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News

The European Commission’s ‘preliminary view’ is that Meta is stifling competition by blocking competitors’ AI assistants from WhatsApp

The European Commission has sent a Statement of Objections to Meta, presenting its preliminary view that Meta breached EU antitrust rules by excluding third party AI assistants from accessing and interacting with users on WhatsApp.

The statement says that Meta is likely to be abusing its dominant position in the consumer communication application market, potentially stifling future competition.

Meta made the policy changes to effectively ban third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp in October last year. The Commission began investigating the matter in December the same year.

“Artificial intelligence is bringing incredible innovations to consumers, and one of these is the emerging market of AI assistants. We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,” said EU Commissioner for Competition and Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, Teresa Ribera, in a statement.

In addition, the EU is considering implementing interim measures to ensure these AI assistants can retain access to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing.

“AI markets are developing at rapid pace, so we also need to be swift in our action. That is why we are considering quickly imposing interim measures on Meta, to preserve access for competitors to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing, and avoid Meta’s new policy irreparably harming competition in Europe,” Ribera explained.

Meta rejects the assertion that their policy is anticompetitive.

“The facts are that there is no reason for the EU to intervene in the WhatsApp Business API,” a Meta spokesperson said.

“There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites, and industry partnerships. The Commission’s logic incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots,” the company added.

Meta has a fractious history with EU regulations, with a long history of clashing with the bloc’s stringent data privacy, competition, and artificial intelligence laws.

In the past three years, the EU has fine Meta over €2 billion for various antitrust and GDPR infractions.

It is worth noting, however, that not every EU decision has gone against the tech giant. Indeed, this week a ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has given the green light for WhatsApp to continue contesting a €225 million fine delivered by the Irish data regulator back in 2021.

“The Court refers the case back to the General Court for it to rule on the merits, including on whether WhatsApp infringed the relevant provisions of the GDPR,” the ECJ said in a statement.

Investigations into WhatsApp’s Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance first began in 2018. Three years later, in 2021 the Irish Data Protection Commission fined WhatsApp €225 million for failing to inform its users how their data would be shared with its parent company, Meta (then Facebook).

WhatsApp immediately challenged the decision, which has seen them embroiled in a legal tussle for the past five years.

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Business internet and managed service provider MLL Telecom has today announced that Stuart Wallis has been promoted to become the company’s new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The move follows Shaun Ledgerwood’s decision to step down as CEO after six years in the role.

Stuart, who has over 25 years career experience in the telecom sector, previously served as MLL’s Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for 5-years and has been a member of MLL’s senior leadership team since 2019, working closely with Shaun and company Chairman, Mike Stevens.

Prior to that Stuart had also held various engineering roles at Nokia, Ericsson and Nortel, before joining MLL in 2010. Today MLL says they have a “business relationship with every major service provider in the UK” and are the “most successful SME provider of wide area network services to UK Local Authorities“.

Stuart Wallis, CEO of MLL Telecom, said:

“I am honoured to be taking over from Shaun Ledgerwood who has worked tirelessly over the last six years to develop and grow MLL. I am also very excited to be leading a company that has over the last 35 years enabled digital transformation from 1G to 5G in the UK Mobile Sector and is a trusted provider of cutting edge secure digital communications across the UK Public Sector.

I’ve seen first-hand what a fantastic team we have, and I look forward to continuing that strong teamwork into the future, ensuring the company continues to scale efficiently and deliver service excellence across MLL’s target Mobile, Public Sector and Enterprise markets.”

The company’s outgoing CEO, Shaun Ledgerwood, welcomed the move and said “I cannot think of a person more qualified to take the helm“.

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Press Release

BT Group today announces leadership succession within Openreach and BT International.

Katie Milligan, currently Deputy CEO of Openreach, will become CEO, Openreach on 01 April 2026. She succeeds Clive Selley, who will become CEO of BT International. He succeeds Bas Burger who has decided the time is right for him to leave BT after 18 years of service, including nine years on the Executive Committee, also on 01 April 2026.

Allison Kirkby, BT Group Chief Executive, said:

“Openreach is a critical national asset – the digital backbone of the UK – and a key driver of BT Group’s long‑term value. Its talented team, disciplined execution and customer focus continues to strengthen our position as the UK’s most trusted connector. Katie has helped shape that success. Her deep industry experience, strong people leadership and sharp operational instincts make her the right leader to take Openreach forward.”

