Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Edinburgh-based UK network operator GoFibre, which is deploying a full fibre (FTTP) network across remote rural parts of Scotland and Northern England, has today announced that they’ve begun the build phase of their £105m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit contract to cover 63,000 hard-to-reach premises in North East Scotland (100k if you include their commercial build).

The contract itself was officially awarded back in July 2025 (here) and GoFibre have since been busy conducting engineering surveys, which has today been followed by the start of street works. Rural residents in parts of seven local authorities – Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City, Angus, Dundee, Highland, Moray and Perth & Kinross – are set to benefit by conclusion.

This major infrastructure investment is expected to unlock economic growth and create 30 local jobs directly during build, with up to 180 jobs created across the lifetime of contract, including through subcontractors. The first areas to see network build start, this month are: Stonehaven, St Cyrus, Laurencekirk, Auchenblae, Letham Angus and Longforgan.

The initial work will expand GoFibre’s existing network of around 10,000 premises in Aberdeenshire (in Laurencekirk, Stonehaven and Newtonhill) and around 15,000 premises in Angus (Montrose, Forfar and Kirriemuir).

Neil Conaghan, CEO of GoFibre, said:

“We know how frustrating unreliable broadband can be, whether you’re trying to run a business, help your kids with homework or just stream a film without it buffering. This project is all about changing that.

As a company with its roots firmly in Scotland, we are incredibly proud to begin construction in the North East. We’re bringing faster speeds right to people’s front doors, and we can’t wait to see the difference it makes. It’s going to open up opportunities and make everyday life easier. Best of all, we’re doing it while creating jobs and investing in the communities we serve, because this is home for us too.”

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.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Mobile operator Vodafone has announced that they’ve begun working with Tiami Networks to test a new technology for current 5G and future 6G mobile broadband networks called Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC). This essentially turns modern Smartphones and mobile networks into something akin to a Radar, with many potential applications.

Imagine if your Smartphone could be used to detect a burst water pipe hidden behind the walls of your home or shopping malls being able to count visitor volumes without using cameras. In recent years we’ve seen a growth in wireless radio frequency based sensing technologies and ISAC represents the latest industry attempt to deliver this by harnessing hardware and networks that people already have to hand.

Modern 5G Mobile and WiFi networks are highly complex, harnessing radio waves through many different methods, frequency bands and devices. But this also ends up making it possible to convert some of this into echo radar-like features that can be used to “sense and visualise” unconnected objects (people, pipes, structures etc.) in the surrounding environment.

The potential applications for ISAC are vast. It is expected to help monitor natural disasters, track livestock, enable 3D mapping via smart glasses, detect contaminated food, help robots understand human hand commands, locate misplaced house keys and help airports / industrial facilities detect intruders or unauthorised drones etc.

Suffice to say that ISAC is widely considered an important component of future software-driven 6G network, but Vodafone has now demonstrated that it can also operate with current mobile spectrum, base stations, and smartphones. At Vodafone’s R&D lab in Malaga, Spain, the companies used Tiami Network’s distributed application, PolyRAN – which transforms base stations into wide-area sensors – to successfully detect unconnected objects, including colleagues, across a 5G network.

Marco Zangani, Vodafone’s Director of Network Strategy and Architecture, said:

“Our 6G-ready test shows that your phone could soon do a lot more than connect you. It could be used to help keep you safe wherever you go.”

The Proof of Concept (PoC) also demonstrated that current networks could detect objects using radio waves “without interfering with calls, messages, or internet connectivity“, which is very important. Few people would want to enable a feature that might potentially reduce the quality or performance of the core mobile service.

The industry standards group 3GPP, with input from Vodafone, is defining ISAC in its Release 19. Meanwhile, both Vodafone and Tiami plan to continue their testing, focusing on performance and AI-RAN (Radio Access Network) models through 2026. But it’s unclear whether this will become a commercial solution for existing 5G networks before 6G starts to arrive around 2028-2030.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Consumer website Expert Reviews has published the winners of their annual Best Broadband Awards 2026 event, which surveyed UK consumers in an effort to identify the best Internet Service Providers (ISP) across a range of categories. Overall most of the awards were scooped up by Vodafone, followed by Plusnet.

The results were drawn from fairly small sample of 1,544 UK adults, which was undertaken during September 2025. Respondents were then asked about the performance, value, support, reliability and quality of the service they received etc.

Across the 12 award categories, Vodafone managed to come top in half (6) of them, while Plusnet won 4 and the last two were split between BT and EE. But with a sample size this small, we’d take all the results with a big pinch of salt.

