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A number of Openreach’s rivals are understood to have raised fresh competition concerns with Ofcom after the operator introduced a new discount on upgrades (here). The offer was designed to help encourage ISPs to shift customers off older copper-based broadband services and on to newer full fibre (FTTP) lines, but not everyone is happy.

The issue concerns proactive migrations, which arise where an internet provider (ISP) proposes to upgrade your older broadband service (ADSL, FTTC etc.) to FTTP and, at the same time, books an appointment for an engineer to carry out the upgrade. The end user can then confirm, reject or select a different appointment. This forms part of Openreach’s efforts to eventually retire their old copper-line based network, services and exchanges.

Last month Openreach introduced a new offer for ISPs using this process, which essentially enabled customers to potentially be upgraded to their faster “1000/115Mbps [download/upload], 550/75Mbps and 330/50Mb bandwidth tiers for the rental price of 80/20Mbps” – lasting for up to 24 months (details). Suffice to say that this was quite a significant discount and would make upgrading much more attractive to some consumers.

However, a number of alternative networks (altnets) have told ISPreview that they view the new promotion, which is due to become available between 10th October 2025 and 9th April 2026, as being potentially anti-competitive. The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), which represents many of the UK’s altnets, is similarly understood to have raised its concerns with Ofcom, although they’ve elected not to comment until the regulator responds.

A CityFibre spokesperson told ISPreview:

“We are aware of the recent Openreach FTTP offer on proactive upgrades. Given Ofcom’s clearly stated strategy in its TAR consultation to promote long-term, effective and sustainable competition, we would expect Ofcom to examine this offer carefully to identify whether it is consistent with that policy objective.”

A spokesperson for Ofcom said:

“Our overriding objective is to bring better broadband to people across the UK, by promoting competitive investment in high-speed networks and making sure there’s a level playing field for all companies. Attracting customers from legacy networks to full fibre is key to the success of all providers.

We impose certain restrictions on deals that could stifle investment and the development of sustainable competition. Subject to these restrictions, Openreach is allowed to compete with altnets and is allowed to make pricing offers, to make its full-fibre services attractive to its customers.”

Ofcom added that they do not pre-approve Openreach’s pricing or offers before they are notified to industry, although they do encourage any stakeholders who consider this promotion to be anticompetitive to “raise their concerns with us“. We should add that Openreach only gave the industry 28 days’ notice of this offer (not 90 days) because it is not conditional.

A spokesperson for Openreach added:

“Competition works when it delivers better outcomes for customers – and that’s exactly what we’re focused on.

As we lead the UK’s transition to Full Fibre, this offer is all about listening to our customers and helping them make that leap from older copper-based services to faster, more reliable broadband.

Of course, Ofcom keeps a close eye on everything we do, and rightly so – but we’re allowed to compete, and we’ll continue to do so, in the interest of customers and the country.

We strongly reject any suggestion that it’s anti-competitive.”

Some altnets originally enjoyed a market where Openreach’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) services were slower and much more expensive than their own, while also being less dominant in network coverage. But in recent years their wholesale pricing has fallen and speeds are improving (here). On top of that, they now cover 20 million premises with FTTP, which is due to reach 25m by December 2026 and then “up to” 30m by 2030 – placing them into a commanding position for coverage.

At the same time altnets have begun to struggle a lot more over the past 2-3 years, not least due to the rising cost of network build, high interest rates and strong competition (i.e. many have slowed or paused their deployments and cut jobs ahead of possible consolidation). Suffice to say that altnets carry a lot more risk today and are thus much more sensitive to any big price promotions that the incumbent may introduce, even ones like this that are quite targeted toward a specific but large group of users.

On the flip side, Openreach is heavily regulated and have been bleeding broadband lines to rivals, albeit mostly from locations where they’ve yet to build FTTP. But the incumbent often feels as if it shouldn’t be restricted from being able to compete with smaller rivals, especially in competitive areas, and often indicates that doing so may also be unfair to consumers who might otherwise benefit from lower pricing.

The regulator has the difficult task of trying to balance such concerns, while at the same time needing to recognise the importance of not obstructing the move away from legacy copper-line based services.

