Press Release

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will take a crucial vote this month that could lead to the reinstatement of net neutrality

From the Office of FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has announced the commission will vote during its April open meeting to restore net neutrality, which would bring back a national standard for broadband reliability, security, and consumer protection. If adopted, the chairwoman’s proposal would ensure that broadband services are treated as an essential resource deserving of FCC oversight under Title II authority.

“The pandemic proved once and for all that broadband is essential,” said Chairwoman Rosenworcel. “After the prior administration abdicated authority over broadband services, the FCC has been handcuffed from acting to fully secure broadband networks, protect consumer data, and ensure the internet remains fast, open, and fair. A return to the FCC’s overwhelmingly popular and court-approved standard of net neutrality will allow the agency to serve once again as a strong consumer advocate of an open internet.”

If adopted, the proposal would:

Return net neutrality protections:

The FCC would once again play a key role in preventing at the federal level broadband providers from blocking, slowing down, or creating pay-to-play internet fast lanes.

Provide oversight of broadband outages:

When households and businesses lose internet service, consumers often expect that the FCC might either be able to help the restoration or at least have information about the outage. By restoring the FCC’s Title II authority over internet service providers, the FCC will bolster its ability to require these companies to address internet outages. Without such authority, the FCC cannot require companies to report broadband outages, cannot collect outage data, and lacks the authority to even consider ways that it can help protect against and recover from internet service outages.

Boost security of broadband networks:

In this digital age, there are new and emerging digital threats. Without broadband oversight, the FCC is unable to fully monitor and respond to such national security concerns. For example, without reclassification, the FCC is limited in its authority to direct foreign-owned companies deemed to be national security threats to discontinue any domestic or international broadband services under Sec. 214 – as the agency has done with telephone services. In addition, without reclassification, the FCC has limited authority to incorporate updated cybersecurity standards into network policies.

Increase consumer protections:

Net neutrality protections would increase the tools the FCC has available to protect consumer data and respond to evolving consumer threats. Updated rules could mean broadband providers could not sell your location data, among other sensitive information. This would empower the agency to protect consumers from other harmful practices.

Restore a widely accepted national standard:

When the previous FCC stepped back from net neutrality protections, the court said states could step in. Despite these efforts by individual states to provide robust oversight in response to the prior administration’s retreat from authority, we need a national standard to keep internet access fast, open, and fair. A national standard is also broadly popular: eighty percent of Americans support open internet policies.

The chairwoman will circulate her proposal to her fellow commissioners for their review. As is the general practice, a public draft of the proposal – officially a Declaratory Ruling, Order, Report and Order, and Order on Reconsideration – will be made public on Thursday on FCC.gov.

At the FCC’s April 25 open meeting, the commissioners will consider and vote on the proposal. The meeting will be open to the public and streamed live at www.fcc.gov/live. If adopted, the reclassification and rules would largely go into effect 60 days after Federal Register publication.

What impact would the restoration of net neutrality have for the US telecoms market? Join the discussion at this year’s Broadband Communities Summit live in Texas

Also in the news:
FCC rejects SpaceX’s request for spectrum
Amazon invests $2.75 billion in AI startup Anthropic
T-Mobile gets green light to appeal class action lawsuit

Interview

At Mobile World Congress this year, we spoke with Mr. Hudson Lou, Director of Network and Services Development of Macau CTM, to discuss Macau’s digitalization journey and the potential of 5.5G

Macau occupies a relatively unique position within the global telecoms market, being one of the few cities in the world to have full coverage of both fiber and 5G. Combining this with the city’s high rate of technology adoption, it is easy to see why Macau has quickly become a hotbed of advanced 5G use cases and is well on its way to becoming a truly smart city. 

Speaking to Macau CTM’s Director of Network and Services Development, Hudson Lou, at Mobile World Congress this year, he explained the extent to which demand for 5G and related technologies was growing in both the consumer and enterprise spaces. 

“Macau’s residents and industries are both quickly adopting advanced technology, anticipating a smart transformation to bring better living experiences and development opportunities,” explained Lou. 

