Mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) has continued with their effort to boost 4G mobile (mobile broadband) capacity across the UK, which today sees them working with Ontix to expand their roll-out of small cells into new areas of Birmingham – primarily around Soho Road and Handsworth.

Small cells are akin to mini shoebox sized mobile (radio) base stations, which have been designed to deliver limited coverage (usually up to around 100 metres) and thus tend to be more focused on busy urban areas and specific sites – it’s not uncommon to find these sitting on top of lampposts, CCTV poles or old payphone cubicles (i.e. they can be more cost-effective than building new street assets or trying to secure wayleaves on buildings etc.).

The latest project follows similar small call deployments, including in the city centre, which were delivered by the two companies in recent years. In this case, five new small cells have been deployed around parts of Soho Road and Handsworth in order to help “boost mobile capacity in the local area and reduce network traffic at busy times“.

Steven Verigotta, Director of Radio & Mobile Backhaul Delivery at VMO2, said:

“Small cells are an effective way of increasing local network bandwidth and play an important role in allowing us to keep up with rising customer demand. We are proud to have delivered these new sites in Soho Road and Handsworth, which will unlock opportunities for local residents and businesses.

With upgrade programmes underway right across our network, we’re working hard to ensure our customers consistently receive an exceptional network experience wherever they are and even at the busiest times.”

Richard Williams, Director of Acquisition at Ontix, said:

“By deploying small cell connectivity, we aim to facilitate a new era of digital empowerment in these two communities. Through enhanced access to reliable and high-speed internet connectivity, residents will be better equipped to overcome barriers, achieve their goals, and fully participate in the digital economy. We are delighted to have worked with Virgin Media O2 to achieve this first-of-its-kind deployment, boosting digital opportunities where they’re needed most.”

All of this flows from an Open Access Agreement (OAA) with Birmingham City Council, which was signed in 2022 and allows network operators (inc. partners) to use council-owned assets, such as lampposts, to deploy new cellular infrastructure to improve digital connectivity across the city.

Consultancy firm FarrPoint has today published their third annual (2025) survey of digital leaders at councils across England, Scotland and Wales. The results reveal that expanding the coverage of gigabit broadband remains the top priority for most local authorities. But on the flip side, only 4% of surveyed councils are developing a dedicated data centre strategy.

The report – FarrPoint Digital Connectivity Survey 2025 (PDF) – found that most respondents chose gigabit broadband (1000Mbps+) as their number one priority, while getting 100% of their area covered by at least “superfast” (30Mbps+) connectivity still features as the second-highest priority for councils. After that tends to come 4G and 5G mobile.

Top Digital Priorities for 2025 (Councils)
1. More areas covered by gigabit broadband
2. Ensuring 100% of premises in the area have at least superfast connectivity
3. More areas covered by 4G
4. More areas covered by 5G
5. Encouraging adoption of available digital connectivity and services by residents and businesses
6. Developing new smart places (IoT) projects
7. Ensuring digital connectivity is aligned with net-zero targets

However, despite the new government recently classifying Data Centres (here) as being part of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), only 4% of surveyed councils said they were developing a dedicated data centre strategy for their regions. But 50% of respondents did say they were interested, although they haven’t yet investigated the impact of data centres on their area.

Elsewhere, only 40% of respondents reported having a digital connectivity strategy in place that is less than three years old (rising to 69% if we include those with a strategy that is OVER 3 years old), while 18% don’t have a digital strategy and 13% are still developing one.

Unfortunately, it continues to be the case that most local authorities identified lack of funding from central government (74%) as being one of the main barriers to improving digital connectivity, which was followed by the same proportion (74%) highlighting challenges with local infrastructure deployments. This isn’t too surprising, particularly given that the new Project Gigabit programme has been managed by central government, which is different from past programmes that shopped the problem and its funding out to local authorities.

The survey similarly found that, for 55% of local authorities, such funding is essential for their current level of innovation in digital connectivity. While 34% consider it helpful but not essential, they acknowledge they couldn’t undertake projects such as 5G mobile and FTTP initiatives alone. Only 8% have yet to secure funding, despite actively pursuing it after previous rejections.

Additional Survey Highlights

➤ Over three-quarters (76%) of surveyed local authorities now have a digital champion, reflecting growing recognition of their value in supporting digital connectivity.

