Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

The attack, which took place in 2022, went undiscovered for almost three years

This week, a joint public–private investigation as revealed the enormous scale of a recently reported data breach impacting South Korean telco SK Telecom (SKT).

The cyberattack took place on June 15, 2022, but was not reported to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) by SKT until April 22 this year, suggesting that malware remained undetected for three years.

The data breach reportedly saw malware installed on 23 of SKT’s servers, which collectively held four different types of USIM data, including International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) numbers. These unique numbers are used to identify individual customers.

In total, 9.32 gigabytes of USIM-related data, including 26.9 million IMSI numbers, were compromised in the attack and may have been leaked.

SKT itself currently serves roughly 25 million customers, both directly and through its mobile virtual network operator partners, suggesting that nearly all its subscribers may be impacted by the attack.

To make matters worse, two of the affected servers had temporarily stored personal customer data, including names, date of birth, phone numbers, and email addresses. According to the investigation, it is still unclear whether this data was also compromised.

The investigation notes that log records show no evidence of data being exfiltrated between December 3, 2024, to April 24, 2025. However, there are no log records between June 15, 2022 –the date of the attack – and December 2, 2024, meaning investigators cannot determine if data was leaked during this time period.

One of the biggest fears is that the leaked data could be used for ‘SIM swapping’, a process whereby malicious actors use the stolen data to convince the service provider to transfer the victim’s number to a SIM card they control. This then allows them to receive calls, texts, and two-factor authentication codes intended for the victim.

The government’s director of the Network Policy Office at the Ministry of Science and ICT, Ryu Je-myung, notably downplayed these concerns, saying that the investigation had confirmed with manufacturers that ‘SIM swapping’ was not possible with the potentially leaked data.

“Cloning a smartphone is impossible with only a 15-digit IMEI value”, he said.

In response to the breach, SKT has pledged to bolster its cybersecurity, as well as offering free USIM card replacements to all 25 million subscribers.

In recent years, telcos have become the target of increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity attacks, with major data breaches taking place all over the world. Perhaps the most prominent of these were the ‘Salt Typhoon’ attacks, which hit US mobile operators in September last year and was described as the ‘worst telecom hack in US history’ by chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warne.

Since then, national governments have been working increasingly closely with telecoms operators with regards to national security, including increasing international cybersecurity cooperation between allied nations.

In this regard, US Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr met with Korean Minister of Science and ICT Yoo Sang earlier this month to discuss greater security collaboration between the two nations.

Keep up to date with the latest telecoms news with the Total Telecom newsletter 

Also in the news:
Charter and Cox reveal agreement to combine companies
BT in final talks to sell 50% stake in TNT Sports to Warner Bros Discovery 
BT creates standalone international unit as strategic restructuring continues 

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Viewpoint

by Fernando Molina, CTIO at nexfibre

Can we build the UK’s digital infrastructure based on not just today’s needs, but tomorrow’s?

This is the question at the heart of the UK’s connectivity ambitions. It’s no secret that the UK has lagged behind its peers in Europe on full-fibre rollout. However, as the demand for low-latency, high-bandwidth connectivity accelerates, this delay could actually work towards the UK’s advantage. We must use this opportunity to lay down the right infrastructure to capitalise on our digital potential and not just to catch up, but to lead the way.

Future-proofing our fibre network

When it comes to national infrastructure, building for today means that it will already be outdated by the time it’s live. The long lead times, enormous investments and regulatory challenges mean that future-proofing is crucial, or we risk being left behind once again.

Over the past two decades, we’ve seen how quickly expectations shift: from dial-up to streaming; from basic browsing to real-time collaboration. As AI, automation, and use cases such as remote surgery and digital twins become mainstream, latency is emerging as a critical differentiator. This is about more than just gaming or buffering. These emerging applications demand real-time responsiveness. True digital interactivity will require infrastructure that can keep pace with next-generation technology.

Just think about video calls. A decade or two ago, it would have been almost impossible to work entirely remotely, because of the poor connection speed. In the near future, with the right infrastructure and hardware, it’s possible that remote work could be indistinguishable from in-person.

