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The residential community of Bromley Cross, which sits in the leafy northern suburbs of Bolton (Greater Manchester), appear to have succeeded in their campaign against Openreach’s (BT) plan to deploy new wood telecoms poles to support their gigabit full fibre broadband (FTTP) network expansion around Grange Park Road.

The use of poles to run overhead cables (telecoms, electricity etc.) is a common practice in the UK, where millions have been built over the decades. Poles are quick and cost-effective to build (several times cheaper than trenching), can be deployed in areas where there may be no space or access agreement to safely put new underground cables, are less disruptive (avoiding the noise, access restrictions and damage to pavements of trenching) and can be built under Permitted Development (PD) rights; often with only minimal prior notice.

However, many people dislike poles – usually due to their negative visual impact or the lack of effective prior consultation before deployment, which in some cases has occasionally erupted into disruptive protests. The latter is most likely to occur in areas that haven’t previously had poles before (i.e. past cables were underground), as well as areas of outstanding natural beauty or where several gigabit broadband networks may already exist.

In this case the issue is more about visual appearance (some locals also didn’t feel they needed another broadband service), with the area being somewhat of a green space that is also home to protected trees. As one resident told the Bolton News: “Some of these surrounding trees are listed, two hundred-year-old oaks cover the road and our gardens have tree protection orders. This area is special in that way because it’s green space. It would spoil a lovely place.”

The local councillors appear to have played a key role in galvanising opposition to the development and Openreach have now withdrawn the planned deployment. Cllr Cadden said: “Most people thought that going above ground was not modernisation.”

A Spokesperson for Openreach said:

“We’re investing £8.7 million to bring the UK’s most reliable broadband technology – Full Fibre – to thousands of homes and businesses across Bolton.

Around 14,000 homes and businesses in the Astley Bridge area can already order the new service and, as we expand our network, we’re using existing underground ducts and poles wherever we can. In some locations, new poles are the only safe and practical way to deliver this upgraded service and, in this case, the only way we could proceed.

But, following feedback from the local community, we’re now reviewing our investment decision whilst continuing to deliver better connectivity across other parts of Bolton.”

Openreach will have no doubt wished to be sensitive to the new industry agreed ‘Best Practice Guidance’ for gigabit broadband operators that are building new poles as part of their UK network expansions. The guidance aims to support the Government’s goal of “ending the deployment of unnecessary telegraph poles” (here), not least by requiring providers to engage more closely with communities before they build (details here).

The impact of the new guidance is, however, somewhat tricky to assess since most alternative networks have already stopped or significantly slowed deployments of new fibre optic broadband infrastructure as a result of wider market strains (i.e. rising build costs, competition and high interest rates). But operator’s like Openreach still make heavy use of them.

Naturally, network operators have a difficult balancing act to perform, which is one that both needs to respect the government’s wishes (inc. local communities), while at the same time trying not to damage the wider roll-out and cost models. Not forgetting that consumers and businesses with access to more than one gigabit broadband network will often still directly benefit from greater choice and lower prices. We also must not forgot those who may have wanted to see the new network being built.

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The ITS Technology Group, which has already deployed various open access and business-focused Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband ISP and Ethernet networks across parts of the UK, has today announced that their full fibre infrastructure is to be extended into 13 additional towns and cities across England, Scotland and Wales.

The expansion is said to mark the “next phase” of ITS’ investment in its national network, which will bring more organisations within reach of high-capacity connectivity, giving businesses “greater choice and creating more opportunity for ITS partners to serve customers that need resilient, scalable services to support cloud, AI and other data-intensive applications”.

The first locations to benefit from this will be Coventry, Huddersfield and Loughborough, which should be Ready for Service (RFS) “later this month“. After that we can expect Aberdeen, Bath, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Chester, Edinburgh, Exeter, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea to go live in phases between July and October 2026. But it’s unclear how many extra premises this will cover.

