Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The saying goes that criminals will steal anything that isn’t bolted down, but the opposite now seems to be true in Nottinghamshire (England), where a spate of recent metal thefts has seen criminals making off with the steel covers from several of Virgin Media’s (O2) broadband and phone street cabinets.

The situation, which typically leaves such cabinets exposed to the elements and thus at risk of damage, is unusual because unlike the normal targets of metal theft in telecoms networks (e.g. copper cables, batteries etc.), the relatively thin steel of such cases doesn’t tend to attract much value from scrap metal yards (e.g. prices vary, but it can be as much as around £200 per tonne; you’d need to steal a fair few cabinet shells to reach a tonne).

According to the BBC News, which identified the problem and has some pictures of the exposed cabinets, a number of covers for Virgin Media’s street cabinets have recently been stolen around the Nottinghamshire area. Naturally, Virgin Media has asked local residents not to touch or go near the cabinets until engineers could attend, although the operator said the safety risk was low.

So far as we can tell from the pictures, most of the cabinets that have been targeted seem to be of the older and smaller variety, which may carry Virgin Media’s Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) based DOCSIS 3.1 network (broadband, phone and TV). But we have seen some other evidence of modern cream coloured FTTP carrying cabinets also being targeted in different areas.

A Spokesperson for VMO2 said:

“Unfortunately, following a recent wave of metal theft in the Nottingham area, covers of cabinets housing broadband equipment have been targeted and stolen.

If residents in the area notice any cabinets with missing lids, they are advised to report this to the relevant operator.”

Sadly, the perpetrators of such crimes never have any regard for the harm they could cause to locals, some of which are dependent upon related services and would be at risk if local services were to be disrupted.

Problems with Virgin Media’s cabinets can typically be reported by dialling 0330 333 0444 or posting to this thread on Virgin Media’s Community Forum.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Business broadband and phone provider Planet Telecom has announced the launch of SIMOVO, which is said to be a new UK-based mobile eSIM-only operator built for “modern travellers who want a simpler, more flexible way to stay connected in the UK and abroad“.

The current market isn’t exactly short on travel focused eSIM-only providers, but now you have another option to consider alongside all of those. “With support for over 180 countries, instant QR code activation, and no roaming fees, SIMOVO is designed to make it easier than ever to connect your device without the need for physical SIM cards or complicated setup,” said a spokesperson to ISPreview.

In terms of what you can get, general data plans start at around £2 for 1GB of mobile broadband data for 7 Days in Spain and the USA (examples only) and go up from there. Options also exist for “unlimited data“, albeit with caveats.

In terms of those caveats, you can choose to get “high speeds” for the first 500MB, 1GB and 2GB etc. of “unlimited data” consumed. But after that you’ll be throttled “with 2G speeds after daily high-speed use” – the T&Cs define this as 0.5Mbps, which is poor but sadly not uncommon for travel eSIM providers.

Robin James, Managing Director of Planet Telecom, told ISPreview:

“SIMOVO was built to make staying connected abroad as effortless as possible. We wanted to remove the frustrations travellers face – from expensive roaming charges to physical SIM hassles – and replace them with a solution that works anywhere, activates instantly, and gives people full control over their data.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Broadband ISP and UK network builder Exascale, which has deployed their own gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to a few thousands premises in part of Telford and Wrekin, this week did something quite unique by quietly founding a brand new Internet Exchange (IX) in the Midlands (MidlandsIX).

Internet exchanges are physical sites that allow ISPs, content delivery networks (CDN) and other network operators to interconnect. Such facilities can deliver more efficient network routing and peering, which cuts both costs and helps performance in all sorts of different ways (latency etc.). The UK already has a number of primary IXs, many of which are run by the not-for-profit London Internet Exchange (LINX).

The big news this week is that business ISP Exascale has set up its own IX for the Midlands of England. Initially, MidandsIX will be offering 10G ports for free in Exascale facilities, while 100G and 400G ports will be available at a “low monthly reoccurring cost“. Ports in non-Exascale facilities will attract a monthly reoccurring cost regardless of port size.

Thomas Bibb, CEO of Exascale, said:

“I’m thrilled to announce the founding of a brand new Internet Exchange, right here in the Midlands!

