Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Edinburgh-based UK ISP GoFibre has revealed that their roll-out of a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in the County Durham market town of Barnard Castle, which forms part of their £6.6m state-aid supported Project Gigabit contract to cover 4,000 hard-to-reach premises in rural Teesdale (here), has now connected over 500 customers.

The local network expansion, supported by the UK Government’s LOT 4.01 contract, aims to provide high-speed internet to hard-to-reach areas in Teesdale, including Barnard Castle, Middleton-in-Teesdale, and surrounding villages. Overall the operator has, so far, managed to expand their full fibre network to cover over 120,000 premises (RFS) across over 30 “local areas” in Scotland and the North of England.

The local build currently covers Barnard Castle, Middleton-in-Teesdale and West Auckland, and includes towns and villages such as Cotherstone, Ovington, Gainford, Eggleston, Romaldkirk, Mickleton, Stainton, Barnard Castle and Witton-le-Wear. There are currently over 6,600 premises now ready for connection in the Durham-Teesdale area alone.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

A group of US Senators say that the Board is a key piece of the government’s cybersecurity strategy

A group of U.S. Senate Democrats has penned an open letter to Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, imploring her to reinstate the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) as a matter of urgency.

Created by the Biden administration in 2022, the CSRB was designed to review and assess major cybersecurity incidents and provide recommendations to the Department of Homeland Security. The advisory body comprised 20 permanent members from both the public and private sector, including the likes of National Cyber Director Chris Inglis and Google security engineering VP Heather Adkins.

Since then, the Board has investigated numerous high-profile cyberattacks, including the Microsoft Exchange Online breach in 2023, which saw hackers gain access to the mailboxes of 22 organisations and more than 500 individuals, including key US officials like the Commerce Secretary and the US ambassador to China.

More recently, the CSRB was involved in examining the Salt Typhoon cyberattacks of late last year, a series of cybersecurity breaches liked to the Chinese government that have been described as the ‘worst in the nation’s history’.

At the start of this year, however, the CSRB’s work was to come to an abrupt halt. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump dissolved the CSRB and all other advisory boards, calling them a misallocation of government resources.

Acting Secretary Benjamine C. Huffman explained the decision at the time as being “in alignment with the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security.”

The move was met with immediate criticism, with both analysts and government figures saying the move would delay investigations into Salt Typhoon and threaten national security.

“It is a national security imperative that the investigation be completed expeditiously,” said Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security panel, at a committee hearing the following week. “I’m troubled that the president’s attempt to stack the CSRB with loyalists may cause its important work on the Salt Typhoon campaign to be delayed. The American people deserve better.”

Today, in their open letter, the four US Senators are expressing similar concerns.

“As we have noted, the CSRB had been actively investigating potentially the most expansive and impactful cyber security breach in U.S. history: the unprecedented compromises of U.S. and global telecommunications infrastructure by threat actors associated with the People’s Republic of China, widely referred to as ‘Salt Typhoon’. However, the CSRB’s investigation into the Salt Typhoon compromises of U.S. telecommunication firms, launched in 2024, was effectively terminated on January 20, 2025 and is depriving the public of a fuller accounting of the origin, scope, scale, and severity of these compromises,” said the senators in the letter. “It is essential that the U.S. develop a complete and thorough understanding of the factors that contributed to the success of these intrusions – including clear root-cause analyses of each successful penetration – and present key recommendations for the telecommunications sector to better protect itself against similarly complex and large-scale compromises by future threat actors.”

Shortly following the CSRB’s disbandment, DHS Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar noted that the bureau would be revived “at the right time”, but no further communication on the matter has yet been provided.

“You have had more than four months to reestablish this Board to conduct this critical work – DHS leadership and CISA must work together to immediately reinstate the Board as a crucial part of America’s cyber defense infrastructure,” concluded the Senators’ letter.

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Also in the news:
SWR deploys Europe’s first ’Rail-5G’ Wi-Fi  
BT accelerates fibre rollout amid cost cuts
AT&T agrees $5.75 billion deal for Lumen’s consumer fibre assets

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

London-focused network provider Vorboss, which operates a 100Gbps capable full fibre network in the city, has today announced a new strategic partnership with Roc Technologies to deliver “best-in-class network solutions” tailored specifically for local councils across the capital.

