Network Communications News (NCN) April 2017 | Page 24

WIRELESS NETWORKS
Ageing hardware is hindering
the UK broadband market
– but there is a solution
Sakid Ahmed, vice
president (ePMP
business) at Cambium
Networks, says that in
today’s digital age where
connectivity is considered
a necessity, rather
than a luxury, customer
demand for speed and
capacity have reached an
unprecedented level – and
are continuing to grow.
F
rom Gigabit access to
unlimited downloads,
service providers’
networks are being
pushed to the limit,
with the number of consumers
connecting to broadband only set
to go up.
In the UK, the situation is no
different, with the government
setting ambitious targets to provide
a legal right to receive at least a
10Mbit/s broadband connection by
May 2020. It also wants to provide
superfast coverage across at least
95 per cent of the UK by the end of
this year.
For the most par t, this is
being achieved through fibre roll
outs but across the UK there
are also vast and underser ved
rural areas where delivering
broadband in an efficient, cost
effective way is a much big ger
challenge. Here, providing high
24 | April 2017