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British Bulldogs Howl at Broadband Blues![]() About 1.1 million residential and business customers in Britain have no access to high-speed broadband, a situation unlikely to improve given the government's abandonment of its Universal Service Commitment. In the Ofcom Connected Nations 2017 report, released earlier this month, the UK's communications regulator determined that 4% of British properties cannot get broadband speeds required to meet "typical needs." Now, these are not exactly gigabit speeds. Nor are they even high-speed connections. Rather, the British government defines as acceptable download speeds of at least 10 Mbit/s and upload speeds of at least 1 Mbit/s. This is at a time when leading providers are deploying (or at least testing and investigating) high-speed infrastructures. Superfast broadband in Britain -- download speeds of 30 Mbit/s or more -- now is available to 91% of UK homes and businesses, or about 27 million thresholds, versus 25.5 million a year prior, Ofcom found. Forty percent of users tap into this offering, compared with about 33% 12 months ago, the report said. Incumbents rarely rely on full fiber, however. Currently, only 3% of properties have FTTH, up slightly from 2% in 2016, said the survey. But a number of operators have publicly shared plans to expand their fiber deployments. “Broadband coverage is improving, but our findings show there’s still urgent work required before people and businesses get the services they need," said Steve Unger, Ofcom chief technology officer in a statement. “Everyone should have good access to the Internet, wherever they live and work. So we are supporting plans for universal broadband, and promoting investment in full-fiber technology that can provide ultrafast, reliable connections.” Speaking on BBC radio on Dec. 20, however, Matt Hancock, the government's Minister for Digital -- who oversees broadband, broadcasting, creative industries, cyber and tech industries -- said the ruling Conservative Party has replaced its election-year pledge to provide all the UK with "superfast broadband" with a "legal right," whereby residential and business customers can "demand" high-speed broadband, reported TelecomTV.com. Under the new policy, broadband providers have a legal requirement to provide potential subscribers with this service "subject to a cost threshold," which would appear to further harm rural and inner-city residents already on the wrong side of the digital divide. Related posts:
— Alison Diana, Editor, UBB2020. Follow us on Twitter @UBB2020 or @alisoncdiana. (Home page art source: Bryan Ledgard / Flickr [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons) |
In a flurry of activity throughout the week, Donald (DJ) LaVoy, Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development at the US Department of Agriculture, and his team spent about $145.8 million in the non-urban or suburban areas of seven states.
Calix reported revenue of $120.19 million – up 4% – in Q4 2019, putting a bounce in the step of company president and CEO Carl Russo and a shine to Calix's ongoing transition from hardware vendor to a provider of platforms enabled by cloud, APIs and subscriber experience.
Looking to curtail e-waste and improve the bottom line, BT will require customers to return routers and set-top boxes, although subscribers will not have to pay a fee when they receive regular broadband equipment.
The industry standards organization is looking to ease operator pain from residential WiFi, while it also sees initiatives in connected home and other projects bear fruit.
Deploying DOCSIS 3.1 across its entire footprint gave Rogers Communications the ability to offer speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s,
contributing to a broadband segement that generated about 60% of the Canadian operator's $3.05 billion (US) in Q4 cable earnings.
![]() ARCHIVED
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
1:00 p.m. New York / 6:00 p.m. London When your broadband business adds new services and connected devices, do they also add complexity, slowing customer support teams as they navigate multiple data sources to uncover connectivity issues? We’ve worked with hundreds of support teams to help them implement a subscriber experience management platform that gives greater visibility into subscriber issues. They can proactively troubleshoot amid complexity—improving the subscriber experience and raising customer satisfaction ratings like Net Promoter Scores. Join this webinar with experts from Calix and global research leader Omdia who will share exclusive research about how you can:
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