Who Owns the Network? Sovereignty, Supply Chains and the Future of UK Fibre

ISPA roundtable in partnership with Icotera

About the Event

Digital sovereignty has moved rapidly up the political agenda. As geopolitical tensions rise and reliance on a small number of overseas suppliers deepens – across semiconductors, cloud and telecoms equipment – the UK government has shown it will act decisively where Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) supply chain risk is judged too high, as with the 2020 removal of Huawei from the UKs digital infrastructure backbone. That approach is now extending across sectors: the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, currently progressing through Parliament, tightens the same NIS Regulations covering energy, transport, health, water, data centres and digital infrastructure. 

Fibre is now part of this same conversation. As the UK market matures, the discussion is shifting from network build to how that infrastructure is designed, sourced and futureproofed. The hardware layer – optical network terminals, fibre termination and access infrastructure – is dominated by a small number of full-portfolio vendors, mostly based outside the UK. That concentration offers simplicity, but also single-vendor dependence, fixed costs and reduced flexibility – and, in the current climate, a sovereignty question operators can no longer treat as theoretical.

In this context, ISPA is partnering with Icotera to convene a panel of operators, ISPs and technology providers to examine how the sector can build agility, sovereignty and resilience into the next generation of fibre infrastructure – spanning both the technical and commercial dimensions of these choices.

Registration and Enquiries

Interested in joining us? Register your interest today HERE, alternatively you can email Krystian Heald at krystian@ispa.org.uk.