➤ The proportion of authorities who have defined net-zero targets and understand the link to digital connectivity is only 13%, and those deferring responsibility to other departments is 8%.

➤ The number of respondents who felt fully informed about digital connectivity coverage in their region is lower than expected at 29%, although no respondents had only limited knowledge (71% considered themselves to be “reasonably informed“).

➤ 80% of local authorities are actively promoting take-up, largely through digital inclusion initiatives like device loans, skills training, and social tariff awareness, benefiting both residents and council engagement. However, 16% have yet to implement such measures due to resource constraints, lack of a clear strategy, and dispersed responsibilities within their councils.

Speaking of adoption, the survey also looked at how local authorities were identifying the barriers to take-up of new services by both residents and businesses. Naturally the vast majority highlighted the lack of network coverage as being a key barrier, followed by affordability, lack of awareness, lack of digital skills, lack of demand stimulation and less than 8% perceived that locals saw no benefit from these services.

Dr Andrew Muir, Chief Executive at FarrPoint, said:

“It was particularly nice to see a spread of survey responses from across the four nations, including increased input from Northern Ireland representatives.

The local involvement will be needed as the continued expansion of 5G takes place and the increased developments around data centres raise pros and cons for local areas, all of which need to be considered. Change and opportunity will continue, with 30 years in telecom consultancy, I can vouch for this personally!

Collaboration between local authorities and connectivity providers can be a challenge as they may not understand each other’s drivers and priorities. We believe delivery could be greatly improved to everyone’s benefit by investing in these relationships and digital champions will be key to this. Hopefully 2025 is the year that this gets appropriately resourced.”

The full survey is worth a read as it offers a unique insight into how local authorities perceive the current state of digital connectivity, its impact and implementation.

Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) launched a “human-like” AI (Artificial Intelligence) ‘Granny’ called Daisy in November last year (here), which was designed to answer calls in real-time from fraudsters and keep them busy (away from customers) for as long as possible. Since then, the bot has chatted with over 1,000 scam callers, and it’s learnt a few things.

Fraudsters will often robotically call masses of mobile and home phone numbers, but they usually only commit any actual human resources toward the tiny minority of people who might actually fall for one of their scams. Suffice to say that if you can waste the time of those human scammers, then that’s another actual human who they won’t be able to engage while their time is being wasted. This is how Daisy is supposed to work.

So far, the AI scambaiter is said to have “wasted hundreds of hours of scammers time“, including by keeping them tied up in meandering conversations on the sport of cricket and her lemon meringue pie recipe, while giving them just enough fake personal information to keep them on the phone line.

The bot is said to have been so effective that it’s even kept “numerous fraudsters” on calls for 40 minutes at a time. O2 has today also revealed some of the other things they’ve learnt from Daisy’s deployment, although few of these learnings will come as a particular surprise.

What did Daisy learn?

1. Most scammers work in call centres using scripts

Scamming people is a full-time job, and fraudsters are operating from call centres specifically set up to target victims. On multiple occasions, Daisy heard the same well-rehearsed lines from different scammers. Fraudsters even began to recognise her, indicating they’re operating together and sharing knowledge of their triumphs and failures.

One of the most common scams saw Daisy be offered a very cheap deal on iPhone 13 as a ruse to trick Daisy into sharing personal details. Whilst scammers often thought they knew who they were speaking with, in cases where they didn’t, they were quick to change tactics to keep the call going, demonstrating the professional nature of their operation.

In one instance, Daisy was passed to four different fraudsters in one single call. If one scammer wasn’t having any luck, Daisy would often be passed over to a ‘supervisor’ who would attempt to escalate the call, making it appear to be more genuine and urgent.

2. Scammers impersonate trusted companies and use high-pressure tactics

Daisy repeatedly heard scammers claiming to be from banks, well-known organisations like Amazon and Microsoft, delivery companies and the government. This is a way for scammers to cast their net as wide as possible, using some of the most trusted companies that consumers deal with regularly.

Once the fraudsters believed Daisy trusted that they were who they said they were, scammers often employed high-pressure tactics – including threatening the imminent loss of money, claiming there’s been a hacker on Daisy’s computer or even threatening legal action.

