News

Openreach Reveal Annual 2024 UK Broadband and Ethernet Price Rises for ISPs

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today started to unveil their usual round of annual (2024) price increases across their wholesale broadband and Ethernet products for UK ISPs, which touches on everything from full fibre (FTTP) lines to hybrid fibre (FTTC / SOGEA), Cablelinks and Ethernet, among other products. Ofcom’s regulatory rules (example) currently allow Openreach to increase prices across their various products, usually by the CPI level of inflation (currently 2.3%), although...

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AST SpaceMobile and Vodafone ink long-term agreement to boost global connectivity 

News  The agreement will allow Vodafone to offer space-based cellular broadband in both its home and partner markets  AST SpaceMobile has entered into a long-term commercial agreement with Vodafone to provide global broadband access in underserved areas, enabling users to access broadband services directly through their phones.  Under the agreement, Vodafone will incorporate AST SpaceMobile’s space-based cellular broadband services into its home markets and offer these capabilities to other...

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Manx Telecom to Switch Off Copper Lines on Isle of Man by 2029

Broadband, phone and mobile operator Manx Telecom (MT), which serves premises across the remote Isle of Man, has revealed that they will begin “shutting down” their legacy copper telecoms network in 2025, with the full switch-off completed “no later than” 2029. In case anybody has forgotten. Back in 2020 the Isle of Man Government agreed (here) to invest £10m with MT in order to help them extend the coverage of their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to 99% of...

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Viasat Demos Working Direct-to-Device Messaging from its Satellites

Satellite communications firm Viasat appears to be following Starlink and AST SpaceMobile by successfully demonstrating their own Direct-to-Device (D2D) connectivity, which could allow their broadband satellites to connect with “everyday devices“, like 4G/5G mobile phones, industrial machinery or transport operators. The successful demo of D2D, which took place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was fairly simple and sent satellite-enabled two-way messages and SoS messages for attendees at...

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InternetTY Build FTTP Broadband to 12,000 Lincolnshire UK Premises

UK ISP InternetTY (aka – Internet ThankYou), which in 2020 began deploying a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to “rural and semi-urbanised areas” across Staffordshire and Lincolnshire, has revealed that they now cover around 12,000 premises in North Lincolnshire and Lincolnshire. This is the first update we’ve had from the network operator in a long time, so it’s good to see that their new Point-to-Point style “full fibre” network is still keeping busy. Just...

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Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Honored with Best Digital Transformation Award at World Communication Awards 2024

Press Release Jakarta, December 11, 2024 — Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (Indosat or IOH) proudly announces its recognition as the winner of the Best Digital Transformation Award at the prestigious World Communication Awards 2024. This accolade underscores the company’s groundbreaking efforts in redefining its role from a traditional telecommunications provider to an AI-driven technology leader in Indonesia’s digital landscape. The award was received by Steve Saerang, Senior Vice President – Head...

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World Communication Award winners 2024

 Held last night at The Marriott, Grosvenor Square, in London, the 26th World Communication Awards were a huge success! On behalf of the judges, we would like to congratulate all of the incredible winners.   AI Excellence Award Amdocs – Amdocs amAIz amAIz is a Gen-AI platform specifically designed for telco operations, combining LLMs from multiple providers to offer embedded copilots, GenAI agents, and numerous telco-specific use cases. This includes TelcoGPT, a natural language processing...

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Virgin Media and O2 Reveal UK Broadband and Mobile Traffic Trends for 2024

Network operator Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2) has today revealed some insights from their network, which among other things shows that they recorded an 8.1% rise in broadband usage (a new record) and a 9% uplift in mobile data traffic year-on-year. But that’s not all. Naturally, online video gaming was the main contributor to the growth in data usage on their fixed broadband ISP network, with four of the five busiest days aligned with ‘Call of Duty‘ launches (i.e. this reflects the downloading...

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Wessex Internet Start Project Gigabit Broadband Build in Dorset and Somerset UK

Rural UK broadband ISP Wessex Internet has today announced that they’ve begun the build phase of their new £33.5m state aid supported Project Gigabit contract in Dorset and South Somerset (Lot 14), which will extend their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to cover 21,400 hard-to-reach local homes and businesses. With the design and planning stage of this 5-year contract, awarded in April 2024 (here), now completed, construction has finally kicked off in Halstock (Dorset), with...

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Virgin Media UK Offers UltraHD TV Channel Free for Christmas

Broadband ISP Virgin Media has confirmed to ISPreview that, as a “festive treat for our customers“, they have temporarily opened up access to their Virgin TV Ultra HD (4K) channel (Ch 175 and Ch 999) to all their V6, TV360 and Stream customers at no extra cost until 1st January 2025. The special promotion was introduced on 1st December, although the operator didn’t put out any official announcements about it. Please note, if you watch TV on their older TiVo® box, you will not be able to access...

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