Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

As expected, Ofcom has today confirmed that they will make part of the 1900MHz radio spectrum band (1900-1920MHz), which had previously gone unused by mobile operators, available for use by both the UK’s rail network (5G / data services) and to extend coverage for the 4G Emergency Services Network (ESN).

Mobile operators do in fact make use of the 1900MHz band, just not the 20MHz slice of unpaired spectrum in question (i.e. they lacked an ecosystem for deploying higher-power services). In addition, the need for a guard band against paired spectrum (reducing an already limited pot of spectrum) and the limited bandwidth it offers were also seen as discouraging factors.

Suffice to say that, in March 2024, Ofcom ended up revoking existing licensees’ access to the band with 5 years’ notice, thereby enabling authorisation of new users from 4th April 2029. Instead, the regulator believes the “optimal use” of the first 1900–1910MHz spectrum in the future will be for the latest 5G mobile technology for rail networks: the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS).

On top of that, they’ve today decided that the “optimal use” of the next 1910–1915MHz slice in Great Britain will be for providing extended coverage for the Emergency Services Network (ESN), through the use of “gateways” installed on emergency vehicles such as ambulances. But Ofcom is NOT yet proposing to authorise any use in the final 1915–1920MHz part of the band, “primarily because of the power restrictions necessary to protect the mobile band above 1920MHz from interference, as well as uncertainty over demand for the spectrum“.

Ofcom’s Decision

Authorise 1900–1910 MHz for operational rail communications to enable the rollout of FRMCS throughout the UK. The new FRMCS licences will:

• Be restricted to the provision of operational rail communications.

• Contain technical conditions suitable for the deployment of FRMCS.

• Authorise a geographic area covering the applicant’s rail infrastructure, which would be determined on a case-by-case basis.

• Require technical coordination with other existing or future FRMCS licensees in overlapping or neighbouring geographic areas.

• Have an annual fee of £1,458,000 for a licence covering Great Britain, and £42,000 for a licence covering Northern Ireland. Licences for smaller rail networks would pay a smaller fee, scaled by the length of the rail routes covered.

• Come into effect on or after 4 April 2029.

• Be issued via a simple process, with checks on applicants’ ability to comply with key licence conditions.

Authorise 1910–1915 MHz to enable the use of Emergency Services Network (ESN) gateways in Great Britain. The licence will:

• Be restricted to the provision of ESN gateways by the provider(s) contracted by the UK Government to supply these gateways (currently BT/EE).

• Have a fixed duration, aligned with the contract to supply ESN gateways.

• Allow use throughout Great Britain.

• Contain technical conditions consistent with the requirements of the ESN.

• Have an annual fee of £364,500 for a licence covering Great Britain.

The commencement date for the ESN gateway licence is subject to a further consultation.

At present, we are not authorising use of 1910–1915 MHz in Northern Ireland where the emergency services have different communication arrangements to Great Britain.

We are also not authorising 1915–1920 MHz throughout the UK, primarily because of the power restrictions necessary to protect the mobile band above 1920 MHz from interference, combined with uncertainty over demand for the spectrum.

Despite the April 2029 date, Ofcom are now seeking views on whether or not they can allow access to the 1910–1915MHz spectrum for ESN Gateway use ahead of that date. Finally, FRMCS itself will support greater digitalisation of the UK’s railways by replacing existing 2G technology and “enabling trains, signalling and railway staff to be better connected than before, helping to improve the operation of the rail network“.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Government’s (DSIT) Building Digital UK agency has today finally started to publish monthly updates on the delivery progress of contracts that have been awarded under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme, which among other things reveals that some 150,730 contracted premises have already been built out of a planned total of 1,002,270 (October 2025).

Just to be clear. The figures in this update are not directly comparable to the figures published in BDUK’s official statistics releases; they track the number of contracted premises to which the supplier has delivered a gigabit-capable connection, whereas the official statistics report on the number of premises that have received a gigabit-capable connection as a result of public BDUK subsidy (i.e. those also cover other schemes, like vouchers etc.).

At present over 88% of UK premises can already access a gigabit-capable network (here) and Ofcom separately forecasts that this could hit c.97% by May 2027 (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 to tackle.

Project Gigabit 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 failed or been scaled-back (here, here and here).

