Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Welsh Government (WG) today issued an update on their long awaited £70m (state aid) “Extending High Speed Broadband” (EHSB) project for Wales, which now intends to help upgrade around 25,000 to 30,000 poorly served premises (down from the original aspiration of c.84,000) in areas that can’t yet get “superfast” speeds of 30Mbps+.

ISPreview’s readers may recall that the WG first began to explore the viability of such a project in May 2023 via a Prior Information Notice (here) and we got another update in April 2025 (here). The project is intended to complement that UK Government’s wider £5bn Project Gigabit programme, which aims to reach “nationwide” (c.99%) coverage of gigabit-capable broadband by 2030 (currently at c.87%).

However, it’s already acknowledged that not even Project Gigabit will be enough to completely cater for every remote rural location (i.e. those that are too expensive for even Project Gigabit), which is why the WG decided to establish the EHSB project. This is being funded with £70m that was “clawed back” from BT (Openreach) as part of the original Superfast Cymru project (i.e. public funding returned for reinvestment as take-up increased).

The WG has now completed a period of preliminary market engagement for this new project (i.e. talking to suppliers to gauge their interest and confirm future coverage plans) and has set out their final approach for EHSB, which will now target upgrades toward around 25,000 to 30,000 premises instead of 85,000. This is largely because existing commercial and public sector builds are expected to reach more of Wales with FTTP than first thought.

Rebecca Evans MS, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning, said:

Despite the efforts of the telecommunications industry and public sector interventions there are still premises that do not have access to at least superfast broadband speeds and are not in any plans for delivery over the next three years. We have developed the business case for a project, the Extending High Speed Broadband project, to address this gap and provide fast and reliable broadband to remaining premises.

The project is being carefully planned and coordinated to ensure that we complement other commercial and public sector interventions, allowing the broadband market to reach as far as it can and enhancing the UK Government’s investment in Wales.

Our 2022 open market review identified up to 84,000 initial premises that could be addressed by the project. However, we are now confident that the number of premises has since drastically reduced as the scope of commercial and other public sector deployments, including Project Gigabit, have become clearer. The list of target premises will continue to be revised to reflect the removal from scope of those premises addressed by other interventions. We currently anticipate that the number of premises in scope will be in the region of 25,000-30,000.

The Extending High Speed Broadband project will be funded from £70 million clawed back from the original Superfast Cymru project.

The dynamic nature of the telecommunications market means that we are taking a flexible approach to this initiative. This will entail establishing a framework of telecommunications suppliers capable of addressing the remaining premises. Once the framework has been created, we will then offer a series of competitive call-off contracts to grant fund suppliers from the framework to address groups of premises. The call-offs will be offered in two Lot types, under 1,000 premises and over 1,000 premises, to stimulate interest from a broad range of potential suppliers.

Taking this approach will also allow the project to flex to accommodate any changes to the initial list of target premises and to address small communities that have been left unserved. We anticipate that the first call-off will be offered in the Autumn of this year with work on the ground starting as soon as possible thereafter. These call-offs will yield delivery projects that will take a number of years to complete due to the nature of infrastructure planning, preparation and delivery.

The catch is that we won’t know how many premises will actually end up benefitting from this project until the contracts have all been awarded. This will in turn be dependent upon which uppliers decide to engage with the process. The WG already has form in working with Openreach, so they’re expected to be a front runner for bids, but Ogi, Netomnia, Virgin Media (inc. nexfibre) are other potential options.

However, Virgin Media’s expansion via nexfibre was recently placed into some uncertainty (here), while Ogi would probably need to secure more investment first and Netomnia has generally showed little interest in public build contracts. But we assume the WG wouldn’t be proceeding with this unless they were reasonably confident of converting it into some tangible roll-out contracts.

We must remember that the WG are focusing on some of the toughest and thus most expensive parts of the country, which is not an easy thing to do. In addition, we don’t yet know how flexible they’ll be, such as in terms of technology choice, which could have a big influence on what is or is not viable for a network operator. Credits to Jack for spotting this WG update.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Rome, 9 June 2025

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, announces the availability of its “Quantum Safe over Internet” (QSI) to Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers. The service is already available through Sparkle’s commercial channels and will soon be accessible on AWS marketplace.

QSI is a cloud-native solution that offers secure VPN connectivity between customer sites or data centers and cloud providers, protecting sensitive data against quantum computing threats. It operates without requiring changes to existing infrastructure and leverages Sparkle’s network and advanced encryption technologies to ensure fast and secure data transmission with simple, automated management. With the NaaS approach, customers can use the service through a dedicated portal or via API, in an agile, flexible, and fully automated way.

