Fibre-optic

AI ambition is pushing copper to its breaking point

SC24 Ayar Labs contends silicon photonics will be key to scaling beyond the rack and taming the heat

The Future of the Datacenter - 2025 and Beyond28 Nov 2024 | 6

Openreach reveals latest locations facing the copper chop

A reminder to get fiber (eventually) or get left behind

Networks16 Oct 2024 | 65

Telcos scolded for unwanted erection of utility poles in race to wire up Britain

Telecoms minister pleads with operators to work together

Networks16 Sep 2024 | 80

Verizon snaps up Frontier in $20B fiber power play

Marking yet another round of telecom consolidation

Networks05 Sep 2024 | 9

Copper's reach is shrinking so Broadcom is strapping optics directly to GPUs

What good is going fast if you can't get past the next rack?

Networks28 Aug 2024 | 3

French internet cables cut in act of sabotage that caused outages across country

Axe attack comes just days after arsonists target rail network

Networks29 Jul 2024 | 60

Recycling old copper wires could be worth billions for telcos

800,000 metric tons of cabling is just lying there

Networks31 May 2024 | 61

BT delays deadline for digital landline switch off date

Telco told they must protect vulnerable in race to turn off Public Switched Telephone Network

Networks21 May 2024 | 110

Undersea cables must have high-priority protection before they become top targets

Interview It's 'essential to national security' ex-Navy intel officer tells us

Networks08 May 2024 | 36

Miles of optical fiber crafted aboard ISS marks manufacturing first

ZBLAN fibers made in space hopefully don't crystallize and are far less brittle, opening the path to faster photonics

Networks23 Apr 2024 | 20

Coherent lights the way to massive AI clusters with optical circuit switches

Could end-to-end lasers keep long training jobs on track?

Networks25 Mar 2024 | 2

Japan's NTT and NEC reckon they can boost optical network capacities 12x

First tests of manycore fibres hailed as success over oceanic distances

Off-Prem22 Mar 2024 | 4

Attacks on UK fiber networks mount: Operators beg govt to step in

Some simply chop cables in ducts, others pour in petrol and set 'the whole lot alight'

Networks12 Mar 2024 | 161

Virgin Media to stand up rival network operator to BT Openreach

NetCo hoping to eat some of the pie by opening network plumbing to ISPs

Networks19 Feb 2024 | 31

US, Australia solicit Google's help with Pacific subsea cable project

$65 million cable project to connect US to Australia by way of Fiji and French Polynesia

Networks26 Oct 2023 | 3

UK to crack down on imported Chinese optical fiber cables

5.7 million fiber kilometers of the stuff could be worth £88M to Brit players, claims government

Networks25 Oct 2023 | 73

Bermuda, your data, Google's gonna take your US data

Updated Search giant's latest subsea cable will feed your YouTube addiction

Off-Prem26 Sep 2023 | 14

Intel shows off 8-core, 528-thread processor with 1TB/s of co-packaged optics

Hot Chips 'Embarrassingly parallel' protoype baked for DARPA to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon at massive scale

Networks01 Sep 2023 | 16

BT CEO Jansen confirms he's quitting within 12 months

FTTP builds? 25M homes target on track. 68% coverage of 5G in UK. Mega redundancies programme initiated. He's off

Networks10 Jul 2023 | 15

UK government hands CityFibre £318M for rural broadband builds

Openreach rival promises first live connections by next summer

Networks03 Jul 2023 | 30

BT boss Jansen agrees to 'waive' future salary bumps

Says nothing about juicy share awards, as another major organizational reorg kicks off

Networks08 Jun 2023 | 7

BT is ditching workers faster than your internet connection with 55,000 for chop by 2030

FTTP build to be done by then, network will be more 'efficient,' AI to take over in customer services

Networks18 May 2023 | 112

UK govt wants standalone 5G by 2030 but won't shell out to help hit target

Instead tech department working on 'range of measures' to foster investment

Networks12 Apr 2023 | 105

Rebel without a clause: ISP promises broadband with no contract

We don't need to trap customers to force loyalty, says boss

Networks13 Mar 2023 | 45

BT keeps the faith in 'like fury' fiber broadband buildout as revenues dip

Almost 10 million premises hooked up but cost-cutting campaign continues

Networks02 Feb 2023 | 44

Openreach offers more wholesale fiber discounts, rivals call foul

CityFibre seethes that move comes straight out of 'dominant operator ... playbook'

Networks19 Dec 2022 | 45

Why did Microsoft just buy fiber optic cable company Lumenisity?

