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Network access provider Openreach (BT) has notified UK ISPs about the launch of a rental discount offer on their 1Gbps Ethernet Access Direct (EAD) product for Local Access and Standard Access for new service provisions within the Central London Area (CLA).

According to the briefing (inc. pricing document), the offer provides a rental discount of £1,800 +vat in the first year for circuits taken on a 3-year term. The offer applies for the period running from 7th October 2025 to 31st March 2026.

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Broadband ISP and mobile operator EE (BT) has today announced that their latest 5G Standalone (5GSA) mobile network will be going live in a further 17 new towns and cities by the end of 2025. On top of that, customers have been told to expect a “significant boost” to 5G connectivity as they become the “first operator in the world” to deploy Advanced RAN Coordination (ARC) tech.

Just to recap. The majority of 5G mobile networks today are still Non-Standalone (NSA), which means they are partly reliant upon older and slower 4G infrastructure. But SA networks are pure end-to-end 5G that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better mobile broadband speeds (particularly uploads), network slicing, improved support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, support for Voice over 5G SA (Vo5G) calling, and increased reliability and security etc.

EE officially began launching a range of new 5G SA supporting mobile plans across 15 major UK cities in September 2024 (here) and they’ve since been expanding their coverage. In fact, the operator’s last major 5GSA coverage update in July 2025 announced that a further 45 locations would start to gain access to the service by the end of August 2025 (here).

The first of two big new developments today is that EE has announced a list of the next 17 locations to benefit from their 5GSA deployment between now and the end of December 2025, which we’ve listed below. EE has previously informed ISPreview that they only announce 5GSA availability once a location has “at least 95% outdoor coverage“, which helps to ensure a good level of connectivity.

EE’s 17 New 5GSA Locations (Sept to Dec 2025)
1. Basildon
2. Bolton
3. Brighton and Hove
4. Colchester
5. Gloucester
6. Lincoln
7. Maidstone
8. Newcastle-upon-Tyne
9. Northampton
10. Oxford
11. Plymouth
12. Poole
13. Portsmouth
14. Reading
15. Southampton
16. Southend-on-Sea
17. Telford

The other big development today is that EE’s customers in Manchester and Edinburgh have just become the first in the UK to benefit from the operator’s deployment of a “groundbreaking new technology” – Ericsson’s Advanced RAN Coordination (ARC) solution. This essentially allows mobile sites in close vicinity to one another to pair up and share capacity (i.e. inter-site 5G downlink carrier aggregation), which can boost network performance without the need to deploy additional radio equipment (especially useful in busy areas at peak times).

Sadly, EE didn’t provide any real-world benchmarks to show the impact on mobile broadband performance, but the operator does claim that combining spare capacity from multiple independent cell sites in this way can increase download (downlink) data performance by around 20% on average (or more than double it “under ideal conditions“).

The technology was initially trialled in Bristol and has now gone live across selected sites in Manchester and Edinburgh, being activated just in time for the latter’s Fringe and International Festivals. The focus is on deploying the technology across busy city centre sites where capacity is most needed, and EE plans to expand the rollout to London, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool, Belfast, Cardiff, Newcastle, Sheffield and Sunderland “throughout the next year“.

Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer at BT Group, said:

“EE customers are the first in the world to benefit from this technology, with millions of them getting a huge boost to the 5G connectivity they rely on every day. By increasing capacity in this way, our customers will get faster speeds and an even more reliable experience instantly. It is a real game-changer and yet another example of how the nation gets a better network experience on EE.

We are building our 5G standalone network at an unprecedented pace to connect customers, communities, and the country to the most reliable and powerful mobile experiences. For those people wanting to get the most out of the newest 5GSA-enabled smartphones, they need the UK’s best 5G network to match and that’s exactly what EE delivers.”

EE clarified that in order to deploy ARC technology they do have to add a small optical pluggable device in each baseband unit to enable the capacity sharing, which then fosters a software-driven approach that allows EE to scale performance efficiently and keeps infrastructure costs low; catering for demand where it’s needed the most. In Edinburgh, for example, sites supporting the city’s Waverley Station have been boosted, while in Manchester it has been deployed in sites across the city centre.

Device compatibility is of course still an issue for 5GSA adoption in general, although such things usually resolve themselves with time as consumers gradually upgrade – many modern Smartphones do now support it on EE’s network. Customers with an EE 5GSA-compatible device will also see the biggest gains from ARC technology, as these phones can tap into multiple 5G frequency bands simultaneously.

