Hull-based broadband ISP KCOM, which has spent the past few years deploying a new full fibre (FTTP) network across 305,000 premises in parts of East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (England), has today revealed that they’re working with Nokia to deploy their 10Gbps XGS-PON technology across the network and 25G PON in the future.

At present, much of KCOM’s existing full fibre network is still using older GPON technology, which places constraints on how much capacity can actually be delivered to each end user (i.e. GPON shares capacity of 2.48Gbps downstream and 1.24Gbps upstream between multiple users). This is partly why the provider’s recent move to introduce symmetric speeds ended up hitting a bit of a wall at uploads of 500Mbps (here).

The operator has, however, previously talked about upgrading to use 10Gbps capable XGS-PON technology, although until now they’ve been quite coy with sharing any details. But Phase One of the new Nokia deal, signed last week, should facilitate the roll-out of XGS-PON to “thousands of customers on KCOM’s network in Hull City Centre“.

According to KCOM, the adoption of Nokia’s Optical Line Terminals (OLT) and Altiplano platform will “facilitate symmetrical upload and download speeds of up to 10Gbps” and “paves the way for 25G PON and new multi-gigabit services” to follow in the “future“.

Ian Shepherdson, KCOM’s Chief Technology Officer, said:

“This investment keeps Hull and East Yorkshire at the forefront of digital connectivity. It’s the first phase of a multi-year, multi-million pound investment in our fibre infrastructure. With rapid technological advancement now the norm, this upgrade means we’ll be ready for business customers or data-intensive households who want vastly increased speeds of 10Gbps – and even up to 25Gbps in the future. We’ve been pleased to partner with Nokia, who share our commitment to empowering customers with the connectivity they need.”

Paul Alexander, CEO UK and Ireland at Nokia, said:

“Designed with state-of-the-art technology, our solution will enable KCOM to future-proof its network and offer new services for applications that require massive bandwidth and low latency. With the ability to seamlessly evolve to 25G PON in the future, KCOM will be able to differentiate themselves from the competition and attract new customers who value speed, reliability, and quality.”

KCOM said the related upgrade works are now beginning, and it is “anticipated that the new speeds will be live for customers” by September 2025. At the time of writing, it’s unclear whether they mean this date in respect to the completion of Phase One, or deployment across their entire network (we’re checking and will report back shortly).

Mobile operator Vodafone UK has come top in a new network benchmarking study of 4G and 5G (broadband and calls) performance across London, which was conducted by the Berlin-based NET CHECK organisation and saw them score the highest number of ranking points (932.83 out of a possible 1,000 points).

The study, which involved a mix of driving tests that were performed by NET CHECK’s team between 30th of October and 7th of November 2024, was carried out across all 32 London boroughs and the City of London area using Samsung S23+ smartphones. The measurement technicians drove 23 routes and covered a distance of 1018km across Greater London.

The testing itself involved a range of voice and data service categories including, accessibility, reliability, speech quality and mobile broadband speed-tests using customer applications such as the browsing of popular web pages, video streaming and more. For data services, a total of around 15,700 data samples per operator were collected. For voice services, around 1,390 test calls were made and 12 speech samples were collected in each test call, resulting in a total of around 16,600 speech samples.

Overall, Vodafone scored the highest number of ranking points – 932.83 out of a possible 1,000 points. EE ranked second, closely following with around 9 points less (923.45). After that, O2 (Virgin Media) took third place on 834.16 points, while Three UK fell behind its competitors on just 757.82 points.

The study summarises its results in detail below, although you can read the full report to get the proper context for each measurement.

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has made a change this week that closes their Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) for Newcastle and North Tyneside (Tyne and Wear), which means that local homes and businesses in poorly served rural areas can no longer apply for big grants to help get a much faster broadband ISP network installed.

Just to recap. The GBVS usually offers grants worth up to £4,500 to help rural premises get a gigabit-capable broadband (1Gbps) ISP service installed, which is available to areas with speeds of “less than 100Mbps” – assuming there are also no near-term plans for a gigabit deployment in the same area (either via private investment or state-aid). Local authorities sometimes also work with BDUK to boost the value of such vouchers for their region.

