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Edinburgh-based UK alternative network operator GoFibre, which is building full fibre (FTTP) broadband across rural parts of Scotland and Northern England, has provided an update on their rollout in the North East of Scotland under the publicly subsidised Project Gigabit contract. The first locations have now started to go live for customers.

Just to recap. GoFibre’s Project Gigabit contract for North East Scotland, which was first awarded back in July 2025 (here) and began its build phase in February 2026, is worth £105m (public subsidy) and aims for their network coverage to reach a total of around 63,000 premises across hard-to-reach rural areas (c.100,000 if you include their commercial build).

According to the latest progress update, the first connections have already gone live in Ezdell, Inverbervie, Longforgan, Montrose, Dunkeld, Bankfoot, Newtonhill, Portlethen, Alyth and Coupar Angus. Alongside improved digital infrastructure, the rollout is also said to be creating 30 direct construction roles and supporting up to 180 jobs across the lifetime of the rollout, including subcontracted work.

As above, GoFibre will also be adding additional premises to the build on a commercial basis, meaning at least 100,000 premises across the North East will be added to its full fibre network. As part of this they’re extending their existing footprint of around 15,300 premises in Angus (including Montrose, Forfar and Kirriemuir) and 9,600 premises in Aberdeenshire (including Laurencekirk, Stonehaven and Newtonhill).

Andy Hepburn, COO at GoFibre, said:

“GoFibre’s on a mission to improve digital connectivity in rural and hard-to-reach areas. It’s fantastic to see more homes and businesses in Perth & Kinross and Aberdeenshire Scotland ready to connect to our network and able to enjoy the same lightning-fast, ultra-reliable connectivity as the country’s cities.

We are not only committed to helping to bridge the digital divide in rural Scotland; we are also delivering economic benefits to the communities we are connecting by creating jobs during the rollout.”

New customers can expect to pay from just £22.50 per month for speeds of 150Mbps (30Mbps upload) on a 24-month minimum term, which rises to £34.50 for their top 1000Mbps (100Mbps upload) tier. Take note that £200 of Switching Credit is available for those looking to migrate while still stuck in an existing contract with another ISP. But monthly prices also increase by £3 each December.

The provider currently expects to deploy their new full fibre based broadband network to reach a UK footprint of 250,000 premises by around mid-2028, and they were home to a total of around 15,000 customers as of June 2025.

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Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today revealed that their Direct-to-Device (D2D) based O2 Satellite service (here), which for £3 extra per month enables normal Smartphones to connect to their mobile network via Starlink’s cell-focused broadband satellites, now also works on Google Pixel devices (phones).

Just to recap. The new service harnesses SpaceX’s global Starlink constellation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to support a satellite based 4G mobile data (broadband) connection via part of the 1800MHz (B3) band, which enables connectivity in even some of the remotest parts of the UK. In addition, users also benefit from greater general resilience, at least when outside a building.

The new service, once applied, effectively boosted O2’s UK landmass mobile coverage from 89% to 95%, delivering a coverage uplift equivalent to an area around two thirds the size of Wales. The service is designed to complement O2’s existing mobile network, and customers will connect automatically when traditional cellular coverage is unavailable.

However, at launch in February 2026 it only supported a limited number of handsets, all of which were based off the Android operating system (mostly Samsung models). Since then they’ve added support for Apple’s iPhones, and they’ve now extended this to include Google’s Pixel phones (starting with the Google Pixel 9 onwards).

Chris Bournes, Commercial Director at VMO2, said:

“When we launched O2 Satellite, we wanted to make satellite connectivity available on the devices our customers already use every day.

The addition of Google Pixel devices is another important step forward and means even more customers can benefit from the reassurance of staying connected in places where traditional mobile coverage isn’t available.

As satellite technology continues to evolve, we’re excited to keep expanding access and bringing the benefits to more people.”

The service does, however, have some limitations and won’t work everywhere. For example, it will initially only being able to support text messaging and limited data connectivity across specific apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Google Maps and more. But we expect all of this to improve with time.

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Last night at 9pm saw England take on Croatia in their first FIFA World Cup 2026 match and, given the growing prevalence of TV streaming solutions and the fact that the match took place outside of normal working hours, we were keen to learn whether this would have a noticeable impact on internet traffic. ISPreview has thus examined the impact on several networks.