The build will also be supported by “wider investment” across ITS’s wholesale platform, partner experience and product portfolio. As part of this, ITS are continuing to develop their self-service Portal to give partners (e.g. retail ISPs and business networks) greater control and visibility, from order and delivery through to in-life service management.

Daren Baythorpe, CEO of ITS, said:

“Organisations across the UK need connectivity that is built around how they operate, not a residential model adapted for business use. That is why we are continuing to invest where the demand is clear and where our digital infrastructure can create long-term value.

This expansion takes us into even more towns and cities across England, Scotland and Wales, supporting the places that power local and regional economies, while giving businesses greater choice in areas where high-capacity connectivity is becoming increasingly important.

It is also about the way the market is served. Partners need more than access to a circuit. They need a wholesale platform, a strong product portfolio and the service experience to support customers with confidence, including larger, multi-site organisations that need consistent connectivity across different locations.”

The operator’s XGS-PON based full fibre network was last year said to “pass” more than 465,000 UK businesses (inc. commercial premises), and they often claim to “reach the rest” through their trusted operator partners’ infrastructure, which includes the likes of BTWholesale, Sky, PXC and Virgin Media Business.

However, while most alternative networks have had to slow or stop their fibre deployments due to wider economic and competitive strains, it’s welcome to see ITS doing the opposite and expanding their network. The announcement also follows after another major broadband altnet, CommunityFibre, restarted a significant roll-out of their consumer facing FTTP network (here).

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A new study from Broadband Genie, which analysed 144,067 web-based broadband speed tests over an unspecified 12-month period, has claimed that 18% households in the UK are receiving “broadband” download speeds slower than the Universal Service Obligation (USO) of 10Mbps download or 1Mbps upload. But take that claim with a pinch of salt.

According to the results, 14% failed to record download speeds of 10Mbps and 13% did not reach a threshold of 1Mbps for uploads. The results claim to show a big disparity between official network availability and the speeds customers actually receive. Official Ofcom figures are said to show 1% of UK premises completely lack access to a USO-capable option (it’s actually 0.1% when mobile/wireless networks are included), but Broadband Genie’s data states that 18% of actual customer connections are failing to beat the USO bar for both downloads and uploads at the same time.

The three “worst performing providers” were then identified as Vodafone (mobile broadband), Three (mobile home broadband) and EE (mobile home broadband), where many of their customers failed to reach the USO thresholds. But take note that where you position a mobile broadband router can have a huge impact on signal reception.

Meanwhile, the worst-performing fixed line broadband ISP was named as EE, where 28% of their customers failed to meet the overall USO requirements.

Which customers are receiving the slowest broadband speed?

Which customers receive the fastest broadband speed?

The big catch here is that web-based broadband speed testing has its limits and can be affected by various issues, such as slow Wi-Fi, limitations of the tester itself, restrictions of the device being used, local network congestion and package choice (a lot of people will pick a slower and cheaper plan, even with 1Gbps available). Equally, some older ISPs will have a larger base of slower copper line customers, which will drag down the figures.

The results above thus don’t provide enough context about each individual test to say for sure that those falling below the USO level are actually unable to attain faster speeds on their current service. Equally, such testing can be more a reflection of take-up, rather than underlying network availability (not everybody takes the fastest ISP/network/package as soon as it arrives).

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France-based internet connection benchmarking firm nPerf has this morning published the results from their first biannual (H1) 2026 crowdsourced study into fixed broadband ISP speeds among “countries comparable in size to Romania“, which saw the United Kingdom rank 2nd with an overall score of 126,638 nPoints (just behind Romania on 128,587).

The somewhat quirky study is based on masses of speed tests carried out – between January and May 2026 – by users of the performance testing tools on both nPerf’s website and via their dedicated mobile testing apps for Android and iOS. But we don’t get any hard stats on the sample sizes or structure. This analysis covers 20 countries with land areas ranging from 119,000 to 477,000 km² – a scope that includes diverse territories such as Sweden, Vietnam, and Morocco.