“Clive’s contribution at the helm of Openreach has been exceptional. His leadership – particularly the scale, pace and quality of the full fibre broadband build, has set new standards for our industry. We are deeply grateful for the commitment, expertise and integrity he has brought to the role. Clive’s lasting legacy is a world-class digital infrastructure that will serve the UK for generations to come.”

“Clive is also the best person to lead BT International forward as a next generation, global telco platform business. No one has more experience building complex modern day infrastructure and supporting customers at scale in their digital transition. I’m delighted he’s staying within BT Group and look forward to working together with him in his new role.”

“I’d like to thank Bas for all that he’s done for us over the past 18 years, including leading Global, BT Business and, most recently, successfully carving out BT International as a standalone unit. He has laid the foundations and strategy for a more focussed, responsive platform business for our customers outside of the UK, ready to scale and grow with the help of next generation technologies.”

“Together these changes strengthen BT Group’s leadership for the next chapter – giving Openreach continued commercial and customer momentum in the UK, and speeding up the transformation of BT International.”

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News

The investment will see the expansion of the company’s sites in both London and Bristol

This week, the government has announced that UK-based chip startup Fractile has pledged to invest £100 million in its UK operations over the next three years.

The investment covers the expansion of its London and Bristol sites, bringing a major boost to the UK’s emerging AI hardware ecosystem.

In a speech today, the UK’s AI Minister Kanishka Narayan praised the move and called on fellow AI entrepreneurs to take more risks.

“I am setting Britain’s AI leaders a challenge – bang the drum for start-ups, spread the opportunities to every corner of our country, and embrace risk. This is how we leverage AI to serve hard-working people, our economy, and British values,” said AI Minister Kanishka Narayan. “By investing in British tech innovation, just as Fractile is doing today, we can reinforce our leadership in AI and boost our influence on the global stage.”

Fractile was founded in 2022 with the aim of developing AI chips built specifically for inference, the stage where large language models generate outputs.

The company’s core tech focuses on allowing AI inferencing to run in on-chip memory, thereby removing the need to move model parameters back and forth between separate memory and processors.

This architecture, Fractile claims, could allow for inference tasks to be run 100-times faster and 10-times cheaper than on rival chips.

Fractile is currently targeting chip fabrication in the second half of 2026.

For the UK government – which has long been dreaming of a homegrown tech superstar – the success of Fractile could represent a chance to reduce reliance on US tech giant, NVIDIA. Indeed, Fractile’s CEO Walter Goodwin was quoted in the 2025 release of the UK’s Compute Roadmap, a government plan that aim to see the UK shift from ‘AI takers, to AI makers’.

Fractile’s journey towards becoming a national champion of the UK’s tech sector has not been without bumps in its short existence so far.Earlier this month it was revealed that Fractile co-founder and former CTO, Yuhang Song, was forced to exit the business in 2024 due to his ties to Beihang University in Beijing.

Beihang University is one of China’s ‘Seven Sons of National Defence’, a group of universities overseen by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. These institutions unofficially have a close research relationship with the People’s Liberation Army, contributing around half their combined R&D budgets to military projects.

There is no suggestion that Song has engaged in wrongdoing, rather his expulsion is seen as an effort to sanitise the company, opening the door for future investment from the UK and the USA.

If Fractile is to the UK’s answer to NVIDIA, the company will need to scale up its investments rapidly in the coming years.

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The Scottish Government (SG) has officially relaunched their proposed gigabit broadband roll-out procurement for Fife, Perth and Kinross. The proposed contract is valued at £28,557,891 excluding VAT and aims to help expand such a network to cover an estimated total number of 17,830 premises in hard-to-reach areas (i.e. those not covered by any other gigabit networks).

Just to recap. The move comes after the SG stopped their previous tender back in June 2025 (here), which originally aimed to find a supplier to deliver on their proposed £43m (state aid) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out scheme for Fife, Perth and Kinross (Lot 4 – Scotland). This had been expected to help expand full fibre (FTTP) connectivity to an estimated 28,441 premises in hard-to-reach rural areas (i.e. premises in the region that weren’t due to benefit from their existing R100 contract with Openreach)

However, the SG stopped this effort after discovering that “there had been a significant increase in the number of premises which have been delivered to or are now included in commercial build plans” across the same area, which is a nice problem to have. But it also meant that the foundation for the original procurement was now incorrect.

A few months after that, the SG then began canvassing for interest in a revised tender, which was due to go out to procurement during September 2025 (that was highly tentative). The good news this week is that, after a bit of a delay, the SG has now officially re-launched procurement for their Lot 4 tender in Scotland (Fife, Perth and Kinross) – part of the UK Government’s Project Gigabit scheme (Type B – Regional).

