BT’s First Real-World UK Deployment of 5G Standalone Network Slicing
Telecoms giant BT has today said they recently conducted their “first real-world deployment” of a 5G Standalone (5GSA) mobile broadband network using network slicing technology, which formed part of a trial that brought “superfast payments” to the Belfast Christmas Market last month. Just for some context. 5G SA networks are pure end-to-end 5G that remove the legacy of 4G connectivity and can thus deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better upload speeds, network...
Ofcom Begin Process of Imposing Age Verification on UK Internet Sites
The UK telecoms and media regulator, Ofcom, has today moved forward with implementation of the government’s tedious new Online Safety Act (OSA) by publishing industry guidance on how websites and social media services should introduce “effective age checks“. The goal is to prevent children from encountering online porn and protect them from other harmful content. The focus around the new age verification requirement is frequently expressed as being something targeted towards pornography...
Report Examines Customer Take-up of Openreach vs AltNet Broadband ISPs
Strategic consultancy firm Eight Advisory has today launched a new Takeup Tracker, which examines the steady rise in take-up across the UK’s many alternative full fibre broadband (altnet) networks and compares it with that of incumbent operator Openreach (BT). The new tracker paints a mixed picture, albeit one with some positives to share. Overall, altnet penetration has slowly increased over the last 6 months, along with their focus on profitability. While some continue to build at pace, many...
Netgem TV Adds Sports Channels via Supporting UK Broadband ISPs
Digital entertainment platform provider Netgem TV has today announced that their IPTV box and service, which is typically bundled by broadband ISPs like Brsk, TalkTalk, Connect Fibre, CommunityFibre and a few others, will benefit from a new partnership with Sports Studio that adds more than 40 free sports channels from its Free Live Sports streaming platform their TV Guide. The set-top-boxes that they provide – like the Netbox 4K (inc. HDR, bluetooth pairing, Ethernet, WiFi, USB and Dolby...
BT Confirms Revised Annual Mid-Contract Price Hikes Policy for 2025
Broadband, TV, phone and mobile provider BT (inc. EE) has today reiterated their policy on annual UK price increases, which readers may recall was first introduced last year (here and here). This is intended to align with Ofcom’s ban on mid-contract price hikes that are linked to confusing inflation and percentage-based changes (here). Just to be clear. Ofcom’s change is NOT designed to stop mid-contract hikes completely, and is more about making future pricing clearer and simpler. But it does...
Dorset UK Council Celebrate Completion of £23.6m Broadband Project
After 11 years and £23.6m of public investment, the Dorset Council in the South of England has today celebrated the completion of their Superfast Dorset project (now part of the wider ‘Digital Dorset’ scheme), which helped to extend “superfast” and “ultra-fast” broadband networks to an additional 85,000 premises. At present around 98% of premises in Dorset (excluding Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) have access to a 24-30Mbps+ capable fixed “superfast broadband” service, which rises to 61%...
BT quietly scraps EV charging pilot
News Almost exactly a year after launching a pilot scheme to convert street cabinets into EV charging stations, BT have scrapped the project The cabinets, which are rapidly becoming obsolete as the UK’s full fibre network rollout increasingly brings the infrastructure directly to the end user’s home, were seen as an opportunity by BT, who announced a pilot project to turn them into EV charging stations. The first unit was installed in East Lothian, Scotland, in February last year. The plan...
“European competitiveness has one foot in the morgue,” warns Nokia CEO
News In a summit today, the CEOs of both Nokia and Ericsson called for greater investments into network technology to support European innovation In a rare display of unity, today the CEOs of telecoms tech rivals Nokia and Ericsson both took to the stage at the New Industrial Ambition for Europe summit in Brussels, arguing that Europe needed major reform to ensure competitiveness on the global stage. The event saw Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO of Nokia, and Börje Ekholm, President and CEO...
Megaport adds Point of Presence (PoP) at two nLighten edge data centres
Following a strategic partnership with Megaport, nLighten’s customers will be able to easily migrate their workloads to and from a wide choice of public and private cloud services, enabling efficient and cost-effective hybrid IT environments. This will add to the the colocation, connectivity and onsite services already provided. As a vendor-neutral digital infrastructure platform, nLighten is committed to providing customers with diverse cloud on-ramp options and is actively pursuing new...
Ericsson and IBM to modernise UK Emergency Services Network
News Ericsson has announced a partnership with IBM UK to deliver a new communications network for emergency services in the UK The Emergency Services Network (ESN) aims to enhance the technology and data accessibility available to over 300,000 frontline responders, including police, fire, and ambulance services. The ESN will replace the current Airwave system, providing faster and more secure communication for voice, video, and data. Emergency responders will be able to share real-time...