Network operator CityFibre has today announced that they’ve begun the roll-out phase of their £112 million state-aid supported Project Gigabit contract for Kent (Lot 29) in England. This will extend their 10Gbps capable FTTP broadband ISP network to an additional 50,000+ premises in hard-to-reach rural areas.

The announcement means that CityFibre has now begun construction work in all 9 of their Project Gigabit contract areas (here). The projects reflect over £782m in government subsidies to serve more than 464,000 hard to reach rural premises across Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Sussex, Kent, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire & Milton Keynes.

The network operator has also committed their own funding to help build commercially beyond those contracted areas (i.e. a total of £1.2bn in combined public and private investment and 1.366 million extra premises may be delivered as a result of these contracts). But sadly, today’s announcement doesn’t provide any details of where CityFibre are starting to build in Kent or how long it will take to complete the deployment.

All of this will help to support CityFibre’s wider ambition to eventually cover up to 8 million premises (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity, c.£4.9bn debt and £782m of BDUK / public subsidy) – representing c.30% of the UK. So far, they’ve already managed to cover 4 million premises.

Greg Mesch, Chief Executive Officer at CityFibre, said:

“Bringing full fibre connectivity to hard-to-reach homes and businesses across Kent will create new possibilities, empowering local communities to thrive. We are excited for residents to experience the benefits of enhanced connectivity, leaving behind the limitations of copper technology.”

Telecoms Minister, Sir Chris Bryant, said:

“Everyone deserves the chance to thrive in both their professional and personal lives, and lack of reliable connectivity should never be a barrier to that. Thanks to this government-funded programme, hard-to-reach parts of Kent are now being equipped with the fastest speeds on the market, allowing communities to stay connected.”

The operator is supported by various ISPs like Vodafone, TalkTalk, Zen Internet and more (Sky Broadband will follow in 2025), although they aren’t all available in every single location yet.

The wholesale division of UK broadband ISP Virgin Media Business (VMO2) has today announced that they’ve started offering their high-bandwidth products, such as National Ethernet (NE) and Direct Internet Access (DIA), over their new “next generation” Converged Interconnect Network (CIN).

Just to recap. Virgin’s new CIN brings their fixed line (FTTP, DOCSIS etc.) and mobile networks (4G, 5G etc.) together in a way that they say will make them more efficient, resilient, scalable and flexible. This takes the core deeper into VMO2’s network, with IP routed networks deployed in the access network, and allows different services to coexist on the network and be managed more easily, with the end customer moving closer to an optimised, scalable and high-capacity network (i.e. data is aggregated closer to the end user before routing it back to the core network).

On the business connectivity side, VMO2 Business said the new infrastructure provides pre-provisioned ports and capacity for wholesale partners, creating scalable, automated, lower-cost delivery for 10Gbps services. Where the new architecture is enabled, “delivery time will drop by up to 40 days” and network orchestration “will improve reliability of configuration tasks, bringing wholesale partners’ connections online seamlessly“.

The provider’s wholesale division also said it would increase the availability of 100Gbps External Network-to-Network Interfaces (ENNIs) at strategic locations to prepare for increasing demand, “becoming available to request soon“.

John Chester, Director of Wholesale Fixed at VMO2 Business, said:

“Our partners face growing bandwidth demands from their customers. It’s our priority to provide them with the best possible experience going forward. Our new architecture is the latest phase of Project Spark, a huge investment in accelerating the reach and diversity of our network across the country, allowing us to meet the UK’s growing need for connectivity.”

As part of Project Spark, a multi-million-pound investment programme to bring benefits across 10Gbps services, VMB Wholesale also launched its new NHCS core platform last year, which built a foundation for the CIN update. A few weeks ago, the core network was extended to five additional sites in the North of England and Scotland, bringing the total number of upgraded core sites to 23.

With CIN in operation, VMB Wholesale’s improved 10Gbps products are now said to be enabled at over 177 hub sites, equivalent to roughly 75% of national wholesale demand. National Ethernet and Direct Internet Access are the first wholesale products enabled on the platform, with High Capacity Services (HCS) to follow in 2025.

Mobile operator Three UK has this morning announced that they’ve selected Ericsson to build their new cloud-native core network, which it claims will be the “largest in Europe” and one that will end up “more than tripling its core capacity” to 9Tbps (Terabits per second).

Data (mobile broadband) usage on Three UK’s network has grown significant in recent years, surpassing 2Tbps in December 2024 due to Premier League streaming on Amazon Prime and gaming updates. Customers of the service currently use an average of 31.5GB (GigaBytes) of data per month, up 18% year-on-year and “more than 2.5x the national average“.