The revised tender is valued at £28,557,891 ex. VAT and aims to expand gigabit-capable broadband to 17,830 premises in hard-to-reach areas (usually remote rural). The contract, once awarded, will remain in force for approximately 11 years, comprising a build period of approximately 4 years, followed by an operational period of at least 7 years. It is the intention that the build period will be completed by the end of 2030 (tentative).

The SG wants to have all of the tenders or requests to participate back by 11th March 2026 and they’ll then aim to dispatch invitations to tender or to participate to selected candidates on 13th May 2026. The catch is that these are all estimated dates and they can sometimes slip by a few months, particularly when the contracts involve complex rural areas.

Several broadband operators are known to have a presence in the contract area, including Openreach, Virgin Media (inc. nexfibre), Hyperoptic, Netomnia, GoFibre, CityFibre and Highland Broadband. But we think Openreach or GoFibre are probably among the most likely candidates, given their current involvement with Project Gigabit.

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In a significant development, national broadband operator Openreach (BT) has this morning announced that they’re replacing long-serving CEO, Clive Selley, with current Deputy CEO Katie Milligan from 1st April 2026. Clive will then will become CEO of BT International, where he succeeds Bas Burger who has decided to leave BT after 18 years of service on the same date.

Clive was originally appointed to the role of CEO at the start of 2016 and has thus overseen the network operator’s transition into a more independent and legally separate business from the BT Group, which includes Ofcom’s significant 2016 Strategic Review of Digital Communications (full summary), and several Market Reviews thereafter. Not to mention the roll-out of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines, which now covers over 22 million premises.

Needless to say, Clive has overseen some of the biggest changes in the United Kingdom’s broadband landscape in recent memory. Ofcom’s imminent Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR), which is due to be published next month but is admittedly not expected to be quite as significant as prior reviews (i.e. the 2021 market review set core regulation for the next decade), is thus perhaps not a bad time for another change of boss to occur.

As for Katie Milligan, she first joined Openreach back in 2009, following a move from BT Group, where she originally started on their graduate programme in 2004. She has held various leadership roles, including as the company’s Commercial Director, and was appointed Chief Commercial Officer in 2023, before becoming Deputy Chief Executive Officer in 2025. She’s also Chair of the network operator’s Scotland Board.

Allison Kirkby, BT Group CEO, said:

“Openreach is a critical national asset – the digital backbone of the UK – and a key driver of BT Group’s long-term value. Its talented team, disciplined execution and customer focus continues to strengthen our position as the UK’s most trusted connector. Katie has helped shape that success. Her deep industry experience, strong people leadership and sharp operational instincts make her the right leader to take Openreach forward.

Clive’s contribution at the helm of Openreach has been exceptional. His leadership – particularly the scale, pace and quality of the full fibre broadband build, has set new standards for our industry. We are deeply grateful for the commitment, expertise and integrity he has brought to the role. Clive’s lasting legacy is a world-class digital infrastructure that will serve the UK for generations to come.

Clive is also the best person to lead BT International forward as a next generation, global telco platform business. No one has more experience building complex modern day infrastructure and supporting customers at scale in their digital transition. I’m delighted he’s staying within BT Group and look forward to working together with him in his new role.

I’d like to thank Bas for all that he’s done for us over the past 18 years, including leading Global, BT Business and, most recently, successfully carving out BT International as a standalone unit. He has laid the foundations and strategy for a more focussed, responsive platform business for our customers outside of the UK, ready to scale and grow with the help of next generation technologies.

Together these changes strengthen BT Group’s leadership for the next chapter – giving Openreach continued commercial and customer momentum in the UK, and speeding up the transformation of BT International.”

Katie seems like a natural pick for the network operator and will ensure some continuity after Clive’s departure. She is also said to have been instrumental in Openreach’s return to revenue and EBITDA growth and helped reshape the company’s commercial strategy through major product and pricing innovations (e.g. the Equinox FTTP discount scheme).

At the same time, Katie will face a challenge in trying to ensure that Openreach remains competitive and retains as much market share as possible, which is difficult in a market where many more fish now play at infrastructure level than before (Openreach lost another 210,000 broadband lines to rivals in the last quarter, but that was down from 242k in the prior quarter). Any future strategy around this will depend a lot on how much flexibility Ofcom’s forthcoming market review allows the incumbent.