At this point it’s worth remembering that all of the listed contracts below were awarded at different times. For example, Openreach’s cross-regional (Type C) deployments are some of the most recent ones – awarded between 2024 and 2025, while the contracts for North Dorset (Wessex Internet), Teesdale (GoFire) and a few others are the oldest and awarded all the way back in 2022. In short, they’re all at different stages of development.

Project Gigabit – Contracted Premises and Built Premises by Contract (Oct 2025)

We should point out that CityFibre’s progress under the £58.6m (public subsidy) contract for rural parts of Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire (Lot 10) is perhaps a bit misleading (0 premises), since Connexin originally held this until only a few months ago – after they were acquired by CityFibre. Connexin only began the build phase at the end of last year (here), thus its delivery has been disrupted by the consolidation.

The above is an example of why it’s important to understand the context behind each contract before judging its delivery progress, since a face-value assessment will overlook some of the realities. Speaking of which, some of the contracted figures may differ from the original announcements, which reflects recent contract modifications (the scope of delivery can increase or decrease, such as due to commercial networks going further than expected or builds costing more than expected etc.).

Otherwise, we intend to keep an eye on these progress reports and post occasional updates, but we won’t be spamming by publishing monthly progress updates.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

The German broadband market is currently focused on an aggressive transition from older Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) infrastructure to high-speed fibre optic services. This transition is being driven by a combination of commercial necessity and increasing regulatory demand for transparency.

Vodafone Germany is taking commercial action to actively encourage this technology shift. The company has launched a new set of aggressive fibre tariffs from 26 October, aiming to boost the uptake of faster broadband, a strategic priority for the country’s Digital Ministry. The move is crucial for Vodafone, as its German operations—the group’s largest market—have been a financial drag, partly due to customer churn following a regulatory change that granted tenants the right to choose their broadband provider in multi-tenant dwellings. The company previously acknowledged that “Slowing growth in Germany’s fixed broadband market may affect overall performance” in its most recent quarterly earnings report.

The new GigaZuhause (GigaHome) fibre offers are designed to make the switch from DSL highly attractive for the more than 10 million German households that can access them. Vodafone is increasing value by delivering higher speeds for the same price. New download bandwidths will be 150Mbps, 300Mbps, and 600Mbps (up from 100Mbps, 250Mbps, and 500Mbps respectively), along with up to three times higher upload speeds. In a further incentive, the price for the fastest gigabit tariff, GigaZuhause 1000, will be reduced by €10. The flexibility to downgrade without penalty after six months is intended to remove a key barrier to customer adoption of higher-tier services.

However, the push to accelerate the fibre switch is simultaneously being checked by regulatory action demanding honesty in marketing. This week, the Koblenz Regional Court ruled that ISP 1&1 misled customers by promoting its fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC) connections as full fibre optic services. The court banned the use of deceptive terminology, such as “fiber optic DSL,” which it found created a false impression of a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) service.

This ruling is highly significant, emphasising that while FTTC is faster than traditional DSL, it still relies on copper cables for the final connection to the home, a segment that “falls short of FTTH’s gigabit potential without signal degradation over copper.” The court’s insistence on “clear and unambiguous” advertising sets a precedent across the EU, compelling providers to be precise about their network’s final-mile technology.

For the B2B community, these developments underline that the German fibre transition requires a dual strategy: not only must providers offer compelling commercial incentives to migrate customers away from DSL, but they must also invest in true FTTH infrastructure to support their speed claims and avoid regulatory penalties for misleading advertisements.

Zvezdana Lazic-Latincic, Vice President, Fibre & Connectivity Delivery,1&1 Versatel is speaking on a panel on Accelerating network deployment in Germany at Connected Germany. Alongside her are Frederic Ufer, VATM; Benjamin-Georg Ernst-Treffer, Tele Columbus Netz; and Jakob Kwiatkowski, Deutsche Glasfaser. Come and join the at the event, book your place at www.totaltele.com/connectedgermany

Total Telecom are testing AI tools for content generation. This article used Noah Newsroom, please let us know about any inaccuracy

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has this morning revealed the final (assignment stage) results of last week’s auction of the 26GHz and 40GHz millimetre wave (mmW) spectrum bands for use by 5G mobile broadband operators, which sets out precisely which frequencies within each band will be allocated to EE, O2 and VodafoneThree (Vodafone and Three UK).

Just to recap. The three mobile operators won a combined 800MHz of spectrum frequency in the 26GHz band and 1GHz of spectrum frequency in the 40GHz band – each paying £13m for this spectrum. The total revenue raised from the Principal stage were £39m, which has gone to HM Treasury. But a final assignment stage was needed in order to decide precisely which parts of each band would go to whom.

