Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Rochdale-based UK broadband ISP Zen Internet has today announced that MS3 have become the latest alternative network to sign a wholesale partnership deal. The move means that Zen’s customers will soon be able to order packages via the new FTTP network and no doubt the altnet will also join their Fibre Hub (network aggregation platform for use by other ISPs).

The Fibre Hub already offered access to a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband footprint of over 20 million premises via infrastructure providers Openreach, CityFibre, ITS Technology, Freedom Fibre and Trooli. But today’s agreement will further expand its reach for Zen’s partners and also provide greater access to their own retail base.

Hull-based alternative UK network operator MS3 has so far deployed their full fibre broadband network across 234,000 premises (207k RFS) in the North of England – mostly around the Hull (East Yorkshire) and Lincolnshire regions – and recently announced connecting their 20,000th customer to the network, which is offered via several partner ISPs; now including Zen Internet.

Zen Internet hasn’t yet revealed any details of the broadband packages or prices they’ll be offering to customers on the new network, which won’t be known until they go live during early 2026. Zen’s implementation of new altnets often occurs gradually and in phases, rather than all at once, so after they go live it may still take a bit longer for everything to be fully integrated.

Credits to Thinkbroadband for spotting this development. In addition, Zen Internet said they expected to sign another alternative network to their platform in November 2025.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today hit internet phone (VoIP) provider Vonage with a £700,000 fine after an investigation that started in March 2024 (here). The penalty follows an incident that resulted in disruption for its business customers to emergency calling (999) services between 23rd October and 3rd November 2023.

The regulator’s existing General Conditions rules (e.g. General Condition A3.2 and sections 105A, 105C and 105K of the Communications Act 2003) require every communications provider to “ensure the fullest possible availability of public communications services at all times, including in the event of a disaster or catastrophic network failure, and uninterrupted access to emergency organisations.”

Naturally, any failure of such communications, particularly to the emergency services, is extremely serious and could result in a loss of life. This is particularly relevant now that broadband ISPs and their customers are increasingly switching away from traditional phone line services and on to IP-based phone alternatives, which may be more exposed to connectivity problems and power cuts etc.

However, Ofcom’s investigation of Vonage found that, during the aforementioned period, the company’s UK VoIP business customers were “unable to connect to the emergency services when using desk phones” and their internal processes “did not include adequate assessment of whether a software update, which caused the issue, had the potential to impact emergency calls“. As a result, Vonage failed to carry out testing following the update, which led to its emergency call service failing.

The provider also “failed to have adequate monitoring procedures in place“, which meant it did not have sufficient oversight of its network to enable it to identify an outage affecting emergency calls.

George Lusty, Ofcom’s Enforcement Director, said:

“Being able to call the emergency services can mean the difference between life and death. It’s vital that telecoms providers take their responsibilities seriously and if they don’t, we’ll hold them to account. Vonage fell short on a number of levels, putting its customers at unacceptable risk.”

Breaking news.. more to follow..

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Citizens Advice agency has warned that broadband ISPs and mobile operators are making it difficult for people trying to negotiate for a better renewal, which it’s estimated could save UK consumers more than £325 a year for both services combined. The charity has called on Ofcom to take action in order to ensure greater pricing transparency.

As most readers already know, new broadband and mobile customers – usually reflecting those who hunt around for a better deal and switch providers – often benefit from big discounts that are designed to attract them, while existing customers who reach the end of their initial contract can be hit with larger price rises.

The practice is fairly common among the largest providers and, indeed, somewhat normal in any truly competitive market. In recent years, Ofcom has implemented various changes to tackle this, such as the End-of-Contract Notifications (ECN) system (i.e. showing the best deals for re-contracting) and easier switching processes for mobile and broadband providers (e.g. One Touch Switching).

Not to mention the regulator’s move to ban providers from doing mid-contract price hikes that are linked to inflation (CPI or RPI) and percentage-based changes (here), as well as their industry Fairness Framework (guidelines), the impact of which remains debatable.

Savvy consumers, such as those who don’t wish to change provider, also know to try to option of haggling for a better deal (Retentions Tips), which Citizens Advice estimates could save you more than £325 a year combined for mobile and broadband bills. As a result, the charity estimates that collectively, loyal consumers who don’t negotiate are “losing out” on £28m in savings every month.

Murky Practices

However, the charity also conducted a nationally representative Opinium Research survey of 6,000 UK adults – run between 22nd April and 6th June 2025 – to discover their experiences of haggling with telecoms providers, which revealed the “murky practice of only making better deals and discounts available after persistent efforts from customers“. This includes people being forced to hunt through confusing online options or being stuck on hold for ages, among other things.

