News 

The government’s new AI plan aims to boost productivity, create jobs, and modernise public services amid a slowing economy 

The UK government has announced a plan to integrate AI into key sectors, aiming to boost economic growth, streamline public services, and create thousands of jobs.  

Attempting to take control of the country’s economic conversation after an unsettled past week in the financial markets, the AI Opportunities Action Plan, launched today, includes 50 recommendations from tech adviser Matt Clifford, all of which have been adopted by the government. The measures focus on fostering AI innovation, supporting infrastructure development, and accelerating adoption across public and private sectors. 

The plan comes alongside £14 billion in private-sector investments from companies including Vantage Data Centres, Nscale, and Kyndryl. Combined, these projects are expected to create over 13,000 jobs: 

• Vantage Data Centres will invest £12 billion in expanding data centres across the UK, including a major facility in Wales, creating 11,500 jobs. 

• Nscale plans to build the UK’s largest sovereign AI data centre in Essex, contributing $2.5 billion. 

• Kyndryl will create a tech hub in Liverpool, adding 1,000 jobs over the next three years. 

AI Growth Zones, the first of which will be in Culham, Oxfordshire will be established to streamline planning processes for AI-related infrastructure deployment. These Zones will focus on areas clearly able to meet data centres’ high power demands and also featuring strong local government support. This, the government says, will help these areas transform into the backbone of the UK’s digital economy.  

“The AI industry needs a government that is on their side, one that won’t sit back and let opportunities slip through its fingers. And in a world of fierce competition, we cannot stand by. We must move fast and take action to win the global race,” said Prime Minster Keir Starmer in a press release. 

“Our plan will make Britain the world leader. It will give the industry the foundation it needs and will turbocharge the Plan for Change. That means more jobs and investment in the UK, more money in people’s pockets, and transformed public services.”  

AI is already in use in the NHS, improving diagnoses and patient care. The new plan seeks to expand its role across the public sector, including reducing administrative workloads for teachers and enabling automated solutions for infrastructure maintenance, such as pothole detection.  

The Prime Minister detailed the government’s vision for AI in an op-ed for the Financial Times, highlighting the potential for AI to raise productivity, reduce administrative burdens, and create high-quality jobs.  

“Take waiting times in the NHS. We will use AI to cut them by filling appointments patients can no longer make and quickly rescheduling,” the piece read. 

The government will also increase public computing capacity twentyfold, starting with the development of a new supercomputer with enough AI power to play itself at chess half a million times a second. This will “supercharge our capacity to power AI products,” read the release. 

A National Data Library is being created to facilitate secure access to public data for AI research, while an AI Energy Council will work with industry to address the energy demands of the technology. 

The plan emphasises the need to establish the UK as a hub for AI innovation  cementing its place as the third largest AI market in the world. Measures include creating a dedicated team to attract investment and ensure businesses have access to essential resources like data and energy. The government has also tasked its departments with prioritising AI adoption in their sectors. 

The Action Plan is part of the government’s broader Industrial Strategy, with further details to be outlined in the upcoming Digital and Technology Sector Plan. The announcement builds on previous government initiatives, such as the creation of the AI Safety Institute in November 2023 under Rishi Sunak’s leadership. The Safety Institute focused on mitigating risks associated with frontier AI models, including issues like bias, misinformation, and extreme scenarios where AI could become uncontrollable. Sunak also announced a £400 million allocation toward AI chips and supercomputers, with funding drawn from a £900 million package for AI research resources. The initiative aimed to bolster the UK’s global standing in AI innovation and safety 

Join us to discuss the UK’s AI market at this year’s Connected Britain, 24-25 September in London. Get discounted tickets here! 

Also in the news:
TalkTalk pulls support for ‘Internet Matters’ charity amid financial struggles
Vodafone fully offloads remaining Indus Towers stake
Nokia and Openreach partner for fibre network automation 

The Chief Security and Networks Officer of BT Group, Howard Watson, has today joined the COO of BT Business, Kerry Small, in setting out what approach they intend to take when it comes to withdrawing their old 2G mobile service on EE. This will start in the “coming months“, when they’ll begin encouraging some customers to move to their more modern (4G and 5G) network.

The UK government and all major mobile operators have so far agreed to phase-out existing 2G and 3G signals by 2033 (here), which will free up radio spectrum bands so that they can be used to further improve the network coverage and mobile broadband speeds of more modern 4G and 5G networks, as well as future 6G services. The switch-off will also reduce the operators’ costs and power consumption.

In case anybody has forgotten, EE already switched-off their final 3G sites back in February 2024 (here), which actually came before their older 2G network. The situation around 2G tends to be more complicated, not least because older 2G signals remain useful as a low-power fallback when 4G/5G isn’t present and are still necessary for some rural areas, as well as for particular applications (e.g. certain Internet of Things (IoT) / M2M services).

Suffice to say that it is expected to take several years before 2G can be completely switched off across the United Kingdom, which helps to explain why today’s update from EE does not include a clear timeline. Instead, the operator is looking to “start these conversations early“, so that they can improve their collaboration with customers and make a better plan for the future withdrawal of 2G, which is expressed as taking place “in the years ahead“. The provider then makes clear that they “will not be closing our 2G network until later this decade“.

However, the initial focus will be on their business customers. EE thus intends to contact “all our business customers who still use 2G in their operations” over the “coming months” in order to “encourage and support them in making the move to a modern network; such as 4G, 5G or our new purpose-built Internet of Things (IoT) service used to connect smart devices and sensors.”