Not all fibre is created equal

Today, many fibre networks in the UK still rely on older GPON technology – something that’s still currently being rolled out. While it’s sufficient for most business and consumer use-cases currently, this technology will become obsolete within a matter of years.

Instead, XGS-PON offers symmetric speeds of up to 10 Gbps. Having symmetrical bandwidth is especially important for applications requiring high upload capacity. In fact, a recent survey we conducted with members of the Internet Service Provider’s Association (ISPA), found that over half of respondents said they would prefer to run their services through XGS-PON only. The UK’s ISPs recognise the need for future-proofing their offerings, and they need an underlying infrastructure that supports this.

The cost of compromise

It is fair to say that more advanced infrastructure like XGS-PON does tend to require greater expenditure upfront.

That said, delaying these investments risks entrenching outdated networks and customer premise equipment, that will need upgrading before long. The cost of compromise isn’t just financial, it’s strategic. Deploying out-dated technology today means paying again tomorrow, both in upgrades and lost competitiveness.

With the incumbent provider still deploying GPON, and at the same time communicating a reduction in capex expenditure, one wonders how the much-needed upgrades will be funded, whilst also striving to meet the Government’s 2030 target.

Instead, we advocate taking a long-term view. By investing in XGS-PON now, we avoid future bottlenecks, reduce wasteful duplication, and enable the UK to lead in cutting-edge use cases from AI to smart manufacturing.

There are sustainability benefits too. Fibre consumes significantly less energy than older technologies, and by implementing future-ready systems today, we avoid the environmental cost of repeated rebuilds and customer equipment renewals just a few years down the line.

Conclusion

The UK faces a generational opportunity to renew its connectivity infrastructure. The government has recognised that digitally connecting our cities, towns and communities is essential for them to thrive, and the economic opportunity is substantial. The deployment of future-proof technologies will allow a fast, clean and seamless adoption of advanced digital solutions both in homes and businesses.

So too is there recognition of the need to transition away from legacy infrastructure, with ambitious goals to achieve nationwide gigabit-capable broadband by 2030. The decisions we make today will define the quality and capabilities of our future digital economy. It’s vital that we ensure our broadband network is ready for the future: we must strive to lead globally, rather than risk being left behind again.

Join us at Connected Britain, 24-25 September in London. Get tickets here!  

Also in the news:
GSMA bemoans high spectrum prices in latest report
NTT buying up land to support global data centre expansion
US rescinds AI chip export controls  

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Mobile network operator and UK ISP Vodafone has today published their Q4 FY25 financial results, which confirms that their fixed line broadband base grew by a healthy 61,000 in the last quarter to total 1.61 million customers (down from 72k added in Q3 2024). But their mobile base fell again to total 18.175m (down by -125k in Q4 vs -174k in Q3).

In terms of their UK fixed broadband services, the operator reported more growth, with a quarterly addition of 61,000 customers (or 227,000 across the whole year) – thanks in part to being widely available across both Openreach’s and CityFibre’s national networks. The provider’s full fibre (FTTP) coverage can now reach a combined total of 19.4 million UK households (up from 18.4m last quarter).

As for their mobile base, Vodafone reported a quarterly rise of 41,000 in Pay Monthly customers (vs an increase of 1,000 in Q3), but there was yet another decrease of -166,000 in Prepaid / PAYG customers (vs -175k in Q3). Finally, quarterly mobile broadband (data) usage across their UK network increased to 655,568 TeraBytes (up from 643,984 TB last quarter).

Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group CEO, said:

“Since I set out my plans to transform Vodafone two years ago, Vodafone has changed. We have reshaped Europe, we are seeing the positive impact of our drive for customer satisfaction in all our markets – most noticeably in the UK and Germany – and we have delivered strong operational improvements across the business. Clearly there is much more to do, but this period of transition has repositioned Vodafone for multi-year growth.

Looking ahead, we expect to see broad-based momentum across Europe and Africa, and for Germany to return to top-line growth during this year. This is reflected in our guidance for profit and cash flow growth for the year ahead.”

