A scientist who helped to develop the use of fibre-optic cables in broadband and networking technology has been awarded half of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics.

Charles Kao of Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, London and the Chinese University of Hong Kong has been given the prestigious prize for "groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication".

He is credited with calculating how fibre optics could be used to transmit data in 1966, which paved the way for the use of the technology in broadband.

Willard Boyle and George Smith of Bell Laboratories in the US have been awarded the other half of the award for creating the imaging semiconductor circuit.

Earlier this week, research by the FTTH Council revealed that UK has failed to make a list of the 21 countries where over one per cent of households have fibre-optic broadband connections.

Germany and France also did not make it onto the rankings.