When every nanosecond of latency counts, improvements in the physical layer matter

Networks13 Dec 2022 | 41

Lumen to double size of US network with six million extra miles of fiber

Big expansion of 400Gbps networking as it plays catch-up on speeds and feeds

Networks06 Dec 2022 | 7

Union meeting BT shareholders today to discuss strikes, pay rises

Exclusive CWU also planning to re-ballot entire workforce, claims stoppages are delaying fiber and network builds

Networks24 Oct 2022 | 9

Boffins shatter data transmission speed record

One laser + one optical chip = more than the traffic of the entire internet

Science21 Oct 2022 | 45

Lockheed Martin taps silicon photonics tech to build better weapons of war

Let the battle against latency begin

Systems13 Oct 2022 | 3

BT will back down in face of non-stop protests, says union

CWU: Just like UK government did a reverse-ferret on tax, so will national telecom titan on staff pay

Networks06 Oct 2022 | 8

Google challenges US ISPs with 100Gbps fiber broadband

An internet advertiser as your service provider – what could go wrong?

Networks29 Sep 2022 | 18

Japan's NTT claims it's built 1.2Tbit/s optical comms that sip power

Cloud and 5G mean the world needs beefier backbones and NTT thinks this could build them

Networks07 Sep 2022 | 5

Waferscale startup says it can stitch chips together with light

Hot Chips Interconnect tech promises 96TB/s die-to-die communications

Systems29 Aug 2022 | 5

How Google uses mirrors to dynamically reconfigure its networks

Tiny electromechanical units bounce traffic down different fibers

Networks24 Aug 2022 | 15

Tencent lines up to deploy Broadcom's co-packaged optical switches

A faster 51.2Tbit/sec co-packaged switch is also in the works

Networks22 Aug 2022 | 2

Interconnect innovation key to satiating soaring demand for fiber capacity

Traffic is growing 30 percent every year, there's no reason to believe that'll change, BT's Andrew Lord argues

Networks20 Aug 2022 | 24

BT union wants pay dispute talks with telco's largest shareholders

The game of corporate poker continues but CWU may find investors more interested in dividends

Networks10 Aug 2022 | 45

Strike days should serve as 'wake-up call' to BT's top brass, says union

We kept network running 'safely and effectively' on those days, nothing to see here, says Brit telco

Networks04 Aug 2022 | 115

BT accused of 'misinformation' campaign ahead of strikes

Union tells members to hold nerve on eve of first nationwide sit down in 35 years

Networks28 Jul 2022 | 55

Price, lead times and scarcity of fiber optics may derail projects

Cost of optical cable more than doubles in 16 months as demand goes through roof

Networks25 Jul 2022 | 9

BT strikes to start this month, 40,000 workers to down tools

Pay dispute rumbles on, industrial action scheduled for 29 July and 1 August

Off-Prem15 Jul 2022 | 88

Will optics ever replace copper interconnects? We asked this silicon photonics startup

Star Trek's glowing circuit boards may not be so crazy

Networks18 Jun 2022 | 42

South Yorkshire to test fiber broadband through water pipes

No actual users harmed yet as dept tests safety of pushing water, telecoms services in single pipeline

Networks07 Apr 2022 | 90

Fibre broadband uptake in UK lags behind OECD countries

Not very 'world-beating'

Networks11 Feb 2022 | 124

New submarine cable to link Japan, Europe, through famed Northwest Passage

Alternative route will skip the Suez Canal and other tricky spots

Off-Prem21 Dec 2021 | 58

Japanese boffins say they've created plastic optical fibres to reach places that might break glass

Polymers can transmit at 53Gbps without error correction overheads, and could be just the thing for electric cars

Networks24 Sep 2021 | 27

Imagine a fiber optic cable that can sense it's about to be dug up and send a warning

Forget wiring cities with IoT devices – this could be how wide-scale sensing gets done

Networks23 Sep 2021 | 45

BT Wholesale wants the channel to give SMBs a nudge before copper sunset in 2025

New products launched to help shift oblivious or straggler firms over ahead of PSTN switch-off

Networks15 Sep 2021 | 33

BT hails hollow-core fibre trials as 'critical advancement' for secure communications

Telco claims to have run Quantum Key Distribution over 6km of cable

Networks13 Sep 2021 | 7

319 terabits – great Scott! Boffins in Japan speed along information superhighway at new world record

System compatible with existing infra. No you can't eat it now, kids, it's for later, for upcoming 5G backbone

Networks19 Jul 2021 | 13

UK launches consultation on forcing landlords to allow gigabit broadband upgrades

We want to give your property better internets for free, pls respond

Networks09 Jun 2021 | 20

UK's BT starts trials of new hollow-core optical fibre networks

Promises lower latencies, higher power thresholds

Networks01 Jun 2021 | 41

Maybe high-speed internet is infrastructure after all, say US Republicans in proposal to spend $65bn over five years

Our plan is better than President Biden's, they claim, with few details

Networks23 Apr 2021 | 24

Grotesque soundbyte alert: UK government opens wallet to help rural areas get 'gigafit'

Tough luck if you're in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales

Networks19 Mar 2021 | 46