Network builder and UK ISP CommunityFibre, which runs a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across London, as well as parts of Surrey and West Sussex, has today joined forces with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to provide “free access to 100% full fibre broadband” to eligible Londoners struggling to get online.

The new initiative, which is supported by Jobcentre Plus, will see those eligible for the service receive 12-months of free full fibre broadband at speeds of 50Mbps. The offer is open to DWP customers who are “disabled, carers or have been in receipt of benefits for more than three months“.

The catch is that this new offer is only exclusively available across six Jobcentre Plus services within the Woolwich, Peckham, Tower Hamlets, Harlesden, Barnsbury and Finsbury Park sites in London only. But for those who are not eligible, Community Fibre also offers its own 35Mbps social broadband tariff at £12.50/month, although technically this isn’t a social tariff because it’s available to everybody covered by their network (not just those on state benefits).

According to the ISP, 1-in-10 Londoners (11%) say they have missed out on job opportunities, or experienced disruption during virtual job interviews, because of an unreliable internet connection. In addition, 15% of Londoners report that they cannot access basic services such as GP appointments, online banking, or government services because of poor broadband connectivity.

Mims Davies, DWP Minister of State, said:

“I am thrilled by how working with Community Fibre, DWP are able to give so many Londoners free, high speed internet for the next year.

Whether it’s interviewing for a job or accessing vital services, decent internet is necessary for all of us to get on with day to day lives. If you’re interested and think you might be eligible for this key support, speak to your local Jobcentre today.

This comes on top of our unprecedented £108b support package, which has prevented 1.3 million people falling into absolute poverty reflecting our commitment to help the British people through challenging times”.

We should point out that it’s by no means the first time that CF have done some kind of “free broadband” promotion (examples here and here) and sometimes even giving it away can prove to be unusually difficult (people don’t always trust “free” things). As part of its roll-out, the London-based fibre provider has also connected more than 600 community spaces with a free 1Gbps full fibre connection.

The latest BT Group H2 FY24 results to March 2024 have revealed that Openreach’s full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network added 1 million premises to their coverage in the quarter (up from 950k last quarter) and now covers 13.812m premises, while EE’s 5G mobile covers 75% of the population (up from 72% in H1) and Openreach has been named “preferred bidder” for Type C Project Gigabit contracts.

The group’s retail divisions – including BT, EE and Plusnet – don’t publish full customer figures for their own ISP, but they do report data for their latest technologies. The ISP stated that they had 2.428 million FTTP customers (up from 2.08m in H1) – plus 200k business customers – and EE’s 5G connections now stand at 9.495 million (up from 8.953m). On top of that, the operator reports that broadband consumers gobbled an average of 429.5GB of data per month in H2 (up from 389GB), which falls to 16.2GB for post-paid mobile users (down from 16.8GB)

Overall, some 69.8% of BT’s fixed consumer base take a “superfast broadband” product (down from 72.5% in H1) and 24.4% (up from 20.8%) have adopted one of their “ultrafast” products – the latter includes both G.fast and FTTP, which largely reflects FTTP cannibalising customers from slower (FTTC and ADSL) packages. We also noted that 22.9% of BT’s customers are now taking both mobile and broadband (converged), which is down from 23%.

Financial Highlights – BT’s Half-Yearly Change
* BT Group revenue = £10,421m (up from £10,414m in H1 FY24)
* BT Group total reported net debt = £(19,479)m (decreased from £(19,689)m)
* BT Group profit after tax = £11m (down from £844m)

Openreach’s Network

The table below offers a breakdown of fixed line network coverage and take-up by technology on Openreach’s UK network, which covers the totals for all ISPs that take their products combined (e.g. BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Zen Internet, Vodafone etc.).

As usual, the rollout of their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines continues to grow, with 1 million premises being added in the quarter and that’s up from 950,000 last quarter. As for take-up, some 4.7 million FTTP broadband connections have been made on Openreach’s network (up from 3.87m in H1), which equates to a take-up of 34% (up from 33% in H1).

The rapid rollout of a new network almost always tends to suppress the take-up figure, thus Openreach continues to do extremely well to buck that trend – all despite an increasingly significant amount of competition from rival networks. This also goes to highlight the challenge AltNets are facing in peeling consumers away from the resident industry giant’s own full fibre network.

Allison Kirkby, CEO of BT Group, said:

“BT Group built and connected customers to our next generation networks at record speed and efficiency over the past year, while continuing to grow revenue and EBITDA. Having passed peak capex on our full fibre broadband rollout and achieved our £3 billion cost and service transformation programme a year ahead of schedule, we’ve now reached the inflection point on our long-term strategy.