The scoring system is said to reflect an aggregation of several technical criteria – such as download speed, connection stability, and streaming quality – to reflect a daily user experience. For instance, a high score enables smooth viewing of 4K content without buffering, or downloading large files in seconds. Conversely, lower scores may indicate slowdowns during videoconferencing or prolonged wait times for loading complex web pages.

The UK achieved a score of 126,638 nPoints, placing it just 1,949 nPoints behind Romania, the top-ranked country. Sweden (126,415 nPoints) and Norway (123,768 nPoints) follow closely behind. At the other end of the spectrum came Senegal (77,421 nPoints) and Tunisia (60,427 nPoints).

Overall, we’re not sure how useful this kind of unusual and narrow study is and a breakdown of the key performance figures would have been more helpful, but make of it what you will.

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Reports are coming in that a number of major and minor broadband providers, such as Sky Broadband, Vodafone and others, are currently suffering some disruption to their online availability checkers and ordering systems that is preventing some new customers from signing up. A few providers have linked this to a problem with Openreach, but we’ve yet to confirm that.

The experiences being reported seem to vary between providers, which is something we’ve confirmed with our own testing. For example, customers trying to place a broadband order via Vodafone can do so in CityFibre areas, but not in Openreach ones, which instead return a “Sorry, we can’t get broadband to your address” message (on previously available locations).

By comparison, Sky Broadband seems to be rejecting all postcode checks with a generic message to say: “We’re having some technical issues. We’re working to this fixed as soon as possible.” The issue is cropping up at various other providers too, albeit with some variation between how platforms are handling it.

Sources within Sky have pointed the finger at Openreach’s platform, which has also been echoed by a service status update from ICUK.

ICUK Service Status Update [24/06/2026 10:06]

We are aware of an issue impacting our communication with Openreach. This is having an impact with the broadband checker (some results may not pull through), address lookups, broadband ordering, broadband fault updates. We apologise for the disruption this may cause. We will confirm once we know the situation has been resolved.

We’ve put the question to Openreach and are waiting to hear back.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

A few years have passed since we had a national heatwave that, across a large swathe of the country, pushed daytime temperatures to around the 40c level. Today and tomorrow will see similar temperatures and that’s going to cause some broadband and mobile infrastructure to struggle, albeit almost certainly without major national blackouts.

So far, the current heatwave hasn’t really pushed too many systems beyond their limits. In some areas, such as through the deployment of passive full fibre infrastructure (i.e. often, but not always, the heat generating hardware for this isn’t in street cabinets, it’s in air cooled exchanges / data centres), the country could even be said to be more resilient to heat than it was the last time the mercury hit this sort of extreme in 2022.

Naturally all electronic devices tend to emit some heat, even if you can’t always feel it. For example, most consumer router manufactures are aware of this and typically design their hardware to operate at temperatures of up to around 40c (this will vary a bit between manufacturers). Similar rules exist for all sorts of networking equipment, which can naturally be more of a problem if your kit is more exposed (i.e. doesn’t benefit from aircon).

However, much of the hardware with a stated tolerance of up to 40c may actually continue to function for a handful of degrees past that point, but experiences do vary and equipment (e.g. fans and heat sinks) are often used to help keep things under control. As above, at an extreme, we might again see a few engineers pitching umbrellas over the odd street cabinet here or there.

In the home a broadband router or Smartphone that overheats, or which nears the point of overheating, will often do one of several things. The most likely outcome is that the device’s processor (CPU / APU) will throttle back to cut power draw and performance will be reduced, which might impact your LAN / Wi-Fi speeds or device stability. Past a certain point the router may even restart itself or completely shut down to protect the device from damage.

The hardware that network operators use will often behave in a similar sort of way to help protect more exposed parts of a network from excessive heat and some failures are thus certainly a possibility, although these are usually more localised. But in other cases, the network will usually adjust itself to manage, which could still impact performance in some locations. Overall, a major short-lived heatwave like this won’t cause major national outages, only more localised and limited disruptions.

In the UK such heatwaves are still quite rare and so our networks usually only need modest protection from extremes of heat, although this could change as the world continues to warm up and extremes continue to become more common.