Vorboss has so far completed the deployment of a 700km long dedicated point-to-point fibre optic network across Central London (covering most of zones 1 and 2), which we’re told is enough to connect all commercial buildings in the area to their direct internet access and Ethernet network.

By comparison, Roc Technologies are an IT solutions, consultancy and cloud services provider that focuses upon the public and private sectors. Suffice to say that the two companies have complementary technologies and aims, although the announcement itself is quite light on detail.

Jason O’Malley, CCO at Vorboss, said:

“We’re excited to be partnering with Roc Technologies, whose values and customer-centric approach align closely with our own. This partnership enables us to offer unparalleled connectivity solutions, directly improving service delivery and efficiency for local councils.”

Adam Jarvis, CRO at Roc Technologies, said:

“Our partnership with Vorboss brings together two businesses that truly differentiate in the way they support their customers, providing highly responsive services designed to enhance their overall experience. Leveraging Vorboss’ superior infrastructure and their technical experts located across London allows us to provide a combined service delivery capability that transforms how local councils manage their infrastructure, ultimately benefiting the communities they serve.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network access provider Openreach (BT) caught our eye this week, which came after several of ISPreview’s industry sources notified us that the operator had “implemented a nationwide change” on 1st June 2025 that affected how SOGEA (FTTC etc.) and FTTP broadband services are provisioned for UK business premises.

In short, internet providers (ISP) could previously place a related broadband order that allowed them to choose between three Site Visit Reasons (SVR) for customer installation: Standard, Premium and Advanced. In simple terms, more demanding installations usually require Premium or Advanced, which are more expensive than a Standard install due to the extra tests and work involved (i.e. going beyond what a typical user may need).

At wholesale rates, the cost of a Standard one-off FTTP installation is, for example, typically £122.84 +vat, with Premium being £152.84 and Advanced rising to £297.84. Naturally, the prices that retail ISPs charge for this will vary, and special offers may also reduce or remove the prices in certain circumstances.

However, as of 1st June 2025, Openreach recently notified ISPs that “standard installations will no longer be applicable for business addresses“, which means that the minimum required level now defaults to their more expensive ‘Premium’ option (or ‘Advanced’ for more complex sites). This change has been in the works for a while, albeit slipping under our radar somewhat.

The classification of whether an address is for a specific type of ‘business’, or not, is determined automatically by Openreach using address data sourced from the National Ordnance Survey. So it looks like businesses may now have to pay a bit extra to get an FTTC or FTTP broadband line installed, but there is some method in the madness here.

According to some of our sources, the hope is that this new approach will reduce the need for second engineer visits, which occurred quite a bit with Standard installs because the engineers would often turn up and find more complex business premises (often requiring a second visit to complete as the work fell outside the scope of a Standard install). The result was often felt in terms of delays and additional charges.

The new approach should reduce such issues, and it’s possible that residential installs may indirectly benefit too, since engineers may now have more flexibility to complete larger jobs within the Standard scope (yet to be proven). On the flip side, we’ve also spoken to some providers that were completely unaware of the new approach.

UPDATE 2:44pm

Openreach has kindly clarified that the ‘Standard’ install option is still technically available as the default for smaller home based business premises (this covers sole trader/small businesses working from their homes, as well as residential). Meanwhile, commercial and non-residential classified premises map to the SVR that Openreach believe is best suited, and their only choice is to upgrade from the minimum assignment (e.g. Premium), but they can’t drop down an install level.

A Spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview:

“The change is just about making sure we can provide the right customer experience for businesses and being able to send the right engineer with the right skills. We’ve basically made Premium the default for business premises to try and correct an issue for both us and CPs where, historically, some have chosen the cheapest (Standard) option – even for major complex sites. This can mean an engineer turning up and not being able to complete the job in the standard slot time – which isn’t a good experience for anyone.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Credible sources have informed ISPreview that alternative UK broadband operator FullFibre Limited (Fibre Heroes), which in early March 2025 completed its merger with Zzoomm (here), are preparing to drop one of their joint retail ISP brands – BeFibre (first acquired after FullFibre gobbled ‘Digital infrastructure’ in 2023 – here).