Key Survey Findings

➤ 18% don’t negotiate or switch at all, but nearly one in three do renegotiate with their provider at the end of their last fixed term telecom contract.

➤ 78% found at least one of the steps in the renegotiation process difficult. This includes navigating confusing call menus to get through to the right person (43%) and waiting on hold (55%).

➤ 66% who negotiated on the phone experienced at least one negative consequence, such as feeling like they wasted their time (39%) or feeling stressed (37%).

Dame Clare Moriarty, CEO of Citizens Advice, said:

“For too long, mobile and broadband providers have forced consumers to go through the charade of pretending to leave in order to access hidden renewal deals.

Millions of people are still paying over the odds for something as essential as mobile and broadband because of this murky practice.

Ofcom has taken some welcome steps to strengthen protections for consumers, but this loophole needs to be closed.

We want to see Ofcom clamp down on long overdue transparency on pricing – closing the gap between what deals are on the table and what’s kept under the counter.”

At this point we should highlight that not all providers adopt the same model and many smaller providers, which may also offer a selection of more advanced features (static IPs, better routers etc.), simply charge a set monthly fee that rarely ever changes.

Equally it’s unclear precisely what Citizens Advice means by “clamp down“, since there are different approaches that could potentially be taken and then there’s always a risk from unintended consequences (e.g. Ofcom’s move to ban inflationary linked price hikes did improve transparency, but it also seemed to cause larger general price hikes).

The current model that many big providers adopt relies on the fact that a good proportion of customers will, at the end of their first contract, choose to remain with their ISP and accept the basic re-contracting offers – even though prices may rise.

Ofcom would thus need to be very careful to avoid making any changes that could cause prices to rise for other users, or even choke off the option of renegotiation entirely. But so far we’ve not seen any indication that the regulator is planning to take further action on this.

An Ofcom spokesman said:

“We’ve made it easier to get a discount and save money, whether that’s by haggling with your existing provider or moving to a new one. Phone and broadband companies must tell you when your contract’s ending and what you could save by signing up to a new deal. Our rules also mean it’s never been simpler to switch, and millions of customers have taken advantage of the competitive market we have in the UK.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The annual Connected Britain Awards 2025 (Total Telecom) took place this week, which among other things saw alternative full fibre ISP Lightning Fibre scoop the coveted “Broadband Provider of the Year” award, while Openreach won the “Access Innovation Award” and CityFibre was once again handed the “Project Rollout Award“.

All of the organisations that entered – spanning across various different categories – were assessed by a large panel of judges, which included key figures from various analyst firms, consultants, network operators, universities and various other companies or organisations with industry links.

The final list includes a limited but useful description of why each winner was chosen.

Winners of the Connected Britain Awards 2025

➤ B2B Service Provider of the Year

The B2B Service Provider of the Year award recognises a company going above and beyond to serve business customers, not just through connectivity, but through outstanding operational delivery.

This year’s winner stood out for their hands-on support of major industry players, their consistent investment in service excellence, and a strong track record of results that speaks for itself.

Winner: Nets International Group

➤ Digital Skills Award

The Digital Skills Award celebrates projects that tackle skills gaps and broaden access to digital learning.

This year’s winner stood out for directly addressing digital exclusion, reaching thousands of children and educators, and embedding digital confidence across the education sector. The judges praised the initiative as a scalable, inclusive model with truly impressive results.

Winner: Three UK – Three Discovery – Empowering in Education

Highly commended: Liverpool City Region Combined Authority – Digital Inclusion Initiative

➤ Broadband Provider of the Year

The Broadband Provider of the Year award recognises a broadband provider that truly puts its customers and communities at the heart of everything it does.

With industry-leading retention, outstanding customer feedback, and strong partnerships across housing and local organisations, this winner sets a benchmark for service, innovation, and trust in the broadband space.

Winner: Lightning Fibre

➤ The Access Innovation Award

The Access Innovation Award recognises breakthrough initiatives that deliver connectivity where it was once thought impossible.

This year’s winner impressed the judges with an ambitious engineering project in one of the UK’s most remote communities, deploying subsea fibre and innovative network design to overcome extreme challenges. The result is reliable, high-quality broadband that respects the local environment and transforms life for residents – a powerful example of access innovation at its best.

Winner: Openreach – Baltasound, Isle of Unst, Shetland

Highly commended: Dorset Council

➤ The Smart Places Award

The Smart Places Award celebrates the transformative use of connectivity, data, and technology to improve lives and communities.

