-based provider of next-generation networking solutions, has announced that Lintasarta has chosen the Total Access 5000 broadband platform as the backbone of the company’s fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) service roll-out.

Indonesia’s largest telecommunications provider Lintasarta is deploying FTTP to deliver faster broadband speeds for business services that demand service level agreements (SLAs) for continuous service performance and availability. Adtran says the Total Access 5000 is purpose-built for supporting premium, consolidated broadband services.

Metaswitch Networks, a provider of communications software and solutions, has announced that CityPlay has selected its MetaSphere Multimedia Telephony Applications Server (MTAS) and Perimeta Session Border Controller (SBC).

Finnish telecoms company TeliaSonera has pledged to buy more fibre networks in Scandinavian markets in an effort to improve network quality and increase its range of services.

Noting increased sales and profitability in its second quarter for 2013, the company stated that it is aiming to increase its share of the market in the region by providing a bigger capacity.

BT has stated that it is unlikely to derive a financial return on its investment in rural fibre broadband for at least 10 years.

As reported, the broadband provider has been something of a lone crusader in providing rural broadband access, after several other companies decided that it was not an area in which it was easy to make a profit.

The high costs of installing fibre connections are leaving thousands of people without broadband connections, while plans to roll out super-fast broadband in the UK are running two years late.

Three European telecoms giants have embraced a spirit of collaboration in an effort to expand Spain's fibre optic network in homes and business premises. Telefónica, Vodafone and Orange have signed an agreement to share vertical fibre optic infrastructures in buildings across the country.