Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Broadband-based live TV streaming service Freely, which is supported by most of the major UK TV broadcasters (BBC, ITV etc.) and is an evolution – not (yet) a replacement – for the existing Freeview service (inc. Freeview Play and Freesat), has said they’re adding another 7 channels to the free platform via partnerships with Warner Bros. Discovery UK & Ireland and CNN.

The first of these channels, CNN Headlines (channel 305), has already gone live and will be followed in early 2026 by Quest, Quest Red, Food Network, DMAX, Really and TLC – which moves to free-to-air in January 2026. The new additions mean Freely will carry over 70 live channels via Wi-Fi, alongside more than 75,000 hours of on demand content. Further expansion is currently being planned for 2026.

Freely is currently available on new smart TVs from manufacturers including Hisense, Bush, Toshiba, Panasonic, JVC, Sharp, TCL, Amazon Fire TVs and METZ. Most recently these have also been joined by some “Plug-in and stream” devices, such as a new box from Humax and PLEIO from Netgem TV.

Deep Halder, CCO of Everyone TV, said:

“These additional channels have so much to offer the Freely audience, further expanding the line-up for UK homes who are increasingly choosing to stream live TV. From global news delivered by CNN to the extensive portfolio of entertainment shows from Warner Bros. Discovery, who recently announced some exciting linear-first commissions of fan favourites including a new-look Mock the Week coming to TLC next year. Viewers will be able to easily and seamlessly access these brand-new shows, all in one place, for free, on Freely.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Get ready for yet more online video content fragmentation as the CEO of American TV and Movie streaming giant HBO Max, Casey Bloys, has announced that its service will finally go live in the UK and Ireland during March 2026. But the platform will be going live in Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein first, on 13th January 2026.

Historically, if you wanted to watch HBO’s content in the UK (e.g. “It: Welcome to Derry,” “House of the Dragon,” “The Last of Us” etc.), then you would have had to pay for access via different platforms and channels, such as Sky TV (inc. NOW TV). Sky has already done a deal to ensure that they’ll still be able to carry the content (here), but others will now be able to subscribe directly to HBO Max instead.

The big uncertainty in all this is that HBO is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which earlier this year revealed its plan to split into two separate companies, with HBO becoming part of the “Studios & Streaming” business. Suffice to say that several bids have already been made and the situation has created some uncertainty over what content HBO Max will actually end up carrying by the UK launch date.

HBO Max currently offers three main plans in the USA: Basic with Ads for $10.99/month or $109.99/year, Standard for $18.49/month or $184.99/year, and Premium for $22.99/month or $229.99/year. The Premium plan includes 4K content and streams on four devices simultaneously, while the Standard plan has no ads and streams on two devices.

At the time of writing we don’t yet know how much HBO Max will charge UK consumers for these, but we suspect the £ GBP price will follow a similar standard level to the USA (i.e. if you add 20% VAT then that gets you close to £10 per month for ‘Basic with Ads’). Whether consumers will appreciate having to pay for yet another streaming service, which further fragments their access to content, is another matter.

The news also comes in time for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, which will be broadcast live on HBO Max from 6th to 22nd Feb 2025, albeit not for the UK and Ireland since it won’t have launched yet.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

The shares, purchased from the Kenyan government and Vodacom’s parent company Vodafone, give it a 55% stake in the business

This week, South Africa telecoms giant Vodacom has announced a deal to increase its stake in Kenya’s Safaricom to 55%, in a deal worth $2.1 billion.

The deal would see Vodacom acquire a 15% stake in the business from the Kenyan government and a further 5% stake from its parent company Vodafone.

Acquiring a controlling stake in Safaricom is part of Vodacom’s wider Vision2030 strategy, which aims to see the company grow its subscriber base to 260 million and greatly expand the company’s digital and financial service offerings by the end of the decade.

Safaricom is the largest mobile operator in Kenya, with around 50 million customers. In 2022, the company led a consortium to build a second national operator in Ethiopia, which has since gained around 10 million subscribers.

“This landmark transaction will mark a pivotal step in Vodacom’s journey to accelerate growth and deepen our impact across Africa,” said Vodacom Group CEO, Shameel Joosub. “Acquiring a controlling stake in Safaricom strengthens our position as a market leader, while at the same time unlocks new opportunities to drive digital and financial inclusion at scale in Kenya and Ethiopia.”