This year’s winner stood out for tackling both rural and urban challenges head-on, deploying cutting-edge 5G OpenRAN networks and smart infrastructure to deliver tangible benefits. The judges praised it as a bold and forward-looking model for what a smart place can achieve.

Winner: Cambridgeshire Open RAN Ecosystem (CORE HDD) Consortium – Cambridgeshire County Council, AWTG, Benetel, Ontix, Gooi, Wolfram, University of Surrey & University of Cambridge              

➤ The Industrial Innovation Award

The industrial Innovation Award shines a light on how digital transformation is reshaping the backbone of industry.

This year’s winner took a sector that had long relied on traditional methods and injected it with the power of private 5G, revolutionising productivity, improving quality, and delivering huge efficiency gains. Judges described it as a remarkable demonstration of what happens when cutting-edge connectivity meets real-world manufacturing, setting a new benchmark for industrial innovation in the UK.

Winner: Ayrshire 5GIR Project and Anderson Stewart Castings          

➤ The Barrier Removal Award

The Barrier Removal award celebrates initiatives that have broken down the toughest obstacles to connectivity rollout.

This year’s winner impressed the judges with a unique industry-wide collaboration that removed long-standing commercial barriers, transformed rural coverage, and delivered results ahead of schedule. By tackling partial not-spots on a national scale, the project is ensuring more communities can benefit from equitable access to mobile connectivity.””

Winner: Mova, on behalf of EE, Three, VMO2 and Vodafone for their work on the Shared Rural Network programme      

Highly commended: Glasgow City Council

➤ The Startup Award

Winner: NodeQ

Highly commended: Unified Telecoms Supplier

➤ The Sustainability Award

The Sustainability Award recognises projects that put environmental responsibility at the heart of telecoms.

This year’s winner impressed the judges with a practical, large-scale initiative to cut emissions, consolidate infrastructure, and embed sustainability into everyday operations. With clear evidence of energy efficiency gains, a strong commitment to the circular economy, and real social impact, it demonstrates how major players in our industry can lead by example.

Winner: BT Group – Networks Data Centre Optimisation Programme

➤ Digital Council of the Year

The Digital Council of the Year award highlights councils that have embraced digital transformation.

This year’s winner has embraced digitalisation with purpose and clarity, delivering real improvements in public services, from smarter infrastructure and sustainable transport to enhanced care and connectivity. Their collaborative, tech-forward approach is helping redefine what local government can achieve in the digital age.

Winner: Coventry City Council

Highly commended: Fylde Council

➤ The Wireless Innovation Award

Wireless innovation is unlocking opportunity across the UK and this year’s winner is proving just how powerful fixed wireless access can be.

By targeting hard-to-reach areas with faster, more reliable services, they’re transforming connectivity for rural homes and businesses. The judges applauded their ambition, their smart use of international learnings, and the impressive performance gains already being delivered.

Winner: Airband Community Internet  

➤ Project Rollout Award

The Project Rollout award honours exceptional achievement in accelerating gigabit-capable broadband delivery.

This year’s winner was praised for rolling out fibre at scale and speed, reaching tens of thousands of premises on time and on budget while pioneering innovative engineering techniques to reduce risk. Judges highlighted the project’s strong community engagement and its role in boosting connectivity and economic prospects in one of the UK’s most challenging regions.

Winner: Fibrus

Highly commended: CityFibre

➤ The Enterprise Solution Award

The Enterprise Solution Award recognises innovation that transforms the way enterprises connect and operate.

This year’s winner delivered a breakthrough in indoor mobile coverage, combining all UK operators into a single small cell solution. Judges praised its impact on productivity, energy efficiency, and user experience, a clear example of enterprise innovation with measurable results.

Winner: Freshwave’s Omni Network on the ANDREW RP5000 

➤ The Rising Star Award

One of the most exciting awards of the evening, the Rising Star Award celebrates emerging talent making a lasting mark on the connectivity sector.

This year’s winner was praised for their leadership in digital inclusion, building partnerships across sectors, and delivering measurable social impact. Judges highlighted their deep community engagement and innovative approach, recognising not just a promising career, but a rising star already changing lives and shaping a more inclusive digital future.

Winner: Will Plant –  Cambridgeshire County Council

➤ The Community Improvement Award

Our final award was one of the most hotly contested of the evening. It attracted the largest number of entries, and the judges’ scores were incredibly close across the shortlist.

