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Good news. The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency will shortly announce that more areas of the United Kingdom are to be re-opened to the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which means that homes and businesses in poorly served areas will be able to apply for funding to help get faster internet connections installed.

The GBVS typically offers grants worth up to £4,500 to help both rural and some poorly served urban premises (homes and businesses) to get a gigabit-capable broadband (1Gbps) ISP service installed. This is available to areas with existing broadband speeds of “less than 100Mbps” – assuming there are also no near-term plans for a gigabit deployment in the same area (either via private investment or state-aid).

At present the availability of this scheme is limited to parts of Derbyshire, Birmingham and the Black Country, Merseyside and Greater Manchester, Greater London, Scotland and the Isle of Wight. The restriction is partly to avoid the voucher scheme clashing with Project Gigabit’s larger subsidised delivery contracts, although this is a constantly changing situation and so sometimes the current rules do need updating.

According to our sources, BDUK has identified through supplier engagement that premises in parts of Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Newcastle and North Tyneside, Norfolk, North East England and Wales are now suitable for opening to the GBVS. This will give designated broadband suppliers in each area the opportunity to identify and deliver new voucher projects.

In addition, more premises will also be opened to vouchers across existing areas, including Shropshire, Birmingham and the Black Country, Greater London, and Merseyside and Manchester. At present this change is not being reflected via the GBVS website, but ISPreview understands that this will happen very soon.

BDUK Supplier Notice

Suppliers are reminded that … any new voucher projects or changes to existing projects submitted across any of these new areas or any existing areas open to vouchers will be prioritised if they can be delivered, and all voucher funding can be claimed, before April 2027. Suppliers with approved GBVS projects that continue to deliver connections and draw down voucher funding to agreed milestones are not impacted by this prioritisation.

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Low-cost mobile operator iD Mobile (Currys), which harnesses Three UK’s (VodafoneThree) national 4G and 5G network via a virtual operator partnership (mvno), has discounted their 4G and 5G unlimited data (broadband) plan on a 24-month term to half price – £8 per month – for the first 6 months of service, rising to just £16 thereafter.

As usual, all of iD Mobile’s plans come with access to 5G, free Data Rollover (not relevant on their unlimited tier) and inclusive Roaming in 50 destinations worldwide as standard (note: there’s a 30GB data limit on roaming if your UK allowance is 30GB or more). Customers can optionally also take shorter 12-month and 30-day (no contract) plans, but these come at extra cost.

The operator also pledges that subscribers to longer terms will see “no annual price rises“.

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Some customers of the Sky Mobile (Sky Broadband, Sky TV etc.) service, which harnesses O2’s Mobile Virtual Network Operator platform, have recently been complaining about a spate of problems with getting eSIMs activated. But the good news is that Sky now appears to have removed the faulty eSIMs and has begun contacting users to sort replacements.

The issue cropped up on our discussion forum this week (here) after a number of Sky Mobile’s customers complained that the activation process for their eSIMs seemed to be failing. The same issue then reoccurred after Sky initially tried to replace those. Similar complaints could also be found strewn across Sky’s own Community Forum, where users appeared to be having some difficulty getting a full acknowledgement of the issue.

ISPreview raised the issue with Sky Mobile, which promptly confirmed that there had been an issue. The problem was apparently caused by a faulty batch of eSIMs, which have now been removed. Sky indicates that all new or replacement eSIMs should now work as expected, and they’re in the process of contacting affected customers directly by text. The operator also apologised to those who had been impacted by the problems this week.

Customers who have been having trouble with their eSIM have been advised to follow the replacement eSIM process:

Existing customers

• Sign in to your online account to order a replacement eSIM.
• Activate or install the replacement eSIM on the correct device.

New customers

• Call 0333 759 3347 and we’ll help you get set up.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network operator Openreach took a few communications providers by surprise yesterday after they gave them just 48 hours to remove any lithium batteries from BT exchanges. The batteries are said to be prohibited by the operator’s building safety policy “due to the significant risks … [of] thermal runaway, fire and explosion“.

The move is interesting, as we’ve not previously been aware of any specific restriction being imposed against the use of a particular type of battery chemistry in Openreach’s rules, which usually adopt generalised language when discussing batteries. Some comms providers also told ISPreview that they were similarly uncertain about exactly where in Openreach’s docs this is expressed.

The official briefing, which isn’t available to the public, seems to refer specifically to the use of lithium batteries that exist within Colocation or Access Locate customer cabinets within BT’s exchanges. “Openreach mandates the use of lead acid batteries as the preferred and safest option for battery back up in CPs’ colocation or Access Locate customer cabinets,” said the briefing (a slight contradiction – using both “mandates” and then “preferred“).