Finally, the operator saw their quarterly UK service revenue reach €1,489m (down from €1,507m in the previous quarter). The full report is here (PDF).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Broadband operator AllPointsFibre Networks (APFN) has today signed a new “long-term” partnership with UK business ISP Gamma Communications. The deal will give Gamma and its partners access to APFN’s new aquila wholesale platform and the ability to sell products via their national Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

Just to recap. Aquila now states that it’s available to c. 19 million UK homes and businesses, which is roughly in keeping with the respective network expansions of major partners at Openreach, BTWholesale and CityFibre. In addition, this platform also includes APFN’s own-built “full fibre” (FTTP) infrastructure via the recent consolidation of their three alternative networks – Giganet, Swish Fibre and Jurassic Fibre.

Gamma plans to take advantage of aquila’s capabilities to offer thousands of potential Business Full Fibre and Ethernet connections to its customers. The provider already works with organisations like Tui, the Open University and the British Heart Foundation.

Nisreen El-kaloush, APFN Chief Commercial Officer, said:

“We’re so pleased to be working with Gamma. It’s amazing to have a top-tier reseller join the aquila platform so soon after it launches.

By integrating with aquila and leveraging our advanced core and edge network infrastructure, Gamma’s customers gain a more adaptable and diverse fibre connectivity experience, ensuring businesses can scale and serve their customers with ease.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

A new report from analyst firm Enders Analysis, which was recently shared with ISPreview, has revealed that broadband traffic volume growth across most developed countries has “slowed to a relative crawl” to become the “new normal” (i.e. falling from 30%+ for many years and now at 10-15%). The story is similar for mobile (4G, 5G etc.) services (falling to 5-10%).

The study – ‘Low growth needs a new approach‘, which examined data/internet traffic across several developed markets, including the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, noted how there had been many years of fairly strong and consistent growth until around 2020. Traffic then surged during the COVID-19 pandemic as people locked themselves away at home and worked remotely, but then sharply dropped back in 2021 to correct itself.

However, rather than return to the level it was at before, traffic volumes across both fixed broadband and mobile (mobile broadband) connectivity have instead continued to fall and remain significantly below pre-pandemic levels. This is more than just a post-pandemic correction, and is now said to be the “new normal“.

“Telcos (and governments/regulators) would therefore be advised to be prepared for this slower growth to be the new normal, and break away from previous habits of perpetually referring to explosive traffic growth and assuming that the latest high-capacity telecoms technologies need to be deployed everywhere for a high-tech economy to be able to function,” said Enders.

Broadband subscriber growth has also slowed to 0-3% post-pandemic, although this is perhaps less of a surprise given the huge impact that COVID-19 had on society (trigging lots of people to get a broadband service installed or upgraded) and the maturity of modern network coverage. For example, in the UK 30Mbps+ connections now cover 98% of premises and gigabit broadband reaches 86% (here), while there’s only a small portion of the population left to get online.

The issue of slowing traffic growth can also be partly linked back to the limited development and take-up of higher quality video streams. Most consumer internet traffic is generated by video content (IPTV, Streaming etc.) and so any developments in this field can have a big impact on traffic volumes.

On this front we haven’t seen much forward development since the introduction of 4K (Ultra HD), which is partly because higher quality standards like 8K and beyond are largely irrelevant to the screen sizes people are still using these days (Smartphones, laptops, tablets etc.). Streaming services often also continue to price 4K content at a premium, which suppresses take-up.

At the same time, online video providers have been adopting more efficient codecs, which compress those higher quality videos into ever smaller data packets that use less bandwidth to deliver the same stream – often significantly less.

Enders notes that other bandwidth-hungry services, which were once expected to help drive future growth in internet traffic, have failed to deliver. For example, cloud gaming has been about to take off for years, with many failed attempts, but most people still prefer to own their own copy of a game (digital or physical). Virtual reality, augmented reality and virtual presence have also been slow to take off, despite much hype a few years ago.

Enders Analysis Statement

Looking forward, there are a number of drivers of future traffic growth, which may well lead to spikes in individual years, but appear unlikely to lead to the sustained 30%+ per annum growth of the past. Firstly, live TV is (slowly) migrating to the internet in many countries, with platforms such as Sky Stream and Freely in the UK looking to make this transition seamless from a user experience perspective, and allow cost savings from (eventually) shutting down legacy broadcast platforms.

