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The debt strained TalkTalk Group, which at this point has been through a demerger of its businesses and in 2024 secured a £400m refinancing package to avoid a default on its debts (here, here) – not to mention the recent £120m funding deal (here), is reportedly set to axe around 100 more jobs as part of its latest restructuring effort.

Suffice to say that the group, which recently launched a major brand refresh and advertising push of its consumer broadband ISP business (here), is still doing everything it can to cut costs and tackle their underlying debt problem. This includes the possible disposal (sale) of its remaining businesses (here).

The situation has already resulted in various redundancies, such as the recent loss of up to 350 jobs from their wholesale division, PlatformX Communications (here). According to The Standard, another redundancy consultation has just started that could see around 100 further jobs being cut from both their group HQ in Salford (Manchester) and another office in London.

A spokesperson for TalkTalk (Group) said:

“Over the past 18 months, we have been transforming how TalkTalk Group operates, invests, and serves its customers. The proposed changes to our consumer business are a necessary part of that journey, creating a more agile and future-focused organisation that can deliver innovation and improved service for our customers.”

The Group’s latest annual accounts (here) recently revealed that TalkTalk made a statutory loss before tax of £465m for the year ended 28th February 2025 (up from £153m last year) and were home to 1,570 employees (down from 2,065). The overall level of net debt (excluding leases) also hit £1.2bn – rising to £1.96bn if you include leases.

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SpaceX’s global Starlink service, which offers ultrafast broadband speeds across the UK and globally via a mega constellation of compact satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), has provided their best view yet of what the company’s next generation v3 (GEN3) satellites will look like when deployed to orbit. Each one will have 10 times more capacity than earlier v2 satellites.

The service currently has around 8,600 satellites in orbit (c.5,000 are v2 / V2 Mini) – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km – and they’ll add thousands more by the end of 2027. Residential customers in the UK usually pay from £75 a month, plus £299 for hardware (currently free for most areas) on the ‘Standard’ unlimited data plan (kit price may vary due to different offers), which promises UK latency times of 26-33ms, downloads of 116-277Mbps and uploads of 17-32Mbps. Cheaper and more restrictive options also exist for roaming users.

As we’ve previously reported, SpaceX is aiming to deliver a significant upgrade to the performance and capacity of their Starlink constellation by putting the next generation of v3 satellites into orbit. Each v3 will be able to handle 1 Terabit per second (1000Gbps) of downlink (up from 96Gbps on V2 Mini) and 160Gbps of uplink speed (shared capacity), with the future Starship rocket able to put around 60 of these into orbit per launch (here).

However, the company is currently unable to launch any of their new v3 satellites, which is because they’re too large and heavy (2,000kg each vs 575kg for V2 Mini) for that to be economically viable via their existing Falcon 9 rockets. SpaceX has thus had to wait for their new heavy lift Starship rocket to be ready.

The good news is that Starship has just aced its past two test launches and may thus be able to launch their first commercial v3 satellites into orbit sometime during early 2026 (here). The new satellites, which will also orbit closer to earth (good for performance if not coverage), will feature newer and larger antennas, solar arrays and be able to harness more radio spectrum frequency to help support their performance.

The latest update from SpaceX (here) reveals, as pictured above, what each V3 will look like once fully deployed in comparison to their earlier v1.5 and v2 satellites. The catch is that customers are expected to need a new router and dish (terminal kit) in order to be able to fully benefit from the extra performance they’ll bring.

Currently, the average (median) UK download speed on Starlink is 78.7Mbps and this rises up to 223.4Mbps for those with the top 10% of fastest connections, while uploads average just 10.8Mbps or 18.5Mbps for those in the top 10% (here).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Guernsey Competition & Regulatory Authority (GCRA) has “provisionally approved” the release of new radio spectrum in the 700MHz and 3.6GHz bands in order to enable telecoms operators JT and Sure to roll-out 5G mobile (mobile broadband) services across the islands of Guernsey, Alderney and Sark from “early 2026“.

On 25th September 2025, following completion of the pre-application phase of the Spectrum Licensing Framework, JT (Guernsey) Limited submitted a formal application for the aforementioned spectrum. This was followed on the 3rd October 2025 by an identical application from Sure (Guernsey) Limited.

