§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Industry by what date he expects telecommunications in the United Kingdom to be operated on optical fibre circuits replacing copper coaxial cables over all major routes.
§ Mr. ButcherThis is an operational matter for British Telecommunications. I understand, however, that economics favour fibre-optic cables for the long distance transmission of broadband signals and that British Telecom intends to use fibre-optics exclusively for new trunk network cables. One estimate is that by 1992 the greater proportion of trunk cables will be fibre-optic rather than coaxial.