Following completion of the assignment stage, Ofcom has now granted licences to the three bidders for the following frequencies across the two bands. This means the auction is now fully complete, and the winners are free to deploy the spectrum in accordance with the conditions of their licences:

• EE – 26.7-27.5 GHz and 41.5-42.5 GHz
• O2 – 25.1-25.9 GHz and 40.5-41.5 GHz
• VodafoneThree – 25.9-26.7 GHz and 42.5-43.5 GHz

At present, most mobile operators already have access to several 5G capable bands between 700MHz and 3.8GHz. Such frequencies reflect the same sort of low and mid-band radio spectrum that the mobile operators have been using since the advent of the first 3G and 4G data networks. But 26GHz (25.1-27.5GHz) and 40GHz (40.5-43.5GHz) are intended to complement that by providing lots of additional spectrum, which means more data capacity for extremely fast speeds (e.g. multi-Gigabit).

However, such high frequency mobile signals tend to be very weak and can’t cover a wider area without a much denser and thus more expensive network, which in practice means they’ll primarily be used for serving busy urban areas (shopping malls, airports etc. – “High Density Areas“) and fixed wireless broadband (FWA) links. Ofcom has thus made the spectrum available with 15-year licences across 68 “high-density” areas (i.e. cities and select transport hubs).

The catch is that it will take time for the network operators to fully harness the new bands, not least because many modern devices (Smartphones, routers etc.) and radio kit don’t yet fully support them. We suspect there will be some event and location specific deployments in the near future, although a wider roll-out may only become feasible once support improves.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Podcasts

The public shouldn’t have to think about connectivity. It should just work, says Rob Chambers, the managing director of Total Telecom.

By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

Rob Chambers, the Managing Director of Total Telecom, says Connected Britain has evolved with the growth of the connectivity market in the United Kingdom.

“What started as being a conversation purely about fibre rollout has now moved on to a more complete discussion about connectivity and what people do with it,” he said, speaking to Beyond the Cable in at Connected Britain. 

Connected Britain, held annually in London, brings together thousands of industry experts, innovators, and policymakers. The event boasts an impressive lineup of top speakers, cutting-edge exhibitors, and networking opportunities for those driving the United Kingdom’s digital transformation.

Similar to Total Telecom’s U.S. events, like Connected America and Broadband Communities Summit, Connected Britain is also technology agnostic.

While the United Kingdom’s connectivity market may be in some more advanced stages than the U.S., Chambers said it’s not all ahead of the curve.

He said he believes North America has excelled at adopting technologies like low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite, whereas LEO has been slower to take hold in European markets.

Still, in the next five years, Chambers predicts the connectivity picture in the United Kingdom will become more complete.

“I’ve banged the drum a long time for the fact that the public shouldn’t have to think about connectivity. It should just work,” he said.

Nowadays, Chambers said it’s harder to think about what people don’t use connectivity for, rather than what they do use it for.

Looking ahead, Chambers also said he hopes to see more participation from emerging sectors.

“I think we’ll start seeing more around things like smart grids, more around sustainable energy, more around cybersecurity and protection of infrastructure,” he said.

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Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Customers of mobile operator O2 may be displeased, if not surprised, to learn that the provider has today followed sibling Virgin Media’s recent increase to their existing mid-contract pricing policy on broadband packages (here), by announcing a similar hike for their own mobile subscribers.

Effective from today, O2 will now apply a new fixed annual price rise to Pay Monthly (airtime) mobile customers of £2.50 every April, which is up from the current rate of £1.80. Elsewhere, O2’s data only MBB (mobile broadband) and Smartwatch customers will continue to receive an annual price increase of 75p (unchanged from last year). Out of bundle charges will also continue to increase by 5% every 1st April.

New and upgrading customers will naturally be informed about this before they enter into a contract with the (new) annual price rise amount. We are currently checking to see how existing customers will be treated. As usual, one of the biggest problems with this approach to mid-contract hikes is that it hits every package in the same way, regardless of whether you’re on a cheaper tariff or a more expensive one (i.e. those on cheaper plans end up being disproportionately impacted).

An O2 spokesperson told ISPreview:

“With demand for mobile data at an all-time high, we’re introducing a 70p per month increase to annual price rises for O2 customers, effective each April.