However, the GBVS has been operating with a very low level of UK availability for the past couple of years (i.e. it’s not currently available to most counties), which is largely to ensure that it avoids conflicting (i.e. duplicating public investment) with Project Gigabit’s larger Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS) programme (i.e. the big build contracts that have been awarded to operators like Fibrus, Openreach, Wessex Internet and many more).

As a result of this, regions do sometimes drop into and out of voucher eligibility as Project Gigabit’s various GIS contracts and market reviews run their course. For example, rural parts of Devon in England were recently added back into the voucher scheme (here), which meant that poorly served homes and businesses in that county could apply for vouchers again.

The change this week is that poorly served homes in parts of Newcastle and North Tyneside have just been removed from the voucher scheme. But what’s interesting here is that this region doesn’t currently appear to have its own contract LOT under the GIS programme. However, back in 2023 it was briefly considered for one under Lot 38 (here).

The original Open Market Review (OMR) for this region estimated that, without public intervention, 71,441 premises were at risk of being left without access to gigabit-capable broadband. But it seems as if BDUK might still have greater plans than merely vouchers for this region, which may become clearer with the publication of their next UK progress update in the near future.

The GBVS is currently still available to poorly served parts of Derbyshire, Devon, the Isle of Wight, Greater London, Merseyside and Great Manchester, Birmingham and the Black Country.

Mobile operator Vodafone has announced that they’ve completed a new trial that showcased their ability to deliver multiple 5G Standalone (SA) network slices simultaneously for different use cases. This included one that delivered a seamless live video stream and another that was required to ensure guaranteed upload speeds for a photography agency at the same site.

At present, most existing 5G networks in the UK are Non-Standalone (NSA) based, which means they’re still partly reliant on older and slower 4G infrastructure. By comparison, 5GSA reflects a pure end-to-end 5G network that can also deliver improvements such as lower latency times (fast), better mobile broadband upload speeds, network slicing capabilities, improved support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, increased reliability and security.

In this new trial, Vodafone dedicated two portions of its new 5G SA network during the Wales vs. Ireland Guinness Men’s Six Nations match at Principality Stadium to provide dedicated connectivity using network slicing (a good test as the network will have been under heavy load for such an event).

As part of this, Welsh rugby legend, Ellis Jenkins hosted a seamless livestream watch-along made possible on a reserved slice of Vodafone’s network. At the same time a second slice was dedicated to support “guaranteed upload speeds and separation from wider network congestion” for Huw Evans Picture Agency, the WRU’s official in-house photography agency.

Nick Gliddon, Business Director at Vodafone UK, said:

“Network slicing allows us to work with our customers and adapt the network to suit their needs. This is a huge advantage of 5G Standalone – customers can define their own experience with a network which is built for them. As a result, businesses can expect to improve the efficiency of operations, help drive productivity gains and introduce new services to their customers that would not be possible otherwise.”

The network slice was created in partnership with Vodafone’s technology partner Ericsson, separating a portion of the capacity connecting to Ericsson technology on Vodafone’s mobile site. Sadly, Vodafone didn’t release any technical or performance data from the trial, but we should add that all operators deploying 5G SA should be able to deploy similar solutions.

The Q4 2024 Global Call Threat Report from Hiya, which works with broadband ISPs and mobile operators (BT, EE, O2, Virgin Media etc.) to help tackle SPAM and fraud calls, has revealed that UK residents received 4 spam calls per person each month (unchanged from Q3) and the percentage of unknown calls that are spam hit 32% (up from 28%).

Overall, the latest report found that 3% of all UK calls were classified as “fraud calls” (unchanged), while 29% were “nuisance calls” (up from 25%) and the remaining 68% reflected all other (normal) calls – reflecting a spam flag rate of 32% (up from 28%). Generally, fewer spam/scam calls are making it past the network-level filtering systems being adopted by various phone providers, but they aren’t perfect and not everybody uses them.

The good news is that this means the UK has one of the lowest SPAM call rates in Europe, while the proportion of unknown calls that are fraud (3%) is also low compared to other European countries. Similarly, the level of spam and scam calling fell sharply toward the end of 2024, although tax scams impersonating Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) were still the most common.

