Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Digital infrastructure firm Boldyn Networks, which has helped to deploy a number of open access UK mobile and fibre optic broadband networks, has today announced that they’re working with network operator ITS Technology to deploy a new full fibre network across parts of four London Boroughs (Bromley, Lewisham, Merton, and Wandsworth).

The new digital infrastructure project is being funded by the Mayor of London’s Strategic Investment Fund (SIF), which in turn is being fuelled through London’s share of retained business rates. The deal also utilises Boldyn’s existing 20-year concession agreement with Transport for London (TfL), which was signed in June 2021 (here).

The new partnership will enable ITS to gain access to Boldyn’s existing assets and infrastructure within the London Underground (this helped to connect their 4G and 5G mobile network) to support and manage the new full fibre networks.

The network build for all this is already said to be underway and is intended to boost internet connectivity for people working in or visiting public sector buildings, including council offices, libraries, community centres and sheltered accommodation. Critical CCTV sites across all four boroughs will also be connected to the new network.

In total, over 9,000 overlooked business premises in Bromley, Lewisham, Merton, and Wandsworth will also be able to access gigabit speed services through ITS’ network of ISP and reseller partners. This will, it’s claimed, extend ITS’ network coverage to all London Boroughs – putting them “in reach of 70% of the capital’s commercial premises” (although it’s unclear if this is a premises passed figure or not).

Howard Dawber, Deputy Mayor of London for Business and Growth, said:

“Access to reliable high speed broadband is key to improving public services, boosting local economies and creating safer, thriving communities across the capital.

Backed by funding from the Mayor, this initiative will deliver much-needed digital infrastructure to local residents and businesses in London, supporting our mission to close the digital divide and deliver-long term growth as we work to build a better, fairer London for everyone.”

Paul Osborne, Chief Commercial Officer for the UK & Ireland at Boldyn Networks, said:

“This project is a shining example of how innovative public-private partnerships can make grant funding go further to deliver exceptional results. Bringing seamless connectivity to the London Boroughs is a major focus of our work in the city. ITS’ existing footprint across London complements the scope of this initiative while leveraging our advanced network infrastructure in the London Underground. It aligns with our vision and commitment to full fibre access as the foundation for improved public services, safer communities, and thriving local economies.”

Daren Baythorpe, CEO of ITS, said:

“Our work with Boldyn Networks will advance the digital ambitions of Bromley, Lewisham, Merton, and Wandsworth. The innovative use of London Underground’s assets under Boldyn’s concession agreement with TfL perfectly aligns with our reuse, ‘dig once’ and sustainability ethos. This project is set to transform local communities by delivering a platform to bridge the digital divide, attract inward investment, and deliver long-term value to the economy.”

The announcement doesn’t say how long the new network will take to deploy, or precisely how much funding is involved. But it’s worth nothing that most of the city already has quite a few gigabit broadband networks as options, although most of the named boroughs tend to form parts of the wider Greater London area that do have some gaps in connectivity to tackle.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network operator CityFibre, which has so far deployed their gigabit-capable full fibre broadband (FTTP) lines to cover 4.3 million UK premises (RFS), have said that recent newspaper “speculation” around the possibility of the business being acquired by Virgin Media (O2) are “unfounded“. The operator added that they were now close to securing a much-needed financing deal.

Just to recap. CityFibre currently still aspires to cover up to 8 million UK premises with their new FTTP (XGS-PON) broadband network – representing c.30% of the UK. But their original target of hitting that by the end of 2025 will not be achieved, and the operator has instead shifted their strategy to focus more on growth via mergers and acquisition (M&A) of smaller alternative networks (e.g. the deal to acquire Connexin – here, as well as Lit Fibre before that).

Like so many other network operators, CityFibre is also under pressure from high interest rates, rising build costs and competition, which has already impacted some of their commercial deployments. This tends to make it more of a challenge to raise fresh investment, too. On top of that, one of the operator’s key ISP partners, TalkTalk (accounting for c.150k CityFibre customers), is struggling in ways that could risk wider harm in the future (here).