The briefing also fails to make any distinction between regular LiPo (lithium polymer) and LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) batteries. The latter, which are now used in many industrial and home storage energy applications, have a safety record that is similar or even better than sealed lead acid batteries; because their unique chemical composition is less prone to overheating and thermal runaway.

Not to mention that lead-acid batteries contain hazardous substances like lead (obviously) and sulphuric acid, while LiFePO4 batteries are constructed with more non-toxic materials that can be recycled. Suffice to say that the blanket restriction against “lithium” seems unusual, and it may have been more forward-thinking to express stricter requirements.

In any case, Openreach clearly has serious safety concerns after identifying that “lithium batteries” are in use in some of BT’s exchanges, and they’ve now given such providers just 48 hours to remove them (on the surface this seems like an unreasonably short notice). “This instruction is made and is issued in accordance with the existing Revised Agreement for Access Network Facilities Services (“RANF Agreement”) and Access Locate contract. The relevant Product Description(s) will be updated accordingly to capture this instruction,” said Openreach. Providers must also notify the operator about their use of such batteries..

We’ve requested a bit more information from Openreach and will report back later.

UPDATE 1:57pm

Openreach informs ISPreview that they’ve only found an extremely small number of cases and thus don’t believe the move will have a significant impact.

A spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview:

“Safety is our number one priority, so we pay close attention to best practice, expert research and industry recommended standards when it comes to fire safety.

During a recent annual maintenance check in one of our exchanges, we discovered a handful of lithium batteries linked to some equipment owned by one Communications Provider.

This is extremely unusual. The use of batteries is rare in itself and, any CPs that do, overwhelmingly use the safer lead/acid variety.

We don’t believe this is a widespread issue which will impact any other CPs but, given the importance of safety in our buildings and wider estate, we felt it was the right thing to do to send out guidance on battery usage.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Broadband, phone and pay TV provider Virgin Media has this morning launched a new promotion that gives existing customers the opportunity to earn up to £70 if they refer a friend (it’s normally £50). The incentive will also give the new customer up to £70 too.

But the offer is somewhat time-limited. “Customers must act quick as the offer is on for a limited time, from now until 9th October 2025, the refer a friend offer will then return to its standard £50 referral fee,” said Virgin Media today.

Broadband packages start from £25.99 per month on a 24-month contract and depending on which package the customer takes depends on the money they’ll get, customers can either get £60, £65 or £70 depending on the product or bundle they choose.

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A new Opinium survey of 2,000 UK adults, conducted during June 2025, has revealed that 28% of respondents aged 18-27 years old (Gen Z) still have a landline phone at home and 21% of that same group only retain it “as a decoration”. But interestingly, 43% of respondents remain unaware of the looming change to digital phones by the end of 2027.

The reality today is that most people don’t make much use of their home phone services (if they still have one), often preferring to use VoIP, mobiles or internet messaging services. At the same time, the old legacy phone networks have reached end-of-life and the market is gradually switching over to fibre optic broadband connections and digital (IP-based) landline alternatives.

The switch-off of legacy phone services is currently expected to complete on 31st January 2027, which was last year delayed from December 2025 in order to give broadband ISPs, phone, telecare providers, councils and consumers more time to adapt (details).

The main focus of this delay was the 1.8 million UK people who use vital home telecare systems (e.g. elderly, disabled – vulnerable users), which aren’t always compatible with digital phone services because telecare providers were slow to adapt. But this overlooks that, for everybody else, many telecoms providers will still be working to the original Dec 2025 deadline to have their customers off the PSTN network.

The new survey, which was commissioned by Uswitch.com and should be taken with a pinch of salt given its small sample size, indicates that such landlines may still be quite popular with some unexpected groups, like Gen Z. But the findings are quite limited.

Additional Survey Findings

➤ 24% of Gen Z who own a landline say they use it frequently, compared to just 11% of the older Gen X (aged 44-59).

➤ Other top reasons for having a landline include speaking to family based abroad (25%), for emergencies (23%) and better call quality (23%).

➤ Gen Z don’t have the same nostalgic attachment as older generations, with just 19% able to recall their childhood phone number, compared to 50% of Gen X and 43% of Millennials.

➤ 43% of Gen Z think landlines are ‘old-fashioned’.

➤ 44% of respondents still have a landline.

➤ 11% of respondents say they prefer using a landline to a mobile phone and that a landline feels more “personal” than a mobile phone (13%).

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Broadband ISP Zen Internet appears to have quietly begun a new programme of package upgrades (regrades) for some of their customers on CityFibre’s national Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network. The move essentially upgrades those on their 100Mbps (symmetric speed) plan to the faster rate of 160Mbps “at no extra cost“.