Live TV still has very significant volumes (around 40% of video viewing in the UK), and any sudden shifts would cause serious traffic spikes, but given a likely transition period of 10-15 years at least, this would not support sustained 30%+ per annum volume growth.

The impact of AI on traffic volumes is varied and still highly uncertain, with inter-data centre volumes already significantly impacted, and the impact from AI-based bots and AI-enabled video sensors could be very significant. However, online video traffic consists of hours a day of high bandwidth traffic to pretty much every individual in the country, and no other application (even AI-supported) looks likely to be able to match this traffic load, let alone exceed it to the extent required to drive high growth for many years.

The flip side of this, as touched on earlier in this article, is that the capital expenditure requirements on network operators will be “very much lower“, with “continuous capacity upgrades no longer required“. But we think it might have been more accurate to say that they’d take place more gradually, over a longer window of time, rather than simply being “no longer required“. The catch is that a lower frequency of network upgrades (i.e. core capacity rather than local access technologies) risk making any existing network deficiencies more obvious.

All of this seems unlikely to have much of a negative impact on the rising take-up of modern full fibre (FTTP) broadband networks, where many consumers are often just happy to get a reliable service that can actually deliver on the promised speeds (something older copper ADSL/FTTC networks often struggled to do). Not to mention the inevitable withdrawal of copper-based lines, which over the next few years will push everybody on to optical fibre.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Business telecommunications and UK broadband ISP Spitfire has today called on Openreach (BT) to provide “much needed clarity” for service providers, and the businesses they support, on new contracts related to the looming switch-off of the old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) in favour of IP-based digital phone (VoIP etc.) services.

Just to recap. The big switch-off was recently delayed to 31st January 2027 in order to give broadband ISPs, phone providers, telecare operators and consumers more time to adapt (details). But the main focus of this delay was the 1.8 million people who use vital home telecare systems in the UK (e.g. elderly, disabled, and vulnerable people), which often aren’t compatible with the replacement VoIP / IP-based digital phone services (i.e. for everybody else the deadline is still technically the end of December 2025).

However, Spitfire notes that the existing contract between UK Internet Service Providers (ISP) and Openreach will expire on 31st December 2025 (i.e. for WLR), and the network access provider has already given notice that this agreement won’t be renewed in its current form.

Openreach has previously informed ISPreview that they would introduce new terms and a three-month termination notice period to continue services, where needed, and enable some flexibility to support future processes (i.e. a new contract will be issued). But Spitfire complains that they still don’t know what the new contract will actually contain.

“Exactly what it will contain remains unknown. What is expected, however, is a marked change in support terms — most notably, less favourable service level agreements (SLAs) for repairs and response,” said the provider. “The impact could be damaging for [ISPs] and their customers – it means businesses who leave their migration until the last moment will not only face potential delays from capacity bottlenecks but could also find themselves tied to less responsive support structures. In other words: when something breaks, it’ll take longer to fix.”

Harry Bowlby, MD of Spitfire Network Services, said:

“The truth is no one yet knows what the new contracts will look like. But based on the trajectory of telecoms policy, the focus will be digital-first, and the terms for legacy support will decline. The writing is on the wall for PSTN and ISDN services, and while the final stages of this transition are still in motion, the direction is still unclear. Businesses need guidance, not guesswork.

This is where working with experienced partners, those who understand both the legacy environment and the future IP landscape, can make all the difference. It’s about making the right switch, in the right way, at the right time.”

In fairness, Openreach has released some details of the new contracts and has been engaging with the industry over this, although we have asked the network operator to respond and will report back when they furnish us with a comment. At the same time it’s worth considering that Spitfire does have a vested interest here in both promoting the issue, as it sees things, and its own related services.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Last year we reported on how broadband and mobile provider Vodafone had been hit with a £120m+ legal claim from over 60 current and former UK franchisees (here). The group, which said they were challenging the “financial, mental, and physical impacts of the retail giant’s “irrational” business decisions“, today reported that their attempt to mediate a solution “has come to an end with no resolution“.

The affected franchisees, many of which say they started their careers with Vodafone and have been “loyal ambassadors for the brand over the years“, claim that Vodafone – which recently left the British Franchise Association (BFA) – has “breached its duty of good faith and the terms of the Franchise Agreement“. They allege that Vodafone did this by imposing “irrational and arbitrary business decisions” on them from July 2020.