Despite this, reports from earlier this year had indicated that CityFibre were working toward securing a crucial c.£1.5bn financing package, which was said to reflect a £500m equity financing deal with existing investors (here) and around £1bn of incremental debt funding – roughly enough liquidity to keep them fuelled through to mid-2027 and to support their M&A drive. But that deal has yet to emerge.

The latest development sees the Telegraph reporting that two of CityFibre’s major investors (Mubadala and Goldman Sachs), as well as some of their lenders, have in recent months approached the parents of Virgin Media and O2 (i.e. Liberty Global and Telefonica) to discuss options, including a potential sale (perhaps not for the first time). But the alleged exploratory talks didn’t go very far and are not thought to be ongoing.

A CityFibre spokesman said:

“Any speculation about a potential sale is unfounded. CityFibre is in a strong position and we expect to announce details of our financing shortly, supporting our role in consolidating the sector and accelerating CityFibre’s next phase of growth.”

Crucially, the company’s shareholders have also issued a statement, which says they “remain committed to CityFibre’s long-term success and are actively engaged in supporting the company’s next phase of growth“. ISPreview’s own sources have similarly indicated that the future financing deal could end up being worth more than £1.5bn and is expected to be agreed in the next few weeks, before the end of July (existing funding is due to run out around mid-2025).

According to a previous note from analyst James Ratzer, in 2025 and beyond, it’s expected that CityFibre will likely only build FTTP out c.300k homes per annum organically, largely to fulfil their Project Gigabit contracts. But the operator still aspires to add around 1 million premises each year, which suggest c.700,000 will be coming from M&A deals (c.100k – 185k of this was covered by the Connexin deal).

The catch is that consolidating alternative networks tends to be a slow, complex and often costly process – particularly with many altnets still harbouring an inflated idea of their own asset values. CityFibre’s strategy around it is thus still somewhat unproven, although most industry observers expect to see more consolidation, which only becomes more likely as other altnets begin running out of funding.

Finally, the idea of an acquisition by VMO2 and nexfibre’s parents also seems highly questionable, not least due to the high level of overbuild between the networks. Not to mention that VMO2 and nexfibre’s network expansion, as well as their wholesale plans, seem to have taken a hit after debt-laden Telefónica began a strategic review of their business (here and here). But Liberty Global does still see UK consolidation as a strategy they may pursue, with other operators.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Press Release

Hyperoptic, the UK’s leading alternative full fibre ISP, has today announced it is set to extend availability of its award-winning services to an additional one million UK homes, via the Openreach network

The strategic move has been driven by its ongoing commitment to delivering the best customer experience to broadband users throughout the UK, with the launch expected during early 2026.  

CEO and co-founder, Dana Tobak CBE, said: “We have built a solid reputation of delivering best-in-class customer experience to our current footprint of 64 towns and cities, placing us in a unique position within the market. To support our growth ambition, and to bring the Hyperoptic experience to more consumers, we have taken a strategic decision to make our services available via the Openreach platform from next year. 

“This expansion is good news for both existing consumers and new customers looking to improve their service. Our research highlights that most customers who leave us do so because they’re moving home. We understand home movers would prefer to take their Hyperoptic service with them so today’s announcement will make that possible, and our customers can continue to enjoy Hyperoptic for many years.” 

In addition to today’s update, Hyperoptic has also shared that this month it passed 400,000 active subscribers, and well over 1.9 million homes, cementing its position as one of the UK’s top ten providers.  

Join us at Connected Britain, 24-25 September in London. Tickets available here  

Also in the news:
SWR deploys Europe’s first ’Rail-5G’ Wi-Fi  
BT accelerates fibre rollout amid cost cuts
AT&T agrees $5.75 billion deal for Lumen’s consumer fibre assets

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) has announced that they’ve appointed network analyst firm Streetwave to harness fleets of bin lorries to help “accurately” map 4G and 5G mobile broadband coverage and performance, which will focus on the North of Scotland (i.e. Moray, Aberdeenshire and Highland Council areas).