An annual rise of £2.50 a month – around 8p a day – continues to represent excellent value for services that customers are using more than ever before. We’ve again frozen prices on handset repayment plans and are investing £700m into our mobile network this year to ensure we meet growing demand and give our customers the fast and reliable connectivity they rely on.

Customers on our social tariffs continue to be exempt from any price changes as part of our efforts to provide support to those who need it most.”

Just for some context. At the start of 2025 Ofcom began requiring UK telecoms providers to adopt a new approach to mid-contract price hikes, which did away with the old percentage and inflation-based model – replacing it with one that must now set out such price rises “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up” (here). This made annual price hikes clearer and more transparent, but as above, not necessarily cheaper.

UPDATE 2:30pm

O2 confirmed to ISPreview that these changes will also apply to existing O2 customers, as well as new and re-contracting customers, from today (although you won’t feel the hike itself until April). The only good news is that O2 will be writing directly to existing customers about this change, and they are being given the right to exit without penalty if they wish.

Price changes are only applied to customers’ airtime plans, with device plans frozen. Customers on their social tariffs will also continue to be exempt from any price increases.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Mobile network operator Vodafone UK has today introduced a new multi-line discount, which entitles customers to 15% off when they insure additional phones, tablets, laptops and watches. Customers can also benefit from half-price device insurance for the first 2 months, available until 11th November 2025.

The new offer is said to be available on all levels of cover, meaning insurance starts from just £1.70 for Screen Damage only cover (dependent on your device) and can also be taken with Loss, Theft, Accidental Damage & Breakdown cover. Further details here.

In terms of eligibility, you must be 18 years or older, be a pay monthly consumer account holder, UK Resident with a UK billing address, be up to date with your Vodafone monthly airtime bill payments and/or existing Vodafone Insurance policies, have a device up to 37 months of age that is in full working order and not already damaged, purchased new/refurbished directly from manufacturer, network provider or a retail store and can provide proof of purchase on request.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

London-focused ISP Vorboss, which has built and operates a 100Gbps speed fibre optic network for businesses in the UK’s capital city, has this afternoon informed ISPreview that long-serving company Founder and CEO, Tim Creswick, will be stepping down from the role after 19 long years.

Just to recap. The operator has so far completed the deployment of a 700km long dedicated point-to-point fibre optic network across Central London (covering most of zones 1 and 2), which we’re told is enough to connect all commercial buildings in the area to their direct internet access and Ethernet network.

Tim has naturally overseen all of this and so deserves plenty of credit for shepherding Vorboss over all these years. The company is now said to be entering its “next phase of growth” on their mission to deliver better connectivity and services for London businesses.

However, alongside this new phase comes a change of leadership, with Tim Creswick stepping down as CEO, and Rhod Morgan and David Gilbey co-leading the business moving forward.

Adam Dunlop, Vorboss Chair, said:

“Vorboss is built on strong foundations – an exceptional team, a world-class network, loyal customers, and a clear purpose: to deliver better connectivity for London’s businesses. This is not a common combination, Vorboss has something unique. The strategy, team and investor support we have in place puts us in a great position to power the business into its next phase of growth.”

The provider, while paying tribute to Tim’s “vision, leadership and drive“, added that they were looking forward to continuing to work with their investors to deliver the company’s long-term vision.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

A new survey of 3,242 UK internet users, which was conducted on behalf of Broadband Genie and supported by McAfee’s cybersecurity researchers (inc. threat intelligence data), has claimed that millions of people could be leaving their home networks open to hackers because 47% fail to change ANY of their router’s default settings.

The survey also found that 69% of respondents had never changed their WiFi password, while more than 80% have left both their router name and admin credentials at their factory defaults. Older users (65+) were also said to be most at risk, with 62% saying they’ve never changed their router’s settings. While younger users are more engaged. Among 18-24 year olds, only 29% said they had never accessed their router.

According to the survey, this is said to equate to around 12.7 million vulnerable home routers across the UK. When asked the main reason why users haven’t changed their router’s default settings, the overwhelming majority (73%) stated that they didn’t understand why they would need to (down from 75% last year), followed by 22% not knowing how to. The latter is a bit surprising, as most routers include clear instructions for doing this and often recommend it as part of the setup routine.

Oliver Devane, Senior Security Researcher at McAfee, said:

“Many default settings can be dangerous in the hands of cybercriminals. Your router is the gateway to all the connected devices in your home, so it’s key to make sure it’s secure, and that means updating the settings as well as employing best practices.