Similarly, 5G usage has increased by 40% year-on-year, accounting for almost two fifths of data (39%) now used, while Video Gaming is said to be contributing to two-thirds of network peaks through the year (i.e. they mean the downloading of new game updates, rather than multiplayer traffic itself).

The new cloud-native core network, powered by Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core solution and supported by their Cloud Native Infrastructure solution, will thus aim to tackle this and sit on Three’s nationwide distributed data centre network. All of this will bring the operator’s core network closer to their customers, helping to support improved latency.

Iain Milligan, Chief Network Officer at Three UK, said:

“The last few years have seen a tsunami of data growth with traffic at peak times doubling in a little over two years driven by home broadband, streaming and gaming usage on our network grow faster than ever. Our new core network with Ericsson ensures we are able to support our customers’ data usage over the medium and long-term.”

Katherine Ainley, CEO of Ericsson UK & Ireland, said:

“We are incredibly proud to support Three UK in this next stage of their network transformation. Our longstanding partnership with Three is one built on trust, innovation, and a shared commitment to delivering exceptional mobile experiences. This project is a significant milestone in our collaboration, and we’re excited to help Three build a new Core network to meet the ever-growing data demands of their customers.”

The operator is also anticipating other benefits from the upgrade, such as enhanced stability with less downtime, greater network insights (helping to manage demand more effectively), the ability to upgrade infrastructure without having to drain traffic from a data centre (in-service software upgrades) and enhanced environmental performance from the use of more modern kit.

However, the announcement doesn’t say how long all of this will take to implement, and some readers might be wondering why Three UK are announcing this at a time when they’re supposed to be in the process of merging with Vodafone. But the fact is that their merger will take several years to fully realise, and Three UK can’t simply sit on their hands during that process, while demand continues to rise.

Speaking of the merger, it’s worth noting that Vodafone began rolling out a similar upgrade, also using Ericsson, back in 2020 (here). In that sense, there’s really no reason why the two operators can’t upgrade towards common ground.

Ofcom has today launched a new consultation that proposes to exempt lots of additional devices (equipment) from needing a wireless telegraphy licence, such as 5G handsets and dongles on an aircraft or ship and 5.8 GHz (5725-5850 MHz) Fixed Wireless Access kit – used by many wireless broadband ISPs to offer rural connectivity.

Under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006, the regulator can grant licences for the use of radio frequencies. This is to “ensure spectrum is used efficiently and to prevent interference“, but not all devices that use radio spectrum necessarily need a licence.

“Exemptions support economic growth by reducing the regulatory burden on manufacturers and users of innovative new wireless technologies. We periodically review our licence exemptions to reflect changes in technology and usage,” said Ofcom before outlining the changes they intend to make.

Ofcom’s Proposals

We are consulting on proposals to introduce new licence exempt use of some equipment and amend the current technical conditions that apply to existing licence exemptions. The proposed changes fall into two primary categories, as set out below:

Exemptions to harmonise the conditions of use of certain equipment in the UK with other countries.

Under this category, we propose to either introduce a new exemption or make amendments to an existing one in relation to the following equipment:

• Mobile Communications onboard Aircraft (MCAs) and Vessels (MCVs) –we propose to amend the existing licence exemptions to enable the use of 5G terminals (handsets and dongles) connecting to a dedicated mobile base station on an aircraft or ship.

• Short Range Devices (SRDs) – we propose to introduce new licence exemptions for use of additional SRD equipment and to amend existing licence exemption rules for a range of SRDs. The proposals affect some indoor security scanners; audio Programme Making and Special Events (PMSE) devices; inductive (Radio Frequency Inductive Device) RFID systems; active medical implants; assistive listening devices; low duty cycle / high reliability devices; transport and traffic telematics devices; and the non-specific SRD category of devices.

• Ultra-Wideband (UWB) – we propose to introduce new licence exemptions and amend existing ones for operating certain UWB equipment. These proposals affect location tracking devices (e.g. for parking management, home security and access control systems), general vehicle applications (e.g. for use at high density road crossings) and indoor only applications (e.g. tracing people within buildings) in the 6-8.5 GHz frequency band, and existing rules for generic UWB devices.

• Autonomous maritime radio devices (AMRDs) – we propose to introduce a new licence exemption for use of AMRD equipment categorised as ‘Group B’ equipment where this uses a specific channel. These devices alert other users of their presence and can include diver and fishing net locating devices.