“To cater to the increasing demands from the market, both individual customers and commercial sectors, CTM has been joining hands with stakeholders to explore and deploy applications that are based on our 5G network, such as virtual reality content that is adopted in education, a 5G and IoT platform that is used for fleet management, a high security 5G private network used by police forces, and cross-regional 5G private network for university science research.” 

But transforming Macau into a smart city is not a challenge for its telecoms sector alone. Indeed, it will require significant collaboration from throughout the region’s public and private sector. 

“The ecology of smart city could not be formed with only one single force, it needs concerted efforts by various stakeholders in the society,” explained Lou. “To this end, CTM has actively cooperated with banks, government departments, transportation, universities, etc. With 5G, we can provide a new platform, a new enabler to shape a comprehensive ecology that opens up a brand-new, yet localized and digitalised economic model.”  

Talking of next steps in this journey, Lou explained that the transition to 5.5G later this year will be hugely influential.  

“The features of 5.5G – higher speed and higher security – will release the potential of edge computing and AI,” said Lou. “AI, big data, and cloud computing will bring even more use cases to people’s lives, making living smoother and smarter.” 

You can view the full interview with Hudson Lou, Director of Network and Technology Development at CTM, from the link below 

News

The UK’s antitrust watchdog said the operators had declined to offer remedies to the Authority’s competition concerns

Today, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that it will launch a Phase 2 investigation into the £15 billion merger between Vodafone UK and Three UK, a move that would shrink the number of mobile players in the market from four to three.

The regulator said last month that it was considering launching this full-blown investigation into the merger, saying that the companies had “made a number of claims about how their deal is good for competition and investment” without providing “sufficient evidence to date to back these claims”.

At the time, the CMA offered the operators five days to suggest remedies to assuage these concerns. Now, a little more than a week later, the regulator has announced the investigation will proceed, noting that both Vodafone and Three declined to propose concessions to ease the CMA’s competition fears.

In a joint statement, Vodafone and Three said that this decision by the CMA was expected and that they remained confident the merger was in the interest of UK customers.

“This was an expected next step in the process and is in line with the timeframe for completion that we set out from the outset,” said the statement. “Vodafone UK and Three UK remain confident that the transaction will drive stronger competition in the mobile sector and give customers and businesses a step-change in network quality, speed, and coverage from day one.”

Results from this new investigation are expected in September.

How would the Vodafone–Three merger impact the UK mobile market? Join the telecoms ecosystem in discussion on market dynamics at Connected North live in Manchester

Also in the news:
FCC rejects SpaceX’s request for spectrum
Amazon invests $2.75 billion in AI startup Anthropic
T-Mobile gets green light to appeal class action lawsuit

After skipping this study last year due to workload, we’ve today published an updated summary of the key UK consumer ISP choices for 1Gbps speed packages on Openreach’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network – currently available to over 13 million homes and businesses.

The current market is chocked full of alternative full fibre networks, but despite this Openreach remains the largest open-access provider of such infrastructure, and as such none of the main ISPs can afford to ignore the operator’s significant and growing coverage – this will eventually ensure its position as the largest FTTP network in the UK.

Nevertheless, many consumers still find themselves confused about what their choices are, and we’ve thus attempted to extract a few of the more consumer friendly Openreach-based options from our UK ISP Listings to help. But this guide is not intended to be an exhaustive list, just a reasonably reflective one.

In order to narrow the list down, we’re only going to cover those more established ISPs that offer packages based off the operator’s 1Gbps (1000Mbps) tier, both at a national level and at consumer affordable prices. Most of these providers will also offer slower package options too, but if an ISP is cheap for 1Gbps, then it’ll usually be cheaper on the slower tiers too.

Due to the advertising rules, such packages tend to be promoted as having average downloads (i.e. a median speed as recorded at peak times) of around 900Mbps+ (uploads of 100-115Mbps), although in the future this rate may increase as providers adopt Openreach’s new 1.2Gbps tier (the advertised average for this will be 1000Mbps+). Providers that don’t offer a gigabit package have been excluded from this list.