Streetwave has already spent the past few years harnessing waste (bin / refuse) collection trucks to map mobile network coverage and speeds across various parts of the UK (e.g. here, here, here, here and here). In this setup, refuse trucks are installed with several off-the-shelf Smartphones using special software, which run continuous network tests (once every 20 metres in rural areas and 5m in urban areas) as the vehicles go around their routes.

The data they collect is then used by local authorities to help identify areas that may require additional intervention in order to improve local mobile coverage and or network capacity. In addition, members of the public have often also been given access to some of this data via address-based coverage checkers and interactive maps (example), which is the plan here too.

The results will help identify areas where there is limited coverage and guide improvements and the roll-out of future solutions, especially in remote communities where digital exclusion is a significant issue. The mapping exercise will be carried out using the Councils’ fleets of bin lorries together with other Council vehicles travelling along approximately 10,000 miles of roads to ensure thorough coverage of addresses in the three Council areas.

Neil Rutherford, Leader of the SFT Digital Connectivity Team, said:

“Using bin lorries that already travel across our roads into all communities is a practical way of collecting reliable mobile data.

By working with Streetwave and the local authorities to build our understanding of coverage across the country, in both rural and urban areas, we are establishing a strong understanding of mobile connectivity issues. It’s only by having the right data and the right digital tools can we work together to truly connect all of Scotland.”

The project, which is being part-funded by the Scottish Futures Trust, is expected to run for a full year across the Moray, Aberdeenshire and Highland Council areas. This should also allow the local authority to track seasonal changes, such as around holiday periods and during big events, where network congestion can become an issue.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Mobile network operator Vodafone have announced that people in Belfast, Sheffield, Liverpool and Watford can now take advantage of their “try before you buy” style eSIM, which first went live in London last month (here). Consumers can try the operator’s service, free, for 7-days with 50GB of data (mobile broadband), 500 minutes and 500 texts – all without changing your number.

The “no commitments or strings attached” service trial is only open to non-Vodafone mobile customer, using an eSIM supporting Smartphone and your device must be geolocated inside one of the initial cities. In order to take advantage of this, people must scan a QR code (which can be found across the cities) or visit the Vodafone website to sign up online (affiliate link), with the eSIM being installed via their My Vodafone App.

Trial customers can then join the 7-day free network trial without changing their existing number or swapping their SIM card (i.e. this does NOT port your existing mobile service). In that sense, the trial acts a bit like one of those travel eSIMs that people often buy when going abroad, where the new service complements rather than replaces the old one. We think this is a clever way of allowing consumers to test a different network.

Vodafone is planning to roll out the trial even further, across other cities around the UK.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Welsh Government (WG) today issued an update on their long awaited £70m (state aid) “Extending High Speed Broadband” (EHSB) project for Wales, which now intends to help upgrade around 25,000 to 30,000 poorly served premises (down from the original aspiration of c.84,000) in areas that can’t yet get “superfast” speeds of 30Mbps+.

ISPreview’s readers may recall that the WG first began to explore the viability of such a project in May 2023 via a Prior Information Notice (here) and we got another update in April 2025 (here). The project is intended to complement that UK Government’s wider £5bn Project Gigabit programme, which aims to reach “nationwide” (c.99%) coverage of gigabit-capable broadband by 2030 (currently at c.87%).

However, it’s already acknowledged that not even Project Gigabit will be enough to completely cater for every remote rural location (i.e. those that are too expensive for even Project Gigabit), which is why the WG decided to establish the EHSB project. This is being funded with £70m that was “clawed back” from BT (Openreach) as part of the original Superfast Cymru project (i.e. public funding returned for reinvestment as take-up increased).

The WG has now completed a period of preliminary market engagement for this new project (i.e. talking to suppliers to gauge their interest and confirm future coverage plans) and has set out their final approach for EHSB, which will now target upgrades toward around 25,000 to 30,000 premises instead of 85,000. This is largely because existing commercial and public sector builds are expected to reach more of Wales with FTTP than first thought.