Exemptions identified by Ofcom through our simplification programme of work.

We have identified a number of areas where we think we could simplify how we authorise some equipment. Under this category, we propose to introduce either a new exemption or make amendments to an existing one in relation to the following equipment:

• Coastal Station Radio (Training School) – we propose to introduce a new licence exemption for use of these very low power indoor systems used for training purposes. Training schools would still be required to abide by the existing technical conditions of operation.

• Testing and Development Under Suppressed Radiation Conditions – we propose to amend the existing licence exemption to increase the spectrum ceiling from 960 MHz to 275 GHz. This change would remove the need for some users to obtain an Innovation and Trial licence when testing or developing equipment in an indoor, suppressed environment at specified power levels.

• Amateur Radio Full (Temporary Reciprocal) – we propose to introduce a new licence exemption for short-term use of Radio Amateur equipment by Radio Amateurs visiting from countries that are not covered by the CEPT Recommendation T/R 61-02, but with whom the UK has a bilateral reciprocal agreement.

• 5.8 GHz (5725-5850 MHz) Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) – we propose to introduce a new licence exemption for use of this equipment. Operators of the equipment would still need to comply with the existing technical conditions set out in IR 2007.

Ofcom are now taking comments on these proposals until 5pm on Friday 28th March 2025 (here).

Openreach (BT) has released the next January 2025 batch of 163 exchanges (Tranche 19) in their “FTTP Priority Exchange Stop Sell” programme, which reflects areas where over 75% of premises are able to get full fibre lines and will thus stop selling copper based analogue phone and broadband products (i.e. FTTP becomes the only product option).

Currently, there are two schemes for moving away from old copper lines and services, which can sometimes cross-over. The first starts with the gradual migration of traditional analogue voice (PSTN / WLR) services to digital all-IP technologies (e.g. SOGEA), which is due to complete by 31st January 2027 and is occurring on both copper and full fibre products (i.e. ISPs are introducing digital voice / VoIP services). The national “stop sell” on analogue phone services began on 5th September 2023 (here).

The second “FTTP Priority Exchange” programme involves the ongoing rollout of gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines – using light signals via optical fibre instead of electrical signals via slow copper lines. Only after this second programme has largely completed (75%+ FTTP coverage) in an exchange area can you really start to completely switch-off copper-based products, which will come later as you have to allow time for natural customer migrations.

Between the scrapping of analogue phone services, the full fibre rollout and the gradual switch away from copper lines themselves, this process will take several years in each area to complete, and the pace will vary (i.e. some areas have better coverage of full fibre than others). Naturally, premises that can’t yet get FTTP will continue to be served by copper-based broadband products.

163 New Exchange Locations (Tranche 19)

In this programme, the migration process away from legacy services starts with a “no move back” policy (i.e. no going back to copper) for premises connected with FTTP, which is followed by a “stop-sell” of copper services to new customers (12-months of notice is given before this starts and that is what today’s list represents). This stage is then followed by a final “withdrawal” phase, but that comes later.

The stop sell is applied at premises level, so it shouldn’t impact you if you don’t yet have access to FTTP, although edge-case conflicts may still occur due to rare quirks of network availability.

The 163 exchanges announced today takes the total number of exchange upgrades that have already been notified as part of the aforementioned process (including trial exchanges), or which are actively under “stop sell” to 1,338 (up from 1,175 at the last update). The “stop sell” in the Tranche 19 areas will be introduced from 14th February 2026.

The operator also has a Stop Sells Page on their website, which makes it easy to see all the planned changes. Otherwise, the following list is tentative, so changes and delays will occur (exchanges can and are often shifted around into different tranches).

163 Stop Sell Exchanges in Tranche 19

London-registered network operator EXA Infrastructure, which was acquired by investment firm ‘I Squared Capital’ in 2021, has today announced that they’ve signed binding agreements to acquire specialist connectivity services provider Aqua Comms, which operates a number of transatlantic and intra-European subsea infrastructure systems (fibre optic cables).

EXA Infrastructure currently operates over 150,000km of digital infrastructure across 37 countries, including 20 cable landing stations that provide critical connectivity to subsea systems. Meanwhile, Aqua Comms is an Ireland-based service provider specialising in operating submarine cable systems and supplying fibre pairs, spectrum and wholesale network capacity to the global content, cloud, carrier & enterprise markets.