In the past such events, when taking place outside of working hours, wouldn’t have moved the network traffic dials all that much because people have tended to tune in via more traditional terrestrial TV signals. But these days video streaming-based TV platforms are much more common and thus live sporting events might now have a more noticeable impact.

However, weighing against that is the fact that broadband and mobile providers usually prepare for such events in advance, often by delaying routine maintenance and laying on extra capacity (example). Internet providers also use sophisticated Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and systems to help manage the load, which caches popular content closer in their network to end-users (i.e. improves performance without adding much strain to external links).

As usual ISPreview were monitoring to see what kind of impact the match would have on data traffic (i.e. we asked several broadband and mobile operators to monitor the event) and the first of several results have now come in. We’ll kick things off with data from the London Internet Exchange (LINX), which handles a large chunk of UK and global traffic through their switches via around 900+ members (ISPs, mobile and CDN providers etc.).

The traffic levels for 17th June 2026 across all of LINX’s UK exchanges (depicted on the right side of this chart), particularly their largest LON1 IXP, don’t show anything remarkable. The daily peak was actually lower than the day before, although the length of time that traffic levels spent above the 8Tbps (Terabits per second) mark on LON1 was longer than on prior days – possibly reflecting the length of the match.

Netomnia has similarly reported that “there wasn’t any noticeable increase in traffic levels” during the match, when traffic across their alternative broadband network actually dropped a little when compared with the same peak on Wednesday night (consistent with LINX above). We’re currently awaiting feedback from several other operators and will update this article when that arrives.

The situation may of course be different for events held during working hours.

UPDATE 10:24am

According to Virgin Media and O2 – compared to a normal week, mobile data traffic was up 9.16% during the game (likely reflecting greater use of social media). But fixed broadband traffic saw no significant change.

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Network benchmarking firm Opensignal has this morning published their latest analysis of 5G non-standalone mobile (mobile broadband) and 5G Standalone (5G+) availability and performance across Europe. The results rank the UK last in Europe with average download speeds one-third of Denmark’s and the lowest Excellent Consistent Quality score in the region.

As usual the data in this report is based off crowdsourced testing, which has been gathered by users of Opensignal’s app on millions of devices (Smartphones etc.). The analysis draws on data collected during Q1 2026 – covering 29 European markets, encompassing the EU-27 (excluding Malta), plus the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland – collectively referred to as the European region in this study.

Overall, the study found that the “vast majority of connectivity time” in Europe is still over 4G, while wide-scale 5G+ deployment in Europe are localised to just 11 networks and its “most tangible impact” is on network responsiveness. As for the UK, we rank just 29th out of 29 European markets in Opensignal’s Global Network Excellence Index.

The UK ranks last in Europe with average download speeds (84Mbps), coming in at just one-third of front-runner Denmark’s speed (226Mbps), and we also have the lowest Excellent Consistent Quality (ECQ) score in the region (80% in the UK vs 93.1% in Denmark). In addition, 5G Availability in the UK is also low at 57.4%, although people in this country do spend more time connected to 5G+ networks (5.2%) than most of the other countries, except Spain on 9.3% and Switzerland on 10.4%.

In short, 5G+ is only just beginning to take hold, and only among a select group of operators. Across the region, 5G users spent just 1.8% of their connection time on 5G+ in Q1 2026, a figure that masks a wide gap between a handful of leaders and everyone else. Looking at individual mobile operators in the UK, the ‘Time on 5G+‘ score for EE’s (BT) customers was 8.3%, then 5.3% for O2 (Virgin Media) and 4% for Vodafone (Vodafone and Three UK).

The study also examines what kind of mobile broadband performance improvement 5G+ delivers when compared with 4G and regular 5G (NSA). Overall, 5G+ users recorded average download speeds of 180.2Mbps against 153.2Mbps on 5G NSA, an 18% download uplift; with latency being 17% faster (39.5ms vs 32.6ms); and Consistent Quality (CQ) improving by up 1.6 percentage points (87.8% vs 89.4%).

Sadly Opensignal did not examine upload speeds, which is an usual thing to leave out when considering 5G+. Otherwise, the study noted that the scale of the 5G+ rollout is driven by commercial strategy, not technical capability, and the availability of radio spectrum is no longer considered the limiting factor (most operators now have plenty of it).