This year’s winner stood out for its scale, longevity, and ability to reach hundreds of thousands of people since its launch. Judges praised its commitment to bridging the digital divide, empowering vulnerable groups through skills training, and showing how a major organisation can use its resources to create meaningful social change.

Winner: Three UK – Three Discovery – Free skills training UK-wide to help bridge the digital divide

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

The Connected Britain Awards winners have been announced, following a highly successful Connected Britain conference

With a record-breaking number of entries this year, the Connected Britain Awards 2025 showcased the most innovative and exciting elements of Britain’s ever-growing and rapidly evolving digital economy. This year’s shortlist included a fantastic array of diverse organisations and individuals, all of whom were highly deserving of praise. 

A big thanks to all our award presenters and to our expert panel of judges for lending us their expertise in selecting the winners.

B2B Service Provider of the Year

The B2B Service Provider of the Year award recognises a company going above and beyond to serve business customers, not just through connectivity, but through outstanding operational delivery.

This year’s winner stood out for their hands-on support of major industry players, their consistent investment in service excellence, and a strong track record of results that speaks for itself.

Winner: Nets International Group

Digital Skills Award

The Digital Skills Award celebrates projects that tackle skills gaps and broaden access to digital learning.

This year’s winner stood out for directly addressing digital exclusion, reaching thousands of children and educators, and embedding digital confidence across the education sector. The judges praised the initiative as a scalable, inclusive model with truly impressive results.

Winner: Three UK – Three Discovery – Empowering in Education

Highly commended: Liverpool City Region Combined Authority – Digital Inclusion Initiative

Broadband Provider of the Year

The Broadband Provider of the Year award recognises a broadband provider that truly puts its customers and communities at the heart of everything it does.

With industry-leading retention, outstanding customer feedback, and strong partnerships across housing and local organisations, this winner sets a benchmark for service, innovation, and trust in the broadband space.

Winner: Lightning Fibre

The Access Innovation Award

The Access Innovation Award recognises breakthrough initiatives that deliver connectivity where it was once thought impossible.

This year’s winner impressed the judges with an ambitious engineering project in one of the UK’s most remote communities, deploying subsea fibre and innovative network design to overcome extreme challenges. The result is reliable, high-quality broadband that respects the local environment and transforms life for residents – a powerful example of access innovation at its best.

Winner: Openreach – Baltasound, Isle of Unst, Shetland

Highly commended: Dorset Council

The Smart Places Award

The Smart Places Award celebrates the transformative use of connectivity, data, and technology to improve lives and communities.

This year’s winner stood out for tackling both rural and urban challenges head-on, deploying cutting-edge 5G OpenRAN networks and smart infrastructure to deliver tangible benefits. The judges praised it as a bold and forward-looking model for what a smart place can achieve.

Winner: Cambridgeshire Open RAN Ecosystem (CORE HDD) Consortium – Cambridgeshire County Council, AWTG, Benetel, Ontix, Gooi, Wolfram, University of Surrey & University of Cambridge              

The Industrial Innovation Award

The industrial Innovation Award shines a light on how digital transformation is reshaping the backbone of industry.

This year’s winner took a sector that had long relied on traditional methods and injected it with the power of private 5G, revolutionising productivity, improving quality, and delivering huge efficiency gains. Judges described it as a remarkable demonstration of what happens when cutting-edge connectivity meets real-world manufacturing, setting a new benchmark for industrial innovation in the UK.

Winner: Ayrshire 5GIR Project and Anderson Stewart Castings          

The Barrier Removal Award

The Barrier Removal award celebrates initiatives that have broken down the toughest obstacles to connectivity rollout.

This year’s winner impressed the judges with a unique industry-wide collaboration that removed long-standing commercial barriers, transformed rural coverage, and delivered results ahead of schedule. By tackling partial not-spots on a national scale, the project is ensuring more communities can benefit from equitable access to mobile connectivity.””

Winner: Mova, on behalf of EE, Three, VMO2 and Vodafone for their work on the Shared Rural Network programme      

Highly commended: Glasgow City Council

The Startup Award

Winner: NodeQ

Highly commended: Unified Telecoms Supplier

The Sustainability Award

The Sustainability Award recognises projects that put environmental responsibility at the heart of telecoms.

This year’s winner impressed the judges with a practical, large-scale initiative to cut emissions, consolidate infrastructure, and embed sustainability into everyday operations. With clear evidence of energy efficiency gains, a strong commitment to the circular economy, and real social impact, it demonstrates how major players in our industry can lead by example.