Aqua Comms is also the owner/operator of the America Europe Connect-1 (AEC-1), America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2), CeltixConnect-1 (CC-1) and CeltixConnect-2 (CC-2) subsea fibre links and is part of a consortium that owns/operates the Amitié cable system (AEC-3).

Jim Fagan, CEO of EXA Infrastructure, said:

“The acquisition of Aqua Comms demonstrates EXA Infrastructure’s commitment to build a modern and diverse Transatlantic platform to fully serve AI, Cloud and Content demand, now and in the future. The combination will offer our customers more routes, more capacity and increased diversity, all on a scaled platform.”

At present, it’s not known how much money or shares will change hands, although the planned transaction is currently expected to complete in approximately 12 months, subject to customary closing conditions. Akur Capital and RBC Capital Markets are acting as financial advisors to EXA Infrastructure in connection with the transaction and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is serving as legal M&A advisor to EXA Infrastructure.

Goldman Sachs also acted as financial advisor to D9 in connection with the transaction, and Shoosmiths is serving as legal advisor to D9.

In a small update, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has confirmed to ISPreview that their investigation into the September 2023 cyberattack and data breach of mobile network operator Lyca Mobile (here) is still “ongoing“. But the ICO declined to answer why it was taking so long to reach a conclusion.

The original attack, which disrupted Lyca Mobile’s systems and connectivity services across the UK for a period of time, also resulted in hackers being able to access “at least some of the personal information held in our systems“. Back in early October 2023, Lyca said it would “take some time to fully complete our investigations,” although no further public updates appear to have been issued.

The last time we asked the ICO about their investigation was in March 2024, at which point a spokesperson for the organisation said: “Lycamobile (UK) Ltd made us aware of an incident and our enquiries are ongoing.” By comparison the latest update from Rashana Sweidan Vigerstaff, the ICO’s Senior Communications Officer, simply confirmed that the “investigation is ongoing, therefore we will not be able to provide any further comment.”

The hope is that, one of these days, the ICO may actually be able to reveal more information about what happened, which could present another headache for Lyca given their ongoing multi-million dispute with the HMRC over the VAT treatment of customer “bundles” (here). Not to mention issues with the auditing of their accounts (here) and the recent announcement of significant UK job losses (here). The ICO often imposes fines on companies for major breaches of personal customer data.

Telecoms provider Vodafone UK has confirmed that they’re “working hard to resolve” a problem that appears to be making it difficult for some of their new home broadband customers to claim the operators offer of up to £100 in “switching credit” for inward migrations. This is offered to those who incur Early Termination Charges (ETCs) when leaving their existing ISP.

New customers who believe they may be eligible to claim the Switching Credit, due to having left their previous ISP before the end of their minimum contract term, typically have to fill in a web form on Vodafone’s website and provide proof of the charges. But since late December 2024 a few people have found that, upon pressing ‘Submit‘, the form attempts to redirect to a new page and errors out (fails).

The issue has been found to occur across different web browsers and computer systems, which suggests that it may be caused by something on Vodafone’s side of the process (possibly an incorrect URL in the process). Several related complaints about this can be found on social media and the provider’s own Community Forum.

“Multiple different computers and phones and different browsers. Support clueless and unable to help. Very obviously broken at their end,” said one of those affected.

A Spokesperson for Vodafone UK told ISPreview:

“We’re sorry to our customers who are experiencing issues with claiming switching credit. We are aware of the issue and our teams are working hard resolve it.”

The good news is that most of those impacted have since managed to get the issue resolved, usually by popping into a store to do it or raising a support request, although there are complaints about the latter being quite a time-consuming process. A few others have separately found that the form did eventually submit, albeit only after they made quite a few attempts. Hopefully Vodafone will have resolved the bug by the time this story goes live.

UPDATE 8:42am

Vodafone has just confirmed that “the issue has now been resolved.”

Alternative network operator Netomnia (inc. Brsk and YouFibre) has today announced that they’ve successfully expanded their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 2.08 million UK homes and businesses (RFS) on time (up from 1.82m on 30th Sept 2024). Customers have also grown to 238,000 (up from 190k).

The altnet is now focusing on reaching their next target on time too, which was set last year during the Brsk merger (here) and aims to expand their full fibre network to cover 3 million premises by the end of 2025 (inc. 1 million customers by 2028). The service is currently available across parts of over 90 UK cities and towns.