Met Office – Top Five Warmest Years in the UK on Record (annual average)

2025: 10.09 °C

2022: 10.03 °C

2023: 9.97 °C

2014: 9.88 °C

2024: 9.79 °C

One study from last year suggested that broadband download speeds can slow by up to 8% and uploads by up to 27% on the hottest days of the year (here), but take that with a pinch of salt as the methodology used in that report generated more questions than answers.

In terms of the domestic setting. The vast majority of people are already sensible enough NOT to stick their broadband routers in direct sunlight or place it on top of an existing heat source (it doesn’t take a heatwave to break a router if you do this). Otherwise, we’ll repeat the same tips we’ve given out in the past.

ISPreview’s Top Tips for Keeping Broadband Routers Cool

1. Never place it in direct sunlight, obviously.

2. Never allow your pet to use the router as its own personal sleeping mat. Yes, it might seem cute, but the slim risk of this causing an electrical fault, fire or overheating is something best avoided.

Just remember, cats can be wonderful jerks, so they won’t obey your orders and even placing said device within a ring of defensive orange peel may not be enough to stop their unwanted advances toward your personal centre of internet excellence.

3. Place the router on a hard and flat surface (ideally something cool), which should allow the air to move freely around it (especially below the device). Wall mounting the device can also help (vertically), provided the wall itself isn’t transmitting a lot of heat (e.g. south facing walls with no cavity insultation will get warmer). In other words, never put your router on a surface that doesn’t allow heat to escape.

4. Some older / cheaper routers and chipsets are more susceptible to heat problems, especially if they’ve had a lot of usage and gathered plenty of dust, and at the extreme you might need to consider buying a newer device. Mind you, having an ultra powerful device can sometimes be similarly problematic. Granted, this is a pretty rubbish “tip“, so let’s move on.

5. Consider buying a cheap laptop size cooling mat / pad for the router. Kit like this can be had for around £20 (examples) and often includes a small internal fan. Alternatively, any old cheap fan pointed at the router will do, but this often isn’t really necessary.

6. If the heat is truly horrific in your home (i.e. 40c+), then it may be wise to switch the router off when not in use. In fact, get out of the house yourself and find shade and ice. But don’t restart it too often if you’re on an older DSL (ADSL, FTTC etc.) based connection, as not all lines respond well to being repeatedly switched on and off during the day (may result in a loss of line speed due to DLM systems). But in our experience, there’s usually not much harm in turning it off once in the day for a period, although this really is a last resort.

7. Disable non-critical router services when not needed. The less the router has to do, the less heat it will produce and the faster it can operate. Some routers allow you to disable specific services (e.g. wi-fi, connection logs etc.) and, during hot weather, this can help to keep the device running smoothly. On the other hand, it’s probably best not to fiddle with these things unless you know what you’re doing.

8. Situate the router in the coolest room possible, which is often the lowest point in your home with the thickest walls. Unfortunately this might constrain the performance of your wireless network, thus there’s a careful balancing act to consider.

9. Buy Air Conditioning for your home, provided you can afford the energy bills or have a solar/battery system to off-set the usage.

Hopefully it goes without saying that pouring ice or ice water over your router, or even putting it in the fridge, are both things that should be avoided. Remember that even if you put the ice behind something, it will still attract condensation and you don’t want that dripping on electronics inside your home!

Otherwise, we’ll be keeping a close eye today to see how networks cope – particularly in the Red Warning areas of England and Wales, but the message is to focus on keeping yourself cool and not to worry about national broadband and mobile infrastructure. On the whole, the latter will cope, but you might not.

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Internet provider TalkTalk has confirmed to ISPreview that they’re no longer selling Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) based broadband packages on Openreach’s network to new customers. But the ISP says that this is only a “pause” while they finish setting up their new platform.

The situation recently came to our attention after a number of people in FTTC-only areas (i.e. locations where full fibre FTTP isn’t available yet) found they couldn’t order a broadband package (ISPreview has verified the same with our testing). Such consumers were instead presented with a generic message to say that “all TalkTalk broadband plans use full fibre broadband [and this] isn’t available in your area, so we can’t offer a broadband plan today.”