Winner: BT Group – Networks Data Centre Optimisation Programme

Digital Council of the Year

The Digital Council of the Year award highlights councils that have embraced digital transformation.

This year’s winner has embraced digitalisation with purpose and clarity, delivering real improvements in public services, from smarter infrastructure and sustainable transport to enhanced care and connectivity. Their collaborative, tech-forward approach is helping redefine what local government can achieve in the digital age.

Winner: Coventry City Council

Highly commended: Fylde Council

The Wireless Innovation Award

Wireless innovation is unlocking opportunity across the UK and this year’s winner is proving just how powerful fixed wireless access can be.

By targeting hard-to-reach areas with faster, more reliable services, they’re transforming connectivity for rural homes and businesses. The judges applauded their ambition, their smart use of international learnings, and the impressive performance gains already being delivered.

Winner: Airband Community Internet  

Project Rollout Award

The Project Rollout award honours exceptional achievement in accelerating gigabit-capable broadband delivery.

This year’s winner was praised for rolling out fibre at scale and speed, reaching tens of thousands of premises on time and on budget while pioneering innovative engineering techniques to reduce risk. Judges highlighted the project’s strong community engagement and its role in boosting connectivity and economic prospects in one of the UK’s most challenging regions.

Winner: Fibrus

Highly commended: CityFibre

The Enterprise Solution Award

The Enterprise Solution Award recognises innovation that transforms the way enterprises connect and operate.

This year’s winner delivered a breakthrough in indoor mobile coverage, combining all UK operators into a single small cell solution. Judges praised its impact on productivity, energy efficiency, and user experience, a clear example of enterprise innovation with measurable results.

Winner: Freshwave’s Omni Network on the ANDREW RP5000 

The Rising Star Award

One of the most exciting awards of the evening, the Rising Star Award celebrates emerging talent making a lasting mark on the connectivity sector.

This year’s winner was praised for their leadership in digital inclusion, building partnerships across sectors, and delivering measurable social impact. Judges highlighted their deep community engagement and innovative approach, recognising not just a promising career, but a rising star already changing lives and shaping a more inclusive digital future.

Winner: Will Plant –  Cambridgeshire County Council

The Community Improvement Award

Our final award was one of the most hotly contested of the evening. It attracted the largest number of entries, and the judges’ scores were incredibly close across the shortlist.

This year’s winner stood out for its scale, longevity, and ability to reach hundreds of thousands of people since its launch. Judges praised its commitment to bridging the digital divide, empowering vulnerable groups through skills training, and showing how a major organisation can use its resources to create meaningful social change.

Winner: Three UK – Three Discovery – Free skills training UK-wide to help bridge the digital divide    

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Co-Founder and Chairman of alternative rural broadband ISP Fibrus, Conal Henry, will tomorrow tell the Connected Britain event that Government subsidies (e.g. the £5bn Project Gigabit programme) are being “wasted” due to Ofcom’s rules allegedly making the roll-out of rural broadband “unnecessarily expensive“.

At present Fibrus has already deployed their own gigabit-capable broadband network, using full fibre (FTTP) technology, to cover 440,000 premises across poorly served parts of Northern Ireland and Cumbria (England). The operator has also connected 125,000 customers to this network (up from 113k in March 2025). Most of that build has stemmed from commercial investment, but a big chunk has also come via state aid (public funding) – see below.

However, Henry argues that such deployments are currently being hampered by the rules and costs of harnessing the Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) product, which is the regulated service that allows rival networks to run their own fibre via Openreach’s existing cable ducts and poles – cutting down on build costs, disruption and speeding up deployments of gigabit-capable broadband networks.

Openreach has previously described their PIA product as being “cheap as chips“, “really successful” (175 network builders are using their ducts and poles) and said it returns “very strong customer satisfaction scores“. But Henry argues that a change to PIA pricing would reduce the need for funding and could speed up regional roll-outs further.

What’s the issue with PIA?

According to Henry, under the current system, altnets such as Fibrus must pay for the use on a per-metre basis, which he claims is “disproportionately impacting rural areas“. Rural properties are on average 200m away from their nearest neighbour, compared to just 10m in urban areas. As a result, Henry says it can cost altnets “almost twenty times more” to roll-out FTTP to rural areas than in towns and cities (we’ve heard this before).

The current rules are also said to “prevent altnets from recovering these costs from consumers“, although this aspect wasn’t fleshed out in the press release. Henry added that rural areas are also more likely to have slower broadband speeds, and fewer providers to choose from, partly as a result of the issues raised.