Interestingly, the fourth most commonly reported unwanted calls in Q4 came from mobile phone providers, often offering a discount. Most users reported these as fraud calls, while some reported them as telemarketing, which helps to highlight how difficult it can be to tell the difference.

In addition, 26% of British respondents said they had experienced an audio deepfake, often on a personal or work call. This is a newer class of scam and one that may even involve the use of AI, which in some cases can go so far as to duplicate the voice of a family member in order to sound more authentic. Suffice to say, it’s getting harder to trust modern phone calls.

Network testing and benchmarking firm MedUX has today previewed a new study, which examined the performance and quality of 5G (mobile broadband) networks from EE, O2, Vodafone and Three UK across London. Sadly the results, which also tested 14 other major European cities, put the UK’s capital at the very bottom of the table.

The measurement campaign is said to have consisted of drive tests that were conducted during Q2 and Q4 2024 in 15 major cities across Europe, covering more than 5,500km and 1,700km2 to understand how mobile operators cover the most important European capitals. The tests, which involved several 5G Standalone capable Smartphones, measured network availability, accessibility, download / upload speeds (broadband), gaming and more to reach a QoE (Quality of Experience) score.

The research revealed that Porto and Stockholm share the top spot in Europe for overall QoE, a measure of user satisfaction, each scoring 4.78 out of 5. By comparison, London sits firmly at the bottom of the table for 5G performance (the same as they did last year), and was also found to have one of the lowest levels of 5G availability.

The full report is due to be published at MWC25 in Barcelona (Spain) on Monday 3rd March, although it’s formatted in quite a tedious way, which makes it difficult to summarise in a deeper way that would make sense.

Kidwelly-based wireless broadband provider and supplier Dyfed Telecom Limited, which over the past few years has helped to connect various premises in rural Wales to broadband using a mix of mobile (EE powered 4G/5G), satellite (Starlink) and WiFi based solutions, has suffered a blow after HMRC filed a winding-up petition against the business.

For those who may be unfamiliar with this process, a Winding Up Petition (WUP) is a legal action that is usually taken by a creditor or creditors, which in this case appears to be the UK tax authority – HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), against a company that owes them money. Such petitions are an expensive approach and so are usually only considered as a last resort (e.g. when all other approaches to settle a debt have failed).

According to The Gazette, the petition was presented to the High Court of Justice (Chancery Division) on 21st January 2025 by the Commissioners for HMRC. The case itself is expected to be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 5th March at 10:30am.

At the time of writing, it’s not clear what caused the situation, although it’s possible they could have been put under strain by the Welsh Government’s (WG) August 2024 suspension of the long-running Access Broadband Cymru (ABC) grant scheme (here). This offered funding to help rural homes get a faster broadband service installed in areas of slow connectivity.

The company’s most recent annual accounts, which cover the year to 30th September 2023 (published 1st Dec 2023) stated that the company had net liabilities of £28.5k (2021: £137.6k) and was continuing to “explore funding options to allow it to continue to meet its ongoing liabilities, including HMRC, and has the continued support of its directors and certain financial institutions“. But under the section for “Creditors: amounts falling due within one year“, there was a total of £1.193m listed. Sadly, these accounts are now quite old, and so we don’t know what the situation is today.

ISPreview has attempted to contact Dyfed Telecom in the hope of securing a comment, and we will report back once that arrives.

Press Release

[Algiers, 21 Feb, 2025] Algeria Telecom and Huawei jointly announced the official launch of the national 400G WDM project, building an all-optical premium transmission foundation covering the whole country, helping Algeria accelerate the development of its national digital economy.

As the largest telecommunications operator in Algeria, Algeria Telecom has always been committed to promoting the national digital transformation. This cooperation with Huawei aims to enhance the level of Algeria’s network infrastructure by introducing the most advanced 400G ultra-high-speed optical network technology to provide stronger support for the development of the digital economy. Additionally, this network is future-oriented, laying an ultra-high-speed, low latency and sustainable foundation towards intelligence era.

Huawei, as a leading global provider of information and communication technology solutions and smart devices, has rich experience and technical accumulation in the field of optical communication. The 400G ultra-high-speed optical network solution provided by Huawei for Algeria Telecom will have the characteristics of large bandwidth, high reliability, and low latency, which can meet the growing digital business needs in Algeria.