3. Unlike real employees, scammers will get frustrated and angry if they’re not getting what they want

Scam callers would typically start off friendly and personable in tone but the longer they spent on the phone they’d quickly begin to switch and show their true colours.

Daisy might not actually be a real person – but the scammers don’t know that. From clearly showing signs of frustration if she struggled to follow the instructions or yelling at her for going off on a tangent about her cat, Daisy frequently experienced rude and aggressive behaviour. This was particularly clear when Daisy was not doing as they wanted.

People can of course continue to help block scammers by forwarding suspected scam calls and text messages to 7726 (i.e. those that get through the filters used by many mobile, broadband and phone providers). Generally, if a call seems suspicious (are they pressuring you for personal data, bank details or to install a piece of software), then simply put the phone down and call back later on a trusted number to verify the call.

The London Access Point (LONAP), which is a not-for-profit Layer 2 Internet Exchange Point (IXP) based in London that was first established in 1997 and works with various different members (broadband ISPs, CDNs, mobile operators etc.), appears to have responded to recent price cuts at LINX (here) by refreshing some of its own fees.

In a brief notification to members, LONAP said they were “pleased to announce a reduction in port fees”, which would be effective from 1st April 2025. The reductions are said to represent an average price decrease of 14% across all ports on the exchange, “delivering over £230k of annual savings to our Members“.

The latest LONAP pricing is available at https://www.lonap.net/fees, although their member notification also included a brief rundown of the key highlights.

LONAP Price Reductions

The minimum service level for a LONAP port will be 4Gbps on a 10 GE port, and we are pleased to confirm a price reduction for this entry-level service:

• 4Gbps on 10 GE ports: Reduced from £120 per month to £95 per month.
  Members paying via Direct Debit from a UK bank account will continue to receive a £25 discount, bringing the effective price down to £70 per month.
• 10 GE and 10 GE on 100 GE ports: Reduced from £175 per month to £150 per month. The £25 Direct Debit discount still applies.
• 20Gbps on 100 GE ports: Reduced from £325 per month to £300 per month.
• 40Gbps and 40 GE on 100 GE ports: Reduced from £600 per month to £550 per month.
• 100 GE ports: Reduced from £1,200 per month to £1,000 per month.
• 400 GE ports: Reduced from £2,950 per month to £2,500 per month.

News 

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has not yet confirmed when the changes will take effect 

The NCC has this week authorised a 50% hike in telecom tariffs, impacting call rates, internet bundles, and SMS costs across all mobile networks in the country. 

The decision has been taken “in response to prevailing market conditions,” the commission said. 

“These adjustments will support the ability of operators to continue investing in infrastructure and innovation, ultimately benefiting consumers through improved services and connectivity, including better network quality, enhanced customer service, and greater coverage,” read the announcement. 

The country’s operators had originally sought approval for a 100% tariff increase, but this was refused by the NCC.  

Tariff rates in Nigeria have remained the same since 2013, despite rising operational costs.  

This situation was exacerbated last year by the government’s decision to unpeg the national currency (the naira) from the US dollar. This decision, combined with soaring inflation, has inflicted heavy losses on the local telcos.  

In its ruling, the NCC explained that it understood customer frustrations but has “prioritised striking a balance between protecting telecom consumers and ensuring the sustainability of the industry, including the thousands of indigenous vendors and suppliers who form a critical part of the telecommunications ecosystem.” 

As of December 2024, Nigeria’s inflation rate stood at 34.8%, and citizens have faced increases in fuel prices and electricity tariffs, among other price hikes. 

Nigeria has four major telcos providing call and internet services to millions of customers: MTN, Glo, Airtel, and 9Mobile, all of which praised the regulator’s decision. 

“The increased costs have significantly impacted our bottom line. This adjustment is crucial for us to continue investing in network expansion, improving service quality, and driving innovation within the sector,” said MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Teniola stated. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter   

Also in the news:
EXA Infrastructure enters into agreement to acquire Aqua Comms
“European competitiveness has one foot in the morgue,” warns Nokia CEO
BT quietly scraps EV charging pilot 

News

The joint venture will reportedly invest $100 billion “immediately” to deploy AI date centre infrastructure

This week, OpenAI has announced the ‘Stargate Project’, a new joint venture set to invest $500 billion into AI infrastructure over the next five years.