In addition, one of our regular readers, and an existing TalkTalk subscriber of some ten years (credits to Joe), similarly reported that his planned house move into an FTTC-only area had also been hit by a similar message. Upon chasing this up with the provider’s support department, Joe was told that his only options were to “transfer the services to a friend or family member or cancel without penalty“.

“If only they still covered FTTC areas with no possibility of Full Fibre, they wouldn’t have lost a customer of 10 years,” said Joe after deciding to take TalkTalk up on its penalty free cancellation offer and switch to a different provider. ISPreview has since found a couple of other reports on social media echoing a similar experience.

TalkTalk’s Generic Notice on FTTC Order Attempts

We can’t offer a broadband plan today.

All TalkTalk broadband plans use full fibre broadband. At the moment, our Full Fibre isn’t available in your area, so we can’t offer a broadband plan today.

Full fibre rollout is continuing across the UK, so it’s worth checking back — full fibre could be available near you in the future. If you’re already a TalkTalk customer, you can still renew or upgrade your plan anytime in My Account.

The move seems particularly unusual for a provider in TalkTalk’s position, where a mix of heavy debts and high levels of customer churn have put growing pressures on the underlying business. Earlier this month it was also reported that Vodafone / VodafoneThree had tabled a bid for the provider (here).

The ISP has since informed us that the FTTC situation is not permanent (they don’t say that in their above notice) and relates to their ongoing work to fully adopt Kraken’s new customer management platform. Kraken is designed to empower their customer care specialists to more quickly and effectively review customer account details and take actions that would previously have involved long and complicated processes.

The provider told ISPreview that they’re still working to finish setting up this new platform and migrating customers to it, which clearly can’t yet handle FTTC sales as these have now been “paused“. However, TalkTalk said that current customers (including when re-contracting and home movers) should have been “unaffected” by this, but they also acknowledged issuing new feedback to agents in order to ensure that similar requests are processed correctly going forward.

Finally, the ISP noted how they are currently exploring potential options for future sales through Kraken to properties with an FTTC connection, although no timescale was offered for when such orders might be accepted again.

In fairness, it is expected that FTTC will be gradually withdrawn as FTTP coverage rises, but most would probably agree that it’s too early to put a stop sell on this in FTTC-only areas that still account for a sizeable number of UK premises. At present FTTP is available to around 25 million premises, which leaves over 5-6 million lines on copper services and many of those will be FTTC-only.

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Energy and communications provider Telecom Plus, trading as Utility Warehouse (UW), has today published their latest H2 FY26 Results to the end of March 2026 and revealed that their broadband ISP grew its total UK customer base to 568,647 (up from 561,086 in H1) and their mobile base grew to 787,426 (up from 698,054).

As previously reported, the company’s broadband base got a big boost last year after they took on some of TalkTalk’s broadband customers via Origin Broadband (here and here). The latest results confirm that UW’s broadband service numbers increased by 38.9% to 0.56m in the year (including the 193k customers acquired from TalkTalk). Excluding the impact of the TalkTalk base, broadband service numbers only increased by 3.8% (hence why H2 saw a much smaller increase than H1).

The provider added that they’d so far migrated 160,000 TalkTalk customers onto their systems by year-end, with the remainder expected to migrate by the end of the first quarter of FY27. Initial cross-sell results on this base are said to be “continuing to perform strongly, with 14.5k customers upgraded and cross-sold during the year“.

The results revealed that 74% of new customers are now choosing Full Fibre (FTTP) broadband (up from 65% in H1), reflecting continued demand for higher-speed and more reliable connectivity. The company added that they’re separately continuing to offer customers on the CityFibre network 6 months free service when they join.

We also got an update on their plans for launching a new VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) based digital home phone product, which seems to have been delayed from the original H2 FY26 launch window and is now due to launch early in FY27. Finally, on the fixed line side, UW reported having a legacy telephony customer base of 33,071 (up from 20,490 last year, probably due to TalkTalk). On mobile there was also this..

