New Kent UK Homeowners Criticise Persimmon Over FTTP Broadband Monopoly
Residents living in new build homes on the ‘Mascalls Grange Estate’ in Paddock Wood (Kent, England), which was constructed by Persimmon Homes, have called for help after suffering a “nightmare” of protracted broadband outages. But locals have been unable to escape the developer’s sibling ISP, FibreNest, because they have a “monopoly” over the area. The situation will be a familiar one to ISPreview’s readers because we’ve touched on it a few times before. Essentially, back in 2018 Persimmon...
Quickline Connect First North Yorkshire Homes Under Gigabit Broadband Contract
Rural focused UK ISP Quickline has today announced that they’ve connected the first homes under their £73.5m state-aid supported Project Gigabit roll-out contract for North Yorkshire (Lot 31). This will see their gigabit-capable broadband network extending to cover an additional 36,300 premises in some of the hardest-to-reach areas of the county. Just to recap. The Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit broadband roll-out scheme aims to help extend 1Gbps (download) capable networks to reach...
Ooredoo launch GCC’s largest submarine cable connecting seven countries
News The investment is expected to support the growth of cloud services, big data, and accelerate digital transformation across the region Ooredoo has partnered with Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), a French company specialising in submarine cables, to build a new cable that will connect seven countries in the Middle East region: Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq. It is not clear at this stage how long the cable will be. The Fibre in Gulf (FIG) project will...
BT welcomes new Business unit CEO as company’s revenue dips
News Weaker handset trading in the consumer segment detracted from the impact of both fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) growth in Openreach and price increases BT has released its financial results for the quarter ending 31 December 2024, reported adjusted revenue of £5.2 billion, a 3% year-on-year (YoY) drop driven by weaker international demand and a 12% decline in handset sales. Despite this, adjusted EBITDA rose 4% to £2.1 billion, helped by tight cost control and increased operational...
UK Remains Top of G7 Focused Digital Connectivity Readiness Index
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...
30 Government Funded 4G Mobile UK Mast Upgrades Now Live
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...
Virgin Media O2 UK to Donate 12,000 Smartphones in 2025
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...
UK Phones Providers Introduce Tougher Blocking of Foreign Scam Calls
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...
Comms Council UK and NTS to Help Crackdown on Telephone Fraud
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...
Neos Networks to Lead Gigabit Broadband Upgrade in Notts and Derbyshire UK
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...