Gigabit ISP Choices on Openreach’s FTTP Network

The following table excludes some of the more expensive business providers (e.g. those above £100+), as well as any that didn’t show key package details on their website (sometimes due to an order or availability system not working), failed to clearly display whether their prices included VAT, didn’t allow customers to take broadband without bundling an energy service, or where we couldn’t ascertain whether the packages were even Openreach based.

Something else to note is that we aren’t highlighting any of the other value-added features that may come with these packages, such as cloud backup, static IP addresses, access to public Wi-Fi hotspots and phone services etc. Not all providers make it easy to figure out what extras they include, and attributing value to added extras can be notoriously tricky – often subject to personal preference.

We have not taken a view on the service quality of these providers, thus the list below is purely a limited price comparison.

Biggest Openreach ISPs – 1Gbps Plans

ISP
Price
New Install
Contract
Router

Vodafone
£36 (£58)
£0
24 Months
Yes

Plusnet
£41.99 (£62.92)
£0
24 Months
Yes

Sky Broadband
£42 (£63)
£0
18 Months
Yes

TalkTalk
£49 (£?)
£0
18 Months
Yes

Shell Energy
£49.99 (£69.15)
£0
18 Months
Yes

BT
£52.99 (£57.99)
£0
24 Months
Yes

EE
£52.99 (£61)
£0
24 Months
Yes

Zen Internet
£55
£15
18 Months
Yes

Smaller Openreach ISPs – 1Gbps Plans

ISP
Price
New Install
Contract
Router

1p Broadband
£44 (£49)
£10
18 Months
Yes

Direct Save Telecom
£52.95
£8.95
18 Months
Yes

No One (Trunk Networks)
£52.99
£0
24 Months
Yes

CIX
£54
£0
12 Months
No

File Sanctuary
£54
£0
12 Months
No

Cuckoo
£54.99
£0
12 Months
Yes

1310
£55
£0
24 Months
Yes

Aquiss
£55
£0
12 Months
No

iDNET
£57
£0
24 Months
Yes

webmate
£58
£0
12 Months
Yes

Spitfire
£58.80
£0
24 Months
Yes

Freeola
£58.99
£0
1 Month
No

Stream Networks
£59.94
£60.00
24 Months
Yes

Pop Telecom
£59.99
£0
24 Months
Yes

Pulse 8
£60
£75
1 Month
No

Vispa
£60 (£67)
£0
24 Months
Yes

Your Co-op
£62
£60.00
24 Months
Yes

Unchained
£70
£25.00
12 Months
No

Cerberus Networks
£72
£48
12 Months
No

Optanet
£72
£0
24 Months
Yes

AAISP (Andrews & Arnold)
£75
£100
12 Months
Yes

In previous years we’ve tended to focus on the entry-level c.100Mbps packages in these comparisons, but as times change we’ve started to view Gigabit tiers as being more useful and some ISPs have even stopped selling the slower tiers. But as stated earlier, providers that are cheap for c.1Gbps are usually cheap for c.100Mbps too.

The data reveals that the average monthly price for a 1Gbps package during your first contract term, across all the listed providers and packages, comes out as £56.09. But we can also see that most of the smaller providers don’t play the first-term discounting game (i.e. big price cuts, until you reach post-contract) and thus, if we just look at the biggest players, the monthly average in that first term drops to £47.49. By comparison, the monthly average for just the smaller players comes out as £59.36.

Vodafone clearly came out as the cheapest ISP during the data gathering period (£36), although like most providers their post-contract pricing (£58) is much closer to the general average. On the flip side, AAISP (Andrews & Arnold) were the most expensive and their base data cap of 1TB remains a market oddity, but they’re also renowned for excellent service / support quality and their packages include Static IP addresses by default.

In the future we intend to come back and see how the pricing of these plans changes over time, although this will depend a lot on Openreach’s wholesale pricing and that is somewhat restricted by market regulation, as well as the usual competitive dynamics of the market.

News

The Dutch operator shut down its 3G network back in 2022

This week, KPN has announced formal plans to shutdown its 2G network by December 2025.

