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Whether it’s stories about people being treated like ‘lab rats in a surveillance experiment’ or research claiming that up to 20 million global manufacturing jobs could be replaced by robots in the next ten years, it would seem that technology being designed to enhance our lives is receiving constant criticism and demonisation.

With the UK desperately far behind Europe in the deployment of Full Fibre to the premises FTTP, Total Telecom met up with Richard Watts to discuss how the market has responded and what needs to happen to meet the government targets for full coverage.

The UK has moved from FTTP penetration levels of 1% to 7% over the last six months – is fibre deployment happening quickly enough or do we need to pick up the pace? Any progress in the expansion of full fibre networks across the UK should be applauded.  However, the market is currently 93% slow copper putting the UK in 27th place out of 54 countries worldwide, and second from bottom in Europe.

Mikael Sandberg discusses how installing a truly full-fibre broadband connection in a property doesn’t just benefit the homebuyer but the housebuilder too. See full article in Showhouse Magazine – Broadband Supplement.

5G is the talk of the telecoms industry right now, with 5G networks launching in the US and South Korea. But many don’t realise that 5G isn’t possible without fixed high-speed fibre connectivity. This is where the UK struggles at the moment. According to FTTH Council Europe, nationwide UK fibre penetration is woefully inadequate.

The market for full fibre broadband access in the UK is at an inflection point. Can altnets reach the parts that Openreach and BT cannot reach? At the end of April, AIM-listed UK alternative network provider (altnet) CityFibre recommended to its shareholders that they accept a £538m takeover by an investment consortium backed by Goldman Sachs.

The 1 gigabit per second speeds would make a big impact for internet users in the Potteries. The city council plans to build one of the fastest broadband networks in the country – thanks to £9.2 million of Government funding. Stoke-on-Trent City Council says the ‘full fibre’ project will provide residents and businesses with internet speeds in excess of 1 gigabit per second, potentially giving the local economy a multi-million pound boost.

Broadband service providers have faced backlash in recent months following misleading ads claiming to offer “full fibre services” to consumers. The claims were validated by research finding that almost a quarter of Brits think they have full fibre broadband, despite this only being available to five per cent of UK properties.

Swedish fibre optic builder VX Fiber, which is currently working to deploy a new 1Gbps open access FTTP broadband ISP network across Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire (here), has today published a new ‘Digital Masterplan‘ to assist other UK Local Authorities in their plans for rolling out similar infrastructure.

As the UK Government opens bidding to local authorities and district councils in the third wave of the Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) Challenge Fund, open access Gigabit fibre provider VX Fiber has published a ‘Digital Masterplan’ to assist them in their plans for rolling out new high-speed broadband networks.