The solution was validated through a dedicated Proof-of-Concept (PoC) conducted across two AWS regions – Frankfurt and Ireland – in collaboration with AWS and Sparkle’s technology partners. The PoC demonstrated the ability to establish secure, quantum-safe VPN tunnels between the two countries while ensuring continuous key rotation and encryption integrity without performance degradation.

“Quantum Safe over Internet” was launched in December 2024 to enable customers to access Sparkle’s network, establish secure connections between their offices, and utilize cloud resources with assurance against quantum attacks. It is the first service of Sparkle’s Multi-Quantum solutions suite which will soon include other use cases.

“This new offering confirms Sparkle’s strong commitment to delivering future-proof cybersecurity solutions to our customers while demonstrating our ability to bring quantum-safe protection into real-world hybrid architectures” said Antonella Sanguineti, Head of Marketing & Product Management Networking, Cloud, Security & Identity Solutions at Sparkle.

About Sparkle

Sparkle is TIM Group’s Global Operator, first international service provider in Italy and among the top worldwide, offering a full range of infrastructure and global connectivity services – capacity, IP, SD-WAN, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming and voice – to national and international Carriers, OTTs, ISPs, Media/Content Providers, and multinational enterprises. A major player in the submarine cable industry, Sparkle owns and manages a network of more than 600,000 km of fiber spanning from Europe to Africa and the Middle East, the Americas and Asia. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed over 32 countries.

Find out more about Sparkle following its X and LinkedIn profiles or visiting the website tisparkle.com

Media Contacts:

sp*******************@*******le.com

X: @TISparkle

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

In a significant strategic development. City-focused UK ISP Hyperoptic, which has spent the past few years deploying their own alternative full fibre (FTTP/B) gigabit broadband network to cover 1.9 million premises (up from 1.73m in July 2024), has confirmed to ISPreview that they plan to extend this to “at least” another 1 million premises – albeit using Openreach’s network.

The operator, which at the start of this year suffered another round of redundancies and is currently present across parts of 64 UK locations (towns and cities), is understood to have informed their staff of the latest development this afternoon. In addition, Hyperoptic has also shared that this month it passed 400,000 active subscribers (up from 340,000 in July 2024), and covered “over” 1.9 million homes (just below their 2m target).

Adopting Openreach’s national network for their expansion marks a radical shift for a provider that has long prided itself on building their own independent network. But they certainly wouldn’t be the first alternative network operator to find some merit in extending their reach by harnessing a rival operator’s platform (e.g. toob did the same via CityFibre).

Some readers will no doubt wonder why Hyperoptic will only be launching this new partnership with an additional 1 million homes via Openreach’s network, which is a small fraction of the nearly 19 million premises covered by the incumbents new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network (not to mention their aim of covering “up to” 30m by 2030). But the answer may come in their use of “at least“, with this perhaps being more of an initial phase.

Dana Tobak CBE, Hyperoptic’s CEO and co-founder, said:

“We have built a solid reputation of delivering best-in-class customer experience to our current footprint of 64 towns and cities, placing us in a unique position within the market. To support our growth ambition, and to bring the Hyperoptic experience to more consumers, we have taken a strategic decision to make our services available via the Openreach platform from next year.

This expansion is good news for both existing consumers and new customers looking to improve their service. Our research highlights that most customers who leave us do so because they’re moving home. We understand home movers would prefer to take their Hyperoptic service with them, so today’s announcement will make that possible, and our customers can continue to enjoy Hyperoptic for many years.”

Hyperoptic said that its preparations for launching this are already underway and the first c.1 million homes should start to become accessible “during early 2026” (Q1). The ISP declined to provide any details on their related packages and prices, although we suspect that these will end up differing a bit from Hyperoptic’s own products.

The gradual move to integrate Openreach’s platform into their own suggests that they’ll probably be looking to deliver a deeper integration. But it may also reflect the time it takes to develop the new systems for handling a second network (can be quite a complex task if you do it all in-house).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

A group of land and property owners, including the British Property Federation (BPF) and National Farmers Union (NFU) among them, have written a new letter that calls on the UK government to suspend earlier reforms that made it easier and cheaper for mobile and broadband operators to deploy their infrastructure on private land.

Before 2017 it was frequently landowners that would extract highly lucrative rental agreements in return for allowing telecoms operators to deploy infrastructure on their land (e.g. mobile masts, trenches for optical fibre etc.). But this often made it too expensive for network operators to expand their coverage, and thus inhibited the roll-out of new services.

