Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network operator Openreach (BT) has issued a progress update on their deployment of a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network in rural parts of Wales, Surrey, Hertfordshire and Wiltshire, which form part of their Project Gigabit contracts with the UK government.

Just to recap. Openreach has previously been chosen to deliver all of Project Gigabit’s Cross-Regional (Type C) procurements (here, here and here) via a Single Supplier Framework agreement (here) – currently reflecting £745m in total public subsidy to help upgrade 297,000 premises to full fibre technology in some of the hardest to reach parts of rural England, Scotland and Wales (i.e. premises with no prior access to gigabit connectivity).

The areas covered by these Type C contracts typically reflect locations where no or no appropriate market interest had previously been expressed before to the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, or areas that have been de-scoped or terminated from a prior plan. Areas like the ones above are often skipped due to being too expensive (difficult) for smaller suppliers; all the other contracts have gone to smaller alternative networks.

Openreach has today issued a few additional progress updates on their related Project Gigabit builds across remote rural parts of Wales, Surrey, Hertfordshire and Wiltshire, which reveals the next batches of locations to be targeted in each region (this also includes some surrounding areas). As usual, it’s important to reflect that network operators don’t usually reach 100% of premises in every location they target.

Openreach’s Project Gigabit Progress (Next Locations)

Wales

Northop Hall, Abercynon, Twyn-yr-Odyn, Nefyn, Llandebrog, Mynytho, Mynyddislwyn, Ynysddu, Hollybush, Abertillery, Aberbeeg, Llanhilleth, Llangeview, Llantrisant, Llanllywel, Llantilio Crossenny, Brynderi, Whitecastle, Llanmadoc, Llangennith, Llanidloes, Machynlleth, Cefn Coch, Llanfair Caereinion, Dolanog, Golfa, Devil’s Bridge and Llanilar.

Surrey

Knaphill, Pirbright and Bisley

Hertfordshire

Much Hadham, Albury, Farnham, Braughing and Bayford.

Wiltshire

Winterbourne Monkton, Brokerswood, Hawkeridge, Heywood, Eastcourt, Oaksey, Royal Wootton Bassett, Clyffe Pypard, Highworth, Avebury, Ogbourne St Andrew, Ogbourne St George and Woodsend.

In total, Openreach’s Full Fibre network already reaches more than 1.1 million properties across Wales, as well as 320,000 properties across Surrey, 360,000 properties across Hertfordshire and 215,000 properties across Wiltshire. In a canned statement, Telecoms Minister, Liz Lloyd, said: “By delivering infrastructure that will serve these communities for decades to come, we’re making sure everyone can benefit from the digital world, no matter where they live.”

The new service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some providers have started to do free automatic upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Government’s Building Digital UK agency has today published the latest Q2 – Q3 2025 progress report on their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme. The data reveals that some 1.3 million premises have now received coverage from BDUK’s gigabit programmes since their inception, albeit only 131,090 via Project Gigabit’s contracts.

At present over 88% of UK premises can already access a 1000Mbps+ capable broadband network (here) and Ofcom separately forecasts that this could rise to between 91-97% of homes by January 2028 (here). Most of this has been delivered by commercial deployments (predominantly focused on urban and semi-urban areas), but there are some areas in the final 10-20% of premises that are simply too expensive for commercial providers.

Project Gigabit itself was originally established in 2021 to help extend broadband ISP networks capable of delivering download speeds of at least 1000Mbps (1Gbps) to achieve “nationwide” coverage (c.99%) by 2030 2032 (here) – focusing on the commercially unviable areas (usually rural and semi-rural locations). The project has already committed most of its budget up to 2030, but there are still some contracts yet to be awarded and others that have been scaled-back or switched suppliers (here, here, here and here).

The latest update builds on BDUK’s prior report and covers the wider period between 1st April 2025 and 30th September 2025, although it should be noted that the agency tends to publish a separate and more regular monthly update in order to cover the progress of individual contracts under the Project Gigabit scheme (here). Today’s report is thus more of a general overall progress update, without any individual contract specifics.