The deal is subject to typical regulatory approvals.

Keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news with the Total Telecom newsletter

Also in the news
Connected Britain Award winners 2025 announced!
Netomnia announces ‘powerful and ambitious’ rebrand ahead of Connected Britain
VodafoneThree drops Samsung, relies on Nokia and Ericsson for £2bn network upgrade

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Interview

At Connected Britain 2025, we caught up with Incognito Software Systems’ Sonya Goodanetz to discuss how speed alone is no longer enough for consumers

“Customers don’t buy technology. They buy products and services. You’ve got fibre and you’ve got speed – now what?”

Far from a rhetorical question, this is a major challenge facing ISPs in the UK, where strong competition is leaving providers struggling to attract and retain customers.

Speaking at Connected Britain 2025, Incognito Software Systems’ Senior Marketing Product Manager Sonya Goodanetz highlighted the rapid growth of value-added services (VAS) boosting average revenue per user (ARPU).

“We’re seeing a lot of competitive differentiation strategies, especially around value-added services,” she explained, highlighting cybersecurity offerings and traffic prioritisation for services like cloud gaming, as key areas for growth. “It’s about end-to-end quality of experience.”

Thanks to the latest technology, implementing VAS at scale is now quicker and easier than ever.

“Previously you’d put an agent on a device, test every make and model, and push it to market. By then, a year has passed and you’re starting all over again,” she explained. “The game has changed now. Being able to deploy apps onto residential gateways immediately delivers these value-added services.”

It’s imperative, Goodanetz says, that ISPs go beyond being “just a pipe” and gain a foothold into new verticals, whether that is healthcare or consumer IoT within the connected home.

Check out our full interview below:

Keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news with the Total Telecom newsletter

Also in the news
Connected Britain Award winners 2025 announced!
Netomnia announces ‘powerful and ambitious’ rebrand ahead of Connected Britain
VodafoneThree drops Samsung, relies on Nokia and Ericsson for £2bn network upgrade

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Rural broadband ISP Quickline, which is building a new gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) and wireless (FWA) broadband network across rural parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England (3-Year Rollout Plan), has today announced that they’ve now covered 10,610 premises as part of their publicly subsidised Project Gigabit contract.

The alternative network actually holds several Project Gigabit contracts, but this one specifically relates to their £118.9m (public subsidy) contract for East Riding of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (Lot 23) under the government’s Project Gigabit programme; this was announced back in July 2024 (here) and aims to reach around 72,000 additional premises over the next few years.

As of November 2025, the provider said they’d delivered 10,610 funded premises under Lot 23. A further 17,000 homes and businesses can now also connect to their network through associated commercial build activity, extending the reach and impact of the network even further.

Communities including Hollym, Tickton, Kilham and Langtoft in East Yorkshire and Anwick, Burgh le Marsh and Grainthorpe in Lincolnshire are just some of the places benefiting from all this.

Lauren Robson, Project Manager at Quickline, said:

“This contract area covers a huge geography, stretching from the very south of Lincolnshire right up to the North Yorkshire border, and we’re building in some of the most remote places. Reaching more than 10,000 funded premises is a fantastic milestone.”

Telecoms Minister, Liz Lloyd, said:

“We’re committed to levelling up digital infrastructure across the country, and this milestone shows real progress in connecting rural communities that have been left behind for too long … I am pleased to see Quickline not just delivering infrastructure, but also supporting community initiatives on digital education and inclusivity.”

Quickline is currently aiming to extend gigabit-capable broadband to a further 360,000 UK premises across thousands of rural communities (roughly 170k via publicly funded projects and almost 200k from commercial builds) and the provider hopes to end 2025 with a total of 200,000 premises passed.

Residential customers reached by their new full fibre network are typically charged from £22 per month on a 24-month term for 100Mbps (50Mbps upload) speeds with free installation, which goes up to £32 for their top 1000Mbps symmetric speed tier (reduced from £49).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Customers of home broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2), specifically those who take their Pay TV service (usually via one of their TV 360, Stream or v6 box platforms), may like to know that the service has now added support for Fox Corporation’s ad-supported streaming service, Tubi, at no extra cost.

