News roundup April 2017

A final roundup of April’s broadband news and developments:

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced that the Digital Economy Bill had become law (see this month’s UK Broadband Update for more background on this). The House of Lords had voted earlier this year in favour of amending the proposed 10Mbit/s Universal Service Obligation (USO) to 30Mbit/s, however both Public Technology and Ars Technica reported that this amendment was rejected.

Ofcom published a review of the latest developments in the Internet of Things (IoT). Key conclusions include that while the IoT is likely to “shift from being a relatively poorly understood technology to a mainstay of many people’s lives”, the current limited level of standardisation makes it hard to achieve economies of scale and keeps costs high. Progress has been slow but new technologies will enable faster growth. Policymakers have a key role in fostering innovation and growth and also protecting consumers. Automotive, consumer electronics and utilities applications are expected to account for the great majority of IoT connections by 2024; by the end of 2016 there were estimated to be approximately 13.3 million IoT connections in the UK and this is expected to grow to 155.7 million by the end of 2024.

Network World reported that Google is investing in another undersea fibre-optic cable: it is helping to fund a project called Indigo, which will connect Jakarta, Singapore, Perth and Sydney and is expected to be completed by mid-2019. See previous roundups from October and November 2016 for more background on recent undersea cable developments. Ars Technica reported on how Google Fibre and other ISPs that want to build new networks in the U.S. could benefit from proposals being considered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to speed up fibre deployments via utility poles. See this previous post for more on Google’s fibre plans and this month’s UK Broadband Update for more on Ofcom’s plans in this area.

Finally the U.S. Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) published A Policymaker’s Guide to Rural Broadband Infrastructure: this highlights how broadband support should be included in any legislative package to update U.S. infrastructure. Key aspects include ensuring that financial support is based on delivering service to the incrementally next most costly unserved areas (inside out, as opposed to outside in), supporting both fixed and mobile broadband and supplying connections for unserved areas before upgrading areas with slow connections.