This delivery and greater capex efficiency gives us the confidence to provide new guidance for significantly increased short term cash flow and sets out a path to more than double our normalised free cash flow over the next five years. This enhanced cash flow allows us to increase our dividend for FY24 by 3.9% to 8.0 pence per share. We’re also setting a further £3bn of gross annualised cost savings to be reached by the end of FY29.

As we move into the next phase of BT Group’s transformation, we are sharpening our focus to be better for our customers and the country, by accelerating the modernisation of our operations, and by exploring options to optimise our global business. This will create a simpler BT Group, fully focused on connecting the UK, and well positioned to generate significant growth for all our stakeholders.”

The latest report also includes an interesting reference to the Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit broadband roll-out programme, which buried in the text states that the “Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has notified Openreach of its preferred bidder status for Project Gigabit cross-regional supplier contract (Type C).” This development isn’t a surprising one, but it’s the first time we’ve seen it confirmed.

Just to recap. The newer Cross-Regional (Type C) contracts are a bit of a different animal from prior (local and regional) ones under the project. The idea of this is to appoint a single supplier to target premises (i.e. subsidise the design, build and operation of a new gigabit network) in areas where no or no appropriate market interest has been expressed before to the Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, or areas that have been de-scoped or terminated from a prior plan.

Such areas are often skipped due to being too expensive (difficult) for other, often smaller, suppliers to tackle. The good news is that BDUK formally launched the first procurements for Type C contracts on 27th July 2023 and more are planned to follow. The expectation has always been that these would go to one of the biggest network operators and today’s news largely confirms that.

Take note that BT now only publishes detailed results biannually for H1 and H2 (financial quarters), thus they release very little data for the other two quarters and that similarly means we will only be able to do two detailed reports every year instead of four.

Just a quick reminder. BT introduced a new metric in 2023, which predicted that their total labour force would shrink from 130,000 to between 75,000 and 90,000 by 2030. The operator also predicted that Openreach’s FTTP coverage would grow to between 25-30 million premises and deliver take-up of between 40-55% by this same date. The latest report includes a quick progress update on this.

BT Group’s Progress Against Strategic Metrics:

• Total labour resource decreased by 10k to 120k; target of 75-90k

• FTTP premises passed increased by 3.5m to 13.8m; target of 25-30m

• Openreach take-up increased to 34% and retail take-up increased by 0.8m to 2.6m; targets of 40-55% and 6.5-8.5m respectively

• 5G UK population coverage increased to 75% and 5G retail connections increased by 2.4m to 11.1m; targets of >98% and 13.0m-14.5m respectively

We have successfully delivered our £3bn gross annualised cost savings, announced in May 2020, 12 months early and at a cost of £1.5bn, £0.1bn lower than forecast. We plan to further transform our cost base and improve our productivity by delivering a further £3bn gross annualised cost savings by the end of FY29, including a further £0.6bn of savings from the current transformation programme as it concludes in FY25, at an overall cost to achieve of £1bn. We expect c.40% of the £1bn cost to achieve in FY25, the remainder is spread across the years.

One other interesting titbit that we pulled out of the new report is where BT confirms that they “now expect to have migrated all customers off the PSTN by the end of January 2027“, which reflects their revised target for shifting customers off the old analogue phone network and on to new digital phone services. The previous goal was to complete this by the end of 2025, but it’s been clear for a while now that the process would take longer.

News  

The combination would reduce the number of mobile players in the market from four to three, creating an entity with roughly 100 million subscribers 

Indonesian telco Axiata and conglomerate Sinar Mas have entered discussions to discuss a potential merger of their Indonesian telecommunications operations. 

According to a stock exchange filing, the two companies have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding to “mutually explore the proposed merger of XL Axiata and Smartfren.”  

Smartfren is Sinar Mas’ Jakarta-based mobile network subsidiary, currently the fourth largest operator in Indonesia with roughly 30 million subscribers. 

Discussions are in the very early stages, though the filing notes that, if the merger were to go ahead, both companies would remain as joint controlling shareholders. 

“Axiata believes that MergeCo will have the strategic agility, competence and scale to meet increasing expectations and demand from consumers, businesses and the Indonesian public sector,” reads the press release. 

“MergeCo is expected to deliver superior customer experience in the telecommunications sector and create additional shareholder value including through synergies from the combined operations of XL Axiata and Smartfren,” it continued. 

