Australia’s NBN Co recently upgraded 375,000 premises from Fibre to the Curb or Fibre to the Node to Fibre to the Premises. With FTTP, customers can access NBN's highest speed tiers, including speeds up to 1 Gb/s. The project is part of a $2.4 billion investment by the Australian government, designed to expand the network's capabilities and improve internet reliability across urban and regional areas.
A new study from the US Fiber Broadband Association shows higher bandwidth brings enhanced efficiency and fewer wasted human hours. According to the study, a Gb or more of bandwidth can save significant valuable time for the individual and contribute to increasing the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the U.S. and Canada. Governments should only subsidize fibre broadband for rural areas versus lower cost and less capable options, such as wireless delivery.
Research by the Digital Poverty Alliance (DPA) reveals damaging effects of digital poverty on children’s education. According to their findings, nearly 80% of students need online access for homework, but many low-income families struggle to afford adequate broadband or devices. This issue has worsened due to the rising costs of broadband. 88% of parents agreed that not having a laptop ‘somewhat’ (30%) or ‘very much’ (58%) disadvantaged their child.
NY state has awarded more than $70 m to projects that are to connect over 25,000 homes and businesses, as part of the ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grant program. This funding will allow municipalities to build 800 miles of public broadband infrastructure to connect underserved upstate regions. Launched with $228 million in federal funding, the ConnectALL program is designed to construct public, open-access fibre infrastructure that multiple ISPs can use. This allows for increased competition and more affordable internet options for residents.
Project Gigabit, the UK government's flagship broadband program, aims to expand high-speed internet access, particularly to rural and underserved areas. It seeks to deliver Gb-capable broadband to at least 85% of UK homes and businesses by 2025, with an ambitious long-term goal of 100% coverage. The UK government has entered a deal with Openreach to extend gigabit connectivity to some 312,000 additional homes and businesses in underserved areas of the UK. The government will provide ‘up to’ £800 million.
Switching from copper to fibre networks allows for Gb speeds and improved network reliability, necessary for meeting growing data consumption for activities including video streaming, online education, and remote work. By the end of 2024 Telenor's Finnish arm, DNA, will complete copper network switch-off for consumer landline telephony across Finland. The copper network was still in use for landlines and xDSL broadband connections. In early 2024, no more than 1,000 DNA consumer customers were still using copper broadband.
Last year, Telia Lithuania successfully completed updating its network with state-of-the-art radio access network (RAN) equipment. This has made it possible to set up an advanced, countrywide 5G network on 3.5GHz and 700MHz frequencies, ensuring countrywide high-speed data availability throughout Lithuania. This 5G rollout is a remarkable success story, especially considering the fact that Lithuania was the last country in Europe to launch 5G, which only occurred in autumn 2022. Despite this late start, the country achieved impressive progress in a very short time.
A recent report by Dell'Oro Group indicated forecasts an average 2 % growth for the next five years (2024-2028) of the Broadband Access Equipment market. This is attributed to several factors, such as Tier 1 cable operators slowing down purchases of new DOCSIS CPE and lower spending as operators absorb excess inventory.