Just to be clear, JT has applied to take 2×15MHz of spectrum frequency in the 700MHz band (703–718 and 758–773 MHz) and 100MHz of frequency in the 3.6GHz band (3.51–3.61 GHz). By comparison, Sure sought 2x10MHz in the 700MHz band (778–788MHz and 723–733MHz) and 100MHz in the 3.6GHz band (3.61–3.71MHz).

According to the related regulator’s reports (here and here), JT intends to launch 5G across Guernsey, Alderney and Sark from early 2026, “building on its ongoing 5G rollout in Jersey and leveraging its partnership with leading telecommunications manufacturer Ericsson“. It intends to deploy 5G initially as non-standalone (NSA) for enhanced mobile broadband services, before migrating to standalone (SA) over time.

Sadly, Sure chose not to be as open about their planned 5G roll-out on the island, with the GCRA redacting all of the key details, investment commitments and dates from their document. However, Sure previously announced that they would invest £48m into building a new “world-class” 5G mobile network across both Guernsey and Jersey during 2026 as part of their move to acquire rival Airtel Vodafone (here), which required the suspension of local competition laws.

Ofcom currently manages spectrum on behalf of the GCRA under a delegated authority arrangement granted by the UK Government, and the GCRA regulates how spectrum is used commercially within Guernsey. But there are not expected to be any major obstacles to the GCRA’s provisional approval, which Ofcom is expected to grant.

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A recent study from New Street Research has predicted that the UK will lose around 250,000 subscribers to fixed broadband services this year, which would mark “the first time there has ever been a decline” in the market. Competition from Starlink (satellite), fixed wireless and mobile broadband rivals are said to be the main cause.

The study indicates that one of the key changes taking place reflects the growth in mobile-only households, where factors like the cost-of-living crisis and improvements in the performance of 4G/5G mobile networks are causing more people to save money by sharing their Smartphone’s mobile broadband (Tethering / WiFi Hotspot etc.) connection instead of taking a fixed line.

The issue is one that Openreach’s (BT) Deputy CEO, Katie Milligan, similarly touched on earlier in the week when discussing the operator’s own ongoing decline in broadband lines (here). As a related report on Fierce Network also points out, data from Point Topic shows fixed operators shedding a net 14,000 broadband subscribers in Q2 2025, which was actually an improvement on the 88,000 net losses in Q1.

However, we should point out that Ofcom’s most recent Telecoms Data Tables update shows that there were 29.2 million fixed broadband lines at the end of Q1 2025 (here), which is an increase of 756,000 (2.7%) year-on-year. Some 22.3m of that total were via fibre-based FTTx broadband connections (FTTC, FTTP, FTTB etc.), with the rest coming from cable (hybrid fibre coax / Virgin Media) and slow copper ADSL lines.

The number of ADSL lines decreased by 147,000 (8.0%) during the quarter and now total under 1.8m (most of these go to FTTx). But accurately tracking exactly what type of broadband connectivity everybody has at home is difficult, particularly when they switch to a mobile-only or satellite-only approach. Most people still view mobile and satellite as complementary solutions, rather than replacements, but clearly some households may be opting for a more complete switch.

The market has arguably been plateauing like this, at a high point of general saturation, for several years. But it will be interesting to see whether mobile broadband finally starts to become a bigger threat, rather than just a complement, to full fibre (FTTP) over the next few years. Some mobile operators, such as Three UK, have long championed it for fixed wireless broadband delivery, although variable performance and other connection caveats have tended to hold it back. Such issues may become less and less of a barrier as 5GSA (5G+) expands, IPv6 is deployed more widely and 6G comes on-tap.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Interview

Sporting a brand new Netomnia hoodie and matching trainers, Chelot said he wants Netomnia to become the largest altnet in the UK

“I want to become the largest altnet in the UK and I think I’ve got a very good shot at it,” he said, noting the company’s 2.8 million premises passed and goal of 5 million by 2027. “As an ISP, we have around 400,000 customers, so we’re about to catch up with Community Fibre an Hyperoptic before the end of the year. After that, the next step is to beat Vodafone.”

Check out our full interview below, covering Netomnia’s rebrand, the company’s latest funding, and Jeremy’s take on altnet consolidation.

Keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news from around the world 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

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News

New research from Neos Networks suggests that 82% of data centre operators in the UK have delayed deployment due to a lack of connectivity infrastructure

Access to fibre connectivity could be a significant bottleneck for the UK’s data centre ambitions, suggests a new study commissioned by Neos Networks.

The study, conducted by Censuswide, surveyed 100 data centre decision-makers, 100 large enterprise tech/IT decision-makers, and 100 local government stakeholders, asking them about fibre availability, AI, and their data centre projects.

The results showed that the lack of fibre network availability remains a key factor in hampering data centre deployments and AI implementation. It found that 82% of the data centre representatives had had a deployment or expansion delayed due to the lack of available fibre. In addition, 89% of the local government representatives said infrastructure projects in their region had been similarly delayed by fibre gaps, with 46% saying the region’s fibre networks were not ready to support AI data centres.

Part of the issue here, as Neos Network’s CEO Lee Myall points out, is that the UK’s ‘backbone’ fibre network – the high-capacity, long-distance infrastructure that connects major cities, data centres, internet exchanges, and service providers across the country – is at risk of becoming inadequate.

This is largely an issue of geography; data centre projects are increasingly being planned for rural areas with access to affordable land, water, and power, but fibre network access at these locations is often missing.

“Over the past decade, we’ve seen a huge amount of investment in last-mile fibre builds, but core fibre networks across the country have received much less attention. Without them, workloads cannot move between data centres, data cannot be trained, and investments stall,” said Myall. “The UK has the ambition, the demand and the regional readiness to lead in AI, but if we don’t address fibre gaps, we risk losing out on one of the greatest economic opportunities of our generation.”

The good news here is that the government’s AI Growth Zone strategy, part of its AI Opportunities Action Plan, appears to be working as intended, helping lure data centre developments away from existing deployments in metro areas. These AI Growth Zones will receive significant planning and regulatory support, aimed at removing barriers to AI data centre deployments.

While 23% of data centre operators still expect new investment in Greater London, a greater share pointed to the North of England and the Midlands (39%) for new deployments. According to the report, 96% of the data centre respondents were influenced by the AI Growth Zones when considering site selection, with 44% saying they were influenced ‘strongly’.

At the start of the year, Culham, Oxfordshire, was announced as the UK’s first AI Growth Zone, largely due to the availability of land, power, and its proximity to the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s headquarters, which carries conducts complex energy research. This was followed up last month when the Northeast announced it had secured government backing to become the country’s second AI Growth Zone, expanding existing deployments at Cobalt Park Data Centres in North Tyneside and QTS Cambois Data Centre Campus in Blyth.

More of these zones are expected to be developed in future, all of which will rely on the availability of high-quality backbone connectivity.

Keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news from around the world 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

Networking kit manufacturer TP-Link, which develops a lot of broadband routers, WiFi extenders and smart home devices for network operators and consumers, today claims to have hit a “major technological milestone” after they conducted their first successful connectivity test using a prototype of the next gen Wi-Fi 8 standard (802.11bn – Ultra High Reliability).

As we’ve previously reported, Wi-Fi 8 will focus more on improving network reliability than boosting raw throughput speed (Wi-Fi 8 technology summary). The final standard for this isn’t expected to be fully completed until May 2028, but that hasn’t stopped manufacturers conducting their own tests based on the earliest available technical draft.

One of the first out of the gate seems to be TP-Link, which has worked with several industry partners to demonstrate its first successful data transmission using a prototype Wi-Fi 8 device. The test successfully validated both the Wi-Fi 8 beacon and data throughput, which helps to underscore the feasibility of the technology and marks a key milestone in global Wi-Fi 8 development.

Sadly, the announcement doesn’t say anything more than that or provide any pictures of the test, which is a bit disappointing.

Key Wi-Fi 8 Technologies (TP-Link)

DRU (Distributed tone Resource Units)
The device spreads its uplink tones across a wider band, increasing the overall transmitting power. DRU helps low power or faraway devices be heard cleanly by the router. Uploads (like video calls or cameras) become more reliable.

ELR (Enhanced Long Range)
More robust packet structure and coding improve coverage at the edges of your home. Devices can stay connected farther from your router. Great for upstairs rooms, garages, and outdoor cameras.

UEQM (Unequal Modulation)
Each WiFi stream can run at the best rate it can manage instead of all streams using the same rate. A weak stream no longer drags the strong ones down. You get more consistent speed when signal quality varies.