Rebecca Evans MS, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning, said:

Despite the efforts of the telecommunications industry and public sector interventions there are still premises that do not have access to at least superfast broadband speeds and are not in any plans for delivery over the next three years. We have developed the business case for a project, the Extending High Speed Broadband project, to address this gap and provide fast and reliable broadband to remaining premises.

The project is being carefully planned and coordinated to ensure that we complement other commercial and public sector interventions, allowing the broadband market to reach as far as it can and enhancing the UK Government’s investment in Wales.

Our 2022 open market review identified up to 84,000 initial premises that could be addressed by the project. However, we are now confident that the number of premises has since drastically reduced as the scope of commercial and other public sector deployments, including Project Gigabit, have become clearer. The list of target premises will continue to be revised to reflect the removal from scope of those premises addressed by other interventions. We currently anticipate that the number of premises in scope will be in the region of 25,000-30,000.

The Extending High Speed Broadband project will be funded from £70 million clawed back from the original Superfast Cymru project.

The dynamic nature of the telecommunications market means that we are taking a flexible approach to this initiative. This will entail establishing a framework of telecommunications suppliers capable of addressing the remaining premises. Once the framework has been created, we will then offer a series of competitive call-off contracts to grant fund suppliers from the framework to address groups of premises. The call-offs will be offered in two Lot types, under 1,000 premises and over 1,000 premises, to stimulate interest from a broad range of potential suppliers.

Taking this approach will also allow the project to flex to accommodate any changes to the initial list of target premises and to address small communities that have been left unserved. We anticipate that the first call-off will be offered in the Autumn of this year with work on the ground starting as soon as possible thereafter. These call-offs will yield delivery projects that will take a number of years to complete due to the nature of infrastructure planning, preparation and delivery.

The catch is that we won’t know how many premises will actually end up benefitting from this project until the contracts have all been awarded. This will in turn be dependent upon which uppliers decide to engage with the process. The WG already has form in working with Openreach, so they’re expected to be a front runner for bids, but Ogi, Netomnia, Virgin Media (inc. nexfibre) are other potential options.

However, Virgin Media’s expansion via nexfibre was recently placed into some uncertainty (here), while Ogi would probably need to secure more investment first and Netomnia has generally showed little interest in public build contracts. But we assume the WG wouldn’t be proceeding with this unless they were reasonably confident of converting it into some tangible roll-out contracts.

We must remember that the WG are focusing on some of the toughest and thus most expensive parts of the country, which is not an easy thing to do. In addition, we don’t yet know how flexible they’ll be, such as in terms of technology choice, which could have a big influence on what is or is not viable for a network operator. Credits to Jack for spotting this WG update.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Rome, 9 June 2025

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, announces the availability of its “Quantum Safe over Internet” (QSI) to Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers. The service is already available through Sparkle’s commercial channels and will soon be accessible on AWS marketplace.

QSI is a cloud-native solution that offers secure VPN connectivity between customer sites or data centers and cloud providers, protecting sensitive data against quantum computing threats. It operates without requiring changes to existing infrastructure and leverages Sparkle’s network and advanced encryption technologies to ensure fast and secure data transmission with simple, automated management. With the NaaS approach, customers can use the service through a dedicated portal or via API, in an agile, flexible, and fully automated way.

The solution was validated through a dedicated Proof-of-Concept (PoC) conducted across two AWS regions – Frankfurt and Ireland – in collaboration with AWS and Sparkle’s technology partners. The PoC demonstrated the ability to establish secure, quantum-safe VPN tunnels between the two countries while ensuring continuous key rotation and encryption integrity without performance degradation.

“Quantum Safe over Internet” was launched in December 2024 to enable customers to access Sparkle’s network, establish secure connections between their offices, and utilize cloud resources with assurance against quantum attacks. It is the first service of Sparkle’s Multi-Quantum solutions suite which will soon include other use cases.

“This new offering confirms Sparkle’s strong commitment to delivering future-proof cybersecurity solutions to our customers while demonstrating our ability to bring quantum-safe protection into real-world hybrid architectures” said Antonella Sanguineti, Head of Marketing & Product Management Networking, Cloud, Security & Identity Solutions at Sparkle.

