An ambitious and unusual project is being undertaken in the UK to bring superfast broadband to a remote community. Fiber-optic cables that have remained unused on the seabed of the Atlantic Ocean for about three years are to be diverted to the Isles of Scilly, off the southwest tip of Cornwall, as part of a £3.7 million scheme to give the islanders the fastest broadband speeds.

The Fiber to the Home Council Americas has filed comments with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in which it urged the Commission to support the efforts of carriers such as Verizon to replace their copper infrastructures with fiber to the home (FTTH).

ADTRAN, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADTN) reveals that it has supplied its Total Access broadband platform OmniTel Communications for the service provider’s fiber to the home (FTTH) network roll out. OmniTel is deploying the network as part of an Iowa Broadband Deployment Governance board project that is using a broadband stimulus grant from the Rural Utilities Service to provide broadband services to more than 7000 subscribers in rural areas of the state.

Shortly before the FTTH Council Europe's 2013 conference in London February 19–21, Lightwave European correspondent Kurt Ruderman asked ...

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. launched what it claims is the industry's first intelligent optical splitter for passive optical networks (PON) at the FTTH Conference in London last week. With this new optical splitter, operators can automatically identify and generation topological maps of the optical distribution network (ODN) for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks, the company says.

Little more than a week and a half after the European Union voted February 8 to slash funding to support broadband networks across the continent (see “European Union slashes broadband funding”), France has stepped up to help fill the gap. French President Francois Hollande outlined a program that will see 20 billion euros ($27 billion) spent over the next 10 years to install new broadband networks – potentially including fiber to the home (FTTH) or fiber to the cabinet (FTTC) – in his country.

Zhone Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: ZHNE) has expanded its indoor GPON optical network terminal (ONT) line to include the zNid 2301, which was released at the FTTH Conference 2013 in London last week. Created for residential and small business services, the zNID 2301 GPON ONT provides many features, including high quality voice and data services and multicast video support, in what the company claims is the smallest available form factor on the market.

Swiss company Huber+Suhner AG says its new fiber-optic connector will double the density of optical fibers per rack and improve fiber handling in central offices and data centers. Launched at the FTTH Conference 2013 in London, the new connector is designed to significantly reduce space requirements, helping to control costs and improve efficiency.

Prysmian Group has introduced RetractaNetXS, a direct buried retractable fiber-optic cable. The new fiber cable is particularly well suited to fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments, Prysmian says.