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The Northumberland County Council (NCC) in England has confirmed that it will be able to commit an additional £2m (£0.556m in 2025-26 and £1.444m in 2026-27) to support broadband top-up vouchers (total budget of £3.5m). The aim is to help people in remote rural areas to get a gigabit speed internet connection installed. But there’s a catch.

The UK government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) typically offers grants worth up to £4,500 to help remote rural or poorly served urban homes and businesses get a gigabit-capable broadband (1Gbps) service installed, which is available to areas with speeds of “less than 1Gbps” – assuming there are no near-term plans for a gigabit deployment in the same area (either via private or state-aid funding).

However, the value of such vouchers can sometimes also be boosted by top-up funding from local authorities, which in the case of Northumberland means that eligible properties can potentially claim up to £7,000 per voucher. In addition, vouchers can also be combined within communities to help fund larger network builds.

In this case it appears as if NCC has secured an additional £2m of funding for their top-up voucher scheme from gainshare (clawback) funds received from BT (Openreach) via the previous Superfast Broadband Programme (SFBB) in the region. This reflects the return of public funding after the original network delivered a strong level of take-up.

The Council said they “achieved some of the highest take up rates in the UK” (around 75%) and have thus been in receipt of annual gainshare payments from BT in line with the contract terms.

NCC Statement

The demand for Top Up vouchers has increased considerably beyond the level that was predicted in 2023. This is due to the amount of voucher projects proposed by suppliers. To support this delivery the Top Up voucher funding budget needs to be increased by £2.000 million to meet this demand. This increased budget will be funded from gainshare funds received from BT which are set aside in the community broadband capital project in the capital programme which currently stands at £4.471 million.

In the 2024-25 financial year suppliers were already projecting a demand for vouchers which approaches the current £1.500 million committed funding. BDUK require that we have sufficient funds in place before they allocate vouchers to suppliers, even though vouchers may not actually be claimed for up to a year due to build times.

The figures show that a substantial proportion of draw down will not take place until the 2026-27 financial year. This is because BDUK allocates vouchers to suppliers up to 12 months in advance of funds being drawn down. Terms of Project Gigabit states that vouchers cannot be claimed until the fibre network is built and a service is ordered by the customer.

The catch is that the GBVS is currently only open to a limited number of areas across the United Kingdom for new projects. Sadly, Northumberland is not currently one of those, although today’s news may suggest that this status could soon to change. The funding could potentially also help with any pre-existing voucher-based deployments in the region (i.e. from before the local scheme was closed).

The government’s Building Digital UK agency often closes the GBVS (temporarily – but it can last awhile) when there’s a risk of it conflicting with Project Gigabit’s wider subsidised build contracts. At present, GoFibre holds the £7.3m deployment contract for North Northumberland (here), which aims to reach several thousand hard-to-reach premises in the region.

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CommunityFibre, which has deployed a 5Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network to cover 1.342 million homes (inc. 185k businesses within 200 metres of their network) – mostly in London, has this morning announced that they’ve connected more than 400,000 properties (customers) to the service (up from 336k at the end of 2024).

The provider, which is currently being backed by funding of c.£1bn, has had a rough couple of years due to the rising cost of build, strong market competition and high interest rates (a common challenge in the market). All of this has caused a previous slowdown in network build and related redundancies (here and here), which resulted in CF pivoting their strategy to focus more on growing customer uptake.

The good news is that this strategy has clearly helped to boost their adoption, with CommunityFibre today reporting a 33% increase in its customer base over the past year, reaching a network penetration rate of 30%. “This makes Community Fibre the No. 1 major Alternative Network (Altnet) in the UK by customer penetration,” said the announcement. But if we leave out the word “major” then there are others, like B4RN (c.50% take-up), that have done better on the smaller scales.

The ISP added that it has seen strong adoption of its high-speed products too, with the “majority” of its customers now said to be on speeds of 1Gbps or above, as well as an increased take-up of its top 5Gbps and 2.5Gbps products. All of this is likely to be further boosted by their recent wholesale agreement with Vodafone (VodafoneThree) – here.

Graeme Oxby, CEO of Community Fibre, said:

“Our relentless focus on network and sales excellence, lean operations, and industry-leading service is the foundation for sustainable success in the Altnet market. Community Fibre continues to prove that new broadband competition can not only be financially sustainable in the long run, it can also deliver meaningful advantages to UK society.”