MidlandsIX is perfectly positioned in the heart of the UK, enabling faster, more resilient, and more efficient interconnection for networks across the country. Our goal is to strengthen regional connectivity, reduce latency, and support the ever-growing demand for high-performance internet infrastructure.”

The new exchange will span Exascale’s facilities in Telford and Wolverhampton initially, although the ISP said they are already in discussions over establishing other facilities in the Midlands. Thomas added that “we’re creating this exchange for the good of the internet and the community we serve, we seek to just recover our costs, nothing more“.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

The Medusa submarine fiber optic cable system, owned by AFR-IX Telecom, has achieved a significant milestone with its first landing at the cable station in Marseille, France. This marks the beginning of the cable’s rollout across the Mediterranean, establishing a crucial connection between Southern Europe and North Africa.

The initial segment will connect Marseille with Bizerte, Tunisia, and Nador, Morocco, with the landings expected between late October and December 2025. The first phase is slated to be operational by early 2026, paving the way for subsequent landings planned throughout the year to expand the system across the region.

The Medusa system will span around 8,700km with 19 landing points, linking 12 countries across North Africa and Southern Europe, including Portugal, Morocco, Spain, France, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Malta, Libya, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt.

The cable system will support up to 24 fibre pairs, each with a capacity of 20 Tbps.

The project also extends beyond the Mediterranean, with planned connections to the Atlantic Ocean via Portugal and the Red Sea through Aqaba, Jordan. Further expansion to Sub-Saharan Africa is planned, with Gabon scheduled to join the network in 2028.

Marseille is a major digital hub in Europe, offering critical infrastructure such as data centres and multiple submarine cable interconnections.

“By bringing Medusa to Marseille, one of Europe’s leading digital hubs, we are laying the foundation for a project that will transform communications between Europe and Africa. Medusa will act as a driver of economic growth for the region and a catalyst for knowledge exchange across the Mediterranean,” said AFR-IX Telecom’s CEO, Norman Albi.

The Medusa project, a private initiative, has attracted substantial public funding due to its strategic importance. The European Union has contributed €38.3 million through its Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) program, supporting AFR-IX projects aimed at strengthening Europe-North Africa connectivity.

A notable participant in the Medusa network is Tunisie Telecom, which has signed a strategic partnership to operate a dedicated fibre-optic link between Bizerte and Marseille with a 20 Tbps capacity. The company’s involvement underscores the collaborative nature of the project, which is co-funded by AFR-IX Telecom, Orange, and the European Union.

As the first segment of Medusa approaches operational readiness, the project stands as a landmark development in Mediterranean telecommunications infrastructure, promising to enhance digital connectivity, foster economic integration, and strengthen ties between Europe and Africa over the coming decade.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Podcasts

Trust is a key factor in building lasting partnerships with tribal communities, according to Joel Ogren, the CEO of Assured Communications.

By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

Joel Ogren, the CEO and founder of Assured Communications, says building partnerships with tribal communities is about listening and understanding history from different perspectives.

With a lengthy career that includes years spent working with the Pacific Islander community in Hawaii, Ogren has now applied his relationship-building skills to build lasting partnerships in Washington State.

Namely, Assured Communications has a partnership with Toptana Technologies, which is owned by the Quinault Indian Nation.

Toptana Technologies operates what has been described as “the first indigenous-owned cable landing station and backhaul network provider on the West Coast of the United States.”

The venture that is now Toptana Technologies was announced in 2022. At the time, it was also announced that Assured Communications would be the venture’s primary operations service provider and facilitator of sales and industry partnerships.

Meanwhile, the passage of time has only strengthened Assured’s collaboration with Toptana Technologies.

In June of this year, Toptana Technologies announced the latest phase of their regional network build.

Listen to the full interview with Ogren on Spotify!

The effort, and east-west fiber route project, strives to connect to Ocean Shores. The route is additionally pitched as falling along a key connectivity corridor for Seattle, Washington and Hillsboro, Oregon.

In the announcement, Assured Communications was listed as “leading all aspects of the initiative from feasibility and design through engineering, construction, and go-to-market.”

‘We’re going to do it with integrity’

Ogren said he worked hard to build trust and get Assured to where it is today.

In his approach to building partnerships with tribal communities, Ogren said he signifies up front that he wants to earn the right to be considered a trusted partner.