The combined business would have roughly 100 million subscribers – roughly the same size as the second largest player in the market, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchinson. 

Malaysian telco group Axiata has had a busy few weeks when it comes to M&A activity. Last month, Dialog Axiata PLC, one of Sri Lanka’s largest telecommunications service providers and Bharti Airtel signed a deal to merge their Sri Lankan operations. Under the terms of the agreement, a stake swap will take place; Dialog Axiata taking 100% ownership of Airtel Lanka in exchange for giving Bharti Airtel a 10.4% stake in Dialog Axiata. As a result, Airtel Lanka’s 5 million mobile subscribers integrated with Dialog Axiata’s 17 million, giving Dialog Axiata a market share of over two-thirds.  

Keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news from around the world with Total Telecom’s daily newsletter 

Also in the news:
Investors shorting BT for $300m in twelve-year record
4G now covers all stations on the Elizabeth Line
EXA Infrastructure continues expansion in North America with new route between Ashburn and Atlanta

News

A report suggests that the US-investment firm is preparing to file a number of concessions aimed at accelerating the approval process

According to anonymous sources speaking to Bloomberg, KKR is preparing to present a raft of remedies to the European Commission in order to gain approval for its €22 billion acquisition of Telecom Italia (TIM)’s fixed network assets (NetCo).

Exactly what these remedies are is unclear, but it is likely to include promises not to hike wholesale prices, according to the sources.

If these concessions, expected to be filed next week, are accepted by the Commission, approval for the deal could be given as early as next month.

The Commission is currently conducting a Phase 1 investigation into the potential acquisition, asking TIM’s rivals how such a deal would impact competition.

If the concessions presented by KKR are deemed insufficient, the Commission could order a more detailed Phase 2 investigation to examine the competition implications, a process which could take many months.

The Italian government has already given the greenlight for the sale, following an agreement with KKR that will see the government take a stake of up to 20% in the business once the transaction is complete.

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

Also in the news:
Investors shorting BT for $300m in twelve-year record
4G now covers all stations on the Elizabeth Line
EXA Infrastructure continues expansion in North America with new route between Ashburn and Atlanta

Press Release

News provided by: FCC Office of Media Relations

This piece was originally published by our sister company Broadband Communities

The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau today resolved two investigations into the América Móvil Submarine Cable System, which connects the United States to two additional cable landing stations located in Colombia and Costa Rica, respectively, without the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector’s (commonly known as Team Telecom) review or the required FCC approval.  In addition to admitting the violations, LATAM Telecommunications and Puerto Rico Telephone Company will each pay a $1 million civil penalty and enter into a compliance plan.

An undersea cable licensee’s failure to obtain prior FCC authorization before connecting and operating new international subsea cable landing stations circumvents Team Telecom’s ability to conduct a review for national security concerns as required by federal law and regulations.

“Undersea cables keep us globally connected and are essential part of the digital economy.  But they can pose real security risks if the FCC and its national security partners aren’t properly given the chance to review where new cables may be installed,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.  “Across the board the agency has been focused on network security, and careful oversight of undersea cables is a critical part of this effort.”

“As recently described in the Bulk Sensitive Personal Data Executive Order 14117, international submarine cables that connect the United States to other countries are a key piece of technology that facilitates the voluminous transfer and use of sensitive personal and U.S. government information,” said FCC Enforcement Chief Loyaan A. Egal, who also serves as head of the FCC’s Privacy and Data Protection Task Force.  “We will also work closely with our national security partners and the Commission’s Office of International Affairs to identify and address unauthorized and non-notified transactions that implicate FCC licenses and U.S. national security interests.”

“Team Telecom is designed to review and address national security threats to our critical telecommunications infrastructure,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.  “When that process is bypassed, it puts the American people, their communications, and their data at risk. Today’s enforcement action makes clear that the Department of Justice, as Chair of Team Telecom, will continue to work closely with the FCC to ensure that applicants and licensees play by the rules.”

The FCC investigation found that construction began on a cable landing station in Isla San Andrés, Colombia, in March 2020, which went into operation in September 2021, and a cable landing station in Puerto Limón, Costa Rica, in May 2021, which began operation in November 2022, with both connecting to the América Móvil Submarine Cable System.  Neither company sought FCC authorization until 2023, thus evading vital national security reviews and assessments, among other concerns, that the FCC, in collaboration with the Team Telecom Committee, considers when reviewing new undersea cable landing license applications, as well as requests to modify existing licenses.

