16 February 2026

Consultancy firm FarrPoint has published its fourth annual survey of digital leaders at councils across England, Scotland and Wales, revealing that expanding the coverage of gigabit broadband remains the top priority for most local authorities, just as it was last year.

The report, UK Local Government Connectivity Survey 2026, found that most respondents chose gigabit broadband (1000Mbps+) as their number one priority, whilst getting 100% of their area covered by at least "superfast" (30Mbps+) connectivity continues to feature as the second-highest priority for councils, followed by the expansion of 4G mobile coverage. On the flip side, ensuring digital connectivity is aligned with net-zero targets has disappeared off this year's list of priorities. Project Gigabit aims to help extend gigabit broadband ISP networks to "nationwide" coverage (c.99% of UK premises) by 2032, focusing mostly on the final 10% to 20% in hard-to-reach areas. Some 89.6% of premises can already access such a network, with Ofcom forecasting between 91% and 97% by January 2028.

11 February 2026

Berg Insight has released the latest edition of its comprehensive smart city technology report, comprising in-depth studies of five key technology areas: smart street lighting, smart parking, smart waste collection, urban air quality monitoring and smart city surveillance.

In 2024, the global installed base excluding China of individually controlled smart street lights amounted to 27.9 million units. The corresponding figures for the smart waste and smart parking sensor technology markets were at the same time 1.56 million and 1.47 million units respectively. Smart parking sensors refers to in-ground or surface-mounted parking occupancy detection sensors whilst smart waste sensor technology consists of fill-level sensor devices that may either be pre-integrated into bins and containers, for example as a smart bin offering, or retrofitted on existing collection points.