“It’s important to me,” he said. “We’re going to do it with integrity and an open approach to the work that we do.”

Credentials and experience also matter, he said, adding that demonstrating the ability to deliver on a project is key.

He also said Assured’s success would not be possible without the company’s highly qualified team of professionals.

“They understand this, they have those same values that help drive me,” Ogren said. “The ability to address the digital divide, they see the value of what we can do for these economies.”

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Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Openreach (BT) has today published the next (Tranche 22) batch of 94 exchanges in their “FTTP Priority Exchange Stop Sell” programme, which reflects areas where over 75% of premises are able to get full fibre lines and will thus stop selling copper based legacy phone and broadband products (i.e. FTTP becomes the only product option).

Currently, there are two schemes for moving away from old copper lines and services, which can sometimes cross over. The first starts with the gradual migration of traditional legacy voice (PSTN / WLR) services to digital all-IP technologies (e.g. SOGEA), which is due to complete by 31st January 2027 and is occurring on both copper and full fibre products (i.e. ISPs are introducing digital voice / VoIP services). The national “stop sell” on legacy phone services began on 5th September 2023 (here).

The second “FTTP Priority Exchange” programme involves the ongoing rollout of gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines – using light signals via optical fibre instead of electrical signals via slow copper lines. Only after this second programme has largely completed (75%+ FTTP coverage) in an exchange area can you really start to completely switch-off copper-based products, which will come later as you have to allow time for natural customer migrations.

Between the scrapping of legacy phone services, the full fibre rollout and the gradual switch away from copper lines themselves, this process will take several years in each area to complete, and the pace will vary (i.e. some areas have better coverage of full fibre than others). Naturally, premises that can’t yet get FTTP will continue to be served by copper-based broadband products.

94 New Exchange Locations (Tranche 22)

In this programme, the migration process away from legacy services starts with a “no move back” policy (i.e. no going back to copper) for premises connected with FTTP, which is followed by a “stop-sell” of copper services to new customers (12-months of notice is given before this starts and that is what today’s list represents). This stage is then followed by a final “withdrawal” phase, but that comes later.

The stop sell is applied at premises level, so it shouldn’t impact you if you don’t yet have access to FTTP, although edge-case conflicts may still occur due to rare quirks of network availability.

The 94 exchanges confirmed today takes the total number of exchange upgrades that have already been placed under “stop sell” rules to 1,747 (includes those that have been notified of a future stop sell). The stop sell in today’s list will become effective from 6th November 2025.

The operator also has a Stop Sells Page on their website, which makes it easy to see all the planned changes. Otherwise, the following list is tentative, so changes and delays will occur (exchanges can and are often shifted around into different tranches).

94 Stop Sell Exchanges in Tranche 22

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Rural broadband provider Airband, which has deployed its own Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) based networks to cover various parts of Wales and South West England, appears to have become the latest alternative network (altnet) to expand beyond their existing reach by adopting Openreach’s full fibre lines for off-net areas.

Just to recap. The altnet’s current broadband network spans “more than 440,000 premises in over 200 communities across 7 counties“ (here), which we were told breaks down as being 175,000 premises via “fibre” (FTTP) and 265,000 premises via wireless (FWA) – all Ready for Service. The provider also expects to end 2025 with 30,000 customers.

However, over the past few months, we’ve seen a number of altnets and their associated broadband ISPs moving to expand their reach outside on-net areas by hooking up with arch rival Openreach (BT). Some of the biggest examples of this have come from Hyperoptic (here) and Netomnia (here).

Such developments can help manage situations where existing customers may move (house) outside of the altnets existing network area, although it can also generally be used to boost retail take-up. The latest example of this trend, as first spotted by one of ISPreview’s readers today (credits to SaltyW123), appears to be Airband.

Consumers who visit the website and input an address that exists outside of Airband’s current network coverage are now being given a summary of FTTP packages from Openreach. Prices range from £30.50 per month for 160Mbps and rise up to £39.50 for their top 1000Mbps package (discounted price). All packages include a 12-month term, £50 Amazon gift card, free installation and Nokia Wi-Fi 6 router.

