News

Consultancy firm FarrPoint has published the first 2025 edition of their Digital Connectivity Readiness Index (DCRI), which ranks the G7 countries by the quality and coverage of their digital infrastructure (broadband, 5G etc.), as well as other areas like digital skills and online security etc. Overall, the United Kingdom continues to rank top and has improved its scores. The scores contained within this report are based on key indicators gathered from a series of data sources, such as Ofcom...

The boss of Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited (DMSL), which represents the four major mobile operators (EE, O2, Vodafone and Three UK), has today confirmed that a total of 30 government-funded rural 4G (mobile broadband) mast upgrades have now gone live across the United Kingdom via the industry-led £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project. The SRN – supported by £501m of public funding and £532m of private investment from operators – involves both the reciprocal sharing of existing masts in...

Broadband ISP and mobile operator Virgin Media and O2 (VNO2) have today announced that they intend to donate “up to” 12,000 pre-owned Smartphones during 2025 (c.1,000 per month) to help people in need get online and reduce e-waste, which will be conducted in partnership with the Good Things Foundation and Hubbub. The operator is sourcing the Smartphones from customer returns and its O2 Recycle service, which helps to ensure unwanted devices are given a second life and assists those who might...

Ofcom has confirmed that, from today, UK phone providers (fixed line and mobile) are expected to have implemented changes that aim to block scammers who call from abroad and imitate UK landline numbers (i.e. spoofed calls). Further measures are also expected to follow “later this year“, which will tackle spoofed mobile numbers. Just to recap. Most of the United Kingdom’s major broadband, phone and mobile providers have already implemented various technical measures to tackle Nuisance Calls and...

The Comms Council UK, which represents the UK’s national Unified Communications and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) phone industry, has today announced a new “joint information sharing initiative” with National Trading Standards (NTS) that aims to help “crack down on telephone fraud“. The announcement, which drops on the same day as Ofcom separately introduced new measures to block foreign scam calls from UK landlines (here), will enable CCUK’s members to share information on fraudulent...

The Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) has today appointed Neos Networks to lead their £1.2m D2N2 Gigahubs project, which will work alongside Openreach (BT) and Netomnia to deploy a new full fibre gigabit broadband network to connect “up to” 28 public buildings (schools, NHS sites etc.) across rural parts of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. At present Neos, which runs one of the biggest 34,000km long business fibre networks in the UK – spanning 550 exchanges, 90+ data centres and 676 Points...

Ofcom has today published their 8th annual (2025) monitoring report of the UK’s Net Neutrality rules (guidelines), which were originally established to prevent unfair blocking or slowing of access to legal websites and internet services by broadband ISPs and mobile operators (with some exceptions). Overall, the report found no major concerns. The original rules meant that providers couldn’t easily impose excessive restrictions against internet traffic and should treat almost all of it equally...

Rural network operator and UK ISP Voneus, which aims to cover 370,000 premises via both their gigabit-capable fixed wireless access (FWA) and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband networks, has just received a further combined capital investment of £6,198,805 from Global Connectivity plc (GCON). Just to recap. Last year’s move to merge SWS Broadband (Rural Broadband Solutions), Cadence Networks and Broadway Partners into Voneus caused some big changes on the investment front (here). The deal...

Telecoms and UK broadband giant BT Group has reportedly proposed to make up to 90 staff redundant from their Belfast office, which is currently home to 2,000 colleagues from across the company, including EE, BT Business and Openreach. The group currently employs a total of 3,400 from across Northern Ireland. The move is perhaps not all that surprising, particularly since BT has made no secret of the fact that they expect their total labour force to shrink from 130,000 a year ago to between...

Mobile operator Vodafone UK today claims to have “beaten Elon Musk in the space race” by making the first mobile-to-mobile video call using a normal (unmodified) Smartphone and special satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) from partner AST SpaceMobile. This is essentially a space-based 4G and 5G mobile broadband service. Just to recap. AST has spent the past few years developing and trialling the new platform, including via their prototype 1.5-ton BlueWalker 3 satellite (here), which orbits at...