The new joint venture is a partnership between OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX, in which SoftBank will reportedly have financial responsibility, while OpenAI will have operational responsibility. Masayoshi Son, billionaire founder of SoftBank, will serve as chairman.

The financial details behind the ownership structure of Stargate were not revealed.

According to the OpenAI announcement, $100 billion of the planned total funds will be invested immediately.

“This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies,” read a joint press release from OpenAI and the other founders.

Initial deployments are already taking place in Texas, with Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, saying that work on 10 data centres is already underway.

Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI will be the key technology partners for the project, with Open AI saying it would work closely with these partners to build and operate the computing system.

In an announcement alongside the founding companies’ CEOs, newly inaugurated President Trump described the project as “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential”.

While Sam Altman (OpenAI), Masayoshi Son (SoftBank), and Larry Ellison (Oracle) all praised President Trump in the public announcement, the groundwork for the project was completed under the Biden administration.

Moving forward, however, the regulatory approach of the Trump administration will have a major impact on the success of Stargate. Initial signs appear positive for the industry (at least in financial terms…) with one of President Trump’s first executive orders being to reverse regulatory measures introduced by President Biden in 2023.

These measures primarily focussed on developing AI safety standards and proving warnings for AI-generated content.

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter  

Also in the news:
EXA Infrastructure enters into agreement to acquire Aqua Comms
“European competitiveness has one foot in the morgue,” warns Nokia CEO
BT quietly scraps EV charging pilot 

News

By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

The policy director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Science, Commerce, and Transportation has been nominated to serve as an FCC commissioner.

Olivia Trusty’s nomination was first announced by now-President Donald Trump on Truth Social last week, a social-media platform owned by Trump Media.

“She has fought tirelessly to grow the economy, empower innovation, and reignite the American Dream,” Trump’s Jan. 16 post stated.

He said Trusty would work with Brendan Carr, the newly named FCC chairman, “to cut regulations at a record pace.”

Trump also said they’d “protect free speech, and ensure every American has access to affordable and fast internet.”

Trump also made mention of Trusty’s academic background, which includes Georgetown University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Her nomination is pending Senate approval.

In the meantime, the FCC’s remaining Democratic commissioners reacted to the news.

Ana M. Gomez released a statement congratulating Trusty.

“She is widely respected, a consummate professional, and has a strong background on communications policy,” Gomez stated. “I welcome the opportunity to work with her.”

Additionally, Geoffrey Starks, the other Democrat on the FCC, also congratulated her.

“She is a committed public servant with extensive knowledge of the communications sector,” the statement from Starks read. “As clearly exhibited
by her work in the Senate, she is an effective policy-maker, which will benefit the agency and the American people going forward.”

Meanwhile, in the days since Trusty’s nomination, Jessica Rosenworcel, the former FCC chair, has departed the commission.

Replacing her as chair is Brendan Carr, who was named the FCC’s chair with an official order signed by Trump on Inauguration Day.

Learn more about Broadband Communities Summit 2025 in Houston.

Also, click here to subscribe to the Broadband Communities newsletter.

Network operator nexfibre, which shares some of their UK parentage with retail broadband ISP partner Virgin Media (O2), has today announced that they’ve made their 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network available to more than 8,000 homes in the market town of Northallerton (North Yorkshire, England) for the first time.

The deployment is interesting because the town was already home to two competitive gigabit-capable full fibre broadband networks via both Openreach and Zzoomm. In fact, it was only a few months ago that Zzoomm was loudly proclaiming to have achieved 20% take-up in Northallerton on a network that had, at the time, only been available for “19 months“ (here). Suffice to say that it remains to be seen how nexfibre and Virgin Media do on this front.

Virgin Media added that their services would be available “before the end of the year” to more homes locally in the town, after work to bring full fibre connections to the area have been “completed in the next few weeks“. The investment has been welcomed by local MP and former Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, on a recent site visit where he met representatives from both nexfibre and VMO2.

Rishi Sunak, the MP for Richmond and Northallerton, said:

“I welcome the latest investment in Northallerton that will ensure more people have access to much faster broadband speeds. It was great to meet with representatives from both Virgin Media O2 and nexfibre to discuss the progress they have made so far, as well as the plans they have to make gigabit broadband available to even more residents in our area.”