Opensignal’s analysis suggests that operators making the strongest moves on 5G+ are disproportionately the ones with the most ground to make up on overall network quality, which certainly seems true for the UK.

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State-owned broadband and telecoms operator JT Global (Jersey Telecom), supported by technology partner Ericsson, has this week announced that they’ve finally begun the roll-out of their new 5G mobile network across the channel island of Guernsey. The first two sites are now live in and around St Peter Port.

Regular readers might recall that the Guernsey Competition & Regulatory Authority (GCRA) last year approved the release of new radio spectrum in the 700MHz and 3.6GHz bands in order to enable telecoms operators JT and Sure to deploy 5G services across the islands of Guernsey, Alderney and Sark from “early 2026“.

The work signals the beginning of a phased deployment programme that will see coverage extend across The Bailiwick of Guernsey over the next four months. The system being deployed by JT will initially reflect a non-standalone (NSA) 5G network (essentially a 5G network with some 4G infrastructure still in the mix), before later migrating to a faster standalone (SA) network over time (end-to-end 5G+).

JT customers in Guernsey will also benefit from Voice-over-Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi Calling) at no additional cost, helping to improve call quality and connectivity in indoor or low-signal areas by using home WiFi (broadband) to offload mobile network traffic.

Alessandro Bovone, CTO of JT Group, said:

“Today marks an exciting moment as we begin bringing 5G to Guernsey. This is a significant step forward to enhance the island’s digital infrastructure and one that will unlock new opportunities for both consumers and businesses.

While the process has taken longer than anticipated due to regulatory approvals, we are pleased to now be moving at pace and to be the first operator to deliver 5G services in Guernsey. As with our rollout in Jersey, this is about investing in the future – building a network that will support the growing demands of island life, drive innovation, and enable new technologies for years to come.”

By deploying a full 5G Standalone network, we are not just enhancing today’s mobile experience but creating a powerful platform for the digital services and opportunities of tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Sure previously announced that they would invest £48m into building a new “world-class” 5G mobile network across both Guernsey and Jersey during 2026 (JT already has one on Jersey) as part of their recent move to acquire rival Airtel Vodafone (here), which required the suspension of local competition laws to proceed. But Sure’s roll-out plan remains unclear, while JT has launched a related information page, although initial device support looks to be rather limited.

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The European Commission (EC) has published their annual 2026 study of broadband and mobile network coverage in Europe, which reveals how the EU’s fixed gigabit broadband (FTTP and Hybrid Fibre Coax) and 5G mobile networks compare across all of its 27 countries. We compare this with the United Kingdom below.

Just to recap. The EU’s main goal for digital infrastructure, which is very similar to the UK, is for every European household to have access to gigabit (1000Mbps+) connectivity by the end of 2030. The new report, which is largely based on data from last year (mid-2025), is intended to help gauge the progress toward achieving that and other related goals.

The EU’s Broadband and Mobile Targets (“Digital Decade“)

The previous vision for 2025 relied on three main strategic objectives:

➤ Gigabit connectivity for all of the main socio-economic drivers;

➤ uninterrupted 5G coverage for all urban areas and major terrestrial transport paths;

➤ access to connectivity offering at least 100 Mbps for all European households.

The ambition of the Digital Decade is that by 2030:

➤ all European households are covered by a Gigabit network (e.g. DOCSIS 3.1 + FTTP);

➤ all populated areas are covered by 5G (at least).

By comparison, the UK’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme currently aims to extend gigabit-capable broadband to reach around 99% of UK premises by 2032 (recently delayed from the original goal of 2030). The public funding for this is focused upon aiding the final 10-20% of hardest to reach premises, where commercial deployments may struggle.

According to Ofcom’s latest data to January 2026 (here), some 98% of UK premises can access a 30Mbps+ (“superfast“) connection (unchanged from last year), while 89% (up from 86%) are able to access gigabit broadband (via FTTP and DOCSIS 3.1+) and that falls to 82% (up from 74%) when only looking at “full fibre” FTTP. Take note that, in the UK, DOCSIS 3.1 largely reflects Virgin Media’s urban Hybrid Fibre Coax (cable) network.

As for mobile networks, over 99% of UK premises (outdoor) have access to 4G (unchanged) and between 76-94% of premises (outdoor) can access 5G (up from 62-85%) – falling to just 73% when looking at geographic 5G coverage from at least one operator (up from 62%). However, it’s important to stress that the EU’s comparative data below is about 6 months older than Ofcom’s data above.

