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The Swansea Bay City Deal’s Digital Infrastructure Programme has today announced the completion of their £1.9m Full Fibre Infrastructure Build project with BT, which has helped to upgrade 69 key public sector sites with “future proofed” broadband connectivity.

Just to recap. The UK and Welsh Governments gave approval for a £55m digital infrastructure investment under the £1.3bn Swansea Bay City Region project back in 2021 (here), which among other things aimed to expand full fibre and 5G mobile connectivity to benefit homes and businesses across Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea. Some of this investment also comes from the Local Broadband Fund (LBF) for Wales.

Several digital infrastructure projects are already taking place under this programme, including the £1.9m contract with BT that was delivered via the Public Sector Broadband Aggregation (PSBA) scheme. This aimed to provide improved broadband provision to public sector sites across the region via a secure Wide Area Network (WAN).

The good news is that this deployment has now completed and connected a total of 69 public sectors sites, everything from leisure centres to country parks, libraries and council buildings etc. One example of this in action is at Pembrey Country Park, where the new full fibre network has enabled the park to begin retiring its legacy radio-based systems and migrate to a more reliable, digital platform, while also saving money.

Cllr Rob Stewart, Leader of Swansea Council, said:

“This is about much more than fast broadband, it’s about unlocking the full potential of our public assets, futureproofing our region, and ensuring our communities are not left behind in the digital age.
Through this investment, we’re enabling our local authorities and health partners to innovate, deliver smarter services, and ultimately improve the lives of residents.

This project is a major step towards the Digital Infrastructure Programme’s vision of a smart, inclusive digital region that can meet the connectivity demands of today and tomorrow.”

The original announcement also indicated that approximately 425 residential and business premises may benefit from improved broadband as a result of this deployment, although there was no mention of those in today’s announcement. The project is also expected to stimulate further commercial investment, which could potentially help to accelerate the rollout of full fibre broadband networks across the region.

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A number of homes, businesses and several network operators, including Netomnia (Youfibre, Brsk) and Openreach (BT), were impacted yesterday outside the City of Durham after vandals gained access to a chamber and cut vital fibre optic cables; disrupting local broadband connectivity for a protracted period.

The incident appears to have occurred sometime during the small hours of Wednesday (1st Oct) morning, around the junction of Littletown Lane and Coalford Lane in County Durham. Netomnia later issued an update (here) to confirm that their engineers would be working on the issue through the night, which had been identified as “an act of vandalism on the network, and our fibre cables have been cut … We’re working closely with the security team at [Openreach] to determine how this occurred“.

The good news this morning, which was confirmed just a few short minutes before we posted this article, is that “the unplanned outage in these locations is now resolved“. Netomnia are now advising customers who may still be experiencing issues to “please power off and back on your ONT (the small box on your wall) and your router“.

Regular ISPreview readers will already be aware that, over the past few years, there has been somewhat of an increase in physical attacks against UK broadband and mobile networks (examples here, here, here and here), as well as the engineers responsible for building and maintaining them. Such attacks don’t just cause costly physical damage but can also leave local homes and businesses disconnected, often for a protracted period, from vital communication services.

Quite why people do this isn’t always clear. Most such criminal incidents are often considered to be vandalism, although in some cases this can relate to the theft of valuable network equipment (e.g. batteries or old copper telecoms cables), attempts to disrupt security systems at a specific site (usually pointless due to 4G/5G backups), revenge by disgruntled former employees / rivals or may even form part of a poorly conceived protest.

Such networks are typically considered to be part of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) and damaging them is thus a serious criminal offence, which has in the past caused some people to face prison sentences. But the existing rules and punishments don’t always seem to be acting as enough of a deterrent, and the industry has previously called for changes (here).

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Broadband ISP and mobile operator EE (BT) have today announced that they’re aiming to expand the population coverage of their latest 5G Standalone (5GSA) mobile network to reach 99% of the UK by the end of FY30. The move appears to be a reaction to VodafoneThree’s (Vodafone and Three UK) target (here) of achieving the same outcome by 2034.

Just to recap. Earlier deployments of 5G were largely Non-Standalone (NSA), which meant they were partly reliant upon older and slower 4G infrastructure. But SA networks are pure end-to-end 5G that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better mobile broadband speeds (particularly uploads), network slicing, improved support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, support for Voice over 5G SA (Vo5G) calling, and increased reliability and security etc.