Following their recent financial results (here), CommunityFibre today added that they are now “on course” for an annualised EBITDA (i.e. earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) of £70m by year-end, building on a current run rate of over £50m.

Community Fibre also provides free 1Gbps full fibre broadband to more than 720 community spaces in the city.

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Business ISP Gamma Communications has today announced that they’ve signed a 6-year commitment with B2B telecoms company O2 Daisy, which extends an existing agreement and has been expanded to reflect the recent merger between VMO2 Business (Virgin Media and O2) and Daisy Group. A 7-year wholesale revenue agreement is also involved.

Under the deal, Gamma will be supplying O2 Daisy with thousands of additional UCaaS seats across key platforms, including Horizon, Webex for Gamma and PhoneLine+. Building on Gamma’s existing relationship with Cisco, it has assumed responsibility for Cisco BroadWorks enablement, which underpins O2 Daisy’s own UCaaS platform (inc. cross-sell potential into O2 Daisy’s wider customer base).

An agreement has also been made to transition Gamma’s UK SME direct customer base to O2 Daisy, with Gamma’s remaining UK direct sales channels consisting of digital channels and providing solutions to enterprise customers. The affected customers will now be transferred to O2 Daisy as part of a 7-year wholesale revenue commitment.

The agreement aims to ensure that both parties benefit from the long-term partnership, while affected customers will gain access to O2 Daisy’s support, scalable systems and specialist capabilities. Gamma will continue to provide service and billing support for up to 12 months to ensure a smooth and seamless transition.

Andrew Belshaw, CEO at Gamma, said:

“Running your own communications platform is increasingly complex. From rising compliance pressures to the cost and pace of innovation, it simply doesn’t make commercial sense for many providers. That’s where Gamma comes in. Our relationship with O2 Daisy is built on years of trust, shared success and doing what’s right. This agreement reflects all of that. By combining their customer focus with our platform scale and expertise, we’re creating the right environment for sustainable growth.”

Dave McGinn CEO, SME of O2 Daisy, said:

“The market sweet spot for us is UC; we have a big direct sales force cross-selling UC at a rapid rate, and a vibrant partner community that continues to grow through support and investment. This deal is hugely positive for both companies and, most importantly, for the customers and partners who will benefit from this ongoing partnership. We’re proud to continue building on our long-standing partnership with Gamma. This is about continuity, care, and commitment, ensuring SME customers receive the right level of support from a partner fully aligned to their needs. Our shared belief in doing what’s right for the customer has always underpinned our relationship.”

Both Gamma and O2 Daisy said they are now “working closely to manage the migration” and ensure clear, coordinated communications to customers, partners, and teams.

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Alternative network operator and ISP Trooli, which has deployed their full fibre broadband (FTTP) network across 423,000 premises RFS (2nd Jun 2025) in various parts of England and some of Scotland, appears to have recently refreshed their standard package pricing – resulting in cheaper services on several of their key tiers.

For example, Trooli’s entry-level 150Mbps (symmetric speed) tier has been reduced from the starting price of £29.99 to just £24.99 per month on a 24-month minimum term, while their top 2Gbps tier has similarly dropped from £49.99 to £39.99 per month. All packages include a wireless router, unlimited usage and a free installation. Credits to Lee for spotting the update.

Customers can also optionally add a Static IP address to their accounts for an additional monthly charge of £5 or a Wi-Fi Booster for another £8 (you can add more than one of these, but each time it’s £8). Take note that Trooli’s T&Cs indicate that the out-of-contract pricing for each of their home broadband packages typically goes up by £5 per month, although existing customers who upgrade their package may be able to get it for the same price as new customers (ask them first).

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The Preston City Council in Lancashire has approved BT’s proposed deployment of a new WiFi Street Hub on Church Street. The move comes shortly after the same local authority rejected a similar proposal to deploy the smart kiosks on both Friargate North and New Hall Lane (here), where they were deemed to be at risk of “increasing street clutter”.

The operator’s newer Street Hub 2 units have suffered somewhat of a popularity dip in the last year or so, with various councils raising objections (here); some of which were later overturned on appeal. The smart kiosks typically feature “up to” 1Gbps capable public WiFi (“within a 150-metre radius“), free UK calling, USB device charging, small cells to boost localised 4G and 5G mobile signals, local information / adverts via a large 75″ HD display and environmental sensors etc.