The latest Q2-Q3 2025 BDUK data

Of the premises delivered by BDUK between 1st April 2025 and 30th September 2025 (Q2-Q3 only): 

• 71% (57,210) were delivered under Gigabit contracts, or Government Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS) 
• 18% (14,460) were delivered by vouchers 
• 11% (8,590) were delivered by Superfast (e.g. the prior SFBB programme) & Hubs (e.g. Local Full Fibre Networks for the public sector)
• 89% (71,500) of the premises delivered between 1 April 2025 and 30 September 2025 were classified as residential premises and 9% (7,100) were classified as commercial premises.  
• The highest delivery was in England (77%, 61,700 premises), followed by Scotland (14%, 11,300 premises), Wales (7%, 5,700 premises), and Northern Ireland (2%, 1,400 premises) 
• Yorkshire and the Humber had the highest delivery among English regions (19% of England, 11,400), followed by the South East (18%, 11,300) and the North West (17%, 10,300). 

The spreadsheet also includes some additional data and a regional breakdown of the figures, some of which we’ve included below. One key things to note below is that Project Gigabit itself has still only delivered a relatively small amount of gigabit coverage, with the earlier ‘Superfast Broadband Programme‘ (SFBB) still holding the lion’s share (largely because that has run for many years longer).

Gigabit Premises passed by year and BDUK intervention

Gigabit Premises Passed by Year, Country and Region

Finally, BDUK said they were also investigating their vouchers data quality, which may be resulting in a small underestimate of vouchers delivered.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network builder and broadband ISP CommunityFibre, which has invested c.£1bn to deploy a 5Gbps speed full fibre (FTTP) network across 1.342 million UK homes (inc. 185k businesses within 200 metres of their network) – mostly in London, have today launched a new entry-level 100Mbps package for small businesses.

The “Business Ready Broadband” product is said to have been exclusively designed for smaller business operators, such as hairdressers, corner shops, and local bakeries, who do not require speeds up to 10Gbps, or may not be eligible for residential broadband for commercial purposes.

Such businesses can now get CommunityFibre’s Business Ready Broadband 100Mbps broadband (24-month term and £0 set-up) + Calls + Public IP + MX20 router for £45 +vat month. This package also includes access to CommunityFibre’s Phone App, enabling users to make and receive calls on the go.

Business Ready Broadband Features

• Fast full fibre: 100 Mbps upload and download speeds, using the UK’s most reliable broadband technology. No copper at all.
• Calls: Unlimited calls to UK landlines and mobiles. Phone app to take calls on the go.
• Dedicated support team: Real help from real people. Our specialist business team are on hand to help keep you connected.
• Public IP: Unique IP address for secure remote access and hosting services (such as websites, servers and CCTV).
• Service guarantee: If something goes wrong, we’ll have you back up and running as soon as possible with our 8-hour fix time.
• Router included: A Dual-Band Linksys router at no extra cost.
• No hidden costs: There are no upfront costs to worry about with £0 set up fee and free installation.
• Superior reliability: Our award-winning network is up and running over 99.9% of the time, with no peak-time slowdowns.

Side note – by “public IP” they mean a fixed / static IP address.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Business focused UK broadband ISP, IT and Cloud solutions provider FluidOne has today announced that their existing Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Russell Horton, is to step down after seven and a half years in the post. Russell is to be replaced by Paul Kahn.

The announcement credits Horton with growing the business into a £100m+ secure connected cloud solutions provider, which serves 2,200 business customers across the UK. Under his leadership, the company has also completed and integrated nine strategic acquisitions. Horton will support the handover process before officially departing on 8th December 2025, and will remain as an investor in the business.

Horton’s replacement, Paul Kahn, joins the business after serving as President of Government Solutions International at NYSE-listed Fortune 500 company KBR Inc. Prior to that he was also President of Communications and Connectivity at FTSE 250 Cobham PLC. Suffice to say that he has experience in leading large-scale technology, engineering and services businesses through “complex transformations and delivering sustainable growth“.

Paul Kahn, Incoming CEO, said:

“I’m delighted to be joining FluidOne at such an exciting point in its development. Russell and the team have built a business with excellent foundations, strong customer relationships, a service portfolio bringing together secure connectivity, IT, cyber, unified comms and AI, and a culture that clearly delivers for customers.

My immediate focus is on listening and learning, understanding the business, our customers, and the team. I’ll be working closely with the senior leadership team to refine our strategy for the next phase of growth while maintaining the customer service excellence that FluidOne is known for.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The City of London (CoL) Corporation has picked Roc Technologies to deliver a new end-to-end networking connectivity solution, encompassing a UK-first enterprise SASE rollout for public services, AI-driven wireless capability and high-availability internet connectivity. The move comes after Roc reached a deal to harness Vorboss’ 100Gbps full fibre network in the area (here).

