Members of the optical communications industry celebrated the sixth annual ‘Gimme Fibre Day’ on 4 November this year, by paying tribute to Sir Charles Kuen Kao, who passed away in September.

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 Welsh government has outlined the next steps in its campaign to bring fast, reliable broadband to the remaining premises in Wales under the Superfast Cymru programme.

CityFibre has announced a £2.5 billion full fibre investment plan, which identifies 37 towns and cities that already have critical fibre spine assets as primed for expansion for fibre-to-the-home (FTTH).

Community Fibre has selected Adtran as its technology partner to deliver 10G residential and business services in the UK.

Maltese service provider, Go has signed an agreement allowing Vodafone to use its fibre to the Home (FTTH) network to deliver internet services.

SSE Enterprise Telecoms has entered a fibre agreement with Three UK and O2 to support enhanced fibre access in London. The connectivity supplier is licensed to lay fibre optic cables throughout Thames Water’s waste water network; and the new partnership centres around the use of this fibre ring in enhancing Three UK and O2’s connectivity backhaul capabilities in order to stay ahead of an expected surge in data usage in the run up to 5G.

Local authorities are able to bid for a share of a further £95million that has been released by the UK government towards full fibre rollout.

UK start-up operator, British Fibre Networks has started work on its first installation - a new build apartment block in North Wales for housebuilder, LW Group. The company says that it will begin further work shortly on developments in Cheshire and Liverpool.

More than 7,000 homes and businesses in Sunderland, the UK, will be next to access Virgin Media’s ultrafast broadband as the provider expands its network under the ‘Project Lightning’ programme, which aims to provide speeds up to 362Mb/s in the region.