EE officially began launching a range of new 5G SA supporting mobile plans across 15 major UK cities in September 2024 (here) and they’ve since been rapidly expanding upon that coverage (example). The operator has previously informed ISPreview that they only announce 5GSA availability once a location has “at least 95% outdoor coverage“, which helps to ensure a good level of connectivity.

However, EE has today clearly felt the need to keep ahead of the curve and respond to VodafoneThree’s own 5GSA deployment plans, which they’ve done by setting a clear target of reaching 99% of the UK’s population with the technology by the end of FY30. As part of this they’re also rolling out some innovative new technologies, which we’ve summarised below.

EE’s New Mobile Technologies

➤ EE today announces that it is the first European mobile network to deploy a new generation of Massive MIMO units (Ericsson AIR 3284, the world’s first 5G triple-band FDD Massive MIMO radio). These are antenna integrated radios that deliver maximum network experience and up to four times greater uplink capacity. Two of these units are live in Leeds – with hundreds more to follow by the end of the decade.

➤ We have over 1,500 outdoor small cells now boosting coverage nationwide – 500 of which were added in just the last 12 months. This includes our very first small cell deployments in towns and cities such as Belfast, Bristol, Oxford, Middlesbrough, Preston and Bolton.

➤ We last month announced that we are the first operator in the world to launch Advanced RAN Coordination (ARC) in our distributed mobile network. This enables mobile sites near to each other to remotely pair up and share capacity, dramatically boosting network performance.

In addition, EE said they would in future be referring to all this by the term ‘5G+‘ rather than the technical industry shorthand 5GSA or 5G Standalone, which they say is “language that’s simple and relatable“. But they also want the government to support their efforts with changes.

Howard Watson, BT’s Chief Security and Networks Officer, said:

“Government support is essential if we are to transform our ambition for nationwide 5G+ coverage – and the significant economic opportunity it brings for the UK – into reality.

A valuable next step would be for Government to launch a Mobile Market Review. This could examine planning reforms to accelerate the rollout of new network equipment, to increase the availability of spectrum (the radio waves that enable mobile coverage), and consider removing the Annual Licence Fees currently paid by operators to use spectrum. There are also massive opportunities for the UK to accelerate the digitalisation of public services and to support SMEs to make the most of new digital opportunities.

We should also recognise that achieving 99% 5G+ coverage, while an important milestone, will not by itself resolve every challenge around mobile coverage and capacity. Targeted interventions will still be required to address specific issues, such as improving connectivity along railways.”

The operator added that their new “network has been built to deliver up to 100 times more capacity than 4G connectivity – making it significantly better at handling demands from lots of devices at once – delivering more reliable mobile internet in busy areas“.

Device compatibility is of course still an issue for 5GSA adoption, although such things will resolve themselves with time as consumers gradually upgrade – many modern Smartphones do now support it on EE’s network. But overall today’s announcement represents good news for consumers who will benefit from the increased performance that 5G+ brings, particularly in urban areas.

On the other hand, we do wish these mobile operators would set geographic coverage targets too, which are much less forgiving than “population” figures. There was a time when EE believed this too (here), but in recent years they seem to have forgotten all about that.

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Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today announced the deployment of a “first-of-its-kind” mobile Giga Site in Paddington (London), which utilises Nokia’s latest dual-band massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) tech to boost 5G mobile broadband performance and network capacity. The plan is to deploy 1,000 more of these during 2026.

Just for a bit of context. MIMO technology typically works by harnessing multiple antennae (usually 2 to 8) to send and receive data more efficiently to lots of users (both at the mobile mast and on your Smartphone / mobile router / IoT device etc.). But Massive MIMO dials that up a major notch by enabling mobile operators to harness a greater number of antennas, potentially hundreds.

The first mast site in Paddington will also be utilising the 78.8MHz of additional radio spectrum that they recently acquired from Vodafone UK (here), which has already helped to increase O2’s total spectrum holdings to approximately 30% of UK mobile spectrum. The new site is thus capable of bringing together multiple spectrum layers with a mix of low, mid and high-band spectrum.

The change, which is said to be “one of the first deployments of its kind” on a live European network, is expected to “significantly improve 5G network performance by boosting capacity, spectral efficiency, data rates, and coverage“. The new site can deliver more than 10Gbps of throughput, which O2 says is more than their entire UK network carried at the peak of the London 2012 Olympics, and is enough to support 2,000 simultaneous 5Mbps HD video streams.