Andrew Kerr, Rikki Lear and Donna Watton, three former franchisees and members of the claim, accused Vodafone of causing them and their families “severe financial and personal distress including reaching the edge of bankruptcy, potential repossession of their homes, and serious mental health issues” – impacts they allege are felt by others across the programme.

Some of the examples given allege that Vodafone’s commission payments and remuneration to the affected franchisees were “cut drastically and with little or no explanation“. The group also claims that the operator benefitted from government business rate reliefs that “were intended for the franchisees“, when they were facing financial distress during COVID-19.

In addition, Vodafone are said to have “often failed to pass on rent free periods in its underlease terms to affected franchisees and charged them full rent“, again when many of their businesses were already being squeezed. The operator itself has previously said that they were “sorry to any franchisee who has had a difficult experience” and “acknowledged challenges were faced by some franchisees,” but they also “strongly refute“ claims that Vodafone ‘unjustly enriched’ itself at the expense of small businesses.

The main development today is that mediation between the group of 62 related franchisees across the UK and Vodafone has “come to an end with no resolution“. The group is now renewing its calls for accountability and redress.

A spokesperson for the Group of franchisees said:

“We have been engaged in a mediation process with Vodafone which has now come to an end. We are deeply disappointed that our recent efforts to resolve our dispute through mediation have concluded with no agreement reached.

As a group, we entered into the mediation process with the best intentions. We are extremely frustrated that the process failed to resolve this dispute, which would have allowed both parties to move on.

Our group was formed because Vodafone’s decisions have caused significant and direct harm to the individuals’ businesses and lives. We will now continue our efforts to seek justice through the court process. We remain absolutely committed to securing redress and accountability for everyone affected.”

The £120+ million legal claim will now proceed to the High Court, which is likely to be a long and expensive process.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News 

Verizon says the deal will allow it to upgrade its fibre network in 25 states 

Verizon has been given approval from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for its $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications, in part for agreeing to drop its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. 

In a letter to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, Verizon said it would eliminate DEI-focused roles, drop diversity targets from hiring plans, and remove DEI language from training, recruitment, and public messaging. The changes will also apply to Frontier following the close of the acquisition. 

The move comes in a wider political and regulatory push in the US against corporate DEI frameworks, with government bodies and large firms under pressure to scale back such efforts. Major tech firms like Meta, Amazon, and Google have all rolled back their DEI programmes to align with the Trump administration. 

The Frontier deal, which was announced in September last year, gives Verizon access to a major fibre footprint across the US, helping it reach an additional one million homes per year with broadband, including in hard-to-reach rural areas. The telco is aiming to strengthen its fibre business as competition ramps up in both fixed and mobile markets.  

State-level approvals are still needed to close the deal. In Connecticut, regulators have given provisional support, with a final decision due next month. Verizon expects to complete the acquisition early next year. 

Keep up to date with the latest telecoms news by subscribing to our newsletter 

Also in the news:
Charter and Cox reveal agreement to combine companies
BT in final talks to sell 50% stake in TNT Sports to Warner Bros Discovery 
BT creates standalone international unit as strategic restructuring continues 

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News 

BT is in late stage discussions to offload its 50% stake in TNT Sports to Warner Bros Discovery, its joint venture partner, according to a report from the Financial Times 

Sources close to the matter suggest that a deal could be announced as soon as this week. 

Such a timeline would align with BT’s upcoming full-year financial result, expected next month. 

The move would mark the end of BT’s decade-long involvement in sports broadcasting, which began with the launch of BT Sport in 2013, as part of a broader strategy to drive uptake of its BT TV service. The platform went on to secure various broadcasting rights including Premier League football and Premiership Rugby. 

These rights, however, made running the business hugely expensive. By 2022, BT was moving its focus away from sports content turning BT Sport into a joint venture with Warner Bros Discovery in 2022, under which BT Sport was rebranded as TNT Sports. TNT Sport would go on to absorb the UK arm of Eurosport at the start of 2025. 

Despite this rebrand, the service continued to be a drain on BT’s finances, equating to a pre-tax loss of £187.6 million during the 2023/24 financial year.  