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Australian investment group Macquarie Asset Management has acquired Infracapital’s 50% stake in the Last Mile Infrastructure Group, which gives it 100% control of the multi-utility infrastructure group that designs, builds, owns and manages more than 930,000 “connections” across Great Britain (including electricity, gas, water, wastewater and fibre optic broadband etc.).

The company, which was originally founded in Scotland in 2002 (currently registered in Gloucestershire, England) and employs 800 people, typically installs, owns and operates last-mile utility connections across the UK, supporting the Government’s target to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029, as well as connections for industrial and commercial properties.

Last Mile Infrastructure was previously controlled by infrastructure investment firm Infracapital (part of M&G Plc), which lasted until December 2023 when they formed a partnership with Macquarie through the sale of a 50% stake. Since then, the jointly controlled company has invested to increase the number of connections it owns and operates across the UK from 675,000 to 930,000.

The latest transaction, which was advised by Linklaters, is being seen as part of Macquarie’s ongoing efforts to invest in critical UK infrastructure (except in Hull, where they seem to be looking for an exit from KCOM).

Will Price, Head of Utilities and Networks in EMEA for Macquarie (MAM), said:

“Funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management acquired a 50 per cent stake in Last Mile Infrastructure in 2024, attracted by its proven capability to build and operate essential infrastructure relied upon daily by almost one million households and businesses, as well as the thematic tailwinds of demographics and electrification. Under our joint ownership, Last Mile Infrastructure has continued to mature, expanding its portfolio of operating assets and investing in its platform to support sustained future growth.”

Mark Chladek, Deputy CIO at Infracapital, said:

“Since Infracapital first invested in 2018, Last Mile has grown from a regional electricity and gas connections provider into a UK-wide multi-utility business, quadrupling its live connections base. We are proud of the progress achieved both under our ownership and in partnership with MAM, leaving Last Mile well positioned for its next phase and marking another successful investment in the energy transition, an area where we have been creating value for more than two decades.”

The transaction is expected to reach financial close sometime during 2026, following the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

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The UK Space Agency has today awarded contracts to three companies to investigate the possibility of producing advanced materials in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which includes one project (SkyYield) that aims to design a payload to process ZBLAN fluoride glass in microgravity (i.e. a specialist optical fibre that can transmit light with up to 100 times less signal loss than traditional silica fibre).

Space is a unique environment because the conditions – including microgravity, natural vacuum, and extreme temperatures – can be used to help to create products that are otherwise difficult, expensive, or impossible to manufacture on Earth.

For example, ZBLAN fluoride glass has been around for decades and is typically used in niche or highly specialised applications, such as inside medical devices, fibre lasers for broadband links and sensors etc. But on Earth, its performance is often limited by gravity-induced imperfections that occur during the construction process.

The government has thus committed £295,000 of public funding to help support OrbiSky‘s new ‘SkyYield‘ study, which will design a payload to process ZBLAN fluoride glass in microgravity. We understand this will take place aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and will aim to achieve the cable’s theoretical potential.

Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said:

“By backing these innovative companies to explore manufacturing in orbit, we’re positioning the UK to capture new markets and bring tangible benefits back to Earth—from better medicines to more efficient electronics. These studies demonstrate the government’s ambition to drive forward one of the most exciting frontiers of space technology.”

Sylvester Kaczmarek, Chief Executive Officer at OrbiSky, said:

“SkyYield is about turning the unique conditions of microgravity into real-world capability. With UK Space Agency support, we’ll define a credible, end-to-end payload concept for manufacturing ultra-low-loss ZBLAN optical fibre in orbit, including the process controls and verification needed for commercial adoption.

This is an important step towards new UK-led markets in space manufacturing, with clear benefits for telecoms and medical imaging.”

Naturally, proving the idea is one thing, although it remains to be seen whether the high cost of actually getting everything up to space and then back down again harms the viability. But with this kind of cable, you don’t need to create massive drums of the stuff, although it certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing if you could. The other two contracts awarded today are as follows:

• BioOrbit Ltd (£250,000) – The ‘PHARM’ study will design an end-to-end mission to manufacture drugs in microgravity. Microgravity enables the formation of more perfect, reproducible protein crystals for drug formulations that cannot be achieved on Earth, enabling cancer treatments to be given at home. BioOrbit is working with relevant regulatory bodies to ensure that this mission can be readily commercialised.
• Space Forge Ltd (£300,000) – The ‘2Forge2Furious’ study will demonstrate how semiconductor seed crystals could be produced commercially in orbit, with the aim of improving the efficiency, reliability and power density of high-power electronic devices, including telecommunications, data centre infrastructure, EV charging and quantum computing.