In a post on the company website, the operator explained the rationale for the move to customers as a way of strengthening the company’s more modern 4G and 5G networks.

“We are turning off our 2G network because fewer and fewer people are using 2G and are already using the internet via 4G and 5G,” the post explained. “In addition, we use 2G frequencies for our 4G and 5G network. This makes the 4G and 5G network even faster and better.”

The announcement was accompanied by an FAQ section for customers concerned about the 2G shutdown, including information on how to upgrade to a 4G/5G device.

Specific customers known to be affected by the shutdown will also be contacted directly and provided with advice to minimise disruption.

KPN shut down its 3G network in March 2022, announcing at the time that its 2G network would be left operational until December 2025 due to its use for machine-to-machine communications and as a fall back for voice communications. KPN’s rival Vodafone Netherlands is similarly targeting a 2025 shutdown date.

Odido, on the other hand, is already a step ahead having completed its own shutdown of 2G last year.

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

Also in the news:
FCC rejects SpaceX’s request for spectrum
Amazon invests $2.75 billion in AI startup Anthropic
T-Mobile gets green light to appeal class action lawsuit

Insight 

At MWC this year, we spoke to Ari Banerjee, the Senior Vice President of Strategy at Netcracker to discuss the hot topics at this year’s event, including AI, data security and monetisation

The biggest topic at the event this year was Artificial Intelligence (AI) and specifically Generative AI (Gen AI). Does Banjeree think that telco is ready to fully embrace GenAI?  

“We talk a lot about AI, machine language and the evolution to Gen AI. What we are seeing with our customers, first is that they need to really digitally transform themselves by having the right data. So, data transformation becomes a precursor to any AI ML [machine learning] strategy, because at the end of the day, if you have garbage or duplicate data, you are not going to be able to use AI in the right way.” 

Relating AI to data security is another current hot topic, and Netcracker have a telco Gen AI solution, that needs customer data to be able to provide the right answers. But private customer data cannot be exposed to the public cloud and is something that the company take very seriously. Netcracker’s secure gateway, which sits between the public LLM models, the customer and the BSS/OSS Systems plays an important role in providing security to the end user. 

What does Banerjee is the most exciting area for Gen AI technology? being able to understand the customer fully in what they are doing and then providing the right contextual offer to the customer. 

You can watch our full interview with Banerjee from the link below:

Mobile operator and UK ISP Vodafone have teamed up with Nokia Bell Labs to conduct a “world’s first trial” of the “viability” of harnessing L4S (Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput) technology over passive optical networks (PON), which could “greatly improve” network latency times for internet activities like AR, video conferencing and multiplayer gaming, even during peak hours.

For those who don’t know. Latency is a measure of the time that it takes for a packet of data to travel from your computer to a remote server and then back again (ping). The delay is measured in milliseconds (e.g. 1000ms = 1 second) and modern broadband connections will often have an average latency of anything from around c.4ms to 40ms (what is normal for your connection will depend on lots of different factors – see below).

A faster score (shortest time) is always best for latency, although the times can be affected by various things, such as the performance of remote internet servers, the connection technology being used, network congestion at your ISP, peering / routing problems and the setup of your own home network etc. But generally speaking, consumers with PON based Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband connections can usually already expect some of the best latency times of c.2-10ms.

However, there’s always room for improvement, which is where the new IETF Internet standard, L4S, comes in as it could enable networks to simultaneously maintain high throughput and low latency. L4S is based on the knowledge that the root cause of queuing delay (i.e. when packets wait idly in buffers across the network, for instance in routers and modems, before being forwarded) is in the capacity-seeking congestion controllers of senders, not in the queue itself. L4S thus aims to transition away from congestion control algorithms that cause substantial queuing delay and instead adopt a new class of congestion controls, which seek capacity with very little queuing.

Nokia Bell Labs and Vodafone’s Fixed Access Center of Excellence recently performed the “world’s first demonstration” of L4S running over PON in Vodafone’s lab in Newbury, England. The demonstration was performed on an end-to-end fixed access network built with Nokia technology. It consisted of a broadband network gateway (BNG), a PON optical line terminal (OLT), multiple PON optical network terminals (ONTs) and WiFi access points.