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Customers of ISP Sky Broadband, Vodafone and possibly others on Shetland, which is a remote UK subarctic archipelago that resides north of the Scottish mainland, started suffering from a loss of internet connectivity yesterday after the main SHEFA-2 (Faroese Telecom) subsea fibre optic cable suffered damage on Friday; the second time in 3 months.

Faroese Telecom’s SHEFA-2 cable reaches Shetland via two landing sites, including one stretch that goes North West up to the Faroe Islands and another cable that runs south to connect Orkney and the Scottish Mainland. In addition, BT recently deployed an additional subsea fibre link between Shetland and Orkney as part of the ongoing R100 project, although this one isn’t fully live yet and may not be utilised by every operator.

According to an update from Shetland Telecom, which has not been impacted by the incident, the latest damage occurred around 1.5km off the coast of Orkney on a “section that has previously experienced problems caused by natural forces (tides/current),” although the actual cause has not yet been determined. The previous break on 26th July 2025 was caused by a fishing vessel (here and here), which reported the damage to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) a day later.

“Because the damage is close to shore, certain preparations will need to be made in Orkney before repairs can commence,” said a spokesperson for Shetland Telecom. Such breaks can sometimes take several weeks to fully repair, which is partly due to the time it takes to arrange a cable repair ship to be dispatched, as well as uncertainty around the scale of damage and weather. The last break was repaired within a couple of weeks.

Local MP Alistair Carmichael said:

“It is still unclear what the extent of communications disruption is today, let alone the cause. I have contacted the various telecommunications companies operating in the isles to understand better what sort of issues are at play and who is affected.

We have to hope that the disruption will be minimal and short-lived. Even so, this will be a good test of whether the promises of more responsive communications from telecoms providers following the problems in the summer will be borne out in reality.”

Alcatel Submarine Networks have already been instructed to carry out the repair. The company operates seven state-of-the-art vessels – Ile de Sein, Ile de Batz, Ile de Bréhat, Ile d’Aix, Ile d’Yeu, Ile d’Ouessant, and Ile de Molène – although most of these are currently tasked with work on the other side of the world. The two “closest” ships are Ile d’Ouessant (currently off the west coast of Africa) and Ile de Bréhat in the Mediterranean, but they might alternatively pull in one from the Caribbean.

In terms of alternative options, residents on Shetland can now purchase packages via Starlink’s LEO satellite broadband network, which may be a useful alternative for redundancy. However, Vodafone (VodafoneThree) did recently announce that they had begun a new “feasibility study”, which will explore the possibility and cost of deploying a new subsea fibre optic cable to help boost broadband and mobile connectivity on the Shetland Islands and boost resilience (here).

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Education technology provider RM Technology and Sky Business Wholesale (Comcast) have signed a new partnership. The move aims to provide a fully resilient, high-speed connectivity solution for schools across the UK by leveraging Sky’s network to deliver a 100Gbps-ready, fibre-first network.

The move is said to have enhanced RM Technology’s existing portfolio with fully resilient, high-speed services, including a dedicated Network-to-Network Interface (NNI) handoff and, as standard, shadow VLANs. “This ensures schools have access to a 100Gb-ready, fibre-first network that is fast, secure, and resilient,” said the release.

Matt Bearpark, GM of Broadband at RM Technology, said: “This isn’t just about broadband—it’s about bridging the digital divide and ensuring schools, teachers, and students have access to the tools and resources they need to succeed. By teaming up with Sky Business Wholesale, we’re delivering infrastructure that’s built for the classrooms of tomorrow.”

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Shropshire-based UK ISP Aquiss this week appears to have added yet another alternative network to their platform after reaching an agreement to sell packages to homes and businesses covered by Gigaclear’s full fibre (FTTP) lines, which primarily cover rural premises across various parts of England.

Gigaclear’s network is currently available to over 612,000 premises across rural parts of England. But we haven’t previously seen many other retail ISPs offering packages via their network (e.g. Squirrel Internet), so it’s nice to have another one like Aquiss join the club. The ISP also supplies packages via Openreach, CityFibre, Netomnia (business packages), Freedom Fibre and FullFibre’s broadband networks.

