News

The new CEO of the Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), Paddy Paddison, which represents many of the UK’s alternative broadband operators, has today told ISPreview – as part of a new interview – that he’s optimistic about financial institutions supporting altnets again “over the next year” and wants to see more sharing (infrastructure, wholesale etc.) in the sector. The past year or two have been more than a little bumpy for the markets many altnets. On the one hand, they’ve...

More than four thousand customers on CityFibre’s full fibre broadband network in the Northeast England city of York (Yorkshire and the Humber), which is used by lots of different ISPs (Vodafone, Zen Internet, iDNET, TalkTalk etc.), are this afternoon being affected by a major network outage. The incident, which appears to have started at around 11am this morning, resulted in customers losing internet connectivity and appears as if it could be related to the failure of a core router. But at...

The UK Government has published their annual New Year Honours List for 2025, which saw Ofcom’s Interim Group Director of Networks and Communications, David Peter Clarkson, being named a “Member of the Order of the British Empire” for his services to telecommunications. The King’s New Year Honours list is said to recognise the achievements and public service of people across the UK, from all walks of life. Anyone can nominate someone for an honour, and nominees are then “checked by various...

Customers in the South East of England who may be looking to sign-up with SpaceX’s popular Starlink service, which offers ultrafast broadband connectivity via a global mega constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), may have to wait a bit longer as the network in that area is now “at capacity“. At present Starlink’s network has a staggering 6,906 satellites (c.2,800 are v2 Mini / GEN 2A) in orbit – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km – and they’re in the process of adding thousands...

Low-cost broadband ISP Plusnet (BT Group), which over the past few years has already lost many of its extra features (pay TV, home phone (on FTTP), mobile etc.), appears to have added yet another service to the digital dustbin after customers began complaining that they could no longer add a Static IP address to their accounts. Concern about future support for the Static IP feature, which costs an extra £5 per month to add, first emerged over the summer after some customers reported to...

Rochdale-base broadband ISP Zen Internet has revealed that they saw their busiest ever period for network traffic on 4th December 2024, when streaming of live Premier League Football caused usage on their network to peak at 17% higher than 2023’s record and 10% above the average for a typical December evening. This was a 4% increase over their previous record high in September 2024. Reinforcing the football connection, October’s traffic figures also show that the largest peak for that month...

The Cumberland Council in England has praised the progress being made on local broadband upgrades in the rural region, which they say has so far helped to extend “superfast” (30Mbps+) networks to cover more than 95% of premises and “gigabit” (1000Mbps+) connectivity to 62%. But they also “anticipate” that gigabit cover will “exceed 99% of properties by 2026“. Going from gigabit broadband coverage of 62% to 99%+ by 2026 would suggest quite a significant level of rapid build progress for such a...

ISPreview has today taken a quick look back across the UK’s market for mobile network operators in order to identify both the cheapest unlimited 4G and 5G data (broadband) plans and examine how their pricing has changed since our last survey two years ago. But some people may be surprised to find that most operators are still charging a similar amount. In this article we’ll focus on the cheapest Pay Monthly SIM-Only plans with unlimited data, which is partly because the alternative dedicated...

On 17th January 2025 Ofcom will begin enforcing a ban on mid-contract price hikes that are linked to inflation and percentage changes (here), but this doesn’t extend to many existing broadband contracts. Consumers on bigger ISPs may thus find themselves being divided between two different pricing policies, and one is going to hurt your wallet more than the other. Just to recap. Over the past few years most of the major ISPs have adopted a policy that sees them increasing the price their...

New customers looking to join broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2) should take note that they’ve today launched their Winter Sale, which significantly slashes some of their broadband and TV bundle prices. For example, Virgin’s top 2Gbps package has been reduced in price to just £55 per month on an 18-month minimum term. The discounted broadband plans, which include a wireless router and free setup, generally start at £23.50 per month for a 132Mbps service (£54 after 18-months), before rising to £27...