News

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has just announced the second batch of annual price increases for 2024 (see first batch), albeit this time focused more on their wholesale Ethernet (EAD, EBD etc.), OSA, Excess Construction Charges (ECC), SOTAP for Analogue, Dark Fibre and Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) products for UK ISPs, businesses and other networks. Just to recap. Ofcom’s regulation (example) allows Openreach to increase prices across their various wholesale products, usually...

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has today dismissed a £1.3bn class action claim by the Collective Action on Land Lines (CALL) campaign against national broadband ISP and phone provider BT, which alleged that the UK telecoms giant had overcharged 2.3 million of its landline-only phone customers between 2015 and 2018. Just to recap. The original claim was first raised at the start of 2021 through UK law firm Mishcon de Reya, which was acting on behalf of a former Ofcom telecoms consultant...

Contributed Article by Marc Anné, Chair of Judges for the World Communication Awards This year, we counted 219 entries across 23 award categories in the World Communication Awards. As expected, the newly introduced AI Excellence Award became a popular category. 2023 saw the rise of generative AI, 2024 proved to be the year of its integration into telecommunications. Entries showcased incredible innovation and excellence and reflected a wide variety of use cases whereby Gen-AI is generating...

Network operator CityFibre has today announced that they’ve begun the roll-out phase of their £77m state-aid supported Project Gigabit contract for the Leicestershire and Warwickshire (Lot 11) area. This will extend their 10Gbps capable FTTP broadband network to an additional 45,000 hard-to-reach rural premises in those regions. Curiously, the figures given in Cityfibre’s announcement today differ from those they gave when the contract was announced in February 2024 (here), which specified a...

Rural ISP Wessex Internet has announced that they’ve connected their first customer to a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, which they’ve been building as part of their £18.8m Project Gigabit (Lot 30) contract for South Wiltshire (England). This aims to cover “around” 14,500 hard-to-reach premises in the area. Zoe Hallett from Bapton is the first to benefit, although the roll-out will see the provider expanding their existing full fibre network across more of...

Abingdon-based rural ISP and full fibre network builder Gigaclear, which has already extended their FTTP network to cover 580,000 premises (RFS) in England and signed-up over 130,000 customers, has today announced that they’ve appointed Andy Matthews to be their new Chairman – replacing Stephen Nelson who is retiring. Andy is currently the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of infrastructure investment firm Infracapital, which backs Gigaclear, and has been on the provider’s Board since 2019. Andy...

Some of TalkTalk’s broadband customers have, over the past week or two, been experiencing an unusual router bug with the provider’s ‘Wi-Fi Hub’ device that has been causing them to be repeatedly disconnected from the internet. But the ISP is currently known to be “in the process of applying a solution to all impacted” routers. The issue appears to have started on Monday (9th Dec) last week for some customers, although others only began to notice it at the start of this week (examples here and...

News The satellites will be built at Airbus’ facility in Toulouse, with production set to begin in 2026 Airbus Defence and Space has been awarded a contract by Eutelsat to expand its OneWeb Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. The contract will see Airbus build the first 100 satellites of the extension, with deliveries expected to begin at the end of 2026. Airbus has previously manufactured the current OneWeb fleet, and the company is now set to continue its role in supporting...

News   Japan’s top telecom providers have joined forces to improve how quickly communication networks are restored after disasters  The initiative, launched earlier this month, brings together the NTT, KDDI, SoftBank , and Rakuten Mobile, aiming to streamline recovery efforts and minimise the impact of outages on affected communities.  The companies will share resources such as storage facilities, accommodations, and refueling stations to accelerate recovery in disaster-hit areas. Ships from...

Vodafone UK has announced that they’ve worked with Google to bring MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) support to their Pixel 8 Pro and new Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Fold phones when on the mobile operator’s new 5G Standalone (broadband) network, which has helped to boost upload speeds. But Google users won’t be the only ones to benefit. Vodafone has already made 5G SA technology (i.e. their end-to-end pure 5G network) available in the “busy areas” of 23 cities and hundreds of other...