Overall, the EU is now in a roughly similar sort of place to the United Kingdom, with total FTTP coverage of 74.13% (up from 69.24% last year), gigabit (VHCN) broadband coverage of 85.54% (up from 82.49%) and 5G population coverage of 96.79% (up from 94.35%). But we do have to remember that quite a few EU states have been building FTTP, at scale, for 5-10 years longer than the UK, although we’re clearly catching up and even exceeding quite a few countries.

The main focus of the EU’s report is on 5G and gigabit / VHCN (FTTP + DOCSIS 3.1) coverage, with the differences between EU states and the UK becoming much clearer in these areas once we drill down to the individual country level. In both cases, the UK would now reside in the middle to upper half of the tables below (not too long ago we would have been around the bottom).

The other thing to consider is the split between rural and urban coverage. In the UK, some 62% of rural premises have access to a gigabit-capable broadband network (up from 57%), which drops to 61% for FTTP (up from 55%). By comparison, only 62.6% of EU households living in rural areas were reached by fibre in 2025, up from 58.8% in 2024 (+6.5%).

The full report contains a lot more data.

Broadband Coverage in Europe 2026 (State of Digital Decade)
https://digital-decade-desi.digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/datasets/desi/charts

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Chameleon Technology has just become one of the first to provide a Virtual WAN (VWAN) solution to help resolve the problems that over 350,000 hard-to-reach UK homes have with Energy Smart Meters, which sometimes struggle to send data back to suppliers via their mobile networks. The new solution will instead use your home broadband (WiFi) service.

Regular readers may recall that we covered this problem a couple of times last year (here and here). In short, not all Smart Meters are within range of the wireless networking solutions (2G, 3G, 4G or LRR) that are used to send data back to the centralised Data Communications Company‘s (DCC) Smart Meter Wide Area Network (SMWAN), which in turn provides that information to energy suppliers.

Back in December 2023 the previous Government’s Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) started to tackle this by issuing a new consultation. This included proposals to create arrangements whereby communications with Smart Metering Systems installed in premises with no Wide Area Network (“No-WAN premises”) could be established via the DCC through use of the customer’s own broadband connection.

At the start of 2025 this was followed by the current Government proposing to implement such a programme (here), which included new architectural arrangements – factoring in the need for tight security – for a new Virtual Wide Area Network (VWAN). Today Chameleon Technology has launched the IHD7-VWAN, a Wi-Fi enabled device (i.e. an “upgrade” for their in-home displays) designed to unlock smart metering for over 350,000 hard-to-reach homes by harnessing your existing home broadband/Wi-Fi network.

The solution uses in-home displays (IHDs) to help boost the data to the DCC, allowing more homes to benefit from smart meters. This new iteration can create two Wi-Fi connections – one a secure tunnel to the DCC, carrying the smart meter data, and one to the Chameleon cloud to enable product support. Consumers will also need to give their consent for this to work on their home broadband connections.

Kyle Brown, Chief Commercial Officer at Chameleon Technology, said:

“The Virtual Wide Area Network is a vital development for smart meter connectivity, and the launch of our IHD7-VWAN demonstrates Chameleon’s commitment to supporting this next phase of the rollout. We are continually pushing to help bring the benefits of smart metering to as many homes as possible and feel very proud to be working with the energy industry and the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero to continue helping the industry overcome connectivity challenges. Chameleon is leading the way in enabling a more connected, data-driven home energy ecosystem.”

The Smart Meter pictured on this article is a regular IHD7 (IHD7-PPMID) from Chameleon Technology, rather than the new IHD7-VWAN. Just to be clear, the IHD7-VWAN is installed as part of a new deployment and paired with a 4G communications hub where required, so it’s not an add-on if you have an existing IHD7-PPMID display. But either way, it’s an important development that could help resolve the connectivity problems of some Smart Meters.

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Much as ISPreview leaked earlier this month (here). Customers of broadband and mobile provider EE (BT) can now finally access the Disney+ app on their EE TV Box Pro and EE TV Box Edge devices. But billing for related subscriptions will still be managed directly by Disney+, rather than as part of EE’s service.