About Sparkle

Sparkle is TIM Group’s Global Operator, first international service provider in Italy and among the top worldwide, offering a full range of infrastructure and global connectivity services – capacity, IP, SD-WAN, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming and voice – to national and international Carriers, OTTs, ISPs, Media/Content Providers, and multinational enterprises. A major player in the submarine cable industry, Sparkle owns and manages a network of more than 600,000 km of fiber spanning from Europe to Africa and the Middle East, the Americas and Asia. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed over 32 countries.

Find out more about Sparkle following its X and LinkedIn profiles or visiting the website tisparkle.com

Media Contacts:

sparkle.communication@tisparkle.com

X: @TISparkle

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

In a significant strategic development. City-focused UK ISP Hyperoptic, which has spent the past few years deploying their own alternative full fibre (FTTP/B) gigabit broadband network to cover 1.9 million premises (up from 1.73m in July 2024), has confirmed to ISPreview that they plan to extend this to “at least” another 1 million premises – albeit using Openreach’s network.

The operator, which at the start of this year suffered another round of redundancies and is currently present across parts of 64 UK locations (towns and cities), is understood to have informed their staff of the latest development this afternoon. In addition, Hyperoptic has also shared that this month it passed 400,000 active subscribers (up from 340,000 in July 2024), and covered “over” 1.9 million homes (just below their 2m target).

Adopting Openreach’s national network for their expansion marks a radical shift for a provider that has long prided itself on building their own independent network. But they certainly wouldn’t be the first alternative network operator to find some merit in extending their reach by harnessing a rival operator’s platform (e.g. toob did the same via CityFibre).

Some readers will no doubt wonder why Hyperoptic will only be launching this new partnership with an additional 1 million homes via Openreach’s network, which is a small fraction of the nearly 19 million premises covered by the incumbents new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network (not to mention their aim of covering “up to” 30m by 2030). But the answer may come in their use of “at least“, with this perhaps being more of an initial phase.

Dana Tobak CBE, Hyperoptic’s CEO and co-founder, said:

“We have built a solid reputation of delivering best-in-class customer experience to our current footprint of 64 towns and cities, placing us in a unique position within the market. To support our growth ambition, and to bring the Hyperoptic experience to more consumers, we have taken a strategic decision to make our services available via the Openreach platform from next year.

This expansion is good news for both existing consumers and new customers looking to improve their service. Our research highlights that most customers who leave us do so because they’re moving home. We understand home movers would prefer to take their Hyperoptic service with them, so today’s announcement will make that possible, and our customers can continue to enjoy Hyperoptic for many years.”

Hyperoptic said that its preparations for launching this are already underway and the first c.1 million homes should start to become accessible “during early 2026” (Q1). The ISP declined to provide any details on their related packages and prices, although we suspect that these will end up differing a bit from Hyperoptic’s own products.

The gradual move to integrate Openreach’s platform into their own suggests that they’ll probably be looking to deliver a deeper integration. But it may also reflect the time it takes to develop the new systems for handling a second network (can be quite a complex task if you do it all in-house).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

A group of land and property owners, including the British Property Federation (BPF) and National Farmers Union (NFU) among them, have written a new letter that calls on the UK government to suspend earlier reforms that made it easier and cheaper for mobile and broadband operators to deploy their infrastructure on private land.

Before 2017 it was frequently landowners that would extract highly lucrative rental agreements in return for allowing telecoms operators to deploy infrastructure on their land (e.g. mobile masts, trenches for optical fibre etc.). But this often made it too expensive for network operators to expand their coverage, and thus inhibited the roll-out of new services.

The previous government tried to correct this in 2017 by revising the Electronic Communications Code (ECC) to make it easier and cheaper for network operators to access public or private land (here). But that initially swung the problem in the other direction (here and here) and resulted in some providers, particularly mobile operators, trying to force the adoption of dramatically lower rents (sometimes slashing rents worth thousands to just a few tens of pounds).

