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Paraguay’s ICT secretariat has announced a project to connect 1,325 government offices, 937 police stations, 1,525 health facilities and 10,300 educational institutions to a national fibre-optic network. Paraguayan telecommunications watchdog Conatel previously announced that it had allocated some US$ 6 m to the country’s universal services fund (FSU) in order to provide connections. The secretariat plans to invest some US$13-15m in its digital agenda project.
Lithuania’s government plans to allocate EUR 174 million for the development of the information society from 2019-2021. The EU will provide €129 m. Funding will primarily be spent on expanding internet services in rural areas and developing cloud services infrastructure. Between 2014-2020, Lithuania will have allocated €214 million for the information society development.
Prysmian Group extends its congratulations to the European co-legislators – the Parliament, Council, and Commission – for reaching an agreement on a revised telecommunications framework for the EU. This will stimulate sorely needed investment in the sector. Parliament ITRE Committee recently took the latest step in this journey by voting to approve the text agreed upon with the Council. Negotiations took almost two years, since the Commission’s original position on a new European Electronic Communications Code. This draft proposed streamlining and merging in one piece of legislation the main rules that will define the direction of Europe’s telecoms sector for years to come.
Prysmian Group shared insights into future energy and telecommunication solutions at the Smart Cities Conference, organized by the Italian Embassy in Berlin, Germany. In a roundtable session, Francesco Fanciulli, EVP of Prysmian Group’s Energy Business, focused on opportunities and challenges of connectivity and different infrastructures for mobility and connectivity purposes. "Our expertise is key to ensuring an integrated power and telecommunication infrastructure to meet the high demand of smart cities," said Fanciulli.
Asia remains a dominant global player in fibre, with South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore in leading positions. According to new research from Research and Markets, fixed broadband continues to support internet services to households and businesses across Asia. Some smaller markets are stimulating fibre through policy initiatives and innovative infrastructure projects. Across the entire region, fixed broadband penetration increased from 7% in 2012 to 11% going into 2018.
Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development recently completed the national tender for 5G spectrum in the 694-790MHz, 26.5-27.5GHz and 3.6-3.8GHz bands. After 14 days of competitive bidding, € 6.55 billion had been raised. This is more than € 4 billion higher than the minimum reserve price of EUR 2.5 billion. Telecom Italia (TIM), Wind Tre, Vodafone, Fastweb and Iliad offered some 164 percent higher than the value of initial bids made in September. Spectrum in the 3.7 GHz band, available from 1 January 2019, raised a total of EUR 4.35 billion.
A new cross border interconnection will link Liquid Telecom’ network from Sudan to Telecom Egypt’s network. The Cape to Cairo network – frequently referred to as “the One Africa” broadband network – has been in the making for over ten years. The strategic partnership extends to sharing network infrastructure and exploring further areas of collaboration, such as joint network services, a peering arrangement and a voice interconnection agreement.
Vodafone Germany is starting to deploy 1G DOCSIS 3.1-enabled service across its large footprint. Initial rollout will take place across Bavaria, starting in Nuremberg, Landshut, Dingolfing and Fuerth. These four markets jointly represent 400,000 cable homes, and were the first locations in which Vodafone switched off analogue TV and radio channels and upgraded its HFC network to DOCSIS 3.1.
Executives at the 2018 Broadband Forum Asia agreed that government participation is crucial to broadband success, stated to Kagan, a group within S&P Global Market Intelligence's TMT offering. Several examples support this: Vietnam's broadband initiative grew the share of fibre broadband households from 47.4% in 2015 to 77.5% in 2017. In 2013, the Chinese government launched the Broadband China initiative, which targets nationwide broadband coverage by 2020, with a $323 bn investment. Singapore’s government provides grants of up to US$569 million and US$190 m to network companies.
Openreach, owned by BT, has been consulting on improving UK connection speeds with broadband providers and others in the industry. The company has an ambition to bring fibre speeds to 10 million homes by the mid-2020s, providing other companies and the Government help out. Openreach is using the Karona Overblowing System to help install its ‘Single Fibre Network’ in major cities as well as remote rural areas. Prysmian developed part of the Karona system specifically to allow Openreach to add small diameter cables into low diameter sub-ducts containing legacy cables. The system comprises overblow cables, installation equipment, connectivity and comprehensive training. Overblow cable range is from 12 to 432 fibres. Benefits include reduced civil works and planning permission and significantly faster rollouts.
© Copyright Prysmian Group.
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© Copyright Prysmian Group.
All rights reserved.