More specifically, the implementation of this project will help Algeria achieve the following goals:

• Improve network speed and capacity: The 400G ultra-high-speed optical network will provide higher bandwidth and transmission speed than the existing network, enabling Algeria to better cope with the increasing data traffic demand.
• Promote the development of the digital economy: The ultra-high-speed optical network will provide a solid foundation for the development of Algeria’s digital economy and promote the vigorous development of emerging industries such as e-commerce, cloud computing, and big data.
• Improve people’s livelihood services: A high-speed and stable network will provide better Internet experience for the Algerian people and promote the improvement of digital service levels in fields such as education, medical care, and government affairs.

Algeria Telecom and Huawei will cooperate closely to jointly promote all-optical network development. Both sides will give full play to their respective advantages to ensure the smooth delivery and stable operation of the network. It is believed that with the joint efforts of both sides, Algeria will embrace a more digital and intelligent future.

Broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2) should now be coming back online after some of the provider’s customers suffered a partial outage of their internet connectivity this morning. This appears as if it could have stemmed from a peering/routing issue with some of their network partners (this may have also impacted other online services / providers).

According to Down Detector, the outage itself started at around 10am and only began to improve just before midday. A spokesperson for Virgin Media said: “We’re aware that some customers are experiencing intermittent issues with their services. We apologise for any inconvenience and are working to fix this as a priority.”

Feedback from customers indicates that some were able to get around the problem by switching to a third-party Domain Name System (DNS) provider, while others found that using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) was able to avoid the issue. In other words, the problem wasn’t so much with the physically broadband connection, but rather with how Virgin Media or their network / peering partners were routing the traffic.

At this stage it’s not clear precisely what caused the issue, although the majority of Virgin Media’s broadband customers don’t appear to have been affected and most should now be back online. But we are still seeing reports from customers who cannot access remote office VPN systems or other services, such as Microsoft 365. Anything Azure-hosted seems to be problematic.

The industry-led One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), which is the central messaging platform for implementing Ofcom’s recently launched (Sept 2024) solution for easier and quicker consumer switching between broadband and phone providers (One Touch Switching), has caused some head scratching after clarifying the status of a key change freeze.

Regular readers will already know that OTS has had a bit of a bumpy start. One of its biggest challenges has flowed from the difficulty of getting the “matching process” to work properly, which exists to ensure that customer switches are correctly verified and then migrated between providers. But this process sometimes fails, occasionally even when ISPs have entered the correct data, which can make it difficult to tackle bugs and other issues.

Ofcom has tended to shift a lot of the blame for such issues on to ISPs and called on them to improve their testing and implementation of the platform. On the flip side, ISPs have privately complained that TOTSCo’s system does not make testing and correcting for errors as easy and transparent as it could be.

Such issues may not have been helped by the prior understanding that key documentation was still stuck in a “change freeze“, which makes it difficult to get certain defects addressed (i.e. unfreezing this would help to introduce some much-needed fixes and clarifications by the process group). But a new bulletin (81) from TOTSCo appears to contradict what many providers had previously been led to believe.

TOTSCo Bulletin 81

We would like to clarify that the document freeze, which was announced in Bulletin 30 and began on 6 October 2023, ended at One Touch Switch go-live on 12 September 2024. The document freeze applied to all mandatory OTS documents, listed in the table below.

TOTSCo API Specification 1.1a
OTS Message Specification 1.1c
OTS Response Codes 1.0
OTS Industry Process 4.3
OTS Industry Process Flows 4.3
One Touch Switch Message Delivery Policies 1.0

We are now therefore ready to process change requests relating to these documents and indeed across all aspects of our OTS processes and systems. All change requests will follow the rigorous OTS Industry Change Control Process to ensure they are carefully managed and assessed.

Needless to say, some ISP’s have privately expressed surprise, not least because TOTSCo’s own representatives have long been expressing to them, often while trying to get defects in the system resolved, that the freeze was still in place. The original bulletin (30) didn’t mention an end date for the freeze, either.

On the other hand, it’s good that TOTSCo has finally clarified this, which will hopefully enable providers to make a bit more progress on resolving some of the remaining defects.