New MCS (New Modulation and Coding Schemes)
When your signal weakens slightly, like when moving farther from your router, your device may suddenly slow down causing lag or buffering. WiFi 8 adds new MCS levels to smooth out these speed drops. That means more stable connections and consistent speeds across your whole home.

DSO (Dynamic Sub-band Operation)
Devices today get fixed chunks of bandwidth even if they do not need it, which wastes capacity and causes congestion. DSO lets the router assign channels more precisely based on each device’s actual needs. This smarter channel frees up space for other traffic, reduces slowdowns, and improves performance across the entire network.

NPCA (Non-Primary Channel Access)
Most devices today can only transmit on the router’s main channel, even if nearby channels are completely clear. NPCA allows devices to use alternate sub-channels when the main one is busy. This helps avoid traffic jams, reduce delays, and keeps your connection fast even when the network is congested.

Improved Seamless Roaming
Move from room to room without losing your connection. Your devices automatically hand off between access points without a discrete disconnect/reconnect, supporting a continuous connection. You get no drop calls, no frozen video, and no interruptions.

Multi AP (Access Point) Coordination
WiFi 8 APs (including routers, mesh nodes, and range extenders) align timing, steer signals with precision, and adjust power to reduce overlap. This coordination keeps interference low and speeds steady in mesh setups or homes with multiple access points.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Connectivity provider Neos Networks, which operates one of the biggest 34,000km long and 400Gbps capable business fibre networks in the UK – spanning 550 exchanges, 90+ data centres and 600+ Points of Presence (PoPs), has claimed in a new survey that 82% of UK data centre operators have delayed site builds or expansion due to fibre availability.

The work is based on a Censuswide survey of 100 data centre decision-makers, 100 large enterprise tech/IT decision-makers (with at least 1,000 employees), and 100 local government stakeholders – conducted during August 2025. The results suggest that, despite a big push by the UK government and enterprise momentum around data centre development and artificial intelligence (AI), fibre remains a “critical bottleneck” that could slow the UK’s digital growth.

Naturally, nearly all respondents agreed that investment in high-capacity fibre optic corridors will transform confidence in the UK’s ability to attract and scale AI projects. For example, 95% of data centre operators, 96% of enterprises and 96% of local authorities say new fibre corridors into underserved areas would positively impact AI and data centre growth. Some 53% of local authorities believe such projects would be transformative.

Key Survey Findings

➤ 89% of local government stakeholders report that fibre gaps have delayed infrastructure projects in their regions.

➤ 45% of enterprises cite fibre as the key bottleneck holding back AI and digital infrastructure.

➤ 46% of local government authorities say their region’s fibre infrastructure is not fully ready to support AI data centres.

➤ 16% of companies doubts the ability of the UK’s current fibre infrastructure to support their AI ambitions.

➤ 96% of data centre operators say AI Growth Zones are influencing expansion and site selection, with 44% citing them as a strong influence.

➤ 68% of enterprises view AI Growth Zones as a strong driver of change in their infrastructure planning.

➤ 23% of data centre operators still expect new investment in Greater London, a greater share pointed to the North of England and the Midlands (39%), signalling a shift towards regional hubs of AI activity.

➤ 97% data centre operators expect up to half of their UK compute to move to the edge of the network by 2030, underlining the need for high-performance, resilient fibre across every region.

➤ 41% of data centre leaders believe the UK’s fibre networks are only partially prepared to support regional AI workloads.

➤ 70% of enterprises feel the UK’s attractiveness for data centre investment needs improvement (53%) or is lagging (17%).

It’s important to stress that the sort of fibre connectivity required by a data centre is not the same as the sort of fibre (FTTP) broadband that reaches your home via the local access network. Data centres typically require extremely high-capacity core links and redundancy to help serve customers. Obviously, Neos Networks has a vested interest in this field, as this is precisely the sort of problem they exist to resolve (i.e. take the survey with a pinch of salt).

Lee Myall, CEO of Neos Networks, said:

“Over the past decade, we’ve seen a huge amount of investment in last-mile fibre builds, but core fibre networks across the country have received much less attention. Without them, workloads cannot move between data centres, data cannot be trained, and investments stall. The UK has the ambition, the demand and the regional readiness to lead in AI, but if we don’t address fibre gaps, we risk losing out on one of the greatest economic opportunities of our generation.”