Dr Robert Joyce, Director of Mobile Access Engineering at O2, said:

“The switch on of our first Giga Site here in central London is a really important demonstration of how we are investing and innovating to continue improving our mobile network and customer experience. These new sites will deliver faster speeds, greater capacity, and more reliable connections for our customers. As we carry out upgrades and roll out hundreds more Giga Sites across the country, we’ll put our new spectrum to work helping us keep improving mobile connectivity nationwide.”

Mark Atkinson, Head of Radio Access Networks at Nokia, added:

“Our partnership with Virgin Media O2 to implement Giga Sites reflects our commitment to helping our customers differentiate with superior performance. This is one of Europe’s first dual-band Massive MIMO deployment combined with our TDD carrier aggregation solution, which showcases how our latest high-performance radios and versatile carrier aggregation solutions allow operators to fully harness the power of their spectrum, enabling the next wave of 5G services.”

The operator now plans to deploy 1,000 of these new “Giga Sites” nationwide throughout next year, which supports their wider £700m Mobile Transformation Plan for network upgrades. We should add that even if your existing Smartphone doesn’t have the same number of antennas as a Massive MIMO base station, it can still benefit from the increased capacity and more precise signal targeting that such technologies bring.

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Fibre optic network supplier Emtelle UK, which is a global manufacturer of blown fibre, cabling and ducted solutions, has today announced that they’ve “deepened” their existing partnership with altnet ISP Highland Broadband (formerly Lothian Broadband) to help accelerate their roll-out of full fibre (FTTP) infrastructure across Scotland’s rural communities.

The announcement comes shortly after Highland Broadband secured a huge £50m funding boost to help support a “major expansion” of their network “throughout rural Scotland“ (here). As a result, the provider said it was now “on track to extend its reach to over 150 towns and villages” across rural Scotland in the coming year.

Highland Broadband has indicated that they “already connect around 50% of all rural premises in the Scottish Highlands“. The new agreement will see Emtelle supplying full solutions including its fibre and ducting solutions, technical support, and deployment expertise to support the aforementioned expansion.

Gavin Rodgers, CEO of Highland Broadband, said:

“This injection of £50 million of new capital means we have the funding as well as the capability to continue network expansion throughout rural Scotland. But funding alone doesn’t build networks it’s about having the right partners by your side. Together with Emtelle, we can roll out a resilient, future-proof network that will bring genuine change to the communities we serve.”

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The UK Government has today launched a new Innovation Cluster Map, which forms part of a fresh drive to encourage pensions firms to commit more of their private investment toward the country’s science and technology sectors, which could include anything from research into new vaccines and medicines to AI or future satellite broadband technologies etc.

According to the Science Minister, Lord Vallance, some $16bn was invested into UK start-ups and scale-ups last year (we’re not sure why they’re using dollars), and more than $8bn has been raised in the first half of 2025 – exceeding France and Germany combined. But the government wants to see more money going toward this field as part of efforts to boost growth via their ‘Plan for Change’.

In order to support pension firms to invest with clarity, the Government has introduced its new Innovation Cluster Map, which is said to outline pockets of outstanding research and commerce across different parts of the UK (i.e. helping investors to better identify the companies, sectors and regions of the UK to target for investment).

The map identifies areas (clusters) and regions where networks of businesses and research institutions are benefitting from close proximity to one another, boosting the effects of research, development, and innovation. “This means investors know where to seek out expertise and crucially how to make the most of the skills that exist around the country,” said the announcement.

Science Minister, Lord Vallance, said:

“There are far too many UK companies operating at the cutting-edge of emerging technologies, like AI, biotechnology and quantum to which UK investors are underexposed.

Through our Industrial Strategy, we are building an environment where public funding, streamlined regulation and partnerships with industry are channelling investment into science and technology.

Encouraging greater flows of capital into the sector is another piece of the puzzle, supporting companies to grow and jobs to be created.”

The map may be of some use to investors, although it appears to only give quite a high-level view across some fairly wide geographic areas, usually accompanied by various statistics. In that sense it seems to be more of a starting point for roughly locating areas of interest for investment, although beyond that its applications appear to be quite limited.

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Telecom giant Vodafone and strategic supplier Nokia have today revealed that they conducted their first real-world trial of “lag-busting” L4S (Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput) technology on a “live home broadband fibre [FTTP] connection“. The trial was able to significant reduce the delay (latency) time during gaming and videoconferencing by 94%.

For context. Latency is a measure of the time that it takes for a packet of data to travel from your computer/device to a remote server and then back again (ping). The delay is measured in milliseconds (e.g. 1000ms = 1 second) and modern broadband connections will often have an average latency of anything from around c.4ms to 40ms (what is normal for your connection will depend on lots of different factors).

