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The funds aim to “spark a step change in public sector cyber defences”, as well as “holding organisations to account for fixing vulnerabilities”

Today, the UK government has unveiled a new cybersecurity plan, introducing new measures aimed at making government departments and public services more secure.

The Government Cyber Action Plan, created by the Government Cyber Unit (GCU) and backed by £210 million, aims to achieve clearer visibility of cybersecurity risks across government units, more centralised and coordinated decision-making to meet those risks, and a faster response to emerging threats.

It will also increase and define new cyber resilience standards for commercial companies providing support for critical services such as health, energy or utilities.

“Cyber-attacks can take vital public services offline in minutes – disrupting our digital services and our very way of life. This plan sets a new bar to bolster the defences of our public sector, putting cyber-criminals on warning that we are going further and faster to protect the UK’s businesses and public services alike,” said Digital Government Minister Ian Murray. “This is how we keep people safe, services running, and build a government the public can trust in the digital age.”

The GCU itself was formally formed under the Labour government in July 2024, based out of the Government Cyber Coordination Centre that itself was formed two years earlier. It forms a central pillar of the Government Cyber Security Strategy 2022–2030, which emphasises the need for more a more unified cybersecurity approach (i.e., ‘Defend as One’) across government departments.

Initially operated by the Cabinet Office, operation of the GCU was transferred to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in June 2025.

In tandem with this new plan, the government is also introducing a new Software Security Ambassador Scheme, which aims to promote cybersecurity best practices across the software market. This is one by the championing of the Software Security Code of Practice, a voluntary set of cybersecurity measures developed in collaboration by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and industry experts.

Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Sage, Santander, and NCC Group are among those joining the scheme as ambassadors.

The announcement notably coincides with the second reading of the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill in Parliament, legislation that would replace the aging NIS Regulations and give the government greater powers to regulate organisation in its digital supply chain.

All of these measures combined cannot come soon enough. The cybersecurity threat landscape is growing and evolving at an alarming rate, with public sector organisations increasingly in the firing line. According to the NCSC, between September 2024 and August 2025 the UK saw 204 ‘nationally significant’ cybersecurity incidents, up from 89 the previous year. Category 2 incidents, defined as those with serious impact on central government, essential services, or large portions of the population, rose by 50% year-on-year.

The public sector, long hamstrung by fragmented legacy systems and a widening skills gap is poorly equipped to defend itself in this environment. Updating these defences will require significant investment and collaboration with the private sector, both of which today’s measures begin to initiate.

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Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

In somewhat of an unusual move, internet provider TalkTalk has today attempted to predict which major dates and events in 2026 will drive the most traffic across their UK broadband network. For example, the ISP is forecasting up to an 8% surge in network usage during the 2026 World Cup’s initial stages and a 15% increase for the Grand Theft Auto 6 launch (16th Nov 2026).

Major broadband providers often attempt to forecast what kind of impact such events may have on their service, which helps them to plan an appropriate level of capacity and organise Content Delivery Networks (CDN) to avoid such things having an overly negative impact on their customer base.

Internet providers typically use sophisticated CDNs and traffic management systems to help manage the load from big online events, which caches popular content closer in the network to end-users (i.e. improves performance without adding network strain). This in turn lowers the provider’s impact on external links and helps to keep costs down.

Demand for data is of course constantly rising and home broadband connections are forever getting faster, thus new peaks of usage are being set all the time by every ISP. But it’s unusual to see an ISP publishing what sort of impact they expect to see from such events ahead of time.

Steve Wallage, Chief Product Officer at TalkTalk, said:

“Many aspects of everyday life will continue to be dependent on Wi-Fi and connectivity in 2026. A big driver of this is the ongoing switch to streaming over traditional broadcast media. This is also increasing device-agnostic viewing, meaning viewers can watch a TV series, sport and films on phones, tablets and laptops rather than being limited to a TV screen. Even when viewing on the TV, other devices are still being used for second-screening, as consumers use Wi-Fi on their phone or tablet to browse online or use social media at the same time as watching television.

We are already looking at the likely traffic spikes through 2026 to help us ensure customers have seamless connectivity throughout the year, whatever their usage demands. Football and gaming are typically the biggest drivers of traffic, and 2026 looks to be no different, with the World Cup featuring more teams and matches than ever before, and two huge gaming releases at the end of the year, including the first new Grand Theft Auto release for 13 years.”