Coverage of the new Cloud supported network will span the City of London Corporation, the City of London Police, the Barbican Centre, City of London schools, parks, libraries and protected heritage locations such as Epping Forest, the iconic ponds at Hampstead Heath and Mansion House. A total of over 200 locations are to be included in the solution, ensuring the new connectivity reaches every employee, official, resident and visitor within its community.

The agreement is part of the CoL’s mandate to create a “One City” experience for millions, which aspires to redefine how connectivity empowers residents, visitors and businesses. “This trailblazing infrastructure brings tangible, everyday benefits to users right across the City. Reliable, high-speed access means staff can work productively and securely from any location … Importantly, this enhanced connectivity addresses critical public safety challenges: such as ensuring seamless support for 4K body-worn police cameras, which helps protect officers and the communities they serve, even in remote areas,” said the announcement.

Chelsea Chamberlin, Chief Technology Officet at Roc Technologies, said:

“The City of London sees footfall of millions of people a day, so it’s vital that a consistent network experience is delivered across all locations and to all users, including visitors, residents and businesses regardless of the services they need to access. We’re delighted to be the sole primary supplier for this exciting project, drawing on a range of solutions from our expert partners to deliver a truly future-proof network architecture in the heart of the capital.”

Zakki Ghauri, Director of Digital Services CoLC, said:

“Our ambition is to be at the forefront of digital innovation for the benefit of Londoners. Partnering with Roc enables us to modernise our network, enhance connectivity across all our organisations under one banner and ensure we can deliver innovative, flexible services wherever and whenever they are needed.”

Roc added that all of the vendors and partners involved in the delivery of the new service maintain resilient data centre operations in the UK, ensuring no sensitive data leaves the UK. The solution leverages HPE’s AI-Ops platform, Juniper MIST, global cybersecurity leader Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma SASE solution and Vorboss’ fibre network.

Consolidation of suppliers from 11 to one, Roc also promises cost efficiency – £20,000 a month in savings is projected by removing energy-consuming on-premises hardware and cutting supply chain complexity. The cloud-based service model (i.e. “all traffic and devices managed in the cloud“) is said to mean that services can be scaled up and down as needed, ensuring further savings and necessary agility for the corporation (hopefully they have a non-cloud alternative for disaster backup).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Broadband ISP B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North), which is a community built and supported network that has so far deployed their 10Gbps full fibre (FTTP) lines to cover 30,000 rural premises in England, has announced that they’ve secured new finance from Triodos Bank UK to help expand their network into the North East of England.

The provider, which is a registered Community Benefit Society (i.e. they can’t be bought by a commercial operator and profits go back into the community) and home to over 15,000 customers (target to reach over 20,000 in the next 5 years), has already expanded their full fibre network to cover various remote rural parts of Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Northumberland, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Yorkshire, Northumberland and County Durham – often with the direct help of local volunteers (building and shares).

The venerable alternative network is currently working to try and expand the reach of their network outside the North West and deeper into the North East of England, specifically focusing on areas around the Northumberland and County Durham border (e.g. Hexhamshire, West, Humshaugh, Kielder Forest, Kirkwhelpington, Simonburn, Slaley & Healey, Tarset & Falstone, Wall & Sandhow, Warden, Weardale and Woodburn).

However, such an expansion will require extra investment, which is where the new agreement with Triodos Bank UK should come in handy. In 2019, the bank’s corporate finance team structured and raised a £3.3m bond for B4RN, which helped the organisation scale its network and connect thousands of rural homes and businesses. This was often used to underpin their applications to the government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme.

Dinkar Suri, Senior Manager at Triodos Bank UK, said:

“B4RN exemplifies the kind of high-impact, community-led organisation we are proud to support. Its work not only bridges the digital divide but also strengthens rural economies and social cohesion. This new facility reflects our confidence in their model and our shared commitment to inclusive, sustainable development that helps people thrive.”

Tom Rigg, CEO of B4RN, said:

“Triodos has been a trusted partner since our 2019 bond raise, and the bank’s continued support is instrumental in helping us reach more communities. With this new funding, we can accelerate our rollout in the North East and ensure that even the most remote areas have access to world-class digital infrastructure.”