Reflecting the increased emphasis on data security issues in the national security sphere, the financial penalties associated with today’s settlements are significantly larger than prior enforcement actions for undersea cable rule violations.

In addition to critical infrastructure voice and data services, undersea cables also facilitate emerging technologies that are key to the digital economy such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing.  The Enforcement Bureau will continue to prioritize investigations that concern U.S. national security interests involving telecommunications and information and communications technology networks.

How is the international submarine cable ecosystem evolving in 2024? Join the submarine networks community in discussion at this year’s Submarine Networks EMEA conference

Also in the news:
Spanish regulators clear Zegona’s acquisition of Vodafone Spain
UK’s fastest supercomputer switched on
EXA Infrastructure continues expansion in North America with new route between Ashburn and Atlanta

News

The government will not grant repair ships access to the cables until the investigation is concluded

This week, reports suggest that the Yemeni government has contacted members of the AAE-1 (Asia-Africa-Europe 1) submarine cable consortium, informing them that they are being probed with regard to ties to the nation’s Houthi rebels.

The consortium, which includes the likes of Etisalat, Omantel, Ooredoo, Reliance Jio Infocom, and Telecom Egypt, also notably includes TeleYemen, Yemen’s incumbent operator which is part-controlled by Houthi rebels. It is this relationship with TeleYemen that is under investigation, with the government saying that the consortium members may be indirectly funding terrorism.

Since 2014, the Houthi rebels have taken controlled parts of Yemen, including the capital Sana’a. TeleYemen was effectively carved in two by the conflict, with the part of the business involved in the AAE-1 consortium left operating out of Houthi-controlled territory.

Crucially, while this investigation is ongoing, the official Yemeni government will not give permission for cable ships to repair AAE-1, which was damaged along with two other cables (EIG and SEACOM/TGN-Eurasia) back in February.

The AAE-1 cable itself spans over 25,00km from Hong Kong to France, carrying a large portion of Europe–Asia data traffic through the Red Sea on its way into the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal.

The Red Sea itself has become a hotbed of military activity this year, after hostilities between Israel and Palestine saw the Muslim Houthis begin attacking Western shipping lines in the region. One of these attacks caused a vessels anchor to be dragged across the trio of subsea cables, severing them and causing major telecommunications disruption across the Middle East, Europe, and Africa.

Damage to subsea cables is relatively common – indeed, there was a similar high-profile cable break off the West Coast of Africa at around the same time as the AAE-1 was damaged. But despite their frequency, damage to these cables often takes a long time to repair, largely due to the limited number of repair ships available.

Cable ships not only need to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to reach the damaged cable, but they also require government permissions to enter sovereign waters, which is here being denied by the Aden-based Yemeni government.

In notifying the affected consortium members, the Yemeni attorney general Judge Qaher Mustafa Ali asked them to provide details on corporate transactions and ownership structure. Failure to do so, the judge said, could result in the respective companies’ management committee facing criminal prosecution.

Consortium members have yet to comment publicly on the investigation.

How is the submarine cable ecosystem evolving in 2024? Join the cable operators in discussion at this year’s Submarine Networks EMEA conference

Also in the news:
T-Mobile and EQT form JV to buy Lumos
Korean Air shows off comprehensive urban air mobility system backed by 5G
Virgin Media O2 reaches plastic waste milestone

News

Rewheel figures show that T-Mobile’s purchase of Sprint has helped keep US mobile prices high

According to a new report from Rewheel, T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint in 2020 has contributed to the exorbitant mobile prices in the US.

“Five years on, the Sprint / T-Mobile 4-to-3 mobile merger made the US one of the most expensive mobile markets in the world,” the firm wrote in the report. “While monthly prices were falling and continue to fall across mobile markets and while the same was true in the US mobile market prior to the merger, after the merger prices in the US either stopped falling altogether or fell at a much slower rate. The 4-to-3 mobile merger in the US led to higher prices and consumer harm.”

In general, Rewheel reported, “monthly prices are 2-3x higher and gigabyte prices are 5-6x higher in markets with only 3 mobile operators,” as compared to markets with 4 mobile operators. The findings were based on the monthly price of 50GB in voice and data plans with at least 1000 minutes and 10 Mbit/s speeds.

By contrast, the CTIA, the US wireless industry’s main trade association, found in its latest annual report that “the cost per megabyte of data decreased by 98% from 2012 to 2022.” The CTIA’s report also noted that 5G’s entrance into the home broadband market has increased competition and provided savings, even for non-subscribers.