We should add that other altnets have previously also called on Ofcom to deliver fairness in PIA pricing, to “ensure all users of PIA have a level playing field for access to infrastructure“ (here and here).

Conal Henry is expected to say:

“Companies like Fibrus have a strong track record of delivering rural broadband but the current model is stifling investment, creating an uneven marketplace and making it harder for providers like ours to connect more homes and businesses.

The disproportionate impact these costs have on rural broadband providers is well illustrated by the fact that Fibrus serves 0.3% of total UK broadband premises but it contributes 12% of Openreach’s altnet PIA income – a staggering figure. This directly undermines the UK’s goal of nationwide fibre coverage and inhibits growth.

Both Ministers and Ofcom can get on and solve this. Doing so would mean Ministers spend less on subsidy and consumers have more choice. In an age of online working and accessing learning, business and healthcare online, it’s vital that Ministers get a grip on this issue or rural communities will be left behind.”

In fairness, the fact that rural builds cost significantly more than urban ones is nothing new, and it’s worth bearing in mind that Openreach will also suffer that impact when they build the infrastructure (they need to gain a fair return on their investment for it to be viable). The incumbent is not magically immune to the realities of rural deployments being disproportionately more expensive than urban ones. This is partly because there are fewer premises to reach, and they’re often dispersed over a much wider area of difficult terrain.

The use of state-aid (e.g. Project Gigabit) in poorly served areas can help to mitigate against the extra costs of such builds (Fibrus has benefitted from this too). At the same time, it’s natural that Openreach itself doesn’t need to pay the same rents as altnets because they’ve built and run the infrastructure. The incumbent also has maintenance, repairs and other upkeep costs to consider.

At the same time, Openreach has previously suggested that the prices they charge for PIA may be too low and that rivals don’t share access to their own infrastructure in the same way (note: altnets that receive public investment are often obliged to offer a degree of infrastructure access, but this is almost never as attractive as PIA). Smaller altnets carry a lot of risk and often desire to protect the value of their asset vs those with Significant Market Power (SMP), such as Openreach – it’s not an even battlefield.

None of this is to say that Fibrus’ complaint is wrong, and indeed there may be some arguments around certain aspects of PIA, which could potentially be considered as too expensive or in need of improvement. But those prices are ultimately set by Ofcom, not Openreach, and they’re supposed to be set at a level which supports entry into the market by companies like Fibrus.

Naturally, all of this is coming to the fore now because Ofcom are in the final stage of preparing their market decisions for the next 5 years via the Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR), although the regulator’s initial proposals didn’t appear to push for any radical changes to PIA. The latest TAR is mostly about tweaks and smaller improvements, mainly to avoid destabilising existing investments at a critical point in the national roll-out (i.e. gigabit broadband for 99% of UK premises by 2032).

As usual, Ofcom has the incredibly difficult job of trying to balance the many competing (vested) interests between different operators, which will always result in some winners and losers. We should close by mentioning that INCA’s Infrastructure Sharing Group (ISG) is separately working to produce a new sharing framework (here), but this is more of an altnets-only club and focuses on areas when Openreach’s own PIA solution is not available.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

National network operator Openreach (BT) has this morning confirmed that their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which offers broadband speeds of up to 1,800Mbps to homes via hundreds of UK ISPs, has now covered 20 million premises (up from 18.3m on 1st May 2025) and take-up has risen to around 38%.

The progress, which comes a day after we revealed that the operator will trial download speeds of up to 8.5Gbps during Q1 2026 (here), won’t come as a huge surprise to ISPreview’s readers because we’ve been reporting Openreach as having reached this figure for the past week or two.

Openreach’s project is claimed to be the “largest and fastest broadband infrastructure build in Europe“, with engineers now reaching more than 1 million new homes every three months (quarter). This includes around 33,000 medical facilities and more than 25,000 colleges, schools and universities etc.

Clive Selley, Openreach’s CEO, said:

“In 2025, being online isn’t a luxury – it’s a lifeline. From booking GP appointments to applying for jobs, accessing education and launching businesses, digital connectivity is the gateway to opportunity. Full fibre makes that gateway faster and far more reliable, and it will keep up with the demands of our digital world. But upgrades don’t often happen automatically, so people need to contact their broadband provider to make the switch.

Reaching 20 million premises is a UK infrastructure success story, and it’s a credit to the investment, hard work and ambition of everyone at Openreach. But the job’s not done yet. And the next premises are some of the very hardest to connect.

To finish the job, we need the right support as an industry, including targeted help for some rural areas, faster planning approvals, better access to multi-dwelling buildings, and a regulatory and policy environment that gives investors’ confidence and allows competition to thrive.”

