The Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Kate Forbes, has issued a brief progress update on their £600m Reaching 100% (R100) project with BT (Openreach), which is busy extending fixed “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) coverage – the vast majority of which is coming via FTTP – across rural parts of the country. Just to recap. […]
Broadband ISP Fibrus Reveal FTTP Rollout Plan for North England
Belfast-based ISP Fibrus, which until now has been focused on building gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across Northern Ireland, has this afternoon revealed its £200m expansion plan for Great Britain – aiming to reach 113,000 premises by 2025 (starting in Cumbria). Curiously, today’s announcement makes no mention of the figure they first put out a […]
BT Staff Vote to Strike Over Pay as Openreach Prep Contingency Plan
The Communications Workers Union (CWU), which represents c. 40,000 staff at the UK telecoms and broadband ISP giant BT (inc. Openreach), has today – following a dispute over pay – voted to hit the operator with its first national strike in 35 years. Delays to service provision are expected, unless a last minute deal can […]
CityFibre to Rollout FTTP Broadband Across Yorkshire Housing
Network builder CityFibre has reached a new wayleave (access) agreement with Yorkshire Housing, a charitable housing association that manages nearly 20,000 homes across Yorkshire (England), which will enable them to deploy their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to “thousands of tenants“. As part of the new deal with Yorkshire Housing, CityFibre has already installed […]
Proximus prepares €4 billion fibre investment plan
At the start of this week, Belgian operator Proximus announced that it had passed one million buildings with fibre, the final building being Brussel’s iconic Atomium.
Now, the operator has revealed even greater ambitions when it comes to providing fibre connectivity throughout the country, suggesting that its massive fibre drive is only just beginning.
This week, Proximus has signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with a consortium of Belgian financial partners called I4B (The Belgian Infrastructure Fund)…
INWIT, Vodafone & TIM win €346 govt contract for rural 5G
Back in March, Infratel, an agency within Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development, announced that it would launch two major tenders, one aimed at deploying 5G sites in 2,000 underserved areas of the country, the other at connecting around 10,000 existing mobile sites with fibre.
The contracts were worth a combined €2 billion, derived from the government’s post…
Connecting America: The Total Telecom roundup of broadband development
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in the USA promises to see billions invested in broadband and bridging the digital divide. Total Telecom are keeping track of events by pulling together a timeline from multiple news sources, here, in one location. If you are interested in a more in…
Samsung wins the race to 3nm, but can it take on TSMC?
Today, Samsung Electronics has announced that it has begun mass production of 3nm semiconductors, becoming the first foundry company to do so worldwide.
The breakthrough to 3nm comes as a result of Samsung switching to GAAFET (gate-all-around field-effect transistor) technology for the new chips – more specifically, to the company’s own nanosheet innovation known as Multi-Bridge-Channel FET (MBCFET™).
The new technology makes use of nanosheets with wider channels, rather than the nanowires and narrower channels of older GAA technologies, allowing for significant improvements in crucial power…
Virgin Media O2 UK to Expand 4G and 5G Small Cells Outside London
Broadband and mobile giant VMO2 (Virgin Media and O2) has revealed that they’ve deployed more than 1,300 live 4G and 5G capable Small Cell sites across London, which are often used to boost mobile coverage and capacity in high density urban areas (shopping malls etc.). The operator plans to expand this into other parts of […]
ISP WightFibre Starts Transitioning Fleet to Electric Vehicles
Broadband ISP WightFibre, which is currently deploying a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across 80,000 premises on the Isle of Wight (South Coast of Hampshire, England), has started a programme to switch their vehicle fleet to electric (inc. hybrid electric) with the arrival of several new cars and vans. A number of UK network operators, […]