For years, Rewheel has tracked global wireless industry prices. Its latest report echoes predictions the firm made in anticipation of T-Mobile’s $26 billion purchase of Sprint, which was then the fourth-largest wireless network operator in the US. While T-Mobile petitioned for regulatory approval of the acquisition in 2018, Rewheel reported that mobile prices for consumers typically fall at a faster rate in markets with four players.

As part of T-Mobile’s efforts to secure federal approvals for the purchase of Sprint, T-Mobile assured regulators that the mobile market would still have four mobile players. To achieve this, T-Mobile and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) struck an agreement with Dish Network to position Dish as the country’s fourth national provider.

While Dish has, so far, met its federal obligations under this deal, it continues to struggle in the US wireless market. Dish confirmed in June 2023 that its 5G network covered 70% of the US population, satisfying Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requirements. However, Dish has faced challenges in the postpaid wireless business and is currently struggling to finance its 5G network buildout.

When T-Mobile acquired Sprint, both companies argued the merger would create a more efficient company with low prices. Now, T-Mobile, along with Verizon and AT&T, is looking to raise prices for customers.

There are rumblings about further consolidation plans. T-Mobile and Verizon are reportedly in discussions to acquire parts of US Cellular. The news comes hot on the heels of T-Mobile’s acquisition of Ka’ena Corporation, the owner of Mint Mobile, and of its acquisition of Lumos through a joint venture with EQT.

The Wall Street Journal has suggested that one reason for the piecemeal sale of US Cellular, as opposed to a wholesale takeover, is to avoid the ire of US competition authorities and the type of scrutiny the T-Mobile/Sprint merger has attracted.

Also in the news:
Spanish regulators clear Zegona’s acquisition of Vodafone Spain
UK’s fastest supercomputer switched on
EXA Infrastructure continues expansion in North America with new route between Ashburn and Atlanta

News

The deal was first confirmed last October 

This week, Zegona’s acquisition of Vodafone Spain has received approval from Spanish regulators. 

The Spanish government’s Council of Ministers has approved the deal “in respect of foreign direct investment into Spain,” said UK-based Zegona in a press release this morning. 

Back in October, Vodafone announced that it had entered into a binding agreement with Zegona to sell 100% of their stake in Vodafone Spain for €5 billion. 

“The sale of Vodafone Spain is a key step in right-sizing our portfolio for growth and will enable us to focus our resources in markets with sustainable structures and sufficient local scale,” said Vodafone CEO Margherita Della Valle in a statement. 

“I would like to thank our entire team in Spain for their dedication to our customers and relentless determination to improve our organic performance. However, the market has been challenging with structurally low returns,” she continued. 

The acquisition is scheduled to take place on 31 May, when Vodafone will receive €4.12 billion in cash and €900 million in redeemable preference shares. 

For some time, Vodafone has been struggling to boost revenues in the notoriously competitive Spanish market against market leader Movistar, as well as Orange and Masmovil. 

Vodafone’s ex-CEO Nick Read had hoped that market consolidation would solve the issue for Vodafone, but these hopes were dashed when Orange and Masmovil announced their intention to merge in 2022. The European Commission approved the €18.6 billion deal in February following the conclusion of an in-depth investigation initiated in April 2023.  

As a result, newly appointed Della Valle said the unit’s sale was necessary to “improve the Group’s competitiveness and growth prospects”. 

Vodafone’s financial results, published this week, suggest that Della Valle’s strategic approach appears to be working, with organic service revenue growth of 6.3% and organic EBITDA-AL growth of 2.2%. 

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

Also in the news:
Investors shorting BT for $300m in twelve-year record
4G now covers all stations on the Elizabeth Line
EXA Infrastructure continues expansion in North America with new route between Ashburn and Atlanta

Network operator CityFibre, which have so far deployed their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 3.6 million UK premises (3.3m RFS), has today announced that they’ve completed their “primary” £17m deployment across the North Northamptonshire (England) town of Kettering.

The original build, supported by local contractor Granemore Group, officially got underway in April 2022 (here) and was due to reach completion by 2024. The good news is that, broadly speaking, they appear to have completed this project more or less on time and seemingly within its original budget.

The new network is now said to be ‘ready for service’ (RFS) at over 25,000 homes, which reflects about 86% of residential properties and “most” businesses in the town. CityFibre is understood to have laid 162km of dense full fibre infrastructure to cover the town.