However, a number of local authorities have highlight concerns over the location, design, scale (they’re 2.98 metres high, 1.24m wide and 35cm deep) and illumination of the kiosks. In the case of Preston, the two prior applications were rejected because the authority felt they would have had a “significant unacceptable adverse impact” on the character of the street by “increasing street clutter” and reducing the width of the footpath (this was in an area where the council had been trying to reduce clutter).

The good news for BT is that one of their other applications in Preston has now been approved on Church Street (here and here), where it seems the circumstances are different – the new kiosk will replace two legacy PCBs that are said to be in a “state of disrepair“.

Planning Statement

As such, it is considered that whilst the proposed signage, and the hub as a whole, would be noticeably larger in scale and brighter in illumination than any advertising present along this section of Church Street, it is not considered to cause any unacceptable harm to the character and appearance of the wider street-scene.

Given the proposed city centre location of the site and Church Street being a main thoroughfare comprising a mix of commercial uses at ground floor level, the proposed development is not considered to cause harm to the amenity of any nearby residential properties in terms of loss of light, outlook, privacy or light spill.

However, despite the positive turn, BT will be required to meet several conditions. For example, the big LCD screen will not be allowed to show any moving, flashing or scrolling images (so as to avoid distracting drivers) and each static advert/message must only show for a minimum of 10 seconds. The screen’s brightness must also be limited between dusk and dawn.

A BT Group Spokesperson previously told ISPreview:

“Street Hubs are digital units which support our Universal Service Obligation to provide a public call service in the UK. We work with council departments, community members, and BID (Business Improvement District) teams to refine our location selection process.

As well as offering connectivity to make calls and utilise free public Wi-Fi, Street Hubs also offer USBs for rapid device charging, touch-screen tablets displaying real-time public information and a dedicated 999 calling button.”

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The CEO of Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica, Marc Murtra, has told Reuters that the outcome of their Strategic Review will see the group buying up telecom assets in Europe, which could potentially include gobbling Liberty Global’s stakes in UK broadband and mobile giants nexfibre, Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2).

In case anybody has forgotten. Telefonica and Liberty Global control VMO2 in the UK as part of a 50/50 joint venture. On top of that, Telefonica also hold a 25% stake in complementary broadband network nexfibre, alongside Liberty Global, with both companies sharing the other 50% of the £4.5bn joint venture, which is owned by the private equity firm InfraVia Capital Partners.

At the start of 2025 everything appeared to be progressing normally. Virgin Media was in the process of preparing to open up their existing broadband network to wholesale (NetCo). Meanwhile, nexfibre, which was already open to wholesale, were continuing to deploy their new full fibre (FTTP) network to areas not currently served by Virgin (aiming to reach 5 million premises by the end of 2026).

However, as previously reported (here), the nexfibre build suffered a big hit in the spring after debt stricken JV partner Telefonica launched a Strategic Review. Not only did this result in the scrapping of Virgin Media’s plans for opening up their existing consumer network to wholesale (here), but it also caused nexfibre to scale-back their coverage target for 2025 to 2.5 million premises (here) – roughly 500k premises less than originally expected (build plans beyond this remain uncertain).

Murtra’s plan

Murtra was parachuted in by the Spanish government during January 2025 to lead Telefonica and get its debts (c.£23bn) under control. Since then the company’s CEO has launched the aforementioned Strategic Review and been considering a variety of different options – due to be formally announced before the end of this year. The big question was over which one they might consider for their holdings in the UK.

According to Reuters, Telefonica now appears to be talking up the idea of growing scale through buying telecom assets and freeing up resources by selling its Spanish-speaking Latin American assets. Murtra indicated that they’re specifically eyeing assets in Germany, the UK, Spain and Brazil.

Marc Murtra, CEO of Telefónica SA, said:

“This does not require a titanic shift. All it needs is to lift the brake pedal a little bit and allow the market to operate and consolidate.”

The report suggests that Telefonica could make a play for Liberty Global’s 50% stake in Virgin Media, although we think they might also look to control and then support nexfibre in their recently expressed ambition to grow more scale through consolidation of rivals in the alternative network space. But to do any of this effectively might require an attempt to raise fresh capital, which is not an easy proposition in today’s market (VMO2 seemed to struggle to raise £1bn to support their previous NetCo plans).