Tubi, which claims to entertain over 100 million monthly active users across the world, is currently home to a vast catalogue of over 60,000 movies and TV episodes accessible to millions more households. A sample of titles available for viewers in December include Zombieland, Baby Driver, Bend it Like Beckham, Jack and Jill, Robin Hood (2018) and La La Land.

David Bouchier, Chief TV and Entertainment Officer at VMO2, said: “We are delighted to add Tubi to our offering, giving Virgin TV customers access to one of the world’s biggest offerings of world-famous movies, TV shows and documentaries at absolutely no extra cost. With Tubi, we know families can immerse themselves in even more must-see on demand entertainment on the Virgin TV platform.”

Apparently more than 95% of viewing on Tubi is on–demand movies and TV shows, although it recently launched over 30 Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television (FAST) Channels with key partners such as Lionsgate, A&E, Banijay, and Filmrise.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

A new set of TikTok videos have recently gone viral – after being viewed over 4 million times – for their depiction of two neighbours arguing over whether or not Openreach have dug up the wrong garden, while engineers are busy laying a new fibre optic broadband cable in the background. But there seems to be a key bit of context missing from the debate.

According to the BBC’s description of the event, Melanie Abbott returned home to find that Openreach’s engineers had, without asking her, dug a trench along the edge of her front lawn in Milton Keynes (England) to run the new cable; something that would certainly irritate most people. At the same time, Ms Abbott’s neighbour, who claims to have apologised, said she was only expecting a narrow trench to be dug by hand within her boundary, not a much wider one on her neighbour’s lawn.

The whole event is covered by a series of TikTok videos, which sadly contain too much swearing for us to share directly. But suffice to say that Ms Abbott disputes, somewhat strongly, her neighbour’s explanation. This has naturally resulted in a lot of people questioning why Openreach dug up the wrong garden in the first place (note: they seem to have used third-party contractors), which is a valid point, as we’d normally expect a wayleave (legal access agreement) to be signed by the property owner first.

The catch is that, according to Openreach’s engagement with the local council, both properties are said to be council owned and not private. In that situation, Openreach would first need primary permission from the council and don’t need to secure a wayleave agreement from either tenant. Engineers may still ask practical permission from the tenant(s), but this is usually more for the purpose of agreeing where the cable will go and is not the same as a legal wayleave.

An Openreach spokesperson told ISPreview:

“Our engineers always need permission to dig when crossing private property and have to apply for a wayleave – a legal agreement between us and the landowner – to cross or dig on land that belongs to someone else to provide service to a third party. We’re currently talking to the local council and investigating further to check whether all the rules were followed in this case.”

As above, the reason Openreach are currently checking with the local council is because the two properties involved are said to be council owned. But the whole situation remains quite confused, and there may well be other aspects that have not yet been completely understood or clarified, which are hard to investigate without knowing the exact location of the incident.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Fern Trading (Octopus Investments) backed company Vitrifi, which was first incorporated back in 2021 and offered a cloud-based software platform to help alternative network providers (altnets) offer wholesale products (details), appears to have filed a new notice stating their intention to appoint an administrator.

The notice itself (here), which was first filed on 1st December 2025, doesn’t reveal much and has yet to appear on either The Gazette or Companies House (this usually follows later). Administration itself often occurs when a company, such as one that is in financial difficulty, is put into the hands of an administrator. The administrator then decides whether they can help the company to continue running or sell it off for a good price.

Once in administration, the company is often protected from legal action by people or organisations who are owed money (creditors). Administration can also mean that the company may not have to pay all its debts in full, but if deemed necessary, they can still be wound up.

The cause of Vitrifi’s predicament is currently unclear, although there are now quite a few wholesale platforms vying for dominance in the UK’s embattled fibre optic broadband market (e.g. Zen Internet’s Fibre Hub, PXC, APFN itself and more).

The records on Companies House also show quite a few recent Directorship changes and their latest annual accounts reported a loss for the year of £10.73m (2023: £9.45m), with net liabilities of £16.72m (2023: £5.98m) and a turnover of £155,704 (2023: £446). The average number of employees during the year was 56 (2023: 46).

