Ofcom Publish 8th Annual Report into UK Net Neutrality Issues
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...
GCON Pumps Extra £6.2m into UK Gigabit Broadband ISP Voneus
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...
BT Propose to Cut up to 90 Jobs from Belfast HQ in Northern Ireland
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...
Vodafone UK Beat Starlink with First Mobile to Mobile Video Call via Satellite
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...
BT Group Report Loss of 208,000 Total Openreach UK Broadband Lines
Telecoms giant BT Group has today published a brief trading update to the end of 2024, which reveals that Openreach added another 1 million premises in the last quarter (unchanged) to the coverage of their full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network (total 17m) and saw related take-up rise by 472k (net adds) to total 6m (stable at 35%). But total broadband lines fell by 208k as rivals continue to bite. Take note that, since 2023, the BT Group now only publishes a short trading update in calendar...
Apple secretly testing direct-to-device satellite connectivity with Starlink and T-Mobile
News T-Mobile had previously only mentioned testing with Samsung devices, with no mention of Apple’s iPhones Apple has been “secretly” working with T-Mobile and SpaceX test Starlink’s network using Apple’s latest iPhone software, according to a Bloomberg report. The iPhone’s latest software update, which was released this week, will allow selected T-Mobile customers to connect directly to the satellites. The test will “begin with select optimised smartphones” and the full launch will...
BT to cut 5% of Northern Irish workers
News The cuts are in line with BT’s wider strategy to reduce its workforce by 40% by 2030. BT has proposed cutting 4.5% of the company’s 2,000 person workforce in Belfast, amounting to 90 jobs. The operator said it had already contacted those potential affected, aiming to “transfer some of the work they do to other BT office locations”. “We are [in] discussions with anyone affected by our proposals and, if we go ahead, we have shared other opportunities in the wider Belfast office. There...
Trump targets TSMC with Taiwan chip tariffs
Feature Week: Trump on telecoms The tariffs on semiconductors could reportedly reach as high as 100% In a speech to fellow Republicans this week, newly reinstated US President Donald Trump said that the government would be targeting the Taiwanese semiconductor industry with major tariffs in a bid to boost the US chip ecosystem. “In the very near future, we’re going to be placing tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to return production of these...
Launch of China’s DeepSeek shakes up global AI industry
News The launch of DeepSeek has rattled the global AI industry, potentially offering a far cheaper alternative to market leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic Founded in 2023 by former hedge fund manager Liang Wenfeng, DeepSeek has quickly positioned itself as a strong competitor to the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s CoPilot, having seemingly trained a comparative AI model at a fraction of the usual cost (around $6 million compared to the industry standard of billions). The launch...
Home Broadband ISP iTalk Launch New UK Full Fibre Packages
Internet service provider iTalk, which is powered by Openreach’s national network, has today announced the arrival of their brand-new “Full Fibre” (FTTP) home broadband packages to complement their existing range of ADSL and FTTC (VDSL2) based packages on older lines. The new tiers are being launched alongside some big price discounts. The ISP did previously offer some FTTP packages, but they didn’t reach up into gigabit speeds and weren’t always as competitively priced as they needed to be....