The previous government tried to correct this in 2017 by revising the Electronic Communications Code (ECC) to make it easier and cheaper for network operators to access public or private land (here). But that initially swung the problem in the other direction (here and here) and resulted in some providers, particularly mobile operators, trying to force the adoption of dramatically lower rents (sometimes slashing rents worth thousands to just a few tens of pounds).

Since then various tribunal rulings and wider political efforts have been made to find a fairer balance, which has had some modest success (e.g. here and here), although experiences do vary. Meanwhile, the new Government has previously signalled that they intend to make a “renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030,” which would at the very least require them to retain the current approach.

However, Time Times (paywall) has today reported on how a group of major landowners has written to Lord Livermore, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and demanded that he suspend the 2017 amendments. The letter highlights how the rules have “fractured the relationship” between landowners and mobile operators.

“Landowners are now increasingly unwilling to host infrastructure, and where there is no land available, rollout simply does not happen,” said the letter. “While well-intentioned, [the changes] are now actively discouraging land and property owners from hosting mobile infrastructure, slowing the pace of deployment and undermining Britain’s growth prospects“.

A Spokesman for the Government (DSIT) said:

“Our priority is to continue delivering high quality 5G networks across the UK, which is critical to boosting growth and improving public services for the British people.

We want to ensure the measures to deliver the infrastructure the country needs to grow work for both landowners, operators and communities, which is why they are currently subject to a technical consultation, which we invite the public to respond to.”

We suspect it’s no coincidence that this letter has been drafted at around the same time as the Mobile Infrastructure Forum (MIF), which represents the main providers of mobile infrastructure for EE, O2, Vodafone and Three UK (i.e. Cellnex UK, Cornerstone, MBNL and WIG), recently began calling on the government (here) to resolve the issue of 6,200 UK sites (masts etc.) that are “stuck in legislative limbo” and preventing 5G upgrades.

The 6,200 sites in question – representing 16% of the UK’s total – remain under a legacy legal framework governed by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954) and equivalent legislation in Northern Ireland. But mobile firms complain that this makes it difficult to deploy the latest 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) upgrades.

The LTA 1954 can potentially create challenges because it provides security of tenure to tenants, including those holding access agreements for telecoms equipment. In short, landlords may be reluctant to grant access or agree to upgrades without legal intervention (even if the landlord wants to do it, the process can be tricky), potentially delaying or obstructing the rollout of new mobile technologies. Not to mention the added costs involved.

Once again the government and Ofcom, which is responsible for implementing the ECC, face a difficult balancing act as they attempt to implement long-awaited changes to help make broadband and mobile infrastructure sharing, as well as network upgrades and related dispute resolution, easier to deliver (see our summary). But achieving that without further undermining or reducing the rights of existing or potential site providers (land/property owners etc.) could be difficult.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Some of ISPreview’s readers have informed us that mobile operator EE (BT) appears to have pushed out a new carrier update, which enables the “Voice Over 5G Standalone” network feature on Smartphones that can support it (currently we’ve only seen reports of this from Apple iPhone users).

Just to recap. Most 5G mobile networks today are still largely based on Non-Standalone (NSA) technology, which means they are partly reliant upon older and slower 4G infrastructure. But SA networks are pure end-to-end 5G platforms that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better mobile broadband speeds (particularly uploads), network slicing, improved support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, support for Voice over New Radio (VoNR or Vo5G) and increased reliability and security etc.

Speaking of which, EE’s 5G Standalone (mobile broadband) network has so far been rolled out across 50 major towns and cities, covering over 40% of the United Kingdom’s population. EE has previously also promised that the new network would introduce “higher quality voice calls even in congested areas“, although until now we haven’t seen any reports of Voice Over 5G Standalone (VoNR) actually being enabled.

The VoNR/Vo5G technology essentially delivers the same as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) does for existing 4G networks, which means that it enables voice calls to be made directly over a 5G network (as opposed to falling back to 4G or 2G for the voice component). Over the weekend, several of our readers (credit to Harvey for being the first) noted that their iPhone’s had received a carrier update (64.1) and could now toggle VoNR on or off (seems to be enabled by default).

The customers who have seen this update report that, when in a 5GSA area, their phones now stay on 5G SA instead of going back to the NSA platform. But at present it’s not clear how widely this update has been deployed or whether Android users have also received it (hopefully we’ll get some feedback on that today). Naturally, we queried this change directly with EE, but the operator declined to give a comment.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Infracapital-backed alternative network operator Fibrus, which has been rolling out their full fibre (FTTP) broadband network across Northern Ireland and Cumbria (England), has today published their latest annual results and revealed that they finally achieved EBITDA breakeven in March 2025 and are now home to 113,500 customers (up from 100k in Nov 2024).