Unfortunately, the announcement doesn’t include any details of the new finance facility, which makes it a bit hard to judge the likely impact. The organisation’s latest annual accounts, which run to the end of March 2025, showed that they had a total of 80 employees, turnover of £4.8m (up 11%) and assets worth £33.67m.

The operator also generated Earnings Before Interest, Taxation, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) of £2.08m (2024: £1.76m) and received £1.8m in Government grants. Last year they invested £5.29m into building their network and its associated technology (2024: £5.71m).

The financial year to which this report relates also saw the launch of their partnership with Nokia as suppliers for the deployment of XGS-PON (10-Gigabit Symmetric Passive Optical Network) technology on their networks, with the first project going online in January 2025.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

One of the country’s largest alternative broadband networks, Netomnia (Substantial Group), will today publish their Q3 2025 results. The figures reveal that revenues on their multi-gigabit speed full fibre (FTTP) network increased to £27.7m (up from £23.6m in Q2 and 125% YoY) and take-up reached 14% (up from 13.4%). Some 2.8 million premises are now covered (up 241k in Q3 vs 243k in Q2).

The results confirm that Netomnia is continuing to build at a rapid pace and thus remains on-track for their current coverage goals – expanding their network coverage by almost 1 million premises per year. The provider also ended the quarter with a total of 396,000 customers (up by 54k in Q3 – the same growth as they had in Q2).

The brief results also reveal that the operator delivered their first positive adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) of £0.3m – excluding exceptional items, which is an impressive result given how Q2 delivered a loss of -£4.9m.

However, the ongoing network builds inevitably mean that the company’s Net Debt has also grown by 13% in the quarter to total £801m (debt drawn to date including accrued interest less cash), which is up from £709m in Q2.

Jeremy Chelot, Group CEO of Netomnia (YouFibre, brsk), said:

“For the second consecutive quarter, we’ve maintained the fastest network build and customer acquisition rate among Alt-Nets. With out continued momentum and by combining scale, speed, and capital efficiency, we remain confident in our plan to reach 5 million premises by 2027. Our focus continues to be on building a fibre network ready for whatever comes next, well-positioned and leading the industry’s consolidation.”

The operator has of course also recently been the subject of intense speculation over a possible grand £2bn consolidation deal with either CityFibre or Virgin Media (O2 / Nexfibre) – here, which could see Netomnia being one of the market’s kingmakers. Meanwhile, we’re now expecting YouFibre to launch their new VodafoneThree powered mobile service (YouMobile) in Q1 2026; it was previously expected to launch by the end of 2025 (here).

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

The telco will also resell Starlink’s services to enterprise customers

Today, African mobile operator Vodacom has announced a new deal with SpaceX’s Starlink, aiming to use the latter’s satellite constellation to improve connectivity in rural Africa.

The partnership will see Starlink satellites provide backhaul services for Vodacom’s mobile networks, helping to enable better service to customers in remote regions and support the expansion of terrestrial network infrastructure.

In addition, Vodacom will also resell Starlink’s services directly to enterprise customers.

Starlink currently has around 8,900 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), which it primarily uses to connect consumers and enterprises in rural locations.

“Starlink is already serving people, businesses, and organizations in 25 African countries,” SpaceX Vice President Chad Gibbs said. “By collaborating with Vodacom, Starlink can deliver reliable, high-speed connectivity to even more customers.”

Vodacom itself serves roughly 223 million customers across its African footprint, which includes the DRC, Egypt, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, and its home market of South Africa. The company is also active in Kenya and Ethiopia as a part-owner of Safaricom.

“Low-Earth orbit satellite technology will help bridge the digital divide where traditional infrastructure is not feasible, and this partnership will unlock new possibilities for the unconnected,” said Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub.

The operator will require specific national regulatory approvals to use Starlink services in each of these markets. The timeline for these approvals has not been announced.

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

A new Uswitch commissioned Opinium survey of 2,000 UK adults, which was conducted between 31st October and 4th November 2025, has claimed that 41% of respondents experienced at least one loss of broadband connectivity in the past 12 months and “15 million Brits” (67%) experienced outages lasting for three hours or more.

The survey goes on to claim that internet outages totalled 238.7 million hours in the past year, which is said to be costing the UK economy an estimated £1.4bn in lost work hours. Some 21% of those affected said they are having to suffer through 3 hours or longer outages “more than once a week“. Problems at the broadband provider were given as the top reason for prolonged outages by 37% of respondents, while 33% blamed it on power cuts and 27% attributed it to their router not working.

