Cox Investment in Symmetrical, Petabit Speeds, CityFibre Fully Funds Fiber Buildout

June 6, 2022 – Cox Communications announced Thursday it will invest $400 million to bring symmetrical gigabit broadband to over 100,000 unserved and underserved households across the country over the next three years.

“As part of our ongoing commitment to digital equity, we’re making private investments, continuing to pursue partnership opportunities, and positively impacting the lives of those in underserved areas by providing high-speed broadband service,” Cox Communications President Mark Greatrex said in a statement.

Cox’s ongoing effort to bring service to the unserved has included public-private partnerships in Arizona, California, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Virginia, with the ultimate goal of providing 10-Gig, fiber-based services around the country.

New broadband speed record

Researchers at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology announced late last month that they have hit a new world record for download speed.

The test clocked in at 1.02 million Gigabits per second – exceeding a petabit — beating out the institute’s previous world record set in 2020 when it achieved 0.61 Petabit per second, or 0.61 million Gbps. The researchers noted in their paper that a single Petabit per “is equivalent to 10 million channels of 8K broadcasting per second.”

Though the institute published its findings at the International Conference on Laser and Electro-Optics on May 19, the study garnered international attention after it was published in English on May 30.

The speed was enabled utilizing wavelength division multiplexing technology – a method whereby a single fiber optic cable is used to transmit different wavelengths.

CityFibre raises money for UK fiber build

CityFibre raised £4.9 billion to finance its upcoming fiber infrastructure buildouts in the United Kingdom nearly completely.

On Thursday, CityFibre announced that the $6 billion sum would go towards connecting around 8,000,000 homes, 800,000 businesses, 400,000 public sector sights, and 250,000 5G access points, according to a recent press-release.

The project represents a third of the U.K. market and is one of the largest loans for a fiber deployment in Europe. It is slated to begin operations in 2025.

The rollout will extend CityFibre’s footprint into rural regions of 285 cities, towns and villages.