The ability to achieve a positive EBITDA (i.e. earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) can indicate that a company’s core operations are starting to become profitable (banks use this to help assess whether a company is able to pay off its debts). But EBITDA doesn’t fully consider everything (e.g. non-core financial expense), and there’s still a long road ahead.

Fibrus has so far extended their fibre optic lines to cover 410,000 premises (2nd May 2025) and today’s results, which run to the end of March 2025, reveal that their customer numbers grew by 45%, with 113,500 customers now connected to the network. At the same time, customer penetration — the percentage of premises passed that are now connected — grew from 23% to 28%, with the business on track to reach 30% in the coming months.

Breaking news.. more to follow..

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network operator Openreach (BT) has finally started to deploy their new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based gigabit broadband ISP network across the Cathedral City of Oxford (Oxfordshire) in England, which mostly reflects the central area covered by their main exchange.

The city of Oxford is a bit of an unusual one because, until fairly recently, the only real option for gigabit-capable broadband came via Virgin Media’s (inc. nexfibre) network. Openreach had deployed a bit of FTTP too, albeit largely only around the outskirts and far north of the city. Netomnia then arrived in 2022 and has since covered most of the southern half of the city (expansion is ongoing).

Suffice to say that, until now, Openreach has only invested a bit over £26m to cover a total of around 90,000 premises across the whole of Oxfordshire, with the city of Oxford itself seeing relatively little love from the operator. But all that appears set to change as they’ve finally begun to build across the central area of the city.

Kasam Hussain, Openreach’s Partnership Director for Oxfordshire, said:

“We’re bringing full fibre broadband to Oxford and letting local people know what to expect. This is a major infrastructure upgrade, so there will be more engineering teams, equipment, and vans around town, and we’re working hard to keep disruption to a minimum.

Wherever possible, we’ll use our existing network of ducts and poles to avoid roadworks, new street furniture, and disturbance. But there may be places where we need to install new poles, underground ducts, and fibre cables because it’s the only way to make sure households get included in the upgrade.”

The operator hasn’t said how long this roll-out will take to reach completion or how many premises will benefit, although it does form part of their existing build plan and that is currently due to reach completion at the end of next year.

Last year Openreach reported that around 50% of all homes and businesses which have access to their new network in Oxfordshire had taken a service from a supporting ISP (e.g. BT, EE, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone, Zen Internet, iDNET, AAISP, Freeola and many), which is well above their current average UK FTTP take-up figure of 36%. But it may be harder to translate that to Oxford itself, given the prior existence of two rival networks.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has reportedly warned the heavily indebted UK broadband ISP TalkTalk that they could block them from putting new customers on to their network. The threat allegedly arose after the ISP missed several monthly payment deadlines to the network operator, its biggest supplier, due to cash flow issues.

Just to recap. The internet provider has had a rough few years and in September 2024 secured a crucial refinancing package worth c. £400m (here and here), which saved it from the immediate risk of a default on its debts (extended debt maturities to September 2027). But it’s still in a difficult position and recently suffered another round of redundancies (here), as well as the continued shrinking of its customer base from 3.6 to 3.2 million customers over the past year (here).

In addition, over the past couple of weeks, there have also been several newspaper reports about TalkTalk allegedly suffering from disputes over fees and bills with several of its suppliers, such as Sky (here) and Openreach (here). The companies involved have, thus far, declined to comment.

According to a new report in the FT (paywall), Openreach now appears as if it could be holding the Sword of Damocles over TalkTalk’s head following those late payments. The late payments are said to have varied in size and amounted to a “small percentage” of the total amount due, estimated at about £60m per month.

As per the previous reports, these payments have now been settled, although the BT Group is clearly keen to avoid a repeat of this. The newspaper claims that Openreach has now “threatened to block TalkTalk from putting new customers on its broadband network,” which we assume would only be enacted if the same problem with late payments were to continue with future payments.

The vast majority of TalkTalk’s customers come from Openreach’s national broadband and phone network, which helps to underline the significance of the network operator’s position on this.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The fourth annual UK Fibre Awards event was held yesterday in London, which saw a number of broadband ISPs and full fibre network builders across several categories pick up awards for their achievements. Some of this year’s winners included Gigaclear for ‘Best Rural Fibre Provider’ and MS3 for ‘Best Overall Fibre Provider’ (they scooped several wins).