The lab tests showed extremely low and consistent end-to-end latencies when travelling across every element of the network and without compromising network speeds. In the tests, Vodafone and Nokia Bell Labs measured consistent latencies of 1.05ms at local Ethernet ports running over a fully congested access network (BNG to ONT) when loading a website, and just 12.1ms when including a fully congested WiFi link as the final connection. The fact it was “fully congested” is a key point, since otherwise 12.1ms on FTTP and WiFi (if we assume it was Wi-Fi 6E or 7 kit) might not seem all that special.

Azimeh Sefidcon, Head of Network Systems and Security Research, Bell Labs at Nokia, said:

“These highly encouraging results show L4S will unshackle any real-time application that would normally be constrained by high latency. Videoconferencing, cloud-gaming, augmented reality and even the remote operations of drones would run flawlessly across the internet, without experiencing any significant queuing delays.”

Gavin Young, Head of Fixed Access Centre of Excellence at Vodafone, said:

“As a leading broadband provider, Vodafone aims to give customers a faster, more responsive, and reliable service unhindered by lag even during peak hours. L4S is an exciting technology with huge potential to achieve this goal, as well as deliver a more interactive and tactile internet experience for our customers.”

The announcement does make a point of referencing online video games, although it is worth remembering that the related netcode for such games is typically designed to work across multiple different types of connection, including significantly slower links. As such, there is often an element of diminishing returns, where past a certain point you won’t notice any particular difference (e.g. if you already have FTTP with extremely fast latency times then L4S isn’t necessarily going to have a very noticeable impact, unless your network is under a lot of strain).

Hampshire-based network builder and gigabit broadband ISP, toob, which is deploying its own full fibre (FTTP) network and also sharing some of CityFibre’s infrastructure in parts of South England, has today announced its first price increase from £25 to £29 per month on an 18-month term for their one and only 900Mbps package.

The price increase may seem significant, although it’s worth remembering that this is for a 900Mbps package with free installation (i.e. £29 is still cheaper than most similar plans). The ISP has maintained their existing £25 price point for five long years, which is despite all of the recent cost increases that providers have been having to contend with.

Finally, toob’s packages have long been sold alongside a pledge of “no in-contract price rises“, which the provider says they intend to honour for existing customers.

Nick Parbutt, CEO of toob, said:

“Like anyone at present, toob is not immune to rising costs and we are having to adjust the price of our 900 Mbps service on new contracts from mid-May. We believe in making the benefits of full-fibre broadband available to all through one simple proposition, and at £29 for 900 Mbps, toob’s proposition continues with this approach by remaining more competitive than any of the major providers in the UK.

What’s more, when you enter a contract with a broadband provider, we believe the price should remain the same for the life of the contract, and toob’s customers can continue to be reassured that there will be no mid-contract price hikes.”

In addition, £29 is also the existing post-contract price of the current £25 offer (at present the original £25 deal is still showing on toob’s website, until next month), although at the time of writing we’re not sure if the post-contract price for new customers will thus be higher than £29 or remain at that level (checking this now).

UPDATE 11:35am

Toob has confirmed to us that the new post-contract price will indeed also rise, which means that after the first 18-month term you’ll go from paying £29 per month (new price) to £33 per month. But to get around that, customers will be able to recommit to a new contract.

Edinburgh-based rural ISP and network builder GoFibre (BorderLink), which is rolling out a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network around parts of the North of England and Scottish Borders, has issued a progress update on their ongoing deployment across Fife in Scotland.

The provider is currently expecting their network to reach a total of c.120,000 UK premises during early 2024, but they’re currently both live and in-build at 95,000 premises (homes and businesses) across more than 30 local areas. In particular, over 20,000 premises across towns and villages in Fife can now access their network.