Expert Reviews Award Winners for 2026

Best Broadband Provider
Winner: Vodafone

Best Value Broadband Provider
Winner: PlusNet

Most Recommended
Winner: Vodafone

Best for Customer Service
Winner: PlusNet

Best for Families
Winner: BT Broadband

Best for Speed
Winner: Vodafone

Most Reliable
Winner: PlusNet

Best for Bundles
Winner: Vodafone

Best Provider Equipment
Winner: PlusNet

Best for Streaming
Winner: Vodafone

Best for Online Gaming
Winner: Vodafone

Best for Working From Home
Winner: EE

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Broadband ISP WightFibre, which operates a gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across the Isle of Wight – just off the South Coast of Hampshire in England, has started notifying existing customers about their plan to introduce annual price increases from 1st April 2026.

Like other internet providers, WightFibre has already replaced their old percentage and inflation-based model of annual price hikes with one that follows Ofcom’s new rule (here), requiring such pricing changes to be set out “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up”.

New customers to the service were thus being sold packages with an expected annual price hike of £4 built-in and now existing customers are being notified to expect the same. One of the provider’s customers has kindly forwarded a copy of the email they received from the provider’s CEO, which we’ve pasted below, although including the strap line “because we care” on such a letter may well be greeted with some degree of scepticism.

The customer who received this was on WightFibre’s 150Mbps (symmetric) broadband-only plan and paying £30.99 per month, thus a £4 annual hike reflects an increase of 12.91% – several times higher than the current rate of inflation (CPI recently fell to 3%). As we’ve said before, the approach that many providers have taken to adopting Ofcom’s new rules often results in those on the lowest cost packages being hit the hardest.

However, it’s worth remembering that broadband, phone and TV providers are NOT immune to cost increases. Providers, much like consumers, are also suffering under the burden of rising supplier (e.g. wholesale) and lease costs, high inflation, high energy prices, the cost of adding all sorts of new services (e.g. FTTP) and catering for all sorts of new regulations and taxes etc.

Consumer who are hit by mid-contract hikes like this could try haggling for a lower price when the notification drops (Retentions – Tips for Cutting Your Broadband Bill), although failing that many will now have the option of swapping to a similar service on Openreach’s local FTTP network (albeit often with slower upload speeds). Meanwhile, those on benefits (Universal Credit etc.) also have the option of taking a cheaper Social Tariff – see our Quick Guide to UK Social Tariffs (WightFibre doesn’t apply the same hike to these).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Alternative network operator Netomnia (Substantial Group), which has deployed their own full fibre broadband (FTTP) network to cover 3 million UK premises RFS (inc. 460,000 customers), have announced that their long-running roll-out across the large town of Oldham (Greater Manchester) has now reached 35,000 premises (RFS).

The original deployment was first announced all the way back in June 2022 (here), which at the time proposed to invest £21m to cover 71,000 premises across Oldham with the help of civil engineering contractor O’Connor Utilities. Today’s update confirms that they’ve so far invested just under half of the original commitment (£10m) and thus still have a long way to do.

The work forms part of Netomnia’s goal of reaching 5 million premises by the end of 2027 (inc. 1m customers by 2028), although their future plans for Oldham now seem likely to be impacted by the proposed consolidation deal with nexfibre’s parents (here); assuming it gets the green light from the competition authority. Both nexfibre and Virgin Media already have significant coverage of the same town.

Jamie Goate, National Head of Fibre Network Operations at Netomnia, said:

“Delivering over 35,000 premises serviceable in Oldham is a significant milestone and reflects the scale and pace of our build programme. Oldham’s rollout is part of our wider mission to help communities across the country access the most powerful Internet.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Customers of broadband and mobile giant VMO2 (Virgin Media and O2) have been warned to keep an eye out for a new round of phishing emails, which use the retirement of O2’s 3G network as an excuse to falsely invite subscribers to “upgrade your current SIM card to a new 5G-ready SIM“.

“Please note that these emails were NOT sent by Virgin Media O2 and should NOT be responded to. Do not click on any links or reply to these messages. Instead, we recommend deleting them immediately. If you’d like to report the email, you can forward it to our dedicated phishing inbox at phishing@virginmediao2.co.uk,” said an official statement from VMO2.

The authentic looking email is typically designed to steal your sensitive personal and financial data, or to possibly assist in hijacking your computer system by encouraging the installation of malicious software. Sadly, such emails are a common threat to all telecoms providers, which are frequently having to deal with authentic looking SCAM emails, letters, calls and texts from fraudsters.

We should point out that O2 has now effectively already completed their switch-off of the old legacy 3G mobile network, which is another red flag for authenticity.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The United Kingdom will today become one of the first countries in Europe to go live on Starlink’s latest Direct to Cell (DtC) and satellite based 4G mobile data (broadband) connectivity, as mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) switches-on its new O2 Satellite service for customers. Better yet, it’ll only set most customers back an extra £3.