The combined gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network currently reaches 600,000 premises (ready for service) and “over” 70,000 customers across England – serving parts of approximately 110 market towns, which makes it one of the UK’s largest altnets. This reflects both their open access wholesale fibre network alongside their in-house retail ISPs (BeFibre and Zzoomm).

However, the newly merged company, which last month suffered some post-deal redundancies (here), now appears to be gearing up for another important change. According to our sources, the operator plans to drop their retail ISP brand BeFibre in the future and shift the associated customer base over to Zzoomm instead. The operator declined to comment when we queried this.

The move makes sense, as there’s little point in retaining two retail outlets at this scale, particularly if they’re both offering fundamentally similar packages to the same sort of customers. In addition, Zzoomm is arguably a more familiar brand than BeFibre, albeit only a little bit.

The exact timescale for this change is unclear, as it’s dependent upon a bunch of merger activities that need to happen first (post-deal network integration work is often a long and complex process), which means that the official announcement to retire BeFibre or its related migration may not come or start until later this year.

Speaking of brand changes. One of our readers yesterday spotted (here) that FullFibre separately appears to be retiring their Fibre Heroes sub-brand, which now points directly to the FullFibre.co website (that site now carries over the availability checker etc.). This makes sense, as it often seemed a bit unnecessary to dilute the core brand with the Fibre Heroes sub-brand. Post merger, there were perhaps too many brands in the same pot.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, has revealed that the first batch of their next generation Starlink v3 satellites could “start launching [into Low Earth Orbit] on Starship in 6 to 9 months“, which are eventually expected to push broadband speeds closer to gigabit (1000Mbps) territory and further improve latency times. But Musk is known for over-promising on timelines.

At present Starlink has around 7,650 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (c.3,300 are v2 Mini / GEN 2A) – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km – and they’ll add thousands more by the end of 2027. Residential customers in the UK typically pay from £75 a month, plus £299 for hardware on the ‘Standard’ unlimited data plan (currently free in some areas on a 12-month term), which promises UK latency times of 28-36ms, downloads of 103-258Mbps and uploads of 15-26Mbps. But cheaper and more restrictive options also exists for roaming users.

According to past documents, each v3 satellite will be able to handle 1 Terabit per second (1000Gbps) of downlink speed and 160Gbps of uplink capacity (shared capacity), with the future Starship rocket seemingly able to put around 50-60 of the much larger and heavier v3 satellites per launch into orbit (here).

The new satellites will also orbit closer to earth (a lower altitude is good for performance but does sacrifice coverage) and will be able to harness more radio spectrum frequency to help support their performance, as well as other enhancements (newer antennas, solar arrays etc.). But until now there hasn’t been much clarity on when the first v3’s will be launched, which is mainly due to a string of recent struggles with the Starship launch vehicle.

Elon Musk said (X):

“With the version 3 Starlink satellites, which start launching on Starship in 6 to 9 months, we should be able to get latency below 20ms.

The new, much larger satellites will be at ~350km instead of ~550km altitude, which cuts latency due to speed of light down to ~5ms.

Also, the Starlink laser links transmit data ~40% faster in vacuum vs fibre, so packets will move faster than anything on the ground. Helps to have physics on your side!”

The catch is that Musk has become somewhat known for overpromising on timescales and underdelivering, while his new Starship rocket is still struggling to complete a full mission without part of it blowing up. But progress is being made, and it will be interesting to see whether his latest prediction manages to hold a bit more water than past claims.

Currently, the average (median) UK download speed on Starlink is 66.8Mbps and this rises up to 157Mbps for those with the top 10% of fastest connections, while uploads average just 10.2Mbps or 16.7Mbps for those in the top 10% (here). Suffice to say that Starlink will need to loft quite a few v3 satellites before we start to see those much-vaunted gigabit speeds emerging.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

As expected, Sky has today soft launched their new Sky Glass Air televisions for customers of their broadband-based pay TV streaming service, which is essentially a slimmed down version of their recently launched Gen 2 TVs (introduced February 2025). The new kit will become available to buy on Tuesday 10th June (Currys stores from 18th).