Just like changing the lock on your front door, changing the default router password will ensure only authorised people can access your home network.”

However, while the above is correct, it’s still always wise to take opinion surveys like this with a sizeable pinch of salt. Part of the reason for that, in this case, is because most broadband routers are supplied to homes by ISPs, which tend to come with a randomly generated router password (some of these can be quite strong, but not always – experiences do vary).

In the past some routers (quite a few years ago now) were, sadly, supplied with easy to guess universal passwords. But that hasn’t been the norm for a while now, and the government’s recent Secure by Design rules have since technically banned easily guessable passwords like ‘admin’ or ‘12345’ from shipping with newer devices.

However, the fact that your router is often the single most important device in your home network for security should be incentive enough to ensure that you’ve set a strong password and not simply used the one supplied by your ISP, which may or may not be effective. The safest rule is to never assume it’s going to be secure out of the box.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

A new Government consultation has revealed that the Data Communications Company (DCC), which is in the process of working to upgrade existing Smart Meters in UK homes with a new 4G Communication Hub (here and here), will in 2026 also launch a Virtual WAN service. This will mean that home broadband can be used to connect premises not covered by their normal wireless network.

Just to recap. The ongoing efforts to switch off older 2G and 3G based mobile networks across the UK will ultimately cause problems for the many Smart Meters installed across the rest of England and Wales, which utilise the same technology via O2 (Scotland and the North of England use a different LRR wireless system). Due to this, Vodafone has already been contracted to help upgrade millions of meters to a new 4G connection.

However, regardless of which wireless system DCC uses to automatically send its energy meter readings, one of the problems with Smart Meters is that the wireless signal strength and coverage isn’t always good enough to reach every single meter. The logical solution would thus to be to develop an alternative method that could connect such meters via your home broadband and WiFi connectivity, but it’s not quite that simple.

One of the issues with using home connectivity as a backup or the main data link for Smart Meters is that it risks exposing Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) to the public internet (e.g. imagine a hostile state hacking meters and disrupting the service etc.). Some halfway solutions, such as the Home Mini device from Octopus Energy, do exist, but they have limits and aren’t part of the main centralised DCC connectivity.

So what’s new?

Back in December 2023 the previous Government’s Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) started to change their tune by issuing a new consultation. This included proposals to create arrangements whereby communications with Smart Metering Systems installed in premises with no Wide Area Network (“No-WAN premises”) could be established via the DCC through use of the consumer’s own internet connection.

At the start of 2025 this was followed by the current Government proposing to implement such a programme (here), which included proposed architectural arrangements – factoring in the need for tight security – for a new Virtual WAN (VWAN) solution. Just to be clear, the current 2G/3G/4G and LRR wireless data solutions for connecting Smart Meters involves a Wide Area Network (WAN) to link the Communications Hub inside meters with the DCC.

The latest development in this process cropped up yesterday after the Government published another consultation on the need for new energy supplier obligations to drive non-domestic Smart Meter uptake post-2025 (here), which ISPreview noticed included this little piece of interesting and related information.

Extract from the Consultation

Virtual WAN: The DCC will in 2026 launch a Virtual WAN service, so that with consumer consent, broadband can be used to connect premises without WAN coverage, to the national communications network for smart metering. This means that all remaining consumers who do not have a WAN service, but have broadband, will be eligible for smart meters.

This is quite a significant development for home Smart Meters, although previous studies indicated that its target reach will initially be quite limited: “The intent of the [VWAN] arrangements is to support consumers in the 328,000 No-WAN premises across all areas of GB. Our assessment is that, taking into account the need for sufficient internet, up to 95% of these premises would benefit from the [VWAN] solution“.

However, it is also recognised that, over time, we might see this functionality become available as a general backup for the existing wireless communication methods (e.g. 4G) used inside Smart Meters. The government’s consultations appear to indicate that the functionality to establish these VWAN connections may be included in a number of different types of devices, such as In-Home Displays (IHD), Prepayment Meter Interface Devices (PPMID), a stand-alone device, or a Consumer Access Device (CAD). A specialised IHD would seem like a logical and easy solution to deploy it.

The exact details of how this will all be pieced together into a deployable solution – one that is safe and works well enough to be placed into homes – is of course up to the DCC to finalise. But that 2026 date seems – at least to us – to be quite an ambitions target for such a development. Either way, this is one to watch.