At present around 650 of Starlink’s (SpaceX) c.9,800 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) support DtC (aka – Direct to Device) technology, which technically enables them to deliver global coverage of a fairly basic 4G mobile roaming service and supply it directly to unmodified Smartphones on the ground. The goal in the UK, at least for now, is to make it possible for customers of O2’s service to stay connected in even some of the remotest areas, where mobile signals either fail to reach (“not spots“) or are less reliable.

The new service, once applied, effectively boosts O2’s UK landmass mobile coverage from 89% to 95%, delivering a coverage uplift equivalent to an area around two thirds the size of Wales. The service is designed to complement O2’s existing mobile network, and customers will connect automatically when traditional cellular coverage is unavailable.

Speaking of which, O2 Satellite will also continue to keep customers connected in the rare event of a local (terrestrial) cellular network outage too, which gives the network operator significantly more resilience. But at launch there will be some limitations, which means it can currently only support text messaging and limited data connectivity across specific apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Google Maps and more.

O2 Satellite Compatible Apps at Launch:

• AccuWeather
• AllTrails
• BBC Weather
• Facebook Messenger
• Google Find Hub
• Google Maps
• Google Messages
• Google Personal Safety
• Samsung Weather
• WhatsApp
• X
• Yahoo Mail

Otherwise, the service, which is available as a £3-per-month bolt-on and will be included at no extra cost for all ‘Ultimate Plan’ customers in the “near future“, is initially also only available to customers with the latest Samsung smartphones (inc. Samsung Galaxy S25, S25+, S25 Ultra and S25 Edge). Support for other devices, manufacturers and apps will be introduced “soon“.

Lutz Schüler, CEO of VMO2, said:

“This is a defining moment for UK mobile connectivity and a statement of our intent to keep innovating and ensure our customers can stay connected no matter where they are. By launching O2 Satellite, we’ve become the first operator in Europe to launch a space-based mobile data service that, overnight, has brought new mobile coverage to an area around two thirds the size of Wales for the first time.

We already have the UK’s largest 5G+ footprint and we’re not standing still, investing heavily this year in our mobile network to give O2 customers a brilliant, reliable service that they can depend on.”

Baroness Lloyd, Minister for the Digital Economy, said:

“This is a major achievement for the UK and demonstrates leadership in next-generation connectivity. Being the first in Europe to launch direct-to-device satellite data services puts the UK firmly at the forefront of mobile innovation. O2 Satellite is a boost for growth and connectivity and a strong signal of the UK’s leadership in the global digital economy.”

Stephanie Bednarek, VP of Starlink Commercial Sales, said:

“Delivering Starlink Direct to Cell in partnership with Virgin Media O2 underscores the importance of keeping people connected no matter where they are. For the first time, millions of people across the UK will have access to data, voice and video through apps, and messaging in remote areas where terrestrial coverage isn’t available.”

The development won’t come as much of a surprise because VMO2 had already said the new service would launch during “early 2026“. In addition, a number of ISPreview’s readers had also spotted (here) that it was live this week on the MCC (Mobile Country Code) of 234 (UK) and MNC (Mobile Network Code) of 02.

The service is currently harnessing only part of the B3 band (1800MHz) and so should be able to work indoors too, albeit with some limitations due to the significant signal attenuation that occurs when passing through walls etc. Overall this sounds like an incredibly useful and seemingly quite affordable add-on, which will be of particular interest to those who travel a lot around the UK (business or otherwise) or live in poorly served areas.

However, O2 Satellite is not the only DtD service gearing up for launch in the UK this year, with Vodafone (VodafoneThree) working alongside AST SpaceMobile to launch a similar product (here). Suffice to say that it will be interesting to see how the two services compare once both fully live, particularly in terms of price and performance. At £3 extra per month O2 has set quite an affordably cheap bar for Vodafone to beat.

On the flip side, it’s clear that at launch O2’s new service will be significantly hobbled by its limited device support, but hopefully they’ll improve that at pace in order to help fully realise the potential for this sort of service.

Finally, for those wondering why the service doesn’t deliver more than 95% coverage, that’s due to two reasons. Firstly, the service is currently limited in areas close to international borders due to regulation, and secondly, the service currently only works up to the 58th parallel North (about Inverness), due to the current orbit of satellites limiting coverage in the most northern latitudes. But this is expected to improve with time (Starlink’s main non-DtC broadband network already extends beyond this).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network operator nexfibre, which shares some parentage with its UK ISP partners Virgin Media (O2) and giffgaff, has just published their latest quarterly Q4 2025 build update and confirmed that their new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network now covers 2.6 million UK premises. But future expansion looks set to come from consolidation.

