No "security reasons"?

Yeah, too transparent?

Or too thin.

Don't think a piece of glass presents any security issues, though of course that won't stop them trying to claim it anyway.

what d'you mean 'no security issues'?! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Sounds like some UK fibre company has paid off a government official "protection money"...

Yes, it's called "tax".

Nobody buying their wares, the less taxes they paid.

a) Companies don't exist to pay taxes -- "they have accountants for that".

b) The British company suffering from competition is quite likely to be the British arm of a multinational company.

Sounds like some UK fibre company has paid off a government official "protection money"...

Sounds like normal trade stuff. China can probably produce SMF for much less than we can. That's business. China could be 'dumping' by subsidising Chinese companies in some fashion, which is also business, just a lil more shadey. Chinese companies could be selling below cost to eliminate competition, which is also business. Other countries may be doing the same, eg Alcatel, Corning etc.

But now to make heads explode

Since Brexit, the UK has gained the ability to be more creative with tariffs, trade rules and subsidies, which were previously exclusive EU (in)competencies. So the EU may previously have protected the French fibre producers at the expense of the UK. Now, the UK can act in it's own interests. We used to have more fibre providers, ie companies like Pirelli and a JV between BT and HP that used to hang out in Martlesham. Kinda lost track of what happened to those, or the fibre parts, but at least we still have the likes of Southampton Uni who abuse photons and fibres in interesting ways.

"So the EU may previously have protected the French fibre producers at the expense of the UK."

How?

How?

Alcatel's always been a bit French, and often very diversifed, so making everything from fibre to rail rolling stock. But now part of Nokia, one of those companies that stands to benefit greatly from the EU's ban on Huawei kit.

Now, the UK can act in it's own interests.

By having more expensive fibre? Talk about "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face".

If we can't make it cheaper than a competition, then perhaps we should focus on finding advantages somewhere else and in the meantime enjoy cheap fibre at the expense of Chinese tax payer.

By having more expensive fibre? Talk about "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face".

Simple really. Do what we're doing and investigating a trade dispute, then maybe applying tariffs. Then could subsidise UK manufacturers without falling foul of EU state aid rules.

... more expensive for the rest of us, as the jobs disappear.

It's not inefficiency if the local businesses die because they are effectively competing against the bottomless treasury of a foreign government.

Although this is a small case. Imagine the £bn saved when the government buys all its software and computer systems from small UK suppliers instead of giant US firms

from small UK suppliers

Killed by IR35, red tape and taxes.

Its not a "bottomless Treasury of a foreign government" that's the problem. China not only has a large domestic market -- the country is the size of Europe and has five times the population of the US -- but there's also the whole "rest of the world" to bolster their market.

The UK is an insignificant customer. (Even Europe is a bit iffy because the EU is primarily protectionist -- it only invokes competition laws when its sizing up a member's market but internally its a bit of a non-competitive racket.)

>If we can't make it cheaper than a competition...

So you want to be paid the same and work as many hours as a Chinese taxpayer...

>Sounds like some UK fibre company has paid off a government official "protection money"...

One could say they are full of sh*t, so maybe the extra fibre will actually help.

According to Wikipedia the UK economy is around £3 trillion. Is that £88 million going to make much of a dent?

It is if you're a company producing optical fibre in the UK.

Or Yorkshire tea trying to compete with India and China

Don't knock it, remember Liz Truss et al got very excited about their new scotch whisky (£88m) and pork belly (£214m) trade deal with China a couple of years back.

Did any of that actually materialise ?

Allow subsidised imports from another and it's a "world leading post-Brexit trade deal"

Incoherent, reactive protectionism is such fun isn't it?

"anti-dumping crackdown"

Funny how it doesn't work when it comes to labour. Home Office allows businesses to import workers and pay them substantially below the market rates under guise of faux labour shortages.

labour shortages are not 'faux', they're real. Trouble is, local folks don't want to be paid rates that the British businesses paid those (...) foreigners. And don't blame the government either, it's the Great British Public that voted in the referendum.

Prysmian were also on the verge of bankruptcy regarding unreliability of certain installations. They've been in profit warning state or close to it for years over such risks.

There are of course strategic reasons to have our manufacturers in Europe rather than full reliance on China; but we can never compete on labour costs here short of slapping up trade barriers. And that's exactly what we are doing here.