Nexfibre itself has already covered 2 million premises across the UK with their new full fibre network (here) and many more will follow. Just for some context. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners originally set up the new £4.5bn nexfibre joint venture in 2022 (here), which aims to deploy an open access fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT currently served by Virgin Media’s network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has announced that their UK Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network now covers over 1.45 million properties in Scotland (half of all premises), which has also delivered a strong take-up rate of 38% and at a total build cost of £435 million.

The vast majority of their full fibre build in Scotland – costing an average of £300 per premises passed (unchanged from 2023) – reflects commercial investment, although they’re also covering some areas with support from Broadband Vouchers and the Scottish Government’s £600m Reaching 100% (R100) project. The latter aims to upgrade another c. 115,000 of Scotland’s hardest-to-reach premises by 2028.

Around 30% of Openreach’s new fibre footprint in Scotland is in rural areas and islanders in Tiree, Iona and Mull are among the latest to be connected through the Scottish Government’s R100 rollout. The new fibre network also reaches over 64,000 Scottish businesses; 1,500 education establishments, 900 hospitals, GP and dental practices; 590 care and nursing homes; 1,400 church and village halls; and 160 emergency and rescue services buildings.

The operator is otherwise still investing up to £15bn to expand the coverage of their full fibre network to reach 25 million UK premises by December 2026 (currently on 17 million+), which includes around 6.2 million premises in rural or semi-rural areas. On top of that, they’ve also expressed an ambition to reach up to 30 million by the “end of 2030“, but this is partly dependent upon a favourable outcome from Ofcom’s next Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR).

Katie Milligan, Openreach Chief Commercial Officer, said:

“Fast, reliable connectivity is a game-changer in every part of Scotland. It fuels economic growth and can support the redistribution of economic activity to less populated areas.

This is quite simply one of the most significant infrastructure upgrades Scotland will see this century. We’re paving the way to future job creation, remote work, digital learning, and innovative healthcare access.

We’re proud of the progress our engineers have made – and there’s lots more still to come.”

Work is now continuing in dozens of cities, towns and villages – including Inverness, Perth, Helensburgh, Gourock and Castle Douglas – with Openreach’s commercial build set to start in the island capitals of Lerwick, Kirkwall and Stornoway this year.

The UK Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme has also separately allocated £450m (here) to help spread 1Gbps broadband speeds into some of the most remote rural areas of Scotland and part of that is expected to be delivered via Openreach. But not all the related procurements have been formally awarded yet.

Openreach highlights how a recent report from Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) and Stantec predicted that their ongoing upgrades to Full Fibre broadband across Scotland could deliver a £4.38 billion boost to the Scottish economy by 2029. But we’ve previously explained why such figures should always be taken with a pinch of salt (here), although it’s definitely a welcome and much needed improvement in many areas.

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

Alternative network provider Wildanet, which is building a gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of Cornwall and Devon in England, has just become the latest UK ISP to start offering special discounts to holders of a Blue Light Card (i.e. price cuts for workers in the emergency services and veterans).

In short, those in possession of this card will benefit from a discount worth 10% off their broadband subscription by using the code “Hero10” (without the speech marks) at checkout. A number of other ISPs, including BT, EE, PlusNet, Sky Broadband, CommunityFibre, Onestream, Virgin Media, Brsk, Pulse Fibre and Hyperoptic, also have special discounts for cardholders.

The operator, which originally started life as a Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) broadband provider in the same area, has recently been deploying gigabit-capable full fibre lines – both commercially and via public investment – and was last year estimated to have so far covered around 30,000 premises (Ready for Service).

Since 2023, Wildanet has also secured three contracts worth £77m to roll out FTTP to over 37,000 premises across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, as part of the UK government’s Project Gigabit.

Helen Wylde-Archibald, CEO of Wildanet, said:

“Essential workers are the backbone of our communities, providing critical services day in and day out. This discount is a small token of our gratitude for their dedication and hard work. By offering reliable, high-speed broadband, we aim to help them stay connected to the people and resources they need most.”

However, somewhat annoyingly, the card’s official website doesn’t display all of these broadband offers when searching (e.g. we couldn’t bring up any results for Pulse Fibre and Wildanet), which means that some of what’s available may end up being overlooked by holders of the card. It’s unclear whether this is an issue with the card’s website or something that ISPs can directly influence.