A faster score (shortest time) is best for latency, although this can be affected by various things, such as the performance of remote internet servers, the connection technology being used, network congestion at your ISP, peering / routing problems and the setup of your own home network etc. But consumers with a modern Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband connections can usually already expect some of the best latency times (often c.2-10ms).

However, Vodafone and other operators have long been working to introduce L4S technology, which could enable their networks to simultaneously maintain high throughput and low latency. L4S is based on the knowledge that the root cause of queuing delay (i.e. when packets wait idly in buffers across the network, for instance in routers and modems, before being forwarded) is in the capacity-seeking congestion controllers of senders, not in the queue itself. L4S thus aims to transition away from congestion control algorithms that cause substantial queuing delay and instead adopt a new class of congestion controls, which seek capacity with very little queuing.

The good news today is that they’ve progressed from last year’s lab trials and have now trialled L4S on a live commercial FTTP fibre broadband network (end-to-end) for the first time. The trial took place in Türkiye (Turkey) and reduced latency on multiple customer lines whilst using video conferencing and cloud gaming applications.

The increase in round-trip delay, with the customers line heavily congested, was said to have been reduced from 220ms to just 4.7ms.

Alberto Ripepi, Chief Network Officer of Vodafone, said:

“We are raising the bar on quality for fibre broadband by significantly lowering latency. Our world-first trial underlines our commitment to innovate and deliver an enhanced service to customers across Europe.”

Bjorn Capens, Vice-President Fixed Networks Europe of Nokia, said:

“Nokia continuously strives to increase the performance of its fibre solutions through innovation, and this trial puts the L4S internet protocol – pioneered by Bell Labs – into practice in a real-world fibre network, including the in-home Wi-Fi.

Innovating for and with a leading operator like Vodafone is paramount for a company like Nokia, as well as providing superior latency with minimal latency variation on an end-to-end fibre and in-home Wi-Fi network.”

ISPreview queried when we might see this being deploying on Vodafone’s network in the UK, although the operator is currently planning to conduct more tests before looking to deploy the technology across its European markets (focusing on driving common standards and vendor support). But they do still expect it to be “adopted over the next few years“.

We should point out that L4S is a technology neutral standard, so while the trial was conducted on FTTP, it could also just as easily have been deployed on 4G or 5G mobile etc.

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The independent wholesale broadband and leased-lines aggregator, VeloxServ, has today announced that they’ve added Gigaclear’s rural full fibre broadband network to their platform as part of a new supplier partnership. The move gives partners (ISPs etc.) access to yet another alternative network, the fourth new supplier partner they’ve onboarded in 2025.

The announcement indicates that Gigaclear’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network is currently available to over 530,000 homes and businesses in poorly served parts of rural England. But the network operator’s latest official coverage figures appear to put their reach at 612,000 premises for Sept 2025 (inc. 150,000 customers in June 2025).

VeloxServ currently gives resellers, ISPs, and MSPs access to a wide and growing range of suppliers – including major carriers like Openreach, CityFibre, and Virgin Media (O2), as well as alternative networks such as Elevate, ITS Technology, Freedom Fibre, FullFibre Limited, Netomnia (Brsk), Vorboss and now Gigaclear.

Craig Messer, MD of VeloxServ, said:

“We’re delighted to partner with Gigaclear to bring even more full-fibre capability into our wholesale portfolio. This is our fourth major supplier addition this year and it underlines our strategy of giving our partners the widest possible choice in high-quality, future-proof connectivity. By working with Gigaclear, especially in rural areas that are often underserved, we’re helping our partners extend their reach, improve service delivery, and meet the increasing demand for ultrafast, reliable broadband. At VeloxServ, our aim is always to empower the channel – offering not just multiple supplier options, but transparent pricing, technical support, and a partner-first approach, so resellers can build resilient, profitable businesses without bias or constraint.”

Jamie Flint, Gigaclear Wholesale Director, said:

“We are pleased to be working with the team at VeloxServ and this collaboration will deliver even more choice for residents and businesses in rural areas. At Gigaclear we are proud of our near 15 years’ experience of building and operating a network in some of the most rural parts of the country, and we are continuing to play our part in narrowing the digital divide that exists between rural and urban areas. We are looking forward to delivering even greater connectivity as this partnership develops.”