The change was first spotted this week after some of Zen’s related broadband customers (credits to Pavel and Mike) reported to ISPreview that their packages had suddenly been regraded to the new tier, and seemingly without the ISP giving a prior notification of the change. But Zen says they do send notifications for this, although not everybody seems to have received it.

A spokesperson for Zen Internet confirmed to us that they recently saw an opportunity to upgrade customers on the 100Mbps plan to a faster tier. The process began this week as part of a small test to confirm the upgrade would work, but we’re told that they will now continue to work through small batches over the “coming months” to ensure all of those on this plan can benefit.

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The Comms Council UK, which represents the United Kingdom’s national Unified Communications and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) phone industry, has today announced the winners of their 17th annual 2025 awards event at a ceremony at The IET in London. Some of the winners include bOnline, 8×8, and Yealink.

Tracey Wright, Chair of Comms Council UK Council, said: “This was another brilliant CCUK Awards ceremony, the first one that I had the pleasure to host as CCUK Chair. Congratulations to all the winners and highly commended organisations. The Awards continue to highlight the importance of our sector and the innovation and competition continues to be strong. We were also thrilled to award the first Women in Telecoms Champion, which shows our continued support of women in our industry through our Women in Telecoms group.”

The winners are usually independently reviewed by several judges, although we couldn’t find a list of the panel members. As usual, there was also no specific category for consumer VoIP phone services, although the SOHO (Small Office / Small Home) category does get a little bit closer to that.

Comms Council UK Awards 2025 Winners

Best Communication Provider – SME

bOnline

Highly Commended: Microtalk Europe

Best Communication Provider – Enterprise

8×8

Best Enterprise Service

Colt Technology Services – Colt Intelligent Communications (CIC)

Best SOHO Service

bOnline

Best Multi-national Service

Monty eSIM (Monty UK Global)

Best Comms Device

Yealink AX83H Wi-Fi Handset

Best Comms Application

Daktela – Contact Centre Platform

Highly Commended: Vonage: VCC Intelligent Workspace

Best Innovation

Ciptex – Video Advice Kiosk with Agent AI Assist

Highly Commended: SCG Together, Emergency Response Solution

Best Industry Enabler

Guardian Assurance by Kerv

Women in Telecoms Champion

Dee Sweeney

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The ITS Technology Group, which has deployed various open access full fibre broadband and Ethernet networks across parts of the United Kingdom, has today announced the launch of its new Cisco-powered ‘ITS SecureEdge’ product. The new value-added service is designed to “protect businesses of all sizes” from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

The new service, which will leverage Cisco Secure DDoS Protection technology, is said to be part of ITS’ “wider mission” to redefine what business connectivity looks like in the “fibre utility” era, moving beyond pure bandwidth and into smarter, more equitable infrastructure solutions.

According to ITS, traditionally, DDoS mitigation has been the “preserve of large enterprises and government“, relying on solutions that backhaul traffic to off-site scrubbing centres – often at significant cost and prohibitive in today’s low latency application environments. But SecureEdge’s approach is said to bring this protection “closer to the edge of the network“, utilising AI to allow constant monitoring, fast mitigation and accuracy at scale.

The approach also seems to avoid the need for redirection to external scrubbing centres, reducing mitigation times and cutting costs.

Pete England, Product Director at ITS, said:

“Connectivity has to be more than speed alone. We’re investing in innovation that directly answers the real-world risks businesses face every day. DDoS attacks can cripple an organisation in minutes – from online retailers losing sales, to schools and councils losing critical digital services. With this launch, we’re making protection simple, affordable, and built into the network itself.”

The new service is said to be available on all ITS Internet Access services (FibreOne, FibreLight, FibreBright) through a simple, transparent uplift, with “no premium pricing tiers” (i.e. it shouldn’t cost thousands of pounds a year like some existing solutions). The focus here seems to be on SMEs, schools, and public sector organisations.

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As first hinted at last month (here), broadband and TV provider Virgin Media (O2) has now begun the process of rolling out the latest firmware update (v5.21) for their TV 360 and STREAM platforms (set-top-boxes). The change introduces a new search feature and some smaller changes / fixes, but nothing major.

The key change this time around includes enhanced search functionality, which uses small image previews (tiles) on its results instead of a text heavy display (pictured – top). The update also appears to introduce a few minor graphical changes to the onscreen programme guide, and they added a few extra details on the WiFi settings page (e.g. RSSI signal strength, channels used etc.).

Some further details on this were released earlier in the month (here), but it looks like customers will have to wait a bit longer for a major feature update to arrive.