Since then various tribunal rulings and wider political efforts have been made to find a fairer balance, which has had some modest success (e.g. here and here), although experiences do vary. Meanwhile, the new Government has previously signalled that they intend to make a “renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030,” which would at the very least require them to retain the current approach.

However, Time Times (paywall) has today reported on how a group of major landowners has written to Lord Livermore, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and demanded that he suspend the 2017 amendments. The letter highlights how the rules have “fractured the relationship” between landowners and mobile operators.

“Landowners are now increasingly unwilling to host infrastructure, and where there is no land available, rollout simply does not happen,” said the letter. “While well-intentioned, [the changes] are now actively discouraging land and property owners from hosting mobile infrastructure, slowing the pace of deployment and undermining Britain’s growth prospects“.

A Spokesman for the Government (DSIT) said:

“Our priority is to continue delivering high quality 5G networks across the UK, which is critical to boosting growth and improving public services for the British people.

We want to ensure the measures to deliver the infrastructure the country needs to grow work for both landowners, operators and communities, which is why they are currently subject to a technical consultation, which we invite the public to respond to.”

We suspect it’s no coincidence that this letter has been drafted at around the same time as the Mobile Infrastructure Forum (MIF), which represents the main providers of mobile infrastructure for EE, O2, Vodafone and Three UK (i.e. Cellnex UK, Cornerstone, MBNL and WIG), recently began calling on the government (here) to resolve the issue of 6,200 UK sites (masts etc.) that are “stuck in legislative limbo” and preventing 5G upgrades.

The 6,200 sites in question – representing 16% of the UK’s total – remain under a legacy legal framework governed by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954) and equivalent legislation in Northern Ireland. But mobile firms complain that this makes it difficult to deploy the latest 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) upgrades.

The LTA 1954 can potentially create challenges because it provides security of tenure to tenants, including those holding access agreements for telecoms equipment. In short, landlords may be reluctant to grant access or agree to upgrades without legal intervention (even if the landlord wants to do it, the process can be tricky), potentially delaying or obstructing the rollout of new mobile technologies. Not to mention the added costs involved.

Once again the government and Ofcom, which is responsible for implementing the ECC, face a difficult balancing act as they attempt to implement long-awaited changes to help make broadband and mobile infrastructure sharing, as well as network upgrades and related dispute resolution, easier to deliver (see our summary). But achieving that without further undermining or reducing the rights of existing or potential site providers (land/property owners etc.) could be difficult.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Some of ISPreview’s readers have informed us that mobile operator EE (BT) appears to have pushed out a new carrier update, which enables the “Voice Over 5G Standalone” network feature on Smartphones that can support it (currently we’ve only seen reports of this from Apple iPhone users).

Just to recap. Most 5G mobile networks today are still largely based on Non-Standalone (NSA) technology, which means they are partly reliant upon older and slower 4G infrastructure. But SA networks are pure end-to-end 5G platforms 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 New Radio (VoNR or Vo5G) and increased reliability and security etc.

Speaking of which, EE’s 5G Standalone (mobile broadband) network has so far been rolled out across 50 major towns and cities, covering over 40% of the United Kingdom’s population. EE has previously also promised that the new network would introduce “higher quality voice calls even in congested areas“, although until now we haven’t seen any reports of Voice Over 5G Standalone (VoNR) actually being enabled.

The VoNR/Vo5G technology essentially delivers the same as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) does for existing 4G networks, which means that it enables voice calls to be made directly over a 5G network (as opposed to falling back to 4G or 2G for the voice component). Over the weekend, several of our readers (credit to Harvey for being the first) noted that their iPhone’s had received a carrier update (64.1) and could now toggle VoNR on or off (seems to be enabled by default).

The customers who have seen this update report that, when in a 5GSA area, their phones now stay on 5G SA instead of going back to the NSA platform. But at present it’s not clear how widely this update has been deployed or whether Android users have also received it (hopefully we’ll get some feedback on that today). Naturally, we queried this change directly with EE, but the operator declined to give a comment.