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Mobile and internet provider giffgaff has today published the results of a new 3Gem survey of 2,000 UK adults (conducted during Sept 2025), which claims to have found that 53% of respondents face “broadband disruptions” at least twice a month and the average Brit spends nearly 50 hours a year troubleshooting poor internet connectivity.

The survey, which later confusingly indicated that the 53% figure referred to people who “suffer regular problems with their WiFi“, identifies that the top frustrations experienced by respondents include frozen work calls (17%), lost shopping orders (13%) and films or TV shows cutting out mid-stream (12%).

Meanwhile, people are said to be “going to extraordinary lengths to stay connected“, with 36% having left the house to find a signal – heading to cafés, friends’ homes, libraries and even supermarket car parks – and 6% even admitted parking outside an ex’s house to use their WiFi (this is technically illegal if done without permission).

At home, coping tactics mean that 38% of respondents said they wander round the house trying to get a better signal, while 17% shout at the router (always super effective), and 8% drain their phone data (mobile broadband) by Tethering it to other devices. Finally, 31% say it’s too much hassle to switch provider (it’s actually now very easy), while a quarter think another provider wouldn’t be any better.

It’s almost like giffgaff have got a new home broadband service to promote, which of course they do (here).

Ash Schofield, CEO of giffgaff, said:

“Our research shows just how frustrating and disruptive unreliable broadband has become in people’s everyday lives. It’s clear that many feel stuck with a service they’re not happy with.

That’s why we invited over 500 people to help shape our offering, ensuring we deliver a service that is built around what people actually want. The launch of giffgaff’s full fibre broadband provides a flexible and reliable option with no fuss and no compromise.

Ditching bad broadband and switching to giffgaff could be the answer to a lot of people’s frustrations and is really simple to do.”

Leaving aside the obvious vested interest above, it’s worth caveating that this survey doesn’t make much distinction between problems caused by local network connectivity (e.g. bad configuration, variable WiFi between rooms etc.) and the physical broadband connection from an ISP. Similarly, some of the issues complained about (e.g. lost shopping orders), could just as easily be the fault of a remote internet website or service.

We should point out that not every person has the necessary skills to correctly identity and diagnose the cause of internet or network connection issues. As usual, opinion surveys like this should always be taken with a pinch of salt, especially given the relatively small sample size involved.

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 Intracom Telecom, a global technology systems and solutions provider and BroadbandOne, a rapidly growing enterprise connectivity provider in several States in the U.S, today announced a strategic partnership to expand their broadband points of presence across Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida. The pioneering initiative is based on Intracom Telecom’s high-performance multi-gigabit mmWave Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) technology and BroadbandOne’s highly differentiated service model.

BroadbandOne’s rollout delivers cost-effective gigabit connectivity for business customers, especially in areas where traditional fiber is limited or cost prohibitive. Powered by Intracom Telecom’s technology and operating at the 28 GHz mmWave frequency range, it is capable of connecting subscribers with download speeds up to 2.4 Gbps and reaching beyond 5 miles from the cell center. Each Intracom Telecom WiBAS™ G5 Smart Base Station radio offers 5.6 Gbps capacity and serves 120 subscribers, with powerful hierarchical QoS, and exceptionally high availability of service. The Intracom Telecom technology continues to offer reliable service where buried or aerial fiber fails due to cuts and weather inflicted damage.

The deployment strategy launched supports BroadbandOne’s Telco as a Service (TaaS) model, a fully managed solution that gives enterprises scalable, carrier-grade connectivity without the burden of owning and maintaining network infrastructure.

“Businesses need broadband that is as agile as they are,” said Eric Watko, CEO of BroadbandOne. “Through this FWA rollout, enterprises can access fiber-like gigabit performance without the delays and costs of traditional fiber builds. This is about giving customers faster time to service, predictable costs, and the flexibility to scale as their needs evolve.”

“Intracom Telecom is proud to support BroadbandOne in this multi-state rollout,” said Kyriakos Vergos, CEO of Intracom Telecom USA. “Our unique technology platform is designed to deliver high-capacity, secure, and ultra-reliable multi-gigabit connectivity at scale. By combining BroadbandOne’s innovative service model with our technology, enterprises across the U.S. can benefit from faster deployments and a broadband experience comparable to fiber.”

Together, BroadbandOne and Intracom Telecom are redefining how enterprises access and consume broadband by combining service innovation, advanced technology, and speed of deployment. The partnership is set to expand into additional U.S. regions in 2025, accelerating broadband access and digital transformation for businesses nationwide.