Just to recap. Back in 2022 Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners setup nexfibre as a new £4.5bn joint venture (here), which aimed to deploy an open access (wholesale) full fibre network to reach “up to” 7m UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT served by Virgin Media’s own network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.

However, as existing readers will already know, nexfibre’s roll-out plan suffered a significant blow last year after Telefonica launched a Strategic Review of their global business (here and here). The decision has since resulted in nexfibre scaling back their planned roll-out, which in practical terms means there isn’t currently a solid build plan for going beyond the current level of coverage. But as the recent deal to acquire Netomnia’s network shows, the focus now seems to be on expanding coverage through consolidation (here).

The latest Q4 2025 build update from nexfibre reflects the aforementioned change and confirms that their full fibre network has now reached 2.6 million premises as ready for service (up from 2.44m in Q3). But as is clear from their latest roll-out update and map, there’s currently no significant new fibre build planned for 2026 (this may change once the deal with Netomnia is done and they can plan for future deployments).

Rajiv Datta, CEO of nexfibre, said:

“With our network now extending to c. 2.6 million premises, we’re proud to be among the UK’s leading alternative fibre providers.

As we look ahead, I’m delighted that our shareholders InfraVia, Liberty Global and Telefónica have announced an agreement to acquire Netomnia, with more than 3 million fibre premises and 460,000 customers.

The combination of nexfibre, Netomnia and more than 2 million Virgin Media O2 premises, which will be upgraded by nexfibre, will create a scaled, financially secure challenger to BT Openreach, with a full fibre footprint of around 8 million premises by the end of 2027.

When combined with the growing fibre footprint of Virgin Media O2, our two networks will collectively reach 20 million premises, giving ISPs a highly attractive wholesale alternative, and enabling faster access to fibre for millions of homes and businesses across the UK.

I look forward to working with the Netomnia team over the coming months.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network benchmarking firm MedUX has this morning published the results from a new pan-European study that examined the real-world Quality of Experience (QoE) of mobile connectivity (4G, 5G etc.) across the continent, which unfortunately finds that Great Britain (GB) is lagging near the bottom of most tables.

The new report – ‘Unveiling #1 QoE Countries in Europe‘ – is based on crowdsourced data gathered from over 180 million performance tests and 39 billion radio samples in over 33 European countries. But it’s worth remembering that there can be caveats with this sort of data, although such caveats are shared by all of those countries involved.

For example, mobile data performance remains tricky to pin down because end-users are always moving through different areas (indoor, outdoor etc.), using different devices with different capabilities and the surrounding environment is ever changeable (weather, trees, buildings etc.). Not to mention any differences in backhaul capacity at different cell sites or differing spectrum use between operators and masts etc.

The research reveals that the Netherlands leads the region for overall QoE, a measure of user satisfaction, scoring 4.51 out of 5. Denmark and Norway follow closely behind as strong competitors, with Switzerland completing the top tier of European mobile network performance.

Sadly, Great Britain continues to lag behind most of the other countries and tends to appear within the bottom quarter of all the scoring categories. For example, we place fourth from the bottom in MedUX’s overall QoE table, scoring just 3.41, which compares poorly with the Netherlands in top place with 4.51.

You can get a better idea of where Great Britain places by looking at the total reliability (% out of 100) scores for each of the main performance categories by country.

The UK’s poor situation tends to reflect a combination of issues, such as the previous government’s U-turn to ban Huawei, which caused a significant and costly delay to network deployments – particularly 5G. Mobile operators have also faced restrictions when it comes to upgrading existing masts to 5G and deploying new ones, although recent rule changes may soon start to improve the planning process a bit.

Speaking of the government, both the past and present governments have had a tendency to set some rather easy coverage targets for the latest services, which is because they mostly end up relying on commercial investment to do the job.

For example, the current government retains an ambition “for all populated areas” to have access to the latest 5G Standalone (5G+) based mobile broadband technology by 2030, although this sort of language is potentially open to interpretation and not as effective as a clear geographic target for coverage.

Ofcom recently reported (here) that 5GSA (5G+) networks are now available to 83% of areas outside of premises in the UK, falling to 47%-65% when looking at it as a range across different mobile operators. On top of that, the regulator itself could have also been faster to release more 5G friendly radio spectrum in order to boost capacity and coverage (e.g. we only just got around to releasing the 26GHz and 40GHz bands a few months ago).

At the end of the day, we’ve clearly got some work to do in order to improve mobile network coverage and performance.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

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