According to the website, Aquiss’ new Gigaclear based plans start from £42 inc. VAT per month for symmetric speeds of 200Mbps (discounted to £21 for the first 3 months) on a 12-month minimum contract term (inc. free installation) and rise to £60 for their top 1000Mbps tier (£30 for the first 3 months). Customers will also receive a static IPv4 and IPv6 address, although you’ll need to use your own router.

On the surface, the entry-level plan in particular might seem relatively expensive, although it’s worth remembering that Gigaclear builds in more costly to deploy rural locations, which is reflected in the price you pay. The prices that Gigaclear charges for the same sort of tiers on their website are also only first-term discounts (Aquiss use standard pricing). For example, the 900Mbps (1Gbps) plan from Gigaclear is discounted to £49 per month, but the standard post-contract price for that is actually £85. Staying loyal via Aquiss may thus be cheaper over the longer term.

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Customers of broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2), specifically those who also take their pay TV service and have children, may like to know that the provider will be offering free access to their premium children’s TV channels throughout the whole of October 2025 “at no extra cost“.

The offer, which includes the ability to watch these channels either at home or on the go via the Virgin TV Go app, arrives just in time for the October half-term and covers several channels including Sky Kids, Cartoon Network, Nick Jr. and Baby TV (inc. on-demand content); this usually costs an extra £5 per month.

David Bouchier, Chief TV and Entertainment Officer at VMO2, said: “We know half term and school holidays can be a juggle for families, and keeping the kids entertained – without a hefty price tag – isn’t always easy. That’s why we’re offering a helping hand and giving our Kids TV channels to all customers throughout October at no extra cost. Whether it’s content on Sky Kids, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network or Baby TV, our children’s TV line up offers something for all ages.”

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The Swansea Bay City Deal’s Digital Infrastructure Programme has today announced the completion of their £1.9m Full Fibre Infrastructure Build project with BT, which has helped to upgrade 69 key public sector sites with “future proofed” broadband connectivity.

Just to recap. The UK and Welsh Governments gave approval for a £55m digital infrastructure investment under the £1.3bn Swansea Bay City Region project back in 2021 (here), which among other things aimed to expand full fibre and 5G mobile connectivity to benefit homes and businesses across Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea. Some of this investment also comes from the Local Broadband Fund (LBF) for Wales.

Several digital infrastructure projects are already taking place under this programme, including the £1.9m contract with BT that was delivered via the Public Sector Broadband Aggregation (PSBA) scheme. This aimed to provide improved broadband provision to public sector sites across the region via a secure Wide Area Network (WAN).

The good news is that this deployment has now completed and connected a total of 69 public sectors sites, everything from leisure centres to country parks, libraries and council buildings etc. One example of this in action is at Pembrey Country Park, where the new full fibre network has enabled the park to begin retiring its legacy radio-based systems and migrate to a more reliable, digital platform, while also saving money.

Cllr Rob Stewart, Leader of Swansea Council, said:

“This is about much more than fast broadband, it’s about unlocking the full potential of our public assets, futureproofing our region, and ensuring our communities are not left behind in the digital age.
Through this investment, we’re enabling our local authorities and health partners to innovate, deliver smarter services, and ultimately improve the lives of residents.

This project is a major step towards the Digital Infrastructure Programme’s vision of a smart, inclusive digital region that can meet the connectivity demands of today and tomorrow.”

The original announcement also indicated that approximately 425 residential and business premises may benefit from improved broadband as a result of this deployment, although there was no mention of those in today’s announcement. The project is also expected to stimulate further commercial investment, which could potentially help to accelerate the rollout of full fibre broadband networks across the region.

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A number of homes, businesses and several network operators, including Netomnia (Youfibre, Brsk) and Openreach (BT), were impacted yesterday outside the City of Durham after vandals gained access to a chamber and cut vital fibre optic cables; disrupting local broadband connectivity for a protracted period.

The incident appears to have occurred sometime during the small hours of Wednesday (1st Oct) morning, around the junction of Littletown Lane and Coalford Lane in County Durham. Netomnia later issued an update (here) to confirm that their engineers would be working on the issue through the night, which had been identified as “an act of vandalism on the network, and our fibre cables have been cut … We’re working closely with the security team at [Openreach] to determine how this occurred“.