Sadly, the study didn’t include any practical examples to help illustrate the point. Not to mention that you can’t always rely on the right fibre being present exactly where you want to build a new data centre, which is why such projects often have to factor in the need (and costs) for extra network build when they’re in the design stage (i.e. par for the course).

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Internet provider Lit Fibre, which harnesses CityFibre’s national UK Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network (they originally ran their own fibre network too – here), has today introduced a new national broadband pricing framework that charges residential consumers more for those on their National (off-net) vs Local (on-net) network tiers.

The provider’s announcement doesn’t explain precisely what they mean by “National” or “Local“, particularly since they only serve CityFibre’s network areas (c.4.6 million UK premises), but through our testing we’ve been able to confirm that it references the difference between the price they charge in areas where they built their own FTTP vs areas where the FTTP was first built by CityFibre. Clearly, Lit Fibre still has some degree of beneficial access to their original network areas, despite all now being owned by CityFibre.

Lit Fibre has a number of different types of broadband packages and contract lengths, which makes it a bit difficult to summarise the impact of this without overloading our visitors with too much information. Instead we’ll simplify by focusing on just their ‘Speed’ packages when taken via a longer 24-month minimum contract term, which includes a wireless router, free installation and a pledge of no mid-contract price hikes.

Lit Fibre Package Pricing – Local vs National

Lit 100Mbps (symmetric)

Local Price: £22.99 (monthly)

National Price: £26.49

Lit 500Mbps

Local Price: £25.99

National Price: £32.49

Lit 1000Mbps

Local Price: £26.99

National Price: £32.49

We assume the Lit 1000Mbps package is on some sort of special offer in National (off-net) areas, which would explain why the price is the same as on their National 500Mbps tier. In any case, there’s clearly a fairly sizeable saving to be had if you’re lucky enough to be covered by one of Lit Fibre’s original on-net (Local) FTTP areas. On the other hand, £32.49 for a gigabit broadband package off-net is still very cheap.

However, it should be noted that the post-contract prices for all of these packages will rise, with Lit Fibre’s T&Cs indicating that Lit 100 becomes £34.95, while Lit 500 becomes £44.95 and Lit 1000 rises to £49.95. At the time of writing, Lit Fibre’s T&Cs do not include the same Local vs National distinction, so we assume those post-contract rates apply to both.

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The telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today confirmed that the first bidding on their auction of the 26GHz and 40GHz millimetre wave (mmW) spectrum bands for use by 5G mobile (mobile broadband) operators will get underway tomorrow, with BT (EE), O2 (Telefonica UK / Virgin Media) and Vodafone (VodafoneThree) all taking part.

The major mobile network providers 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 mobile network operators have been using since the advent of the first 3G and 4G data networks.

The move to auction off 26GHz (25.1-27.5GHz) and 40GHz (40.5-43.5GHz) will complement the existing bands by providing lots of additional spectrum frequency, which means more data capacity for extremely fast speeds (e.g. multi-Gigabit). But such signals tend to be very weak and can’t cover a wider area without a much denser / 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.

The plan is to make this spectrum available in a clock auction (200MHz lots) with 15-year licences across 68 “high-density” areas (i.e. cities and select transport hubs). Bidding for this will take place in two separate stages, which we’ve summarised below. Ofcom’s reserve prices for this spectrum appears to be modest when compared with other European auctions (£2m per 26GHz lot and £1m per 40GHz lot).

The 5G mmW Auction Stages

Principal stage

Companies first bid for airwaves in ‘lots’ to determine how much spectrum each company wins in each band, but not the specific frequencies within each band. Bidding will continue for as long as there is excess demand for the spectrum available. We will announce the results of the principal stage shortly after it has concluded. Once the principal stage is underway, we will publish daily updates on our website.

Assignment stage

There is then a stage of bidding to determine the specific frequencies that winning bidders will be allocated. We will publish the final results of the auction once all stages are complete.

The 26GHz band is already used elsewhere for mmW services and so will be easier for networks operators to adopt and support, although the story is a bit different for the 40GHz band because the UK will be one of the first countries in Europe to award it. The latter may thus take a bit longer to find its feet through deployment and adoption.