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News  The partnership is aimed at boost 5G development, innovation, and digital transformation across the Africa nation  The Nigerian government has signed an agreement with Ericsson to collaborate on developing and deploying 5G technology. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed during a government visit to Ericsson’s headquarters in Stockholm late last week, led by Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima.  Ericsson has been operating in Nigeria since 1978, helping to deploy...

The UK media and telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today published a new letter that they recently sent to broadband and phone providers. The letter confirms their intention to decommission the old consumer ISP switching system (NoT+) on 24th October this week in favour of their new One Touch Switching (OTS) system, which is said to be “working well“. In case anybody has forgotten, OTS, which aims to make it both quicker and easier for consumers to switch between broadband and phone providers...

News The transaction is part of UScellular’s ongoing efforts to monetise its remaining spectrum assets, having sold the majority of its wireless operations to T-Mobile earlier this year    UScellular has reached a $1 billion agreement with Verizon to sell part of its spectrum holdings, the company has announced.  The deal includes spectrum licences in the 850 MHz band, as well as AWS (Advanced Wireless Services; i.e., 695–2200 MHz) and PCS (Personal Communications Services; i.e.,1850–1995 MHz)...

News The new regulations introduced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also include new Bluetooth coupling requirements The FCC has adopted new rules that require all mobile phones available in the US to be compatible with hearing aids. The new rules include new stipulations for devices’ Bluetooth connections, requiring manufacturers to move away from proprietary coupling standards and instead ensure “universal connectivity” between handsets and hearing aids. This measure will mean...

Interview At Connected Britain 2024, we sat down with Vimal Pindoria, IP Business Development Director EMEA at Ciena, to discuss the importance of open access, what that means for competition in the UK market, and his advice for those looking to adopt the strategy. Watch the full interview...

Customers of Virgin Media and O2’s various broadband, mobile, phone and TV packages may like to know that the provider’s ‘Priority’ app, which is a way of rewarding existing subscribers with various special offers and discounts, has begun offering a cheaper Railcard for £10 instead of the usual £30. A Railcard can normally provide users with a discount worth a third off most train ticket prices and sometimes more, depending upon which category of commuter you fall into. People who make regular...

Internet provider UltraNetworks has used vouchers from the Scottish Government to help it upgrade and deploy a new 5G Standalone (SA) based fixed wireless (FWA) network from Mormond Hill. The site will be able to serve homes and businesses in rural parts of North East Aberdeenshire (Scotland) with 1Gbps+ broadband speeds. Just to recap. 5G SA represents a pure end-to-end 5G wireless network technology that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better upload speeds,...

A new survey of 5,083 UK adult consumers, which was conducted by Which?, has claimed that the average broadband-only ISP customer could save £105 per year by switching to a new provider and those switching from BT, Sky Broadband or Virgin Media saved even more – up to £165 on average for a Virgin customer. It’s a similar story for mobile and TV users. The estimated average saving increases to £160 for out-of-contract consumers who bundled both a pay TV and broadband service (Sky customers...

Alternative network operator Grain (Grain Connect), which has already built their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 220,000 UK premises RFS (21st May 2024) and connected 30,000 customers, has confirmed that their next expansion target is the industrial Cheshire town of Widnes. The local roll-out is due to start this month and the first customers could then be connected by “early 2025“, although it’s currently unclear precisely how many premises in the town...

Eutelsat has confirmed that they’ve launched an additional 20 satellites, on the back of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, to join their global network of OneWeb broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is a constellation that has been partly supported by the UK government. This is despite the network supposedly being completed last year. OneWeb (aka – Eutelsat OneWeb) previously had 634 small (c.150kg) first generation (GEN1) Low Earth Orbit (LEO) platforms in space – orbiting at an...