The good news this morning, which was confirmed just a few short minutes before we posted this article, is that “the unplanned outage in these locations is now resolved“. Netomnia are now advising customers who may still be experiencing issues to “please power off and back on your ONT (the small box on your wall) and your router“.

Regular ISPreview readers will already be aware that, over the past few years, there has been somewhat of an increase in physical attacks against UK broadband and mobile networks (examples here, here, here and here), as well as the engineers responsible for building and maintaining them. Such attacks don’t just cause costly physical damage but can also leave local homes and businesses disconnected, often for a protracted period, from vital communication services.

Quite why people do this isn’t always clear. Most such criminal incidents are often considered to be vandalism, although in some cases this can relate to the theft of valuable network equipment (e.g. batteries or old copper telecoms cables), attempts to disrupt security systems at a specific site (usually pointless due to 4G/5G backups), revenge by disgruntled former employees / rivals or may even form part of a poorly conceived protest.

Such networks are typically considered to be part of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) and damaging them is thus a serious criminal offence, which has in the past caused some people to face prison sentences. But the existing rules and punishments don’t always seem to be acting as enough of a deterrent, and the industry has previously called for changes (here).

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Broadband ISP and mobile operator EE (BT) have today announced that they’re aiming to expand the population coverage of their latest 5G Standalone (5GSA) mobile network to reach 99% of the UK by the end of FY30. The move appears to be a reaction to VodafoneThree’s (Vodafone and Three UK) target (here) of achieving the same outcome by 2034.

Just to recap. Earlier deployments of 5G were largely Non-Standalone (NSA), which meant they were 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 rapidly expanding upon that coverage (example). The operator 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.

However, EE has today clearly felt the need to keep ahead of the curve and respond to VodafoneThree’s own 5GSA deployment plans, which they’ve done by setting a clear target of reaching 99% of the UK’s population with the technology by the end of FY30. As part of this they’re also rolling out some innovative new technologies, which we’ve summarised below.

EE’s New Mobile Technologies

➤ EE today announces that it is the first European mobile network to deploy a new generation of Massive MIMO units (Ericsson AIR 3284, the world’s first 5G triple-band FDD Massive MIMO radio). These are antenna integrated radios that deliver maximum network experience and up to four times greater uplink capacity. Two of these units are live in Leeds – with hundreds more to follow by the end of the decade.

➤ We have over 1,500 outdoor small cells now boosting coverage nationwide – 500 of which were added in just the last 12 months. This includes our very first small cell deployments in towns and cities such as Belfast, Bristol, Oxford, Middlesbrough, Preston and Bolton.

➤ We last month announced that we are the first operator in the world to launch Advanced RAN Coordination (ARC) in our distributed mobile network. This enables mobile sites near to each other to remotely pair up and share capacity, dramatically boosting network performance.

In addition, EE said they would in future be referring to all this by the term ‘5G+‘ rather than the technical industry shorthand 5GSA or 5G Standalone, which they say is “language that’s simple and relatable“. But they also want the government to support their efforts with changes.

Howard Watson, BT’s Chief Security and Networks Officer, said:

“Government support is essential if we are to transform our ambition for nationwide 5G+ coverage – and the significant economic opportunity it brings for the UK – into reality.

A valuable next step would be for Government to launch a Mobile Market Review. This could examine planning reforms to accelerate the rollout of new network equipment, to increase the availability of spectrum (the radio waves that enable mobile coverage), and consider removing the Annual Licence Fees currently paid by operators to use spectrum. There are also massive opportunities for the UK to accelerate the digitalisation of public services and to support SMEs to make the most of new digital opportunities.

We should also recognise that achieving 99% 5G+ coverage, while an important milestone, will not by itself resolve every challenge around mobile coverage and capacity. Targeted interventions will still be required to address specific issues, such as improving connectivity along railways.”

The operator added that their new “network has been built to deliver up to 100 times more capacity than 4G connectivity – making it significantly better at handling demands from lots of devices at once – delivering more reliable mobile internet in busy areas“.