The last part of Clive’s comment effectively touches on a number of different areas, such as the operator potentially securing a favourable outcome from Ofcom’s next Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR) and the government pushing forward with plans for easier access to large residential buildings, as well as flexi-permits and other measures. But the reality is that Openreach are facing a lot of competition from rival networks and thus can’t simply stop their deployment if they don’t get everything their own way.

The new service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and many more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some ISPs are doing free upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn.

Openreach currently has 15,000 people focused on their roll-out and the average per premises build cost continues to hover around the £280 mark (roughly £1.2bn or 4.5 million premises per year), but this will rise as the build becomes increasingly rural-focused.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The latest independent data from Thinkbroadband has today helped us to produce an updated assessment of how big – in terms of network coverage (premises passed) – the top 17 largest Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP networks in the UK have become by September 2025. Once again, we compare this data against official coverage claims.

One of the difficulties with keeping close tabs on the rapid growth of UK full fibre networks is that some operators often make coverage claims that are difficult to independently verify. Similarly, we’ve often found that the official “premises passed” figures put out by some of those providers may not always reflect reality.

For example, in some cases official figures can include partially built areas that aren’t fully live yet and, in other cases, the network may be technically built, but customers in some of the covered areas won’t be able to get it ordered or installed by an ISP (i.e. not yet truly “Ready for Service” – RFS). Similarly, in a smaller number of cases, operators can sometimes make mistakes in their data.

The latest State of Broadband Report (September 2025) from TBB is thus quite useful because we get an up-to-date summary of how much coverage has been independently verified to exist (RFS) across the largest alternative network (altnet) operators in the full fibre space. We can then compare TBB’s data with the official coverage claims from operators.

Naturally, there are some caveats to consider when doing this, which need to be reflected. Firstly, TBB is not perfect, and they do sometimes miss bits and pieces of network coverage (please email them if you spot this). Secondly, conducting independent analysis of network builds like this is slow and laborious work, thus over the years we’ve tended to perceive that TBB’s latest data can be up to 2-3 months behind actual build.

Such a time lag, which will vary between operators, may not seem like much, but it can create large gaps between independent and official figures. Such gaps are most likely to occur during the early ramp-up phase of a new network build, where smaller networks may – over the course of a year – go from having a few tens of thousands of premises passed to hundreds of thousands (very few operators are in that phase today).

Suffice to say, it’s wise not to make the mistake of automatically inferring that a big gap is because an altnet may be overstating their coverage. In addition, we’ve also dated the official claims below as most operators only very occasionally provide an official update on their build progress and some haven’t done one in a long time, which will thus be out of step with TBB’s latest modelling.

Finally, we’ve included TBB’s previous figures from March 2025, which helps to show whether a network operator has slowed its pace of build or even stalled.

Top 17 Largest UK Full Fibre Networks by Coverage – H2 2025

As usual, we aren’t going to micro analyse each operator above and, in any case, most of TBB’s real-world focused estimates of Ready for Service (RFS) coverage are roughly where we’d expect them to be when compared with official claims. But there are a few caveats to point out for certain operators.

Firstly, Virgin Media’s network is currently in the middle of a major upgrade, which is seeing XGS-PON based FTTP being deployed into areas that could previously only access their Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network. Currently, it’s a little bit difficult to accurately track these XGS areas, and thus TBB has only included the figure for their older Radio Frequency Over Glass (RFOG) based FTTP build.

Meanwhile, the nexfibre build is technically a separate company and so gets its own entry, despite only selling packages via Virgin Media and giffgaff. Officially, Virgin Media and nexfibre claim to have passed a total of over 7 million premises with FTTP (as above, the missing gap above reflects Virgin Media’s HFC to XGS upgrades).

Otherwise, G.Network, F&W Networks and Hyperoptic’s official coverage data continues to show some extremely wide gaps from TBB’s real-world analysis. Suffice to say, it’s often wise to take any coverage claims from these operators with a pinch of salt.

Finally, Freedom Fibre is still missing off the table, despite officially claiming to have covered 350,000 premises (Jun 2025); this may be partly due to issues with the network integration of VXFIBER’s base. But TBB currently measures them as 236,000 premises and told us that they’ll probably make the next report in 2026. Other altnets currently remain too small to be included.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Public service broadcaster Channel 4 has this morning announced the launch of three new streaming channels – 4Reality, 4Homes, and 4Life, which are to made exclusively available via the new broadband-based live TV streaming service – Freely – in the UK.