Following nine months of network build, for the first time, more than 7,000 premises across rural communities west of Dunfermline are able to have a choice of networks and benefit from full fibre connectivity. Forming part of GoFibre’s commitment to help close the digital divide in rural areas, locations benefitting from the rollout include Crossford, Cairneyhill, and Torryburn.

In a series of network build updates for Fife, GoFibre has also announced that around 2,500 premises in the areas of Newport-on-Tay and Tayport will finally be able to sign-up for the provider’s network (construction work on the Tay Bridge held up progress for a lot of 2023). And, for those homes in the Falkland area, over 500 premises can access GoFibre’s network, with build continuing until autumn of this year, with an additional 500 premises added by then.

GoFibre’s network expansion in Fife began in summer 2022, when construction got underway in Cardenden and Burntisland. Since then, the network has continued to grow across the region into Aberdour, Ballingry, Cupar, and Kinghorn. When this phase is completed more than 30,000 residents and businesses in total will be able to enjoy enhanced connectivity and network reliability across Fife.

Neil Conaghan, CEO of GoFibre, said:

“We have been constructing our network in Fife since summer 2022 and have been getting to know the community, whether that’s been through engagements with customers or through our GoFurther Fund community initiative.

We’re dedicated to connecting as many premises as we can and continuing to support the area. Today’s milestone in our network build, sees even more homes and businesses being opened up to the benefits of our full fibre connection and there’s plenty more opportunity to come.”

Customers of the new service can expect to pay from £36 per month for a 100Mbps package on a 24-month term with an included wireless router, which rises to £69 per month for their top 1000Mbps plan. The latter also comes with a bonus Wi-Fi extender (this can optionally be taken on other plans at extra cost).

News

The move is aimed at increasing the telcos’ energy efficiency 

The Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Telecommunications (RTR) has announced the completion of its latest 5G spectrum auction, raising a total of €137.7 million. 

The auction saw seven blocks of frequencies awarded in the 26 GHz band and another seven in the 3.6 GHz band.  

The 26 GHz frequency proceeds totalled €16.2 million, with A1 Telekom, T-Mobile, and Hutchison (Drei) acquired 2 blocks for €4.6 million, 2 blocks for €4.6 million, and 3 blocks for €6.9 million, respectively.  

The operators can use the frequencies until the end of December 2046. 

“The 26 GHz band is characterized by very high bandwidths, but has a very limited range for mobile phone use,” said RTR in a press release. “Frequencies in this spectrum are therefore particularly suitable for (temporary) coverage of areas with high user density and therefore very high-capacity requirements (hot spots), but not for wide spread use. Another area of application is industrial use and campus networks.” 

The 3.6 GHz spectrum up for grabs, meanwhile, was left over from an initial band allocation back in 2019 and related to regions of the country in which the spectrum previously went unsold. In this band, seven regional licences were sold to A1 Telekom and T-Mobile, with the former acquiring four licences for roughly €2.6 million and the latter acquiring three licences for around €5.9 million. 

These licences are viable until the end of 2039. 

Perhaps most interesting within this announcement, however, is the regulator allowing the operators to turn off these frequencies at night. 

“For the first time, in connection with coverage requirements, the regulatory authority is allowing these frequencies to be switched off between 00:00 a.m. and 05:00 a.m., provided there is no reduction in performance compared to daytime operations.”  

Although no other information was provided, this move is a clearly aimed at saving energy, with the radio access network (RAN) accounting for a large portion of the operators’ energy consumption.  

With reduced demand for mobile services at night, it makes sense that operators should be allowed to turn off the more energy-intensive parts of their network that are going unused – though identifying suitable areas for service reduction in real time remains a challenge. Operators have been trying to control their RAN’s energy consumption dynamically for years, with recent developments in Advanced Sleep Mode tech gradually making this far more attainable.  

Until this technology matures and is widely deployed throughout operator networks, the simpler approach of turning off energy-hungry spectrum during periods of lowest usage seems like a reasonable way to reduce the operators carbon footprint as well as their energy bill.  

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

Also in the news:
County Broadband rolls out full fibre across Sudbury
Openreach leans on Labour party to remove broadband roadblocks for MDUs
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