One of the company’s main clients was another Fern Trading backed operator, Vorboss, which could be impacted by the news. Vitrifi recently stated that they were playing a “key role in powering Vorboss’s newly launched business fibre connectivity solution designed to transform public services across the capital” (here)

ISPreview contacted both Vorboss and Vitrifi for a comment on Wednesday and await a response.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has given its blessing to the “early 2026” introduction of short “notice, short duration licences” for outdoor and indoor use in the 2320-2340MHz radio spectrum band, which could support everything from pop-up 4G and 5G mobile (broadband) coverage to TV broadcasting etc.

The idea seems to be that companies and organisations could harness the spectrum to power temporary mobile networks (e.g. 4G and 5G), such as for news-gathering and broadcast of major events, sports coverage, pop-up mobile coverage and private network demonstrator events. Such solutions already exist (e.g. Cells on Wheels [CoW]), so this is extending that sort of capability.

“We expect that the new short notice, short duration licence product will be available to applicants from early 2026. We will provide an update on our PMSE licensing and Shared Access pages when the new product becomes available. Applications will initially be made through our usual PMSE licensing processes, although the product will be available to any user meeting the licence conditions,” said Ofcom’s statement.

Ofcoms Decision

We have decided to introduce a short notice, short duration licence for indoor and outdoor use in 2320-2340 MHz. The main features of this licence are:

• a simplified ‘pre-coordination’ process to protect existing users:

> we will use a mixture of pre-planned protection zones (e.g. around military and other public sector uses) and fixed separation distances (e.g. from Shared Access licensees) to coordinate users.

> new licensees will operate on a ‘non-interference, non-protection’ basis. Feedback from prospective licensees indicates that temporary users understand that they may need to take mitigating actions to protect other users where necessary.

• a maximum transmit power of 30 dBm Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP). Consultation responses confirm this maximum transmit power is suitable for most short duration uses, including wireless cameras and other localised or campus style networks. This power level also helps ensure the protection of other users sharing this spectrum.

• a maximum duration of fourteen-days. Keeping this period fairly short means that the licence is matched to the kind of short duration use cases we envisage. This limited time period also makes it possible for us to offer these licences outdoors (as well as indoors), while ensuring the longer-term needs of other users can still be protected.

• an expected licensing turnaround time of around 3 days. This turnaround time – which is quicker that than our Shared Access licensing process – is made possible by the simplified coordination approach and agile licence conditions that we are implementing.

• licence fee of £56 per 10 MHz for each 48 hours of use. This fee reflects our existing fee framework for programme making and special events (PMSE), and will keep costs relatively low, while incentivising short duration, agile use of the spectrum.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Horsham-based Telecom Acquisitions Group (TAL), which is a holding company for a number of familiar internet service provider brands (Home Telecom, Eclipse Broadband etc.), has announced that they’ve just acquired a small base of 850 more residential broadband customers from the remaining part of TalkTalk owned UK ISP Origin Broadband.

Just to recap. TalkTalk transferred 95,000 customers of Origin Broadband, which is a trading name for Origin Communications and OB Telecom (owned by TalkTalk), to Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) earlier this year as part of a new partnership (here). But this still left Origin Broadband to hold a small number of Vodafone-based broadband lines.

“Mainly connected through the Vodafone infrastructure using its SoGEA network, this base was only a small acquisition for us but, added to the 4,000 customers we gained from recently acquiring Earth Broadband’s base, means we hit our quarterly target,” said TAL CEO Nigel Barnett. “Our organic sales are still growing month on month, and we’ve just launched our own app to give people better control over their router and internet.”

In terms of the migration, Barnett claims that initially, TAL customers will be able to review their speeds and functionality of their devices, including reviewing faults. Later this month parental controls will be available and account details and payment functions will follow shortly afterwards.

Nigel Barnett said:

“All this follows the recent launch our own Advanced Communications Platform (ACS) platform which gives us greater control over our routers and in turn has reduced fault resolution times by 20%.

Over the last two months we have also introduced AI for the first time, with our credit control team using the latest technology out of hours. This was so successful that we stopped outbound dialling and relied on the AI option of paying on-line or speaking to an agent.

Embracing this success, we designed a campaign for our support desk, for routers, installs and closing fault instructions that resulted in a great saving in man hours and customer satisfaction.

The future looks very bright and, with further acquisitions in the pipeline, 2026 should be a record year for TAL”.