FTTP

Openreach is to recruit 3,000 new trainees over the next 12 months to support its ‘full fibre’ broadband build plans.

Alternative network provider, CityFibre has put in place a debt package of £1.12 billion, proceeds from which are to be used to fund the first part of a £2.5 billion investment plan, which will see the company roll-out full fibre to five million homes by 2025.

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 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.

Tens of thousands of homes in both Cardiff and Liverpool are in the final stages of being connected to ultrafast broadband under the first phase of Openreach’s ‘fibre first’ programme, Openreach managing director, Kim Mears announced during visits to both cities this week.

Huawei and Nokia have been selected by Openreach to help deliver its UK rollout of fibre to the premises (FTTP) technology to approximately three million homes and businesses by the end of 2020.

TalkTalk intends to sell its direct B2B business to The Daisy Group for £175 million. The two companies have each signed heads of terms on a proposed deal which would transfer all existing TalkTalk direct B2B customers to Daisy.

The deal includes around 80,000 small, small to medium and large businesses, and TalkTalk says that this represents less than 20 per cent of the company’s B2B revenues. The transaction is subject to contract, with the intention to complete in late July 2018.

UK Chancellor, Philip Hammond announced in his speech at the annual Confederation of British Industry (CBI) dinner a pledge to make full fibre to the premises (FTTP) connections available to most homes and businesses by 2025 as part of the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy.

BT has set out its latest strategy update as part of the incumbent’s full year results for 2017-2018. Revealed in the update is the intention to increase its FTTP and mobile infrastructure investment within an annual capex allocation of around £3.7 billion.

The Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA) and Point Topic have partnered to publish a new report: Metrics for the UK altnet sector Scale, coverage, ambitions, concerns. Amongst the key findings, the report reveals that nearly one million UK homes and businesses are now in reach of ultrafast full fibre connectivity via alternative network providers (altnets).