Netomnia has also today published a quick summary of their latest Q4 2024 results, which we’ve summarised below. The eagle eyed will note how the operator can now lay claim to being the “UK’s 2nd largest alternative network provider” after CityFibre, which is a position that nexfibre was laying claim to only a week or so ago after also passing the 2 million premises mark (here) – both have a similar pace of build and may continue to trade places during 2025.

Key Figures from Netomnia’s Q4 2024 Results

➤ Revenue: £38.6m (321% YoY increase)

➤ Premises Serviceable: 2.08m (up 1.27m this year, 255k in the quarter)

➤ Premises Connected: 238k (171k added in 2024, 48K in the quarter)

➤ Take-up Rate: 11.5% (up 38% YoY)

➤ Adjusted EBITDA (£29.6m), down by 13% YoY

➤ Net Debt of £531m (up 223% YoY) – debt drawn to date including accrued interest less cash

Jeremy Chelot, CEO of the Netomnia Group, said:

“Reaching 2 million premises serviceable marks a defining moment for our Group, firmly establishing us as the UK’s 2nd largest alternative network provider. The integration of Netomnia, YouFibre, and brsk is nearing completion, creating the only scaled and capital-efficient retail and wholesale platform in the market.

With our proven execution capabilities, we’re confidently progressing toward our next milestone of 3 million premises serviceable by the end of 2025.”

Separately, back in October 2024 we reported that Netomnia were aiming to start going live with services based off ADTRAN’s cutting edge 50G PON kit by the end of 2024, which would begin with a special package offering symmetric speeds of 40Gbps (here). But we’ve since been informed that the operator is still awaiting hardware from ADTRAN, so we may have to wait a little longer for the first live services to be ready.

In fairness, ADTRAN have previously mentioned that they’ve had some challenges on the hardware supply side, which isn’t too surprising as this is their first kit using a new Broadcom chipset and brand-new box. Suffice to say that the supply and development of cutting-edge kit often needs a bit longer in the oven before it’s ready for the wild at scale.

New data from Ookla, which operates the popular Speedtest.net internet connection benchmarking service, has revealed that the United Kingdom still places near the bottom of the table in Europe for 5G mobile availability (mobile broadband) on a score of just 42.2% (i.e. the percentage of users with 5G devices spending most of their time connected to 5G networks).

By comparison, the Nordic operators have much to celebrate. In Q4 2024, Nordic countries claimed three of the top five positions in Europe for 5G Availability. Furthermore, all four Nordic countries ranked within the top ten. Denmark retained its position as Europe’s leader, achieving an impressive 5G Availability of 83.4%, narrowly surpassing Switzerland, which remains the only other European country to exceed the 80% milestone to date.

Admittedly, country-to-country comparisons are notoriously difficult things to get right, but the new results are particularly poor for a country like the UK, which was once one of the front-runners in the world for early 5G deployments and performance (at least between 2019 and 2020). Mobile operators often point to the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and supply shortages, but those hit other countries too.

The reality is that the UK’s situation tends to reflect a combination of issues, such as the previous government’s U-turn to ban Huawei – this hit about a year after some operators (e.g. EE) had already started their roll-outs. Mobile operators previously warned that the decision, which also impacted existing 4G kit due to the close interdependency of their networks, could delay the completion of the 5G rollout by 2-3 years and add costs of up to £2bn across all operators.

In addition, Ofcom could have been faster to release 5G friendly spectrum and indeed they still haven’t begun the auction for a large chunk of millimetre wave (mmW) radio spectrum frequency in the 26GHz and 40GHz bands (here). This will be used by mobile operators to deliver faster 5G (mobile broadband) services in dense urban areas and some fixed wireless broadband links.

On top of that, the previous Conservative UK government was fairly lacklustre when it came to setting ambitious targets for 5G. Back in 2017 they talked about getting “the majority of the population covered by a 5G signal by 2027,” which was a very low bar and most commercial operators hit that between 2022 and 2023. However, before leaving office they did pledge for “all populated areas to be covered by ‘standalone’ 5G (5G-plus) by 2030” (here), while the new Labour government has more generally pledged to “make a renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030“. But solid geographic coverage targets have not been set.

Finally, mobile operators are continuing to face plenty of obstacles when building new masts and rooftop sites, particularly around the difficulty of securing planning permission in a timely and efficient fashion. But the recent merger between Vodafone and Three UK does still aspire to reach more than 99% of the UK population with their 5G Standalone (SA) network by 2034 and push fixed wireless access (mobile home broadband) to 82% of households by 2030. This may well encourage rivals to do something similar.

Perhaps we’ll do better when 6G comes along around 2028-2030.