As a result, reports back in April were suggesting that BT would be looking to encourage Warner Bros to exercise a buy-out option that runs until the end of next year.  

The potential sale highlights BT’s continued shift away from non-core activities as it focuses on its connectivity and network operations. CEO Allison Kirkby, who took up the leadership role in February last year, has exited non-core markets (such as Ireland and Italy) to focus on the UK. Just last week, the company announced that it would spin out its remaining international operations into a new standalone division, the latest in a string of decisions to reduce its global footprint. 

The company is also on a major cost-cutting drive. Last May, it hit a target to save £3 billion by 2025, a year early. This was mostly driven by the company’s ongoing job cutting programme that will see 55,000 jobs eliminated by the end of the decade.    

Kirkby now says it will aim to repeat this, cutting a further £3 billion in costs by 2029.     

Join us at Connected Britain, 24-25 September in London. Get tickets here!   

Also in the news:
Telefonica’s continues LatAm retreat, mulls double down on UK
Charter and Cox reveal agreement to combine companies
BT creates standalone international unit as strategic restructuring continues 

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today informed ISPreview that they’ve finally resolved a nasty security issue with their 4G based Voice-over-LTE service (VoLTE or 4G Calling), which effectively made it possible for customers of the operator’s network to have their location tracked by almost anybody with access to their mobile number.

Just for context. 4G Calling technology means that any regular calls you make or receive will stay on the 4G mobile network (signal allowing) using the internet-based IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) standard, rather than dropping back to 2G or 3G. But Daniel Williams, writing on the excellent Mast Database website, this weekend revealed that O2’s implementation had been leaking sensitive data.

In short, O2’s implementation of IMS appeared to be leaking too much information to end-users. This meant that those with only a little above basic knowledge of mobile networks could figure out the general (approximate) location of other users on the same network – particularly in dense urban areas with more cells present (i.e. this would be less effective in rural areas, where there’s often a lot of distance between masts).

The data being leaked by O2’s headers (e.g. ‘Cellular-Network-Info‘) would have allowed an attacker to identify that their target, whose number they had, was connected to the O2 network on an O2 SIM and what model of Smartphone they were using (i.e. the recipient’s IMEI code is also exposed, as is their IMSI code). But the real problem came when O2 also exposed the recipient’s location data (e.g. Location Area Code (LAC) and Cell ID).

At this point it becomes possible to use publicly available data, such as related mast information on cellmapper.net, to cross-reference the above information and thus work out a general location of the user. “I also tested the attack with another O2 customer who was roaming abroad, and the attack worked perfectly with me being able to pinpoint them to the city centre of Copenhagen, Denmark,” said Daniel.

Just to be clear, Daniel’s device is nothing special (regular Smartphone) and not doing anything odd to the network. “All it is doing is allowing me to see the information being sent to it. This effectively means that every O2 device that is making a phone call on IMS is receiving information that can be used to trivially geolocate the recipient of the call,” added Daniel.

Daniel Williams said:

“Any O2 customer can be trivially located by an attacker with even a basic understanding of mobile networking.

There is also no way to prevent this attack as an O2 customer. Disabling 4G Calling does not prevent these headers from being revealed, and if your device is ever unreachable these internal headers will still reveal the last cell you were connected to and how long ago this was.

Attempts were made to reach out to O2 via email (to both Lutz Schüler, CEO and securityincidents@virginmediao2.co.uk) on the 26 and 27 March 2025 reporting this behaviour and privacy risk, but I have yet to get any response or see any change in the behaviour.”

This is obviously very worrying, and it’s unclear how long O2’s network has been operating in this way. Many people often expose their mobile numbers in public or have had it exposed via past data breaches, which would no doubt further amplify the concerns for users of O2’s network around this issue. But O2 today informed ISPreview that they’ve now resolved this issue.

A VMO2 spokesperson told ISPreview:

“Our engineering teams have been working on and testing a fix for number of weeks – we can confirm this is now fully implemented and tests suggest the fix has worked and our customers do not need to take any action.”

Hopefully Daniel will be able to confirm this shortly. Credits to the many readers who dropped us an email about this on Saturday and Sunday, particularly the first one, Julian.