UW’s Mobile Service

Our mobile service numbers increased 28.9% to 0.78m. This strong performance reflects continued demand for our mobile offering and our growing competitiveness in the market.

Over the course of the year, we enhanced both of our core tariffs to deliver even greater value to customers. Our ‘Essential Max’ plan now offers one of the most competitive entry-level propositions in the market at £5 for 10GB of data. In addition, customers benefit from additional SIMs on our Unlimited Max tariff at no extra cost for the first six months.

During the year, we also launched eSIM capability, expanding customer choice and enabling a more seamless and flexible onboarding experience. These improvements, combined with the strength and reliability of EE’s network, have driven sustained momentum in mobile service growth throughout the year.

Overall, across all of their products (inc. energy, insurance, cashback cards, broadband etc.), UW reported having a total services base of 3,803,823 (up from 3,392,593 last year). The company has also announced a new five-year plan to double the number of high-quality, multiservice customers from c.500,000 to more than 1 million by FY31. The plan builds on their differentiated business model and will require c.£55m per annum of P&L investment across the following four pillars:

○ Optimising their multiservice proposition

○ Scaling their Partner sales channel

○ Building a nationally recognised and trusted brand

○ Developing a best-in-class digital experience with market-leading cost to serve.

Stuart Burnett, CEO of Telecom Plus, said:

“Today, as well as announcing our full year results for FY26, we are launching our new five year plan.

Telecom Plus has built a unique business, helping households by putting all their household bills – energy, mobile, broadband, insurance, on one platform in a multiservice package, saving them time and money. Over the last 30 years we have built a network of 80,000 Partners who introduce this multiservice offering to new customers, typically their friends, family and members of their local community. These multiservice customers are the strongest driver of long-term value, staying with us for longer and generating higher returns and this model has now delivered five consecutive years of record results and more than 1.4 million customers.

Today we are detailing how we will be building on our leading position in multiservice customers by investing behind the proven strengths of our model as well as outlining some of the encouraging results from our trial initiatives already underway.

Successful delivery of the plan will more than double our multiservice customer base to over 1 million customers by FY31, enhance the quality and resilience of our earnings and result in attractive long-term returns for shareholders.”

Finally, in terms of the financial side, Telecom Plus ended the year with revenues of £1,941.1m (up 5.6% from £1,838.2m last year) and they made a gross profit of £389.2m (up 8.7% from £358.1m last year).

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The Government has today proposed to switch-off terrestrial TV signals in either 2034 or 2044 as part of a wider change to reflect the move to internet-based streaming, provided broadband coverage is ready to support the transition (they expect it to be). Support will also be provided to the UK homes that may struggle to afford broadband, possibly backed by a new subsidy scheme.

Over the past couple of decades there has been a significant shift in how we all access and view TV content. Traditional Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) signals are in decline and internet (IP)-based streaming platforms are on the rise (e.g. Netflix, Amazon, Sky Glass / Sky Stream, YouTube, Disney+, Freely and so forth).

The Public Service Broadcasters’ (i.e. BBC, ITV, Channel 4 etc.) have recognised this shift and forecast it will be necessary to transition to streaming / IPTV solutions in the mid-2030s. Otherwise, they warn, it could become increasingly challenging for them to bear double costs from running multiple distribution platforms.

At the same time Ofcom have been busy introducing new rules to help lay the groundwork for a more streaming centric future (here, here and here), such as by modernising the country’s broadcasting regulations, while also expanding them to cover IP-based video-on-demand (VoD) and streaming services.

Until today the UK Government had already committed to the future of DTT until 2034, but a question mark has continued to exist over how long the service could continue beyond this date.

Obstacles to the DTT Switch Off

One of the biggest challenges in making such a major shift stem from the fact that not everybody may be ready for it. According to a previous 2024 Government report on the future of TV distribution (here), come 2040 it’s forecast that some 5% of UK homes (1.5 million) will still rely on digital terrestrial television via the air waves.