Device compatibility is of course still an issue for 5GSA adoption, although such things will resolve themselves with time as consumers gradually upgrade – many modern Smartphones do now support it on EE’s network. But overall today’s announcement represents good news for consumers who will benefit from the increased performance that 5G+ brings, particularly in urban areas.

On the other hand, we do wish these mobile operators would set geographic coverage targets too, which are much less forgiving than “population” figures. There was a time when EE believed this too (here), but in recent years they seem to have forgotten all about that.

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Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today announced the deployment of a “first-of-its-kind” mobile Giga Site in Paddington (London), which utilises Nokia’s latest dual-band massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) tech to boost 5G mobile broadband performance and network capacity. The plan is to deploy 1,000 more of these during 2026.

Just for a bit of context. MIMO technology typically works by harnessing multiple antennae (usually 2 to 8) to send and receive data more efficiently to lots of users (both at the mobile mast and on your Smartphone / mobile router / IoT device etc.). But Massive MIMO dials that up a major notch by enabling mobile operators to harness a greater number of antennas, potentially hundreds.

The first mast site in Paddington will also be utilising the 78.8MHz of additional radio spectrum that they recently acquired from Vodafone UK (here), which has already helped to increase O2’s total spectrum holdings to approximately 30% of UK mobile spectrum. The new site is thus capable of bringing together multiple spectrum layers with a mix of low, mid and high-band spectrum.

The change, which is said to be “one of the first deployments of its kind” on a live European network, is expected to “significantly improve 5G network performance by boosting capacity, spectral efficiency, data rates, and coverage“. The new site can deliver more than 10Gbps of throughput, which O2 says is more than their entire UK network carried at the peak of the London 2012 Olympics, and is enough to support 2,000 simultaneous 5Mbps HD video streams.

Dr Robert Joyce, Director of Mobile Access Engineering at O2, said:

“The switch on of our first Giga Site here in central London is a really important demonstration of how we are investing and innovating to continue improving our mobile network and customer experience. These new sites will deliver faster speeds, greater capacity, and more reliable connections for our customers. As we carry out upgrades and roll out hundreds more Giga Sites across the country, we’ll put our new spectrum to work helping us keep improving mobile connectivity nationwide.”

Mark Atkinson, Head of Radio Access Networks at Nokia, added:

“Our partnership with Virgin Media O2 to implement Giga Sites reflects our commitment to helping our customers differentiate with superior performance. This is one of Europe’s first dual-band Massive MIMO deployment combined with our TDD carrier aggregation solution, which showcases how our latest high-performance radios and versatile carrier aggregation solutions allow operators to fully harness the power of their spectrum, enabling the next wave of 5G services.”

The operator now plans to deploy 1,000 of these new “Giga Sites” nationwide throughout next year, which supports their wider £700m Mobile Transformation Plan for network upgrades. We should add that even if your existing Smartphone doesn’t have the same number of antennas as a Massive MIMO base station, it can still benefit from the increased capacity and more precise signal targeting that such technologies bring.

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Fibre optic network supplier Emtelle UK, which is a global manufacturer of blown fibre, cabling and ducted solutions, has today announced that they’ve “deepened” their existing partnership with altnet ISP Highland Broadband (formerly Lothian Broadband) to help accelerate their roll-out of full fibre (FTTP) infrastructure across Scotland’s rural communities.

The announcement comes shortly after Highland Broadband secured a huge £50m funding boost to help support a “major expansion” of their network “throughout rural Scotland“ (here). As a result, the provider said it was now “on track to extend its reach to over 150 towns and villages” across rural Scotland in the coming year.

Highland Broadband has indicated that they “already connect around 50% of all rural premises in the Scottish Highlands“. The new agreement will see Emtelle supplying full solutions including its fibre and ducting solutions, technical support, and deployment expertise to support the aforementioned expansion.

Gavin Rodgers, CEO of Highland Broadband, said:

“This injection of £50 million of new capital means we have the funding as well as the capability to continue network expansion throughout rural Scotland. But funding alone doesn’t build networks it’s about having the right partners by your side. Together with Emtelle, we can roll out a resilient, future-proof network that will bring genuine change to the communities we serve.”