Football typically dominates traffic spikes every year and 2026 being a World Cup year is only going to accelerate matters, with the tournament kicking off on 11th June through to 19th July. Hosted across the USA, Canada and Mexico, it’ll be the biggest tournament ever with the number of teams up from 32 to 48, increasing the number of matches from 64 to 104.

The location of the World Cup will also have a notable impact upon viewing. For UK fans, time differences will vary between 5 and 8 hours, meaning you could be watching any time from 9pm to as late as 4am depending on the game. This could shift fan behaviour, meaning less pub viewing for UK fans, and more early-morning home supporting or streaming highlights on personal devices during work or commute hours.

TalkTalk’s Network Usage Predictions for 2026

➤ 2026 World Cup (June to July): The ISP is predicting a potential initial increase of up to 8% in network usage around the opening ceremony and early group rounds, with rises expected during England, Scotland, and other home nation games.

As the tournament progresses, the knockout stages will see interest increase further, with a likely 10% traffic spike, culminating in an even bigger potential spike for the final on 19th July, and higher if England were to feature.

➤ UEFA Champions League: The knockout rounds from January through February historically see up to 15% higher network traffic, with major spikes directly tied to the success of UK teams such including Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City etc. The season culminates with the final on 30th May, which is likely to deliver a higher spike.

➤ Call of Duty 2026 Launch: Kicking off in late October to mid-November, the Call of Duty 2026 launch is expected to cause a significant spike, with previous titles driving a 10-12% rise in network usage.

➤ Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 6: The ISP is predicting a 15% increase in network demand for this launch in mid-November 2026.

➤ Fortnite Chapter Finale: Finally, in late November, the climactic, once-a-year launch of Fortnite Chapter Finale is expected to drive a further surge of up to 12%.

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Engineers from Hull-based broadband ISP KCOM, which have deployed their own full fibre (FTTP) network across a big chunk of East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England, recently took a break from their normal work to help the BBC’s DIY SOS team and the Gladiators to build a new, purpose-built youth centre in the market town of Beverley.

According to the BBC’s summary on iPlayer, the Gladiator’s Special (Episode 5 of Series 34) saw the DIY SOS team step in to help a youth club that had lost its home by building a new one on the edge of a local park. As usual, this involved a number of local trades committing resources to help the Gladiators and DIY SOS crew, managed by TV presenter Nick Knowles, to complete the new building.

Dozens of KCOM volunteers also took part in building the new Cherry Tree Youth Hub (CTYH) from scratch in five days during the summer of 2025 (although the TV episode of this has only just aired). The operator also connected the club up to their broadband network too. As well as the BBC episode linked above, you can also see a brief clip from KCOM’s side below.

Jessica Paddison, KCOM’s Business Operation Team Leader, said: “It’s been the best project I’ve ever worked on – and I’ve done quite a few projects in my time at KCOM. It was just a field at the beginning, so we had to put all the network in – design all that and assemble a team to put it together. It was a big job, but the guys did brilliantly to pull it together.”

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Customers of the Sky Mobile service, which is an O2 (Virgin Media) powered Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) with an estimated 3.7 million subscribers, has today announced that the majority of their monthly data (mobile broadband) tariffs will increase by £1.50 (equating to an annual rise of £18), effective from February 2026.

Sky says that this is the first time they’ve implemented a price change for in-contract customers in over seven years (last year’s price rise was targeted at out-of-contract users). But unlike many other major providers, Sky’s prices are variable, thus customers who are in a minimum term can at least cancel their Sky Mobile tariff after being notified of a price increase, without paying any early termination charges.

Sky Mobile notes that the price rise is being driven by a number of factors, such as with how their wholesale network costs have increased significantly since last year. At the same time, they’ve continued to invest in their network to meet ever-growing customer demand for data and improve their services.

A Sky Mobile spokesperson said:

“To continue delivering the quality, service, and value our customers expect, most Sky Mobile customers will see a £1.50 increase to their monthly bill from February. We don’t take decisions like this lightly, which is why we have not increased mobile prices mid-contract for more than seven years. This change reflects the ongoing cost pressures being faced across the industry, while allowing us to continue investing in our network and customer experience.”