Just to be clear. The 1.5 million figure reflects 0.4 million homes that will opt not to connect to broadband and 1.1 million homes that will have broadband, but which will not connect their TVs to use an internet TV service. “These viewers are more likely to identify as female and to live on their own. They are also more likely to live in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, be on low incomes and have a disability,” said the report.

The same report predicted that “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) would reach at least 99.65% of homes by 2030 (at the end of 2025 it was around 98.5%), although such figures may be open to debate given the recent slowdown in some deployments of even faster broadband networks.

The above is relevant because most services currently require a download speed of c.5-6Mbps to support a single HD video stream (c.15-30Mbps for UltraHD / 4K), but this figure will actually shrink as more platforms adopt increasingly sophisticated compression and codecs. But of course, home users also need their connections for other tasks, hence why speeds of 30Mbps+ are considered somewhat of a basic requirement for any transition away from DTT.

The government’s proposals

The UK government has today published a new Green Paper on their proposed approach to the future of TV distribution in the UK – ‘Watch this Space: A new strategic direction for UK media‘, which proposes a series of changes and options for how the process should be tackled.

Key Proposals of the Green Paper

➤ The government “sees a strong case” for a managed transition to internet-based TV services by 2034, not least because it expects the necessary broadband connectivity “to be in place to support a transition in 2034” and views this date as being able to “unlock a range of strategic, economic and consumer benefits“.

However, it also recognises the “challenges involved” and is consulting on an alternative option too, which would be a transition by 2044 – offering a 10-year extension to the DTT platform. This would involve maintaining a hybrid DTT/IPTV model until 2044, while preserving universal free-to-air access for households that are slower to adopt broadband, including older and more vulnerable viewers.

The 2044 model would overall “allow for a gradual, lower-risk transition“, not least because it says “near-universal access to IPTV is not anticipated until the early 2040s” (i.e. when 30Mbps+ should be universal).

➤ The government will reform the UK’s Public Service Media (PSM) system to ensure it delivers for the public and gives the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, 5, STV, and S4C more flexibility to attract audiences online. For example, social media companies and video sharing platforms will be required to make sure that news content from PSMs and “other trustworthy providers” is prominent and easy to find on their platforms (i.e. being more likely to be at the top of people’s social media feeds when they search for news).

Changes are being considered to make the system more flexible – this could mean that other broadcasters and YouTube channels could similarly be designated as PSM providers in the future.

➤ On-demand rights for major sporting events to be added to the free-to-air ‘Listed Events Regime‘ (currently this only covers the rights required to show events live), which aims to protect free access for fans to the World Cup, Wimbledon, Olympics and other major sporting events (i.e. stopping them being put behind a paywall). “Bringing on-demand rights in scope of the regime will make sure these sporting moments continue to be provided for free in the future by PSM on digital and online platforms – rather than just traditional TV channels,” said the government.

➤ Options for improving media literacy are also being considered to make sure that people of all ages have the skills they need to critically think about the content they are consuming online and on social media. The government is exploring the possibility of introducing a new duty on PSM providers to deliver and report on media literacy activity, allowing best practice to be shared more widely, with the aim of building on work already being done under the Media Literacy Action Plan.

➤ The government will work with industry and audience groups on a support programme to help transition their viewing to IPTV services and “make the most of the additional benefits this provides“. This package will depend on industry and a strong ecosystem working together to develop and deliver it: PSM providers, platform operators, telecoms providers, manufacturers and retailers, charities and local delivery partners, each playing their part.

Some of the options being considered for this are low-cost or subsidised broadband for people receiving benefits or on low incomes; as well as low-cost or discounted internet capable TV sets for people on low incomes; and distributing simple / affordable streaming devices that connect older TVs sets to the internet with no ongoing fees.

The government also seeks views on how TV and streaming platforms can develop “services and systems that feel the same as digital terrestrial television so they are easy to use for people with limited digital skills“. This includes straightforward setup, direct access to live channels on start-up, and intuitive navigation via remote controls and electronic programme guides, alongside reliable provision of accessibility features such as subtitles, audio description, and sign language.