We don’t currently know precisely when this change was first introduced, although we have asked Airband to comment and will update when they respond.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Partner Article 

As enterprises across the world ramp up their digital and AI transformations, Huawei Cloud has emerged as a partner of choice with solutions targeted for key industry verticals, such as manufacturing, finance, public services, and retail, among others.

The company announced the expansion of its AI-driven cloud portfolio at the recently concluded Huawei Cloud Industry Summit, held as part of Huawei Connect 2025. The two sessions, Huawei Cloud: The AI Pioneer in Industry and Huawei Cloud AI Summit: Unlocking All Intelligence, together highlighted the evolution of Huawei’s cloud technologies and solutions that are enabling enterprises across the world to achieve business success through AI-led intelligent transformation.

“AI is reshaping industries and our lives. To fully understand how we can make AI serve different industries, there are three pillars of computing, algorithm and data. If we use these three elements to develop AI applications and agents for our industry and life, it can support us. We promise to work around these aspects to support our global customers and partners to help them grow very fast,” said Charles Yang, Senior Vice President of Huawei and President of Huawei Cloud Global Marketing and Sales Services. He highlighted that Huawei Cloud’s industry-leading solutions have been deployed in over 500 scenarios across 30 industries.

The unique and differentiating aspect of Huawei Cloud solutions is that they are designed for the particular requirements of different industry verticals.  at every stage of deployment. “AI has become the most influential general-purpose technology. In cloud native, Huawei Cloud containers have been recognized as a global leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. Then we move to data and AI convergence and here Huawei’s big data and data warehouse ranked number one in market share in China. In addition, our Pangu models lead several major industries in China for AI,” said Joy Huang, Vice President of Huawei Cloud, in his keynote speech, `Accelerating Intelligence with Huawei Cloud’.

“To fast-track the intelligent transformation of our customers, Huawei Cloud will continue to innovate in the areas of cloud architecture, processes and tools, solutions and excellence operations,” added Huang. He also announced the launch of Enterprise Architecture Bench (EAB), a framework leveraging Huawei’s experience, methodologies and practices of deploying in over 500 AI scenarios, to help enterprises build and run AI solutions simply and efficiently.

Huawei Cloud recently announced the launch of its AI Compute Service powered by CloudMatrix384, a next-generation AI infrastructure solution designed for large-scale AI model training and inference.

“We launched CloudMatrix 384 Supernode in the first half of this year, marking our entry into the Supernode era for AI compute services. In terms of training, this allows us to scale up to 432 nodes into a single AI cluster, supporting as many as 160,000 chips, capable of training trillion-parameter models. With full-stack failure perception, we can now identify 95% of failures and recover from them quickly, maintaining stable training for up to 40 days and pushing MFUs above 55%,” said Bruno Zhang, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Huawei Cloud, in his keynote address on Huawei Cloud AI: Reshaping Industries with All Intelligence.

Leveraging Rich Experience to Gain New Capabilities

In both sessions of the Huawei Cloud Summit, several prominent global enterprises from varied industries shared their experience of deploying Huawei Cloud to accelerate their business growth and digital transformation.

“Dubai Municipality is driving the development of a digital transformation to enhance services across Dubai. By leveraging advanced tools like the 3D Digital Twin Engine and combining GIS data with AI technologies, the Municipality is implementing innovative solutions in human interaction, transportation, and tracking systems, with Huawei providing key technological support,” said Eng. Maitha Ali Al Nuaimi, Director of GIS at Dubai Municipality.

Huawei is empowering several enterprises, across different industry verticals, to transform their operations so they are better placed to take advantage of the new market opportunities. In her address, Xu Yue, General Manager Assistant at Conch Cement, highlighted how the company is using Huawei Cloud Stack, including Pangu prediction, to create an AI operating system that brings together central training, edge, inference, cloud-edgy synergy and optimization. It is able to leverage existing data for real-time data analysis and autonomous learning to improve quality control and equipment management, among others.

“The design process is typically very long, slow and inefficient. With the help of Huawei’s solution, we are able to use AI to generate background, size etc, to fast-track the process. We use Huawei Cloud AI Token Service to develop an AI-driven creative community for designers,” revealed Mi Qipei, Chief Product Officer at Gaoding (Xiamen) Technology.