Customers who are impacted will be contacted from 6th January 2026 to let them know how the change impacts their data plan(s) – affected customers will start to see the relevant price change on their bill from 14th February 2026 onwards.

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A new study from Broadband Genie has analysed 145,926 internet speed tests in order to identify the top slowest and fastest ten UK streets for broadband. The slowest street was found to be Heol-Y-Fedw (Cymmer) in Wales on an average download of just 0.81Mbps (Megabits per second), while the fastest was Inglewood Avenue in Derby (England), where residents enjoy speeds of 1.21Gbps (1,210Mbps).

According to Thinkbroadband’s latest independent modelling, some 89.7% of UK premises are currently within reach of a gigabit-capable fixed broadband network (1000Mbps+), which primary reflects the combination of full fibre (FTTP/B) and hybrid fibre coax (HFC) lines (the latter is largely only from Virgin Media). Similarly, some 98.45% of premises should be within reach of a fixed “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) network.

However, the new study is based on consumer speedtests, rather than network availability. One issue here is that such reports aren’t able to accurately reflect the underlying availability of faster networks and are thus more a reflection of localised consumer take-up (i.e. results from people still on slower networks/packages may weight against those on faster ones in the same street).

The new report does acknowledge the aforementioned issue and highlights how occupants on the slowest listed streets all have access to Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL / SOGEA) based broadband lines, which can provide a download speeds of around 35Mbps to many of them. In addition, seven of the slowest streets had access to “ultrafast” speeds (100Mbps+) and four of the slowest were even covered by gigabit full fibre (FTTP) networks.

Clearly, issues of awareness, demand / desire and the fear of switching to a new service or ISP may still be holding some consumers back from making the change to a faster broadband connection. This could, in some cases, also mean they’re stuck paying higher prices for a legacy connection that underperforms.

However, speedtest-based studies like this can also be influenced by other factors, such as poor home wiring (copper telecoms lines), local (home) network congestion and slow WiFi etc. In short, take these results with a pinch of salt and remember, this study won’t be reflecting every street in the UK because a minimum of three speed tests from three unique IP addresses via a commercial fixed line broadband ISP were required for inclusion. At least 8 residential properties were also required at a postcode, so quite a lot of streets will be missed.

Similarly, the fastest streets are usually those covered by the handful of providers capable of offering them speeds in the 7-10Gbps range, such as B4RN, Youfibre and a few others.

Slowest 10 streets for UK broadband (2026)

Fastest 10 streets for UK broadband (2026)

The government’s Project Gigabit scheme is currently working to help extend broadband ISP networks capable of delivering download speeds of at least 1000Mbps (1Gbps) to achieve “nationwide” coverage (c.99%) by 2030 2032 (here) – focusing on the commercially unviable areas (usually rural and semi-rural locations). But the impact of this won’t fully show in the results above until everybody moves over to such lines.

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This weekend, Swedish telecoms giant Arelion has confirmed that its BCS East submarine cable, connecting Latvia and Lithuania, was damaged on Friday.

The damage appears to have been caused by a ship passing overhead a few kilometres from the cable’s landing station in Liepāja, Latvia. The exact location and extent of the damage is still being identified.

Whether the damage was caused by accident or intentionally remains to be determined. According to reports, information analysed by the Latvian armed forces shows the ship in question initially sailing over an inactive cable before changing course and heading towards the BCS East cable, which was subsequently impacted.

“I am in contact with the crisis management centre and the responsible authorities. The police have started an investigation, and the clarification of the circumstances continues,” Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina said in a press conference on Sunday.

“We cannot speculate on the reasons yet. After conducting analysis and digital measurements, the company does not rule out any version at this time,” said Arvis Zile, head of the crisis management centre.

The ship being investigated has since docked at Liepāja and was boarded by police and the Latvian coast guard on Sunday evening. It is not currently being detained, and its crew are cooperating with the investigation.

Latvian users were not impacted by the incident, with traffic successfully redirected to other routes.

Repairs to the cable will be completed “within the next week or two”, according to Arelion spokesperson Martin Sjogren.

The Baltic Sea has become something of a hotbed for submarine cable damage in recent years, with numerus high profile cable cuts, including Arelion’s own BCS East-West Interlink cable, connecting Lithuania to the Swedish island of Gotland, in November 2024.