The event, which appears to be quite similar to many existing industry award ceremonies (e.g. the annual ISPA and Connected Britain awards), is currently being backed by telecoms / ICT centric media and event organisation firm BPL Business Media.

The winners for each category were chosen by a judging panel of seven industry and IT experts (here), including various senior managers, analysts and so forth. But as with previous years, there’s not much to reflect the consumer perspective in this group, and no technical testing was performed.

Winners of the UK Fibre Awards 2025

Best Rural Fibre Provider

Gigaclear

Best Urban Fibre Provider

MS3

Best Wholesale Fibre Provider

MS3

Best ISP Partnership Award

MS3

Rollout Challenge Buster Award

4 Fibre Limited

Take-Up Champion Award

Lightning Fibre

Fibre Sector Innovation (Deployment) Award

Deepomatic

Fibre Sector Innovation (Support Service) Award

Totalmobile Ltd

Best Vendor/Supplier Award

4 Fibre Limited

Best Business Services to the Fibre Community

NETS International Group

M&A/ Investment Award

Netomnia

Best Sustainability Programme

BT Wholesale

Digital Inclusivity Award

KCOM

Community Champion Award

KCOM

Best Company to Work for

Vorboss

Best Training Development & Recruitment Programme

The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP)

Marketing Team of the Year Award

KCOM

Sales/Commercial Team of the Year Award

Lightning Fibre

Service Delivery Team of the Year

NETS International Group

Executive Leadership Team of the Year Award

4th Utility

Overall Fibre Provider of the Year

MS3

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), which represents many of the UK’s alternative broadband operators, has today proposed several priority recommendations to help address – as part of a Lords Select Committee inquiry – the gaps in critical broadband infrastructure that could be holding back home-based working.

Just to recap. The Home-based Working Committee (Lords Select Committee) launched a call for evidence to support its inquiry into remote and hybrid working in the UK earlier this year (here). The inquiry said it would look to “address the challenges and opportunities of remote and hybrid working for workers and employers, the impact of remote and hybrid working on productivity, and any wider consequences of remote and hybrid working for the UK economy and society.”

INCA states that its submission to the inquiry, along with that of techUK, was the only written evidence to focus squarely on the role of digital connectivity in enabling flexible working. It highlighted both urban and rural challenges that it says “continue to restrict equal access to remote employment opportunities“.

In particular, INCA put forward several priority recommendations to the Inquiry, including those below that seem to focus more on driving take-up than expanding infrastructure coverage.

INCA’s Remote Working Recommendations

• Addressing connectivity gaps in urban ‘not-spots’ and multi-dwelling units (MDUs).
• Complementing gigabit coverage goals with a national campaign to drive adoption and digital literacy.
• Aligning home-based working goals with the Government’s own Digital Inclusion Action Plan to support marginalised demographics.

Paddy Paddison, CEO of INCA, said:

“Working from home is not a luxury, it is increasingly an economic necessity for individuals, families and businesses across the UK. But unless people have access to fast, reliable full-fibre broadband, the right to request flexible working is effectively meaningless. The Government must now act on the Committee’s findings to address the digital divide once and for all.

There’s a risk we focus too much on infrastructure rollout and not enough on adoption. We need joined-up thinking that connects investment in gigabit networks with efforts to increase take-up and confidence among users.

INCA stands ready to support government and industry in delivering a future where digital connectivity underpins fair access to employment for all.”

The government would no doubt argue that it’s £5bn Project Gigabit broadband roll-out, as well as the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) project, are both helping to support the industry in expanding digital connectivity much deeper into the country. But both are more focused upon tackling poorly served rural areas than urban ones.

However, the government’s direction on tackling issues of MDU access remains unclear (here), and at the same time it’s still too early to assess the impact of their recent decision to open up gigabit broadband vouchers for urban areas (here). The latter is not as consumer friendly or accessible as it once was, which doesn’t help.

The idea of aligning home-based working goals with the Government’s own Digital Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP), which is currently attempting to address the lack of digital inclusion in some areas via a series of “urgent actions” that it hopes will “begin fixing digital exclusion“, is a fair suggestion. But it does have caveats.

The DIAP includes funding for local initiatives targeted to the most digitally-excluded groups (e.g. the elderly and low-income households), while also partnering with inclusion charity Digital Poverty Alliance (DPA) to provide laptops to people who are digitally excluded. But this also includes people who simply refuse to go online, which is a sizeable portion of those who don’t have the internet at home. Suffice to say that the impact of aligning remote working goals with the DIAP will probably be quite limited.