The exact structure of Murtra’s plan, at least for the UK, remains subject to some speculation. But the new report does seem to lend some more credibility to earlier ones, which suggested that plans were being drawn up for Telefonica to take control of the 50/50 UK Joint Venture (JV) that it owns with Liberty Global (here).

Both Telefonica and Liberty Global do now have the right to kick off an initial public offering (IPO) for VMO2 after a lock-up period under the terms of the £31bn merger expired last year. But this is tricky, as neither side will want to take on the full burden of all those debts. The terms also allow each partner to sell its stake to a third-party 5-years after the closing, but the other shareholder still has a right of first refusal.

Never a dull day in the land of UK telecoms.

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Ofcom and the rest of the industry will later this week mark the first anniversary of One Touch Switching, which reflects the new system of easier and quicker UK consumer migration between home broadband and phone providers on different networks. But despite OTS making life easier for most people, some problems persist.

The OTS system, which finally went live on 12th September 2024 – after over 17 months of delays (here), remains a Gaining Provider Led (GPL) process, where the customer contacts their new (“gaining“) ISP to start and manage the process on their behalf. But unlike the old system, which was primarily geared toward switches on Openreach’s network, the new one expanded that to work across the UK’s increasingly diverse market of alternative networks.

In order to make this work, the industry established The One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), which is the organisation responsible for helping to implement Ofcom’s consumer OTS switching solution via a centralised messaging platform (hub). TOTSCo are also developing a separate solution for switching between business connectivity providers (due to go live in early 2026), but that’s another story (here).

The system does work and has already helped around 1.6 million consumers to switch broadband ISP since launch. But one of the biggest remaining challenges has flowed from the difficulty of getting the “matching process” to function properly, which exists to ensure that customer switches are correctly verified before being migrated. This is only successful if all the key data for a switch is correct, otherwise it can be rejected; this still happens quite a bit.

An Ofcom spokesperson told ISPreview:

“Since One Touch Switch came in, it’s never been easier to switch landline or broadband provider. And we’re pleased to see many people are taking advantage of the new process and switching to the provider that’s best for them.

There is, of course, always more that can be done to ensure the experience is as smooth as possible for customers and providers using the service. That’s why we’re continuing to monitor progress closely to ensure industry is tackling any issues swiftly.”

As it stands a total of around 342 brands (e.g. broadband ISPs), alongside various Managed Access Providers (MAPs), are now live on TOTSCo’s production directory and the daily switch match success rate is currently hovering around 67% – 68% (up from c.64% in January 2025). In addition, it should be noted that some failed switches will still get approved later, after corrections are made.

However, since we’re only a few days away from the OTS anniversary, we thought it might be interesting to dig into some of the problems that ISPs are still experiencing with this process. Some of the key ones have been listed below (unordered) and stem from off-the-record feedback from a variety of industry sources.

Problems with the OTS Switchinging Process

1. Some ISPs remain frustrated by the fact that a small number of internet providers are still not fully on-boarded with TOTSCo’s platform and that Ofcom have been slow to tackle this (causing problems for consumers and supportive providers). Customers with such providers may face downtime and other issues when trying to switch.

2. Some gaining providers are not completing the transfer confirmation process properly, which causes problems with billing for the losing provider (i.e. billing remains open) and annoyance for customers. The losing provider typically takes the flak for this, despite it being caused by the gaining provider.

3. Certain specific smaller providers always seem to fail an OTS request from a gaining ISP, often giving all sorts of questionable reasons in response. The suspicion is that they’re doing this not due to a fault, but to stop customers switching away (i.e. making it much harder for them to leave).

4. The current process seems to lack a clear trigger from the gaining provider to tell the losing provider which physical underlying broadband network they are going to put the new customer on. This is important because today’s market is awash with lots of alternative networks, but without this trigger it can be difficult to tell whether the switch is a straight migration or a new service provision – all of which has implications for the correct process to adopt and setup costs etc.

5. Some losing ISPs see gaining providers trigger the OTS process, but then never use it, leaving the switch details open. The gaining provider may later proceed to put orders and not link them. The ISP then of course loses complete tracking and again the losing provider takes the flack, when the gaining provider is the one making the mistakes.

6. One ISP called out a problem with Working Line Takeovers (i.e. where new customers move into a new property and want to takeover the existing line) – in that, they’re losing customers where it’s quite clear that they should have gone through OTS, but there is not a clear method for disputing these cease orders (so they’re not always able to contact the ISP in question as they’re not using the CP to CP tool). In cases like this the ISP needs to be able to report these providers for non-compliance, but they don’t know who they are.

