Everything Everywhere spends £1.5bn on network expansion: News briefs

Welcome to our weekly roundup of the vendor and provider networking news that has caught our eye. This week’s star topic is network expansion. We’ll be summarising all the latest product announcements, senior appointments, financial results and survey results that UK technology buyers need to know in a nutshell. Please feel free to contribute -- just email me at [email protected].

Everything Everywhere pledges £1.5 billion on UK network upgrades

Mobile network operator Everything Everywhere -- the merged T-Mobile and Orange offering in the UK -- has said it will spend £1.5 billion over the next three years on upgrading its network expansion scheme for better reliability and speed, including the implementation of 4G-ready technology. The company announced the boost to its network evolution programme, which it claims will create the UK's broadest 3G data coverage.

BT expands fibre network rollouts

BT is going to expand its fibre network in Scotland, bringing superfast broadband to 277,000 homes and businesses. The network expansion project, which will begin in 2012, will see BT roll out its fibre optic network across 34 exchanges in the country, including those in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and is part of the £2.5 billion investment in next-generation broadband being made by the telecoms company under a planned network expansion and evolution scheme.

The network will combine fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) technology -- which sees fibre optic cables laid to street cabinets and then traditional copper cables used to connect homes and premises to the street cabinets -- as well as fibre to the premises (FTTP) that continues the fibre link from the street cabinets to the premises.

Broadcom promises next-generation wireless technology

Semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom says the next generation of wireless networking technology -- 802.11ac -- should feature in commercial products by the end of 2012. The new standard will use 40/80 MHz channels, as opposed to the 20/40 MHz channels used by the 802.11n wireless broadband kit, to enable proposed network evolution programmes.

Fujitsu unveils Packet ONP

Fujitsu is set to release a packet optical networking platform (Packet ONP), which employs the digital coherent technology with DP-QPSK optical modulation to enable ultrafast optical transmission speeds of 100 Gbps x 80W over long distances.

With Fujitsu's Packet ONP, it’s possible to construct a single platform for an optical transport network, and the new platform is an IT infrastructure that can flexibly respond to needs that arise with increasing levels of traffic, reduce costs and energy conservation and build network evolution programmes.

HP secures £1 million deal with Coventry’s Manufacturing Technology Centre

HP has signed a deal with the new Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry, under which it will provide £1 million worth of infrastructure, resources and industry expertise to help UK manufacturers improve their supply chains.

Brocade hires new UK channel boss

Former Ingram Micro and Juniper exec John Mitchell has arrived at Brocade as UK channel sales manager and been tasked with delivering aggressive growth in the networking market.

His brief at Brocade is to "strategically grow" the vendor's partner community across the country while providing meaty sales and market share growth for its Ethernet technology portfolio.

Buffalo Technology partners with Trend Micro to offer security for storage

Buffalo Technology has partnered with Trend Micro to prevent a TeraStation from becoming host to malware. The partnership will allow Buffalo's TeraStation III and TeraStation Pro users to benefit from centralised virus/malware scanning, pattern updates, event reporting and configuration, preventing hackers from stealing sensitive data such as email addresses and passwords.

Ofcom finds Britons are using smartphone networks more

Britons are more likely to use their smartphones to shop, play games and read news than any of their European counterparts, according to a major survey by Ofcom of global Internet habits.

Ofcom’s sixth International Communications Market report into the global communications market looked at take-up, availability and use of broadband, landlines, mobiles, TV and radio in 17 countries.

The Ofcom study found smartphone ownership nearly doubled in the UK between February 2010 and August 2011, with around half the population now in possession of handsets such as the iPhone and BlackBerry. UK consumers are also more likely to shop online, the survey said, with nearly 80% of people having purchased goods or services over the Internet.