News

The Government’s executive Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency and Ipsos UK have today published an “early process review” of the Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS) programme under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband roll-out scheme, which identifies what “worked well” and “less well” in terms of providing the GIS intervention to date. Just to recap. Project Gigabit was designed to focus on improving connectivity for those in hard-to-reach (mostly rural) parts of the final 10-20% of UK...

Hull-based broadband ISP KCOM, which is building a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across parts of East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England, has named the second round of three winners for their Digital Inclusion Grants. Each of the projects and organisations will share from a pot of £30k, which aims to improve lives in communities across the region. The grant scheme, which is due to run until the end of 2026, is designed to help promote online inclusion, build stronger communities,...

News A new survey suggests that the switch off could leave over 4.3 million people without access to mobile internet Today, Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) has announced it will begin its 3G shutdown in the city of Durham in April, before expanding to the rest of the UK by the end of the year. The move will see customers with capable devices switched onto the faster and more energy efficient 4G and 5G networks, allowing VMO2 to repurpose the 3G spectrum. Alongside VMO2’s mobile customers, the shutdown...

News  TalkTalk will exit its co-founded child safety charity, Internet Matters, by the end of March, the Telegraph has reported  Internet Matters, a charity that educates parents, schools, and caregivers about online safety, was founded in 2014 by TalkTalk alongside BT, Virgin Media, and Sky.   Despite growing concerns about online safety and upcoming UK regulations aimed at tightening controls over major internet platforms, TalkTalk says it is no longer able to financially support the...

News  The government’s new AI plan aims to boost productivity, create jobs, and modernise public services amid a slowing economy  The UK government has announced a plan to integrate AI into key sectors, aiming to boost economic growth, streamline public services, and create thousands of jobs.   Attempting to take control of the country’s economic conversation after an unsettled past week in the financial markets, the AI Opportunities Action Plan, launched today, includes 50 recommendations...

The Chief Security and Networks Officer of BT Group, Howard Watson, has today joined the COO of BT Business, Kerry Small, in setting out what approach they intend to take when it comes to withdrawing their old 2G mobile service on EE. This will start in the “coming months“, when they’ll begin encouraging some customers to move to their more modern (4G and 5G) network. The UK government and all major mobile operators have so far agreed to phase-out existing 2G and 3G signals by 2033 (here),...

Debt-troubled UK broadband provider TalkTalk has reportedly “pulled out” of industry-funded online child safety charity Internet Matters, which was established alongside BT, Virgin Media and Sky Broadband during 2014. The move is said to form part of the ISP’s efforts to cut £120m in costs and follows recent job cuts (here). The latest move ultimately flows from last year’s decision to accept a refinancing package worth roughly £400m (here and here), which saved TalkTalk from the immediate...

Network testing giant Ookla, which collects data from consumers via their popular Speedtest.net service, has published their Q3-Q4 2024 (H1) study into the speed of 5G based mobile broadband networks across the United Kingdom. The results reveal that Three UK once again delivered the fastest downloads (236.25Mbps) and uploads (12.94Mbps), but their performance has fallen. As we’ve said before, mobile data performance can be a very difficult thing to pin down because related users are always...

Infracapital-backed ISP Fibrus, which is busy rolling out their alternative gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of Cumbria (England) and Northern Ireland, has confirmed another round of redundancies as their roll-out in N.Ireland comes to an end. But new jobs in customer facing roles are expected to be created. Just to recap. The operator has already built their full fibre network to cover 400,000 UK premises and have previously claimed to be...

News  Nokia has been selected by Openreach to deliver its One Network Platform, an open-access fibre network designed to connect millions of homes and businesses across the UK  The project will see Nokia deploy a wide range of technology upgrades across Openreach’s network, aiming to boost efficiencies and simplify further fibre rollouts.   Using Nokia’s Altiplano and NSP controllers, Openreach will be able to automate its fibre services across various technologies, which they say will...