In addition to the above, there are also a number of other issues that exist both inside and outside of the OTS process. For example, when Ofcom launched OTS they also banned notice period charges beyond the switch date for residential customers, which is intended to prevent situations where a customer ends up having to pay for two services at the same time. But a very smaller number of providers claim otherwise and seem to ignore the regulator’s updated rules.

So far as we can tell, most of the problems that remain are either related to issues with the process itself or seem to emanate from a very few specific providers, usually smaller players within the industry (albeit with the odd medium-sized ISP also causing some repeated issues). But it’s clear that the system today is in a much better place than it was when first launched a year ago, even if the edges are still in need of further polish.

Finally, we’ve also gathered a few comments from a mix of different providers across the UK’s broadband market.

Matt Kay, Finance Director, Zen Internet, said:

“We see One Touch Switch as a positive step for consumers. It makes moving between providers simpler, especially from networks not previously covered, and that’s the right thing to do. That said, we’ve seen some ongoing challenges with the matching process, which can add friction for customers.

Like many in the industry, we’ve felt the cost and complexity of implementation at a time when the sector is already managing big changes. And despite the benefits, we’ve not yet seen a dramatic uplift in the number of customers choosing to switch.

Overall, the principle is sound and when it works smoothly it improves the experience. We remain committed to making switching easier and would welcome further improvements across the ecosystem to make that the norm.”

A Hyperoptic spokesperson said:

“In most cases, the switching process is working smoothly and as intended. Customers can move between providers with minimal effort, and with the gaining provider managing the switch, we’ve seen greater customer confidence and a more reassuring onboarding experience — in particular that they won’t be left without broadband.

That said, like any complex industry-wide process, there are occasional exceptions —especially when issues arise from other providers. Resolving these can be challenging, and while the CP-to-CP portal was designed to help, it hasn’t proven as effective in practice as we’d hoped. As a result, we’ve found it necessary to invest additional operational support to proactively manage risks and ensure a consistently smooth experience for customers. We’re continuing to work with industry partners to improve this aspect of the journey.”

An EE spokesperson said:

“We’re very supportive of One Touch Switching and the improved experience it offers our customers. We’re committed to further improving match success rates, working closely with the rest of industry, to bring the benefits of One Touch Switching to as many customers as possible. For the small proportion that can’t be matched, we’ll continue to work hard to ensure moving providers is as easy as possible for them.”

Simon Davies, iDNET’s Director, said:

“In general we are pretty happy with OTS. It would have been much simpler if it had been enacted at the network level rather than the billing level but it is what it is.”

A TalkTalk spokesperson said:

“TalkTalk supports One Touch Switch because it makes it easier for customers to change broadband providers, particularly between different networks. It’s one of the biggest regulatory changes introduced by Ofcom and, as a result, has required major investment from larger and smaller broadband providers to implement. Customers are adapting to changes in the sales journey but we look forward to a collaborative effort from the telecoms industry to further simplify the process for customers and enhance their understanding of the steps required.”

We’d of course welcome any feedback in the comments below from people who have switched ISP this year and how you found the experience.

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The UK government currently seems to be going through an extended cabinet reshuffle, which yesterday saw the Secretary of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Peter Kyle MP, being moved to the role of Secretary of State for Business and replaced by Liz Kendall MP. But the UK Telecoms Minister, Chris Bryant MP, has also gone and is currently without a replacement.

Bryant’s former role as Minister of State for Data Protection and Telecoms is an important one because he was responsible for overseeing UK digital infrastructure and telecoms (broadband and mobile etc.), the Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, data protection (including Data Bill), the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), digital inclusion and even space sector growth / UK Space Agency (UKSA).

We’re currently keeping an eye on the Ministerial Appointments page for this reshuffle to see who, if anybody, will get the telecoms minister role. But in the past it has sometimes taken a few days or even weeks before permanent replacements are found. The role may potentially also be changed or merged into something else. The government has informed ISPreview that they should be able to provide an update in the coming days.

In the meantime, we note that Liz Kendall MP tends to have more historic experience in healthcare, pensions/social welfare and politics in general than telecoms, science or technology. We of course don’t expect government MPs to all have an inherent understanding of their new brief, but sometimes it does help, especially when it comes to the complex fields of telecoms and science.