On the other hand, XCMG, a leading manufacturer, shared insights into its partnership with Huawei Cloud, focusing on the integration of AI into manufacturing for autonomous vehicles and machinery. In the same vein, Faraz Arshad, Chief Technology Officer at Starzplay, the Middle Eastern streaming giant, highlighted how Huawei Cloud’s serverless scalability helped it to develop a high-performance content distribution and intelligent operations platform. Starzplay was able to enhance its platform’s user experience and scale the growth of its streaming platform. In Brazil, Itaú Unibanco was able to accelerate its multi-cloud strategy and cloud migration by leveraging Huawei Cloud’s solid foundation with security and automation capabilities.

In conclusion

These case studies effectively highlight how Huawei Cloud is enabling a range of industries to grow by helping them streamline their operations, acquire new capabilities, and foster innovation. Huawei Cloud is emerging as a leader in AI-powered, industry-specific cloud solutions, combining advanced infrastructure, software tools, and enterprise partnerships. Several successful deployments effectively demonstrate how it is helping enterprises streamline operations, enhance capabilities and drive innovation.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

British TV broadcasters Channel 4 and UKTV (U platform), which is owned by the BBC’s commercial division, have today announced a major new multi-year carriage agreement, which will see C4 gaining access to stream thousands of hours of additional free TV content and shows from the BBC via their online service (The Office, Red Dwarf etc.).

The agreement, which is expected to enhance the appeal of Channel 4’s streaming service to advertisers and various different audiences, also marks the first time that Channel 4 has carried a third-party service on its video streaming platform.

Consumers will start to notice the change from January 2026, when Channel 4’s streaming audiences will be able to find hundreds of shows from the U service (both catch up and boxsets) – including titles like Outrageous, Bergerac, Big Zuu’s Big Eats, Bangers & Cash, Pete Wicks: For Dogs’ Sake, The Office, Red Dwarf, QI, The Count of Monte Cristo and MasterChef Australia etc.

The partnership will also “allow UKTV to reach new audiences while still serving its loyal audience on its own platforms“. UKTV’s U service is to remain a standalone service and is available on all major connected platforms.

Jonathan Allan, Interim CEO of Channel 4, said:

“It’s fantastic that we are building on our long and successful commercial partnership with a bold new deal with UKTV to make our Channel 4 streaming proposition even stronger for viewers. Loads of brilliant British content from U will complement our own bold, noisy shows and UKTV will benefit from tapping into our younger streaming audience.”

Marcus Arthur, CEO UKTV, said:

“Following record viewing to our U streaming service last year, I’m delighted to be expanding our relationship with Channel 4 through this carriage deal and offering viewers even more opportunities to watch U’s rich mix of content. UKTV has a successful history of building scale through partnerships, and this exciting opportunity demonstrates the power of media companies collaborating to drive sustained growth, with clear benefits for UKTV, Channel 4 and above all viewers.”

Channel 4 streaming saw a 13% year-on-year increase in viewer minutes in 2024 – faster growth than key international streamers (SVOD) – and remains the youngest commercial BVOD player across the first half of 2025. UKTV saw total viewer minutes to its Video-on-Demand (VoD) content across its free and pay platforms grow by 40% in 2024, which is said to be the “fastest growing on demand presence in Britain“.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Common Wholesale Platform (CWP), which is a non-profit member-owned organisation that helps alternative broadband networks to connect with the retail ISP market, appears to be suffering some sort of disruption today after their main website domain went down (CWPUK.org) and stopped some consumer switching between ISPs.

At the time of writing it’s unclear what has caused the outage (some suggest it may be a change of web host), although CWP are one of the Managed Access Providers (MAPs) that enable a number of smaller ISPs to harness the industry-led One Touch Switching Company’s (TOTSCo) messaging hub; this forms part of the One Touch Switching (OTS) process for easier and quicker UK consumer switching between broadband and phone providers.

The domain outage is currently known to be disrupting the ability of some CWP partner ISPs to switch consumers between providers. Quite why CWP’s OTS integration / portal is dependent upon a single publicly exposed domain being functional is also unclear, but we’d imagine they may want to find a solution to that in the future.

UPDATE 3:35pm

We’ve had it confirmed that the outage affecting the CWP platform and its support systems was indeed due to a domain name change to a new host. The change was unexpectedly triggered earlier today instead of during the planned maintenance window. The platform is expected to be back online again shortly.