Given the geopolitical tensions between the Baltic states and Russia since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the security of these critical cables is becoming an increasingly hot topic, both for subsea cable operators and politicians. However, it should be noted that deliberate sabotage of submarine cables is rarely proven  while accidental damage is commonplace around the world.

Submarine cable security is becoming an international priority. Join the experts in discussion at the inaugural Subsea Security Summit

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City-focused alternative broadband ISP Hyperoptic, which claims to have already deployed their full fibre (FTTP/B) network to cover 1.9 million UK homes passed, has just become the latest telecoms provider to increase the customer cost impact of their existing mid-contract pricing policy.

The internet provider, which is home to 400,000 active subscribers (9th Jun 2025), previously increased the monthly price that broadband customers paid by a flat £3 extra in April every year. But they’ve now followed recent changes at BT and other major ISPs by raising the level of this increase from £3 to £4 for new customers (existing customers remain on the old policy).

Annual price hikes are of course nothing new in this market, as well as many others. Often there are strong reasons for prices to go up, not least because providers are frequently adding all sorts of new services (e.g. 5G SA, FTTP), developing new systems, facing higher charges from suppliers and energy usage, implementing costly new Ofcom rules and dealing with tax hikes from the government etc.

Nevertheless, there is a growing feeling among consumers that broadband and mobile providers are becoming increasingly unfair in their pricing practices, and often hitting those who can least afford it the hardest (e.g. you get the same £4 hike regardless of whether you’re paying for the cheapest or most expensive plan). Much of this is being driven by Ofcom’s own policy change (here) and even the government seems to be struggling with how to respond (here).

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Roughly nine months have passed since we reported that alternative UK network operator and ISP G.Network, which has deployed a gigabit speed full fibre (FTTP) broadband network across parts of London, had put up the for sale sign (here). But this afternoon news emerged that the provider had been acquired by FitzWalter Capital for an undisclosed sum.

In case anybody has forgotten, G.Network originally held an aspiration to expand their fibre network to cover 1.3 million premises London by the end of 2026. But like many other altnets they’ve since been impacted by an increasingly competitive environment and rising costs (high build costs, high interest rates etc.). This has already resulted in job cuts and a greater focus on commercialisation, instead of new fibre build (here).

Despite the challenges, the operator has continued to receive funding from long term equity investor Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), including £85m in June 2024 (here) and “up to an additional” £150m (here) in July 2023. Future such funding rounds seemed likely, unless a deal could be done to find a new owner or consolidate with a rival.

The company’s most recent accounts did however report an 85% increase in turnover to £10.2m in FY2024 and a gross profit of £7.3m (up 62%), with total assets of £453m (up from £394m). But they also suffered an operating loss for the year of £52.8m (down from a loss of £67.2m in the prior year) and are estimated to be carrying a net debt of over £300m (Enders Analysis).

Suffice to say that we weren’t too surprised when it was reported last March (here) that G.Network had instructed bankers at Jefferies and Nomura to engage with potential buyers for the business, although we’d heard similar stories before that hadn’t amounted to anything (here). One key challenge is the fact that their network has already been partly overbuilt by Hyperoptic and CommunityFibre, which are bigger players in London’s altnet space, alongside the established giants of Virgin Media (nexfibre) and Openreach (BT).

G.Network sold

According to some of our industry sources and a report on the FT (paywall), the operator quietly succeeded in finding a buyer over the normally quiet festive period. ISPreview understands that several investors and network operators had expressed an interest in bidding for the business, although in the end a financial buyer in the shape of distressed debt specialist FitzWalter Capital tabled the most attractive offer.

The newspaper reports that G.Network had so far only been able to grow their customer base to just 25,000 (up from 8,664 in March 2022) and that the company’s creditors, including NatWest, Investec and Santander, are bracing to suffer a writedown on their investments. G.Network declined to comment on today’s development when asked by ISPreview.

James Ratzer, Analyst at New Street Research, said:

“Given the company’s losses, it is hard to see an obvious standalone business case. We presume the buyer is a short-term holder and would be keen to sell to another provider as soon as possible.”