Furthermore, 49% of adults rely on their home Wi-Fi for work, and for home workers who have been affected by outages it is estimated to have cost them an average of £46.40, with 12% losing over £100 annually. Some 18% even said they were unable to work as a result and 28% of those who use a home internet connection for work purposes had to increase their working hours to offset the downtime.

In terms of the regional results. Edinburgh and London take the spot as the UK’s outage capital, with 48% of residents suffering disconnection. But this falls to 18% in Belfast, followed by Cardiff (30%), Brighton (31%), and Sheffield (32%). But the sample size of this survey really is too small to be credible on this front.

The UK Top 5 Outage Capitals
(highest % of residents experiencing an outage)

• Edinburgh (48%)

• London (48%)

• Bristol (45%)

• Norwich (43%)

• Liverpool (43%)

Finally, 78% of those who experienced an outage said they did not receive compensation and 9% had their compensation request denied. But in fairness, Ofcom’s scheme for Automatic Compensation only kicks in for service outages that last longer than 2 working days, which is rare (most outages only last a few minutes or hours).

Naturally, we have a few comments on this, not least of which is the fact that we haven’t actually seen any hard independent data evidence to corroborate the above findings (in fairness, it’s a difficult thing to study with any accuracy). Opinions surveys are of course also best taken with a pinch of salt, since they don’t always reflect reality.

In addition, more reliable full fibre (FTTP) networks have grown in both coverage and take-up in recent years, while more people are now back working from an office (i.e. fewer people are now at home to spot when outages occur). Not to mention that it may be considered a bit misleading to term the overall result as a “broadband outage” when you’re also including power cuts into the mix; something ends users could often mitigate with their own backups, if so desired.

The other issue typically stems from whether a “broadband outage” is actually caused by an internet provider or is instead an issue within the home, such as a local network, viruses / hacker, router, Wi-Fi or end-user device problem. Surveys like this often can’t correctly distinguish the difference, which tends to result in everything being blamed on the broadband connection, while the wider picture may be more complex.

However, modern broadband networks can certainly still be disrupted in all sorts of different ways, such as via weather damage (flooding, fallen trees etc.), third-party street works cutting through cables, fires, power cuts at an exchange / data centre and deeper faults within an ISP’s network (e.g. hardware failure, routing / peering or DNS mistakes etc.). Most of these are quickly resolved, but others can take days or even longer (complex incidents in remote rural areas are usually slower to resolve).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Openreach has today announced a raft of above inflation price hikes on some of their older copper-based line products for UK internet and phone providers, which are designed to “encourage” comms providers to upgrade their customers to “digital alternatives” and full fibre (FTTP) technology; before legacy services are switched off in January 2027.

Just to recap. The legacy phone switch-off was last year delayed to 31st January 2027 in order to give broadband, phone, telecare providers, councils and consumers more time to adapt (details). The main focus of this was the 1.8 million UK people who use vital home telecare systems (e.g. elderly, disabled – vulnerable users), which aren’t always compatible with digital phone services because telecare providers were slow to adapt. But this overlooks that, for everybody else, many providers will still be working toward the original Dec 2025 deadline to have their customers off the PSTN network.

Suffice to say that today’s change relates to that process, as well as the more distant future withdrawal of other copper-line products and services. Openreach thus intends to introduce wholesale price increases on four of its copper-based products – which will see “prices double in the final three months” before the PSTN – the old system used for landline calls – is switched off.

Rental prices for Openreach’s Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) basic product and other WLR variants, will increase by 20% from April 1^st 2026, followed by a huge 40% rise, on the current price, in July 2026, and rising by a further 40% in October 2025, double the current rental price.

Price increases

• On 1 April 2026 the WLR basic rental price will rise from the current price of £10.65 + vat by 20%.  The rental price will also rise for other WLR variants
• On 1 July 2026 the WLR basic rental price will rise by 40% of the current price. The rental price will also rise for other WLR variants
• On 1 October 2026 the WLR basic rental price will rise by a further 40% of the current price. This will be to double the current rental price.  The rental price will also rise for other WLR variants.

However, at the same time Openreach is adding to a number of existing migration incentives by launching a connection special offer, which will provide a free or discounted connection for providers who upgrade their customers to SOGEA – an alternative copper-based service providing a digital broadband line (FTTC / VDSL2) where full fibre is not yet available.

Breaking news.. more to follow..