However, while the primary-build is said to be completed, the operator added that they would “continue to explore opportunities to reach more sites including new build properties, multi-dwelling units, homes on private or unadopted roads and business parks.”

Charlie Kitchin, CityFibre’s Partnership Manager for Kettering, said:

“We’re thrilled to announce that the primary-build of our full fibre network in Kettering is now complete. With the UK’s best available digital infrastructure under its streets, residents can now enjoy seamless streaming with ample productivity and innovation benefits for the local economy. The rollout is an exciting step for Kettering’s connectivity, which will now benefit from faster and more reliable broadband.”

However, the operator’s new network will face competition from some existing gigabit-capable broadband networks in the area, such as Virgin Media, Openreach, FibreNest and Hyperoptic (the latter two only have very limited coverage).

The work supports CityFibre’s wider ambition of covering up to 8 million UK premises (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity and c.£4.9bn debt) – across over 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK), although it’s unclear precisely when they will achieve this target (the original goal was for the end of 2025, but their current build + M&A plan may only get them to c.6m).

Mobile network operator O2 (VMO2) has today revealed that they’ve now rolled out enhanced 4G (mobile broadband) coverage across 150 rural sites (up from 100 in mid-Feb 2024) as part of their commitment under the £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project, which aims to extend geographic 4G cover (aggregate) to 95% of the UK by the end of 2025.

The industry-led SRN – supported by £500m of public funding and £532m from operators – involves both the reciprocal sharing of existing masts in certain areas and the demand-led building and sharing of new masts in others between the mobile operators. But the 95% figure is only when the service is available from at least one operator, while the UK coverage forecast for SRN completion for all operators is actually just 84% for the same date (i.e. geographic areas where you’ll be able to take 4G from all providers).

The remote Scottish Inner Hebrides Isle of Eigg, which is home to less than 100 people, has become the home of Virgin Media O2’s 150th SRN site (mast) – some 117 of those are in rural parts of Scotland. While these 150 sites are controlled by O2, customers of Three UK and Vodafone are also benefitting from the operator’s rollout as part of shared access (EE didn’t take part in this aspect of the SRN).

O2 needed to use boats, helicopters and off-road vehicles to install a new 4G mast on the island, which previously only had coverage from just one provider, thus the upgrade offers residents more choice and will help many visitors stay connected for the first time.

Taking into account progress from all operators and the related infrastructure sharing agreements, VMO2’s customers can now benefit from faster 4G services at more than 200 rural locations.

Jeanie York, CTO at Virgin Media O2, said:

“We are continuing our Shared Rural Network rollout at pace to ensure more rural communities can access reliable mobile connectivity. Having delivered more sites than any other operator, our commitment to delivering this ambitious programme and levelling up rural areas is clear.

The 150 sites we have delivered will enable more residents, businesses and visitors in rural areas to benefit from better mobile coverage, with dozens more locations set to go live in the coming weeks. This work is vital in tackling the urban-rural digital divide that exists in the UK.”

Julia Lopez, Minister of state for Data and Digital Infrastructure, said:

“Backed by government funding, Virgin Media O2’s rapid rollout of the Shared Rural Network is delivering better 4G coverage to rural communities across the UK. The completion of its 150th mast in the Isle of Eigg in Scotland involved the use of helicopters, boats and off-road vehicles to get the build done and shows the UK Government’s commitment to rural residents and businesses, so the British public can enjoy good connectivity wherever they live.”

Despite the progress, the National Audit Office (NAO) recently confirmed (here) that Three UK, Vodafone and O2 were “each likely to miss their Ofcom licence obligation to provide 88% 4G coverage by June 2024” (i.e. the target for partial notspots (PNS) and had requested to “discuss an 18-month extension to the PNS element of the programme” (EE has already completed this target). At present, this only impacts the PNS, not the main target for Total Not-Spot (TNS) areas by early 2027.

Just to recap. Ofcom’s licence obligations commit each individual operator to increase its 4G coverage to 88% of the UK’s landmass by June 2024 – rising to 90% by January 2027 – with these individual obligations supporting the overall target of 95% by December 2025.

Last month saw the government reject calls for a delay to the PNS target (here), albeit partly because this is something that Ofcom first need to assess (they’re expected to reach a conclusion during the autumn). The government claims that the final TNS coverage target could still be achieved on time (i.e. they’ve build a fair bit of allowance for possible delays into the programme), even if there’s a delay to the PNS side.