Residential customers of G.Network currently pay from £25 per month for a 300Mbps (100Mbps upload) service on a 24-month term (plus a £29 one-off connection charge), which rises to £29 for their 900Mbps (300Mbps upload) plan with free connection or £36 if you want symmetric speeds on that tier. Shorter 12 and 1-month contract options are also available at extra cost.

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Recipients include major global players like Samsung, Tata Electronics, and Foxconn

On Friday, the Indian government announced the approval of projects worth 418.63 billion rupees ($4.64 billion) as part of the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS), an initiative aimed at expanding domestic manufacturing and reducing reliance on imports.

Companies set to benefit from subsidies include major tech players like Samsung Electronics, Tata Electronics, and Foxconn, as well as smaller domestic companies.

The 22 approved proposals cover the domestic production of components for industries including mobile manufacturing, telecoms, consumer electronics, strategic electronics, automotive, and IT hardware.

The government says the projects will produce $28.62 billion-worth of goods and employ around 34,000 people.

The ECMS, a production-linked incentive scheme, was approved in March 20205 as part of the Indian government’ drive to boost domestic production capacity across key industries. According to the government website, the scheme ‘aims to develop a robust component ecosystem by attracting large investments (global/domestic) in electronics component manufacturing ecosystem, by developing capacity and capabilities, and integrating Indian companies with Global Value Chains (GVCs)’.

These new approvals follow seven projects, worth roughly $625 million, that were already given the green light last year.

India has been seeking to boost its domestic manufacturing capabilities and reduce its reliance on imports for over a decade, most notably through the ‘Make in India’ initiative launched in 2014. In recent years, against the backdrop of growing geopolitical tensions worldwide, such efforts have accelerated alongside the growing demand for electronic goods.

India’s electronics component manufacturing industry produced goods worth $125 billion in the year to March 2025 and continues to see steady growth year-on-year. However, it remains heavily dependent on component imports from China. With the government targeting major growth, with total production targeted to hit $500 billion by 2031, this reliance is viewed as a major liability.

In July 2025, India’s IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the country’s electronics manufacturing capabilities is on course to achieve a value addition of 38% within the next five years, a pace comparable to China’s. At the same time, he emphasised the county’s continued rapid development of domestic industry.

“India must build capabilities in every machine, every component to withstand geopolitical uncertainties. We must go into every part of it and start manufacturing them,” he said, as reported by the Times of India.

At the heart of the domestic component production drive is developing the country’s local semiconductor industry, which is also crucially reliant on China and Taiwan. According to Vaishnaw, four chip companies are already preparing to begin commercial production in India this year.

“The plants which started pilot production last year – they are the ones that will get into commercial production earlier, which are Kaynes [Semicon] and CG Semi. Micron has also started pilot production very recently. They will also go next month. Tata [Electronics]’ plant in Assam will start pilot production by the middle of the year, and by the end of the year they will start commercial production,” said Vaishnaw.

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Azerconnect Group has introduced a bundle-driven prepaid access framework designed to address long-standing structural inefficiencies in prepaid-dominant mobile markets, particularly those characterised by high multi-SIM ownership and low-value usage patterns.

Under the new approach, prepaid SIMs remain active only through the purchase of recurring voice, data, or mixed bundles, rather than minimal balance top-ups. This represents a shift away from balance-centric access models toward usage-aligned connectivity, linking network access more closely to genuine customer engagement.

In many emerging markets, large volumes of prepaid SIMs are maintained primarily for messaging applications, inflating active subscriber metrics while contributing limited commercial value. By tying access to bundle usage, the framework aims to improve visibility into active usage behaviour, reduce long-term SIM dormancy, and support more predictable engagement cycles.

Early implementation signals indicate stronger adoption of mid-tier prepaid bundles and clearer differentiation between active and inactive users, without introducing punitive disconnection mechanisms. The model is positioned as a structural adjustment rather than a short-term commercial initiative.

Commenting on the approach, Mushfig Aliyev, Chief Commercial Officer at Azerconnect Group, said:

“The bundle-driven access model aligns prepaid connectivity with real service usage rather than passive balance maintenance. It is designed to support transparency, sustainability, and healthier engagement dynamics across prepaid ecosystems.”

The framework reflects a broader industry discussion around how prepaid access models can evolve in response to changing digital consumption habits, offering a reference point for operators in other prepaid-dominant regions evaluating alternatives to legacy balance-based access structures.