2022.07.08 – Open Broadband News

Joint £82m investment to speed up rural broadband for UK schools 

Hundreds of thousands of pupils living in the United Kingdom’s countryside are set to benefit from better digital connections, the UK Government has announced.

A joint £82m investment from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Department for Education will help deliver full fiber broadband capable of delivering up to 1,000 megabits per second to rural primary schools.

The Government estimates that 500,000 primary school pupils will be able to use the internet with no interruptions, even if multiple classes are using it at the same time.

Schools minister Robin Walker said: “High speed, reliable internet is crucial to helping schools provide the best possible experience for pupils. This investment will open a whole world of possibilities for schools and teachers in hard-to-reach areas, whether that is through more access to online resources for children, or fast, top quality video streaming.”

India to be second-largest fiber broadband market by 2030

India is set to become the second-largest fiber broadband market in the world by the end of the decade, according to a forecast by the research team at broadband industry specialist Point Topic.

India will have the most dramatic growth rate over the next eight years, though the expectations for the US market are also notable: Its fiber broadband sector is set to grow from about 22 million at the start of this year to reach almost 80 million by the end of 2030, largely at the expense of the cable broadband sector.

In all, Point Topic expects there to be 1.6 billion fixed broadband connections (of any type) globally by the end of 2030, up from 1.27 billion at the end of 2021.

How does fixed broadband impact the Latin American economy?

While fixed broadband positively impacts household income in Latin America and the Caribbean, these impacts are uneven and could contribute to reinforcing social inequalities if not flanked by public policies, according to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The study found that total and labor income rose by 6.92% and 7.43%, representing US$26.46 and US$22.38 purchasing power parity, between 2008 and 2019 across a host of countries in the region.

According to the IDB study, the economic benefits of fixed broadband increase as users gain more experience. The positive impact on total income is 2.99%, with an additional 5.43% for early adopters and 4.05% for late adopters.

In the short term, fixed broadband increases labor formality and facilitates job creation in the long term, the study said.

Secure Access Service Edge revenue grew 30% in Q1 2022

New data from Dell’Oro Group shows Secure Access Service Edge networking and security revenue grew 30% year on year in Q1 2022, reaching nearly $1.5 billion.

According to Dell’Oro, the $1.5 billion figure included an $800 million contribution from Security Services Edge offerings. The firm defines Security Services Edge as encompassing the security elements of Secure Access Service Edge, including cloud-delivered Secure Web Gateway, Cloud Access Security Broker, Zero Trust Network Architecture and Firewall-as-a-Service technologies. The Security Services Edge figure was up 40% year on year.

Mauricio Sanchez, the firm’s Research Director for Network Security, Secure Access Service Edge and SD-WAN, said he’s “expecting some broad-based growth modulation over the next year due to ongoing deterioration of macro-economic conditions.”

5G Fixed Wireless Access subscriptions to exceed 460 million this decade

As the buzz around 5G gains momentum, 5G-enabled Fixed Wireless Access broadband subscriptions will cross 462 million by 2030, from roughly 75 million in 2021.

5G Fixed Wireless Access will drive the bulk of the growth beyond 2025, replacing 4G Fixed Wireless Access connections that will still be prevalent in some markets across the Middle East and Africa, developing Asia and Latin America until 2024, according to Counterpoint Research.

“By the end of 2021, only one out of every three households around the world (excluding China) had access to fixed broadband. And only 25 percent of those households enjoyed speeds greater than 100 Mbps,” said Principal Analyst Tina Lu.