News roundup February 2016

A summary of February 2016’s broadband news and developments:

Hot on the heels of Ofcom’s publication last week of the initial conclusions from its Strategic Review of Digital Communications, the Institute of Directors (IoD) today published Ultrafast Britain, a new report calling for a new target for households and business to have access to speeds of 10 Gbit/s by 2030. A survey of IoD members found that 8 in 10 directors said significantly faster broadband speeds would increase their company’s productivity, three-fifths thought it would make their business more competitive and over half felt that faster broadband would enable them to offer more flexible working to their staff. The IoD expects the Government to meet its ambition to provide its proposed Universal Service Obligation of 10 Mbit/s by 2020 but believes it should aim higher.

ISP Review offered further analysis of the new Duct and Pole Access (DPA) obligations on Openreach proposed by Ofcom in its review, recognising that being able to use Openreach’s ducts and poles to provision backhaul and leased line connectivity as well as residential connections could “play a pivotal role in making the economic case for building new connectivity”.

In Singapore, both M1 and Singtel announced the launch of residential 10 Gbit/s broadband services. Singtel claim that using a 10 Gbit/s connection  “a 2-hour Full HD movie can be downloaded within 90 seconds while a 2-hour 4K quality movie can be downloaded in 6 minutes”. Both services are priced at 189 Singapore Dollars a month, around £97.

University College London (UCL) reported that its researchers in its Optical Networks Group had set a new record for the fastest ever data rate for digital information. They achieved a rate of 1.125 Tbit/s as part of research on the capacity limits of optical transmission systems, designed to address the growing demand for fast data rates. UCL researchers have also designed and tested new hardware that could dramatically reduce the cost of deploying fast fibre connections to homes. The non-profit research and development consortium CableLabs reported on a new project  illustrating how DOCSIS 3.1 technology can provide “the basis for continued evolution of system capacities by supporting symmetric multi-Gigabit service” over cable networks. The Financial Times reported that telecoms networks are becoming increasingly “maxed out” as both fixed and mobile traffic continue to increase.

Further to this month’s spectrum, mobile & wireless update:

• The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reported on progress in the development of  IMT-2020, the standard for 5G mobile systems.
• The European Commission announced an agreement between the EU and Brazil to develop 5G technologies.
• Ars Technica reported on the development by researchers at the University of Washington of “an extremely power-efficient version of Wi-Fi wireless networking technology that consumes 10,000 times less power than the current Wi-Fi components, allowing Wi-Fi networking to be built into a much wider range of devices.” The technology has been dubbed “Passive Wi-Fi “.
• The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) published Plotting the Course, a new paper setting out eight priorities for the National Infrastructure Commission. In terms of digital developments, the paper states that “to stay at the top of the international leagutable on Next Generation Access, the UK must continue to develop its mobile coverage and lay the foundations for the arrival and roll-out of 5G, in the next 10 – 15 years.”

Other news this month:

• BBC News reported that Microsoft is testing an underwater data centre to explore options for reducing latency and eliminating the need for cooling.
• Google Fibre reported on plans to help narrow the digital divide by providing a free gigabit Internet service through its commitment to serve public housing residents across its fibre cities. Google Fibre also announced it would launch in Huntsville, Alabama, using part of the fibre network being built by Huntsville Utilities.
• Virgin Media launched “Supercharging Local Communities”, a demand registration initiative to identify local communities that should receive service as part of its £3bn Project Lightning network expansion plan across the UK.