In case anybody has forgotten, the Sky Glass Gen 2 TVs were priced from £14 per month and came in several sizes – 43″, 55″ and 65″, as well as three updated colours, Volcanic Grey, Arctic Silver and Atlantic Blue. Cosmetically, they were a modest refinement on Sky’s original design, albeit with a brighter 4K Quantum Dot display and enhanced Dolby Atmos® sound via seven speakers (soundbar and dual subwoofer built-in). Not to mention a new stand and mount for flexibility.

However, Sky’s original announcement also teased another new TV set for the future – Sky Glass Air, which will also have a 4K Quantum Dot HDR screen, plus global dimming and contrast enhancements that automatically brightens the screen for a clearer, more vivid picture. But it only has 2.0 stereo speakers with Dolby Audio. In short, it was a cheaper, slimmed down version of the regular Gen 2 TVs, albeit with most of the same features and the full Sky OS (software).

The big news today is that Sky will finally put these Sky Glass Air TV sets on sale from Tuesday next week (10th June), starting from just £6 a month at Sky.com, Sky stores, Sky call centres and Currys.co.uk. This is on top of a Sky Essential TV (or greater) subscription, which starts from £15 a month for new customers.

The Sky Glass Air TVs will be available in three colours – Sea Green, Carbon Grey, and Cotton White – and three sizes, 43”, 55”, and 65”, like normal.

Carli Kerr, MD of Sky TV & NOW TV, said:

“With Sky Glass Air, we’re bringing the Sky experience to more people through a beautifully designed TV with stunning picture quality from just £6 a month. It’s all about giving people better for less: more choice, great tech, and the content they love, without compromising on quality. From the ultimate performance of Glass Gen 2 to the incredible value of Air, there’s now a Sky Glass to suit everyone, whether you’re new to Sky or already with us.”

Take note that the £6 per month price mention above reflects their 43″ TV on an 48-month interest free loan, but prices may change during the 24-month Sky TV subscription (Sky often does annual price hikes) and there’s a one-off upfront payment of £20 to pay too. Pricing for a shorter 24-month interest free loan = £12pm for 43”, £20pm for 55”, £26pm for 65”.

Customers can also opt to pay for Sky Glass Air upfront, all in one go, which costs as follows: 43” – £309, 55” – £509 or 65” – £649. Consumers could alternatively forget Sky Glass entirely and go with the Sky Stream box(es) instead, which can be used with your existing TV set and for a lot of people that will make more sense.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Telecoms and broadband giant BT Group yesterday officially launched their new standalone ‘International’ unit to serve their multinational customers, which was previously predicted (here) to comprise over 8,000 staff and will report separately from the company’s UK business.

The operator has been gradually reducing their international operations for some time as part of wider cost-cutting plans. The decision to shift what remains of that into a separate unit, while complex, could make it easier and more cost-effective to manage. On the flip side, it might also make the whole thing easier to sell, or possibly even to merge with another network operator.

The former chief of BT Business, Bas Burger, has been tasked with running the new unit and taking on competitors that are often said to have “gained strength” in the wider market. But there’s also the potential for further redundancies as BT brings everything together.

Bas Burger, CEO of BT International, said:

“Today, we launch BT International, serving our multinational customers as a dedicated operation within BT Group with its own people, products and platforms.

It comes as our customers face unprecedented disruption across their markets driven by geopolitics, regulation and technology — with AI catalysing change faster than ever. We have designed BT International specifically to help our customers meet these challenges head on and anticipate future opportunities to thrive.

The way we do this centres on two highly scalable telco platforms designed for the age of multi-cloud and AI: Global Voice and Global Fabric, with security built in by design. We’ve channelled our investments into these cloud-centric global platforms and concentrated our expert teams where customers need them most.

…

Looking to the future of our industry, we believe international networks will gravitate towards fewer, larger, telco platforms able to manage the demand generated by increased cloud and AI services. We invite other service providers to work with BT International, as we build out our ecosystem of partners, including our recently announced partnership with Google Cloud, and scale fast so we can, as an industry, offer the best value to customers across the globe.

We’re at a pivotal moment as an industry. It is an opportunity to move away from fragmented legacy international networks to a platform designed with the reality of AI, cyber and cloud at its core, reflecting customers’ expectations of speed, security, sustainability, sovereignty and naturally the skills to support future growth and prosperity.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

One of the UK’s largest utility contractors, Network Plus, which also helps a number of network operators to deploy full fibre broadband infrastructure, has appointed workforce management firm Totalmobile to overhaul how it manages and delivers its field services across the country.