The Media Green Paper’s public consultation starts today (23rd June 2026) and will run for 10 weeks until 31st August 2026.

Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, said:

“It is vital that we make sure that people have better access to trusted and accurate news and that our regulated public service media is seen and heard in the fierce battle against mis and disinformation.

As the media landscape moves further and further online away from traditional broadcasting we must act so that our world-leading TV sector continues to thrive and top quality UK content keeps being produced.

TV remains at the heart of our society. It is key to supporting social cohesion and is a cornerstone of our democracy, which is why, as the technology underpinning it changes, we are making sure it is protected for generations to come.”

The full report goes into lots more detail, although the government also makes clear that it “does not see a further extension of DTT beyond 2044 as either economically sustainable or desirable“, while the preferred approach seems to be for a transition to take place in time for 2034 – when they expect the country to already have the right broadband connectivity ready (this assumes Project Gigabit will hit their 2032 target of c.99% coverage).

However, the key focus will clearly be on that small group of homes who have either refused (or been unable) to upgrade their broadband to cope with internet-connected TV streaming, or those who continue to use a traditional TV service for other reasons (income, disability, choice etc.). If the consultation ultimately concludes that this is a problem that can be resolved by 2034 with minimal support, then that’s the direction we can expect.

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Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has this morning revealed that they will start switching off their “decades-old” 2G network starting in Summer 2029. The move follows their successful 3G switch off programme, which was completed at the end of 2025. But removing 2G is a slower and more complex process due to the many services that still depend upon it.

Just to recap. O2 and other mobile operators are currently in the process of preparing to switch off their legacy 2G mobile networks, although it’s expected to take several years longer to completely retire 2G as it remains necessary for various devices (e.g. Energy Smart Meters / IoT) and as a fallback in areas of poor 4G or 5G signals. Suffice to say that more time has to be allowed for the transition to go smoothly.

As with the prior 3G switch-off, the move will free up radio spectrum so that it can be re-farmed to further improve the network coverage and the mobile broadband speeds of more modern 4G and 5G networks, as well as future 6G services. The switch-off will also reduce the operators’ costs and power consumption.

The 2G network today carries less than 0.5% of all data on VMO2’s mobile network and is already closed for international roaming. But on the flip side, 2G also accounts for more than 10% of the company’s total cell site energy consumption, while 4G and 5G networks are said to be “10 times more efficient“. The move will thus contribute to VMO2’s wider plans to reach net-zero by 2040.

Jeanie York, CTO at Virgin Media O2, said:

“We’re investing £700m this year to transform our mobile network and ensure it can keep pace with growing consumer demand. As we look to the future, we’ll be switching off the old 2G network so we can double down on providing all customers with the reliable and efficient 4G and 5G mobile services they expect.

Having recently switched off our 3G network and signed up to the government 2G switch-off charter, we know exactly how to do this responsibly and without disrupting customers. While most customers won’t need to take any action at all, some businesses might need to start planning for this now.

We will communicate with customers directly and ensure we support everyone as this essential upgrade takes place.”

The operator states that the “vast majority of customers won’t need to take any action during this switch-off period“, but anyone relying on the network, including organisations using it to connect IoT devices, will need to take action before summer 2029 to avoid disruption.

VMO2 said they’re committed to helping those who may need additional support – for example those who still use older devices (many of these will have been helped during the prior 3G switch-off, but not all). The company will be contacting customers well in advance to ensure they are aware of these changes and will aim to clearly outline the steps they need to take and their options, with support pages and trained agents on hand to help.

The switch off will also affect O2 Business customers, as well as customers of O2’s various virtual operator partners (MVNOs), such as giffgaff, Tesco Mobile and Sky Mobile. According to the Public Accounts Committee (here), an estimated 7 million Smart Meters may need to have their 2G/3G modules upgraded to 4G to avoid a huge connectivity problem. The programme to do this began last year (here).