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Edinburgh-based UK network operator GoFibre, which is deploying a gigabit-capable broadband (FTTP) ISP network across remote rural parts of Scotland and Northern England, has today announced that they’ve begun the next stage of their rollout in the Scottish Borders region – reaching 2,000 more premises – as part of their Project Gigabit contract.

Just to recap. GoFibre’s Project Gigabit contract for the Scottish Borders and East Lothian regions, which was awarded almost exactly one year ago (here), is worth £26.2m (public subsidy) and aims for their network coverage to reach a total of around 11,000 premises across hard-to-reach rural areas. But today’s announcement puts the total figure at 20,000 premises, which we assume may also include some commercial build.

GoFibre’s network already serves several towns in the area, including Galashiels, Kelso, Melrose, Selkirk, Hawick, Jedburgh and Duns. But the next 2,000 premises will be deployed to homes and businesses in Oxton, Coldingham, St Abbs, Jedburgh and Lauder.

The operator currently expects to deploy their new full fibre based broadband network to reach a UK footprint of 250,000 premises “in the next 3 years“ (i.e. around mid-2028) and they’re home to a total of around 15,000 customers as of June 2025.

Neil Conaghan, CEO of GoFibre, said:

“We’re a Borders-born company, so every new community we connect in this region feels personal. This latest expansion means more families, businesses and schools can access the kind of speeds that make modern life easier and open new opportunities for work, learning and play.”

New customers of the service can currently expect to pay from £12.50 per month (first 6 months only, then £40.37) for speeds of 150Mbps (30Mbps upload) on a 24-month minimum term, which rises to £19.50 (£75.59 after 6 months) for their top 1000Mbps (100Mbps upload) tier. Take note that monthly prices also increase by £3 each December and £200 of Switching Credit is available for those looking to migrate while still stuck in an existing contract with another ISP.

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The popular American TV and Movie streaming service, HBO Max, has today confirmed that it will finally go live in the UK and Ireland on 26th March 2026. Customers of Sky TV with access to the Sky Atlantic channel will also be carrying the content (here) and so will Amazon Prime, but others will now be able to subscribe directly.

Historically, if you wanted to watch HBO’s content in the UK (e.g. “It: Welcome to Derry,” “House of the Dragon,” “The Last of Us” etc.), then you would have had to pay for access via different platforms and channels, such as Sky TV (inc. NOW TV). But the new service also makes the content directly accessible, although this does come at a cost – starting at £5.99 per month in the UK & Ireland.

The service will include content from all of HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Television, DC Studios and Max Originals. Sports fans will also be able to access their TNT Sports streaming subscription via the same platform, but you’ll pay £30.99 per month for that.

In addition, Amazon’s Prime Video service has also been named as a launch partner for the service, although no further details were provided. Otherwise, HBO Max will be available on all major devices including TVs, set-top boxes, streaming devices, mobiles, tablets, game consoles and platforms including Android, EE / BT TV, Fire TV, iOS, LG, PlayStation, Roku, Samsung, Virgin TV and Xbox.
 
Subscribers will be able to create up to five personalised profiles, receive tailored recommendations and enjoy features like Continue Watching and, depending on your plan, offline downloads. Families will also be able to set up kid-friendly profiles with age-appropriate content and parental controls. HBO Max will be available for pre-registration on the App Store and Google Play beginning 12th March.

HBO Max Service Prices and Features 

Basic with Ads (£4.99/month)

• Stream on 2 devices at once

• Full HD video resolution

• Not all movies included

Standard with Ads (£5.99/month)

• Stream on 2 devices at once

• Full HD video resolution

• 30 downloads (limits apply)

Standard (£9.99/month)

• Stream on 2 devices at once

• Full HD video resolution

• 30 downloads (limits apply)

Premium (£14.99/month)

• Stream on 4 devices at once

• 4K UHD & Dolby Atmos as available

• 100 downloads (limits apply)

TNT Sports (£30.99/month)

• Stream on 2 devices at once

• 4K UHD & Dolby Atmos as available

• Live football, rugby, tennis, and more in 2026

Whether or not UK consumers will appreciate having to pay for yet another streaming service, which further fragments their access to content, is of course another matter. The risk is that these increasingly high levels of content fragmentation between platforms and ever higher prices will push those who can least afford it back toward copyright infringement.