The “collaboration” will see Network Plus deploying new work order management, mobile working, and dynamic scheduling solutions to support the delivery of essential utility and infrastructure services across the United Kingdom.

The goal is to streamline core processes with integrated digital solutions, which should boost productivity, increase workforce agility, and improve the experience for both its workforce and end customers – impacting operations spanning over 80 depots and sites.

Joe Erling, Spokesperson for Network Plus, said:

“Investment in the Totalmobile platform is a key step in enhancing efficiency across both our back-office operations and field delivery teams at Network Plus. By deploying work order management, automated dynamic scheduling, and configurable mobile forms, we will achieve significant improvements across contracts, which will ultimately support our wider strategic growth ambitions.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network operator CityFibre, which has already deployed their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network to cover 4.4 million UK premises (4.2m Ready for Service), has today taken the wraps off their new “Multi-Gig” product, offering its ISP partners symmetrical speeds of 5.5Gbps (Gigabits per second) – over twice as fast as their current top 2.5Gbps tier.

The new product tier is being made possible by the operator’s ongoing upgrade from their existing GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) to XGS-PON (10Gbps symmetric capable PON) platform, which has already rolled out across 85% of CityFibre’s network and is currently “due for completion later this summer“.

In addition, the operator also hinted that they’re planning “faster Multi-Gig services due to launch” sometime in 2026, which we suspect might well see them push into the 7-8Gbps territory like other altnets (e.g. Netomnia/YouFibre, B4RN etc.). Going faster than 7-8Gbps on even XGS-PON in the real-world is difficult due to network overheads and other caveats.

“Over three times faster than BT Openreach’s fastest available 1.8Gb downstream / 0.12Gb upstream service, and available at a much lower wholesale cost, CityFibre’s 5.5Gb symmetrical product will enable partners to offer a range of Multi-Gig speed tiers to customers, improving margins whilst providing a valuable customer retention tool for the long term,” said the announcement.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“The UK’s full fibre future is here, thanks to CityFibre’s powerful, 10Gb XGS-PON network. Our ISP partners are already connecting customers with speeds over 2Gb and exceeding expectations when it comes to quality and reliability, but our next generation of full fibre will set a new standard for what’s possible.

CityFibre started out to challenge the incumbents and bring choice and competition to the UK market. This is another huge step-forward, giving ISPs more power and flexibility than ever before and bringing affordable Multi-Gig speeds and an unrivalled experience to millions of UK consumers.”

The network operator, which has so far attracted 550,000 live customers (March 2025), currently still aspires to cover up to 8 million UK premises with their new full fibre network (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity, c.£4.9bn debt and nearly £1bn of BDUK / public subsidy) – representing c.30% of the UK. But quite when they’ll reach that point is unclear.

The announcement comes shortly after we reported on how Openreach’s technical documents for their own XGS-PON deployment were hinting at plans for a top symmetric speed of 3.3Gbps (here). At the same time, we’ve also seen Netomnia pushing into 50Gbps capable (50G PON) territory (here), although business users will be the first to benefit from any future 10Gbps+ packages via that network.

The usual catch in all this is the difficulty of actually being able to harness all that speed when online. Most internet services still seem to struggle to harness more than 1Gbps (1000Mbps), assuming they can do even that, while the multi-gigabit domain remains more of a premium luxury product (Why Buying Gigabit Broadband Doesn’t Always Deliver 1Gbps). But technological evolution rarely waits for the slowest users.

Naturally, there will always be those who find reason to moan, even when a network providers do things as striking as this. But pushing the boundaries of modern technology is part of what makes an operator exciting (marketing carries power) and as coverage matures then service performance / quality inevitably becomes the next battleground, alongside price.

The catch for retail ISPs is that, in order to take advantage of such speeds, they’ll need to invest in more capacity and better equipment (e.g. optical modems / ONT and routers, as well as fresh engineer visits for existing customers). All of that comes with its own costs and complexity, thus it may take a bit of time before all of CityFibre’s retail ISPs are pushing their new top speeds to consumers.