We’ve recently been talking a lot about the challenges being faced by alternative broadband network providers (AltNets) and related ISPs in the UK, so it’s worth taking a minute to scan over the latest data from Intelligens Consulting. This summarises the build plans and changing market shares of the largest ten players. At present around […]

UK ISP Fibrus, which is deploying a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband networks across N.Ireland and the North of England, has today claimed that it now “offers [the] fastest broadband services in Northern Ireland” and has “launched” a “service at 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps)“. But no, you can’t actually buy this.. yet. Consumers who read […]

Consumers looking to join UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) may like to know that the provider has started this week by refreshing their discounts for new customers, which among other things includes 6 months of half-price service on their standalone ultrafast broadband plans (i.e. on the 125Mbps to 500Mbps tiers). As usual, new customers can […]

The Worcestershire County Council (WCC) in England has committed to help ensure that 90% of premises across the county will be able to access a gigabit-capable broadband ISP network by 2027, which will be partly funded via clawback (gainshare) from their earlier rollout programme with Openreach (Superfast Worcestershire). Just to recap. The original Superfast Worcestershire […]

News

The French operator said it will shut down its 2G networks in 2026, followed by its 3G network in 2029

This week, Bouygues Telecom’s B2B Market Director, Jean-Christophe Ravaux, has been quoted by French news media L’Usine Digitale suggesting that the company still has a few years to go before shutting down its 2G and 3G networks.

According to the article, Ravaux says that the French mobile operator is aiming to shut down its 2G network in 2026 and its 3G network by 2029.

“The closure of these networks is a fundamental trend because these technologies are coming to an end,” he said. “That’s why it makes sense to reallocate these frequencies to 4G and 5G for better quality of service. This is the meaning of the story. We have therefore decided, after studying the interest for our customers, to switch off our 2G network at the end of 2026 and our 3G network at the end of 2029.”

This schedule is roughly in-line with that the company’s local rivals; Altice France (SFR) said earlier this year that they are also aiming to decommission their 2G network in 2026 and their 3G network by the end of 2028, with Orange saying it would target 2025 for the shutdown of 2G and 2028 for 3G.

It is worth noting here that strategies regarding the shutdown of 2G and 3G networks vary widely from market to market. In the UK, for example, all of the national mobile operators have committed to shutting down their 3G networks by the end of 2024, though 2G networks may, in some cases, remain operational until 2033.

This is because 2G networks provide a useful low-power fallback, is well suited for machine-to-machine communications (such as for smart meters), and in some cases is the only network available in some of the country’s most rural regions.

France’s neighbour Germany has been even faster to sunset these older networks, with all of the country’s mobile operators having shut down their 3G services already, and most targeting 2G decommissioning by the end of 2025.

Also in the news:
Regulators set deadline for decision on Orange–VOO tie-up
Virgin Media O2 to create hundreds of apprenticeships roles
Bullish Jansen questions need for choice

News

The regulator says its provisional view is to not intervene over Openreach’s plans to further reduce fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) product prices for ISPs

Today, Ofcom has opened a consultation on Openreach’s controversial proposed discount plan, Equinox 2, which would offer major discounts to ISPs purchasing the operators wholesale fibre products.

In its statement, Ofcom said that their provisional decision would be to allow this latest wave of discounts, saying that the move would not threaten competition.

“We have carefully assessed Openreach’s offer – taking into account the interests of consumers, as well as the impact on competitors and retail broadband providers,” Ofcom said in a statement. “Our provisional view is that we should not intervene to prevent Openreach from introducing Equinox 2. We consider the offer is not anti-competitive and is consistent with the rules we consulted on before introducing them under our market review in 2021. Maintaining these rules for the period of the review is also important to achieving certainty for all companies looking to invest in broadband networks.”

“In our provisional view, the proposed offer is consistent with our primary strategic goal of promoting investment in high-speed networks to deliver fast, affordable broadband to people and business across the UK.”

Openreach’s Equinox discounts are a controversial topic for the UK fibre industry.

The original Equinox discounts were first envisaged following the publication of Ofcom’s Wholesale Fixed Telecoms Market Review back in March 2021. Regulatory changes within this document allowed Openreach to potentially launch a range FTTP product discounts – now knowns as Equinox 1 – saying doing so would help keep their products competitive versus the typically cheaper products available from altnets.

In case cases, these original Equinox offers would provide price cuts for ISPs of up to a third for fibre products.

Naturally, this was a controversial proposal, with the UK’s altnet community arguing that it would be unfeasible for them to drop their prices to similar levels, thereby squeezing them out of the market. They also argued that this pricing would be a huge barrier for new market entrants to compete with the incumbent.

Nonetheless, Ofcom ultimately allowed Openreach to launch the Equinox offers, which were formally introduced in October 2021.

Now, Ofcom’s seemingly affable attitude towards further discounts in the form of Equinox 2 could set the altnets on the war path once again. While the provisional decision is certainly in keeping with Ofcom’s original ruling over Equinox 1, additional discounts will heap further pressure onto altnets and we are likely to see significant push-back during this consultation period.

In fact, some legal challenges against these discounts have already been raised, with CityFibre lodging an official complaint to the Competition and Markets Authority late last year, arguing that Ofcom was allowing Openreach to pursue “an aggressive strategy to foreclose infrastructure competition in the UK fibre broadband market”.

This is not the first time that CityFibre has been at the helm of a legal challenge against Equinox, having seen a previous appeal to the Competition Appeal Tribunal rejected last year.

Ofcom’s final decision on Equinox 2 will be announced at the end of March.

How will Openreach’s Equinox discounts affect the UK fibre market? Join the broadband community in discussion at this year’s live Connected North conference

Also in the news:
Regulators set deadline for decision on Orange–VOO tie-up
Virgin Media O2 to create hundreds of apprenticeships roles
Bullish Jansen questions need for choice

Mobile operator Three UK has confirmed that they too have joined EE (here) and Vodafone (here) in starting to rollout their ultrafast 5G (mobile broadband) service on the London Underground (tube trains), with Archway, Tufnell Park, and Notting Hill Gate stations this week becoming the first to be upgraded. David Hennessy, Three UK’s CTO, told […]

A short but interesting debate took place yesterday in the House of Lords (Parliament), which saw many cross-party peers call on the UK government – represented by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (DCMS) – to do more to help tackle the impact of recent above-inflation price hikes by broadband ISPs. The debate, which provides an […]

The Welsh Government (WG) has today signalled its intention to follow England’s updated Building Regulations by launching a consultation into proposals that would echo those, not least by requiring housing developers to “ensure all new build houses be equipped with gigabit broadband capability“. Just to recap. At present around 57.07% of premises in Wales are […]

SpaceX’s popular Starlink service, which harnesses a mega constellation of compact satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to deliver low latency ultrafast broadband speeds to homes, has been given approval to test up to 200 models of its “next-generation phased array antennas” (i.e. the dish that goes on your home) to improve connectivity. Customers in […]