Quite why it’s taken EE so long to add Disney+ support to their TV platform is unclear, but better late than never. Sadly there won’t be any special discounts for taking Disney+ on EE’s TV platform, with regular subscription prices continuing to apply:

Luciano Oliveira, Director of Product, Home & TV, EE, said: “It’s our goal to make EE TV a go-to destination for great entertainment, and adding the Disney+ app reinforces that by bringing an even broader mix of much-loved content to the platform. From big new releases to iconic series and timeless family favourites, it gives customers more of what they love, all in one place.”

• Disney+ Standard with Ads – £5.99 per month
• Disney+ Standard – £9.99 per month / £99.90 per year
• Disney+ Premium – £14.99 per month / £149.90 per year

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Interview

At the Submarine Networks EMEA 2026, we caught up with UltramapGlobal’s marketing lead Mychael Owen and CEO Martin Connelly to discuss the company’s role in securing submarine infrastructure

As geopolitical tensions and high-profile disruptions push submarine cables from the realm of invisible infrastructure into mainstream media headlines, subsea security has suddenly become a focal point of global anxiety.

At the Submarine Networks EMEA 2026 event in London, the conversation naturally turned toward shielding these critical data arteries from both intentional harm and accidental damage.

It was against this backdrop that UltramapGlobal’s Mychael Owen and Martin Connelly discussed the ongoing evolution of the company’s AssetMonitor platform. What began in 2022 as a focus on “selling surety” for cable operators quickly evolved into a data-driven virtuous cycle by 2023 as the company gained momentum, with more customers leading the company to adopt the ‘better informed, better protected’ mantra.

By 2024, the rapidly scaling business was forced to interpret data in entirely new ways to meet varied client reporting needs and, in 2025, AssetMonitor became the world’s most used subsea cable monitoring software.

Now the company is preparing for further growth thanks to its recent acquisition by Abingdon Software Group. Far from disrupting operations, the merger has provided stability and continuity for existing customers while supercharging the company’s capabilities.

“What they have given us is the ability to innovate and add to the software when we need to. We can do things better and bigger than we were able to before,” explained Connelly, noting that the partnership has also dramatically increased their international scope.

Integrating Lumetec’s sensing technology

The fruits of this newly expanded innovation capacity are already on display. Ultramap Global has recently integrated Lumetec’s Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) and State of Polarisation (SOP) technology into the AssetMonitor platform, giving cable operators even more data about their infrastructure’s surrounding environment.

“DAS can tell you a whole host of things, including the health of the cable,” said Connelly. “But the more important thing for us is it’s a source of information about the cable’s environment in real-time. For example, if a fishing vessel is trawling nearby, it can detect that activity on the seabed.”

This live environmental insight serves multiple critical functions. It allows Ultramap to pre-emptively contact nearby vessels to warn them of cable proximity. Furthermore, it provides forensic evidence of overhead activity. Connelly pointed out that fishermen often claim they lift their gear when approaching a cable, and this technology verifies if they are actually doing so. It is equally valuable for tracking “dark” vessels that have turned off their Automatic Identification System (AIS).

With this upgrade, cable operators remain grounded in factual security based on real-time feedback.

“It’s all about dealing with what’s actually happening. A lot of the news recently has been fear around what could happen. We need to keep it real,” concluded Connelly.

How is connectivity for the UK’s critical infrastructure evolving? Join the discussions at Connected Britain 2026

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VMO2 taps Suffolk solar farm for 10 years of clean energy

The post Subsea cable security: Focusing on reality over fear with UltramapGlobal appeared first on Total Telecom.

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Comparison service Switchity has taken Ofcom’s recently released Spring 2026 Connected Nations data report (our summary) and turned it into a simple but useful map of full fibre (FTTP) broadband coverage across the United Kingdom, including devolved constituencies (781 seats) and all 361 local authorities.

The interactive map also depicts current take-up levels and includes the regulator’s latest forecast for future full fibre coverage to January 2029, while at the same time highlighting the digital divide between coverage in urban and rural areas.

The catch is that they’ve only looked at full fibre coverage and not the broader definition of gigabit-capable broadband, which is what the government uses and would have delivered slightly higher figures (mostly due to the impact of Virgin Media’s older Hybrid Fibre Coax lines).

Switchity’s UK Full Fibre Broadband Map
https://switchity.co.uk/broadband-areas/uk-broadband-divide/