Freely, which first launched in April 2024 (here), is not currently being pushed as a replacement for the ageing terrestrial Freeview (inc. Freeview Play) and satellite-based Freesat TV platforms and should, at least for now, be seen as more of a complement – a different kind of service that helps to make broadcast TV more accessible. The change is important because the age of traditional terrestrial TV signals, which came via the airwaves, is expected to gradually come to an end as gigabit broadband nears almost universal UK coverage by 2032 (currently c.88%).

The big news today is, as above, that one of Freely’s key backers – Channel 4 – has just become the first public service broadcaster to launch a range of three new streaming channels, which will be exclusively available on Freely.

With the new streams, Freely will offer more than 50 live channels over Wi-Fi and broadband links, alongside “more on-demand shows than any streaming service in the UK” (we haven’t been able to independently verify that claim).

Channel 4’s Exclusive Streaming Channels

➤ 4Reality (channel 67): sometimes risqué, often funny and always entertaining. 4Reality from Channel 4 – the original home of the best reality TV – brings favourites across real-life drama, sass, romance and rivalry from Married at First Sight, Naked Attraction and First Dates to Made in Chelsea.

➤ 4Homes (channel 68): from massive mansions to amazing spaces, from places in the sun and DIY in chateaus, to homes in the best-of-British locations, 4Homes showcases all places great and small spanning shows such as Grand Designs, A Place in the Sun and Location, Location, Location.

➤ 4Life (channel 82): real lives, real people (and real dogs too). And huge helpings of delicious food. Meet people doing amazing things – often in beautiful places. 4Life showcases the great content genres channel 4 viewers love including travel, food and animals, from The Dog House to Travel Man.

More channels are also expected to join the line-up as the platform continues to grow.

Grace Boswood, C4’s Director of Technology & Distribution, said:

“We’re proud to lead the way among Britain’s broadcasters by enhancing Freely’s offering. The launch of our new streamed channels further accelerates our transformation into the streaming age as the world’s first public service streamer. It also continues our record of digital distribution firsts to benefit advertisers and viewers.”

Freely has also been quietly improving their device support and recently confirmed plans to launch on Netgem’s new streaming TV box during Q4 2025 (here); such boxes are typically bundled by broadband ISPs like Brsk, TalkTalk, CommunityFibre, Wightfibre and others. The BBC are also understood to be considering the launch of a streaming box (here).

However, Freely’s adoption is likely to remain limited until the service arrives on popular streaming devices from Amazon, Google and Roku, but at present there’s no clear indication of whether or even when this will happen.

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British-registered mobile operator Vodafone has today published a new white paper with Meta and Google, which shows the benefits of advanced video compression technology, via the AV1 video codec, for Smartphone users on their mobile broadband networks. But it also notes that many people use budget handsets, which often lack full support it.

Just for context. Modern video codecs and compression algorithms tend to get more sophisticated and thus effective over time, partly because they’re also able to take advantage of ever more sophisticated computer processors (CPU). The benefit of this is that you can squeeze more data (i.e. higher quality video streams) into smaller packets (e.g. streaming services often recommend speeds of 20Mbps+ for a 4K video, but some years ago it was more like 50Mbps+).

So not only do advancements in video codecs result in the ability to push higher quality video streams over slower broadband connections, but doing so also means a lower capacity demand for fixed broadband and mobile networks (Content Delivery Networks also have a big role to play by caching content closer to users). This is particularly important when you consider that 70-80% of all mobile data traffic comes from video.

The new white paper helps to illustrate the real-world impact of this. But it also highlights how most mobile phones in use today across Europe are lower tier handsets (priced less than £220), which often lack the necessary codec support – particularly built-in hardware – to decompress such content to deliver a buffer-free video experience. Software decoding (SVT-AV1) is often still possible, but not always, and tends to use more battery power.

“The situation is only marginally better with mid-tier handsets. Low and mid-tier handsets account for around 75% of handset sales globally,” said Vodafone.

The paper notes that there has been increased AV1 adoption at the top of the middle tier price range, both on iOS and Android, through recently released phones such as the iPhone 16e, OnePlus 12R, etc. These phones are generally based around higher end SoCs (computer chips) such as the Apple A18 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 8.

In future, hardware decoder availability within middle tier SoCs, such as the MediaTek Dimensity 6000 and 7000 series, Qualcomm Snapdragon 6, or Samsung Exynos 1500 line, is also expected to be a positive development for the industry. But the paper highlights the importance of ensuring the widest adoption to help bandwidth, boost video quality and keep battery usage down to a minimum.