There are other Chinesium products on the market in other sectors that Prysmian supplies; and our experience to date is that they are of poor quality. Stamping them out cheap is all well and good, but they will also be short lived. If you're happy with that, that's OK. It's generally a false economy though when considering the kinds of multi-BN $ projects we're talking about to have to re-do them twice as often.

Other experiences I can allude to are the *blatant* "loss of documentation" for folks visiting China while certain trade disputes were open, effectively making those people into a form commercialised hostages.

They do not deserve the business in China no matter how cheap. The issue is of course, how to avoid.

Prysmian were also on the verge of bankruptcy regarding unreliability of certain installations. They've been in profit warning state or close to it for years over such risks.

Or from reading through one of the determination docs, they got caught in a price fixing cartel for power cables. Also, that's where Pirelli cables ended up! Or as we used to say, "Pirelli? Focom!" Plus it looked like they got Goldman Sachs'd a while back, and the vampire squid did the usual and loaded them up with debt. But..

BT has therefore been deemed a non-cooperative party, pursuant to regulation 49 of the Regulations

BT non-cooperative? Who knew?

G3.5 Energy costs

Prysmian made this a thing, but didn't seem like it was much of a thing. Sure PRC's energy is a lot cheaper than the UK, but apparently only accounted for 2% of the cost. This is probably more of a thing-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prysmian_Group

By 2022, Prysmian has planned to invest around EUR 450 million to net-zero the Group's CO2 emissions and improve the sustainability of its supply chain. An ambitious commitment, aligned with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, which would be executed with support from the non-profit organisation Carbon Trust.

For 'support', read 'invoices'. But Prysmian's competitors aren't likely to choose to pay an idiot tax to a quango and license the right to use the CT's "PAS 2050" logo. But such is politics, and why stuff here tends to end up more expensive than the PRC.. On which point, labour costs..

"this equates to approximately 144 USD a month. monthly average minimum income in the Republic of Türkiye was approximately 470 USD a month."

Which is quite a lot higher than the UK's minimum wage. Doc also went over other possible subsidies like land costs, which seem to be fairly common bungs, eg cheap land in exchange for your factory here!, along with other government incentives for things like Gigabit broadband. UK and China are both doing this, but China's quite a bit bigger and thus needs a lot more fibre. In the end, it still determined there was dumping, but kinda suspect that was more a result of running up inventory and some of China's broadband rollout being delayed by the cough.

Also interesting to note the number of correspondents that didn't.. Which I guess is fairly typical. Zero respondents to the public consultation, and most companies ignored the questionnaires that were sent out.

Given the article implies this is less than 50% of the UK's annual consumption of fiber, that is a lot of fiber being installed in the UK, every year.

I wonder if this is really the government protecting an industry, or just wanting to be seen to protect an industry because at some point in the near future, the UK's consumption is going to fall off the cliff.

We aren't in the Eu anymore - That's 28.5 Million furlongs !

Yours in green ink

Disgusted , Tunbridge Wells

"5.7 million kilometres of fibre"

***** BRING DABBSY BACK *****

That's a lot of All-Bran

Isn't more fibre meant to be good for us?

Hmm, fibre underscored as bad spelling even thought language is set to en-GB

"As a result, network intelligence outfit Ookla has called for a "required industry focus on selling fiber subscriptions." "

Which is neither helpful, or any of Ooklas business to say. Their market is speed tests and letting people flex, which they will do more when they have fast fibre. So that's how they will benefit from the ad revenue, otherwise they can keep their nose out.

Not sure why Ookla are even mentioned in this article. If fibre subscriptions are available to sell then do they really think the industry aren't going to sell them?

Fiber subscription is a good idea, I don't want to have to keep going out to buy new fiber.

I want a month's worth of fiber delivered every month, ideally in a range of new flavours

Meanwhile, the place where they invented this stuff (Nobel prize winners etc) is now an office park on the east side of Harlow, Essex.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Telecommunication_Laboratories and Kaopark Harlow -https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Kao+Park/@51.770534,0.1258598,17z/

Like food, medicine, staff, and, well, pretty much everything.

I think the Tories are absolutely determined to break everything before they get kicked out and into 6th place in the next election. A scorched earth policy. Labour might win, but they will inherit a third world country with bankrupt local authorities, broken supply chains, a trashed currency, and a beggared people. People who all hate the government, and will continue to do so. Because Britain is no longer fixable.

Fortunately the other Conservative party is going to win the next election and carry on in exactly the same manner