In the meantime, the operator said they would continue to prepare for the withdrawal of 2G by “expanding the reach of our 4G and 5G networks and working closely with industry bodies, charities and Ofcom to raise awareness“. But when the time comes, they pledge to “provide comprehensive support – both online and in-person – to all our remaining 2G customers to move to a more modern and robust network“. The full blog post can be found below:

Giving UK businesses the future-fit mobile networks they need

By Howard Watson, Chief Security and Networks Officer, BT Group & Kerry Small, Chief Operating Officer, BT Business

Mobile connectivity has come a long way since the early 1990s when the UK launched its first 2G network. It was a time long before the first smartphone was invented, before the Premier League launched, and even before the first SMS text message was sent.

But it is a world apart from what we, as a society, now demand from our digital communications. Today, just 0.1 percent of all data on our entire EE mobile network is carried over 2G.

As a result, all mobile operators have committed to the UK Government to close their 2G networks by 2033 at the latest. While we will not be closing our 2G network until later this decade, the time for businesses to start preparing is now.

We want to make sure all UK businesses understand how our network is evolving and give several years notice before any changes take effect.

Having first spoken publicly about our 2G retirement plans back in 2021, in the coming months we will be reaching out to all our business customers who still use 2G in their operations to encourage and support them in making the move to a modern network; such as 4G, 5G or our new purpose-built Internet of Things (IoT) service used to connect smart devices and sensors.

Greener. Faster. Stronger.

These modern forms of network connectivity are widespread across the UK, and with cutting-edge technologies like 5G standalone and Global Fabric making headlines, most of our customers already benefit from reliable, secure and energy-efficient connectivity.

Businesses that continue to rely on 2G technology and devices are missing out on better connectivity and the improved functionality, security and productivity that can come from it.

We are listening to our customers, and this long-planned network evolution is our response to their needs. With greater focus on climate change and sustainability targets, more businesses across the UK now only want to use the most energy efficient mobile networks.

2G is extremely energy intensive and, as with any technology, the older it gets the less reliable and more difficult to repair it becomes.
Many operators in the US, Australia and Europe have already switched off their 2G networks. Taking that step here allows us to continue optimising the secure and future-ready networks our customers – and the wider UK economy – need.

Backing UK businesses

If we’re going to provide the UK with a rock-solid foundation to build out its digital economy, then relying on mobile network architecture that was designed three decades ago is not the answer.

Despite the ever-decreasing reliance on 2G, some businesses do still use it as part of their operations, primarily to transfer small amounts of data between devices, sensors or machines.

By reaching out to these businesses now to make them aware of how our network is changing for the better, we can provide tailored support and technical advice so they can upgrade to a modern connection.

We are starting these conversations early so that we can collaborate closely with the business community, giving them certainty and ensuring we take account of their needs in setting a date for the switch off, ensuring several years notice to make the transition safely and affordably.

So, what happens next?

In the years ahead, we will be preparing our network for the closure of 2G. That will include continuing to expand the reach of our 4G and 5G networks and working closely with industry bodies, charities and Ofcom to raise awareness.

When that time comes, we will provide comprehensive support – both online and in-person – to all our remaining 2G customers to move to a more modern and robust network. Doing so will mean they benefit from our cutting-edge connectivity, which many businesses are already using to power greener growth for decades to come.

One possible problem here is that the 3G switch-off did expose a few weak areas of pre-planning and 4G coverage, where some customers of various operators and in certain locations found they were only able to access a 2G service after the old 3G one was withdrawn (mainly impacting data / broadband services).

Complaints like those above are in the minority, but we have seen a few of them. Suffice to say, mobile operators will need to be particularly cautious with the 2G switch-off, as a tiny proportion of people may have no fallback if 4G or 5G isn’t improved first. EE clearly say they want to do this before 2G is switched-off, so that’s a positive, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on this.

Debt-troubled UK broadband provider TalkTalk has reportedly “pulled out” of industry-funded online child safety charity Internet Matters, which was established alongside BT, Virgin Media and Sky Broadband during 2014. The move is said to form part of the ISP’s efforts to cut £120m in costs and follows recent job cuts (here).

The latest move ultimately flows from last year’s decision to accept a refinancing package worth roughly £400m (here and here), which saved TalkTalk from the immediate risk of a default on its debts. The deal essentially extended the group’s debt maturities to September 2027 and brought them more time to fix the foundations or find a buyer for their various companies, which won’t be an easy task (here).

At the same time, TalkTalk’s most recent financial results (here) revealed that their on-net customer base (fibre FTTP/C and broadband) had fallen again to 3.6 million (down from 3.94m in 2023), although their Ethernet (leased lines etc.) base grew to 75,000 (up from 69,400). Suffice to say that recent developments mean the provider is having to find ever deeper ways of cutting costs in order to stay afloat.

According to a report on the Telegraph (paywall), the founding members of ‘Internet Matters’ are understood to pay an annual membership fee of roughly £300,000. This may be just a drop in the ocean of TalkTalk’s debt, but it’s a drop they clearly need.

A TalkTalk spokesman said:

“TalkTalk is proud to be one of the founders of Internet Matters, having financially supported the organisation for the past decade. We remain committed to online safety and are exploring different ways of continuing to support Internet Matters and its work moving forward.”

Interestingly, the newspaper indicates that the charity’s other backers may not currently be minded to increase their contributions in order to cover the loss of TalkTalk’s support.

Network testing giant Ookla, which collects data from consumers via their popular Speedtest.net service, has published their Q3-Q4 2024 (H1) study into the speed of 5G based mobile broadband networks across the United Kingdom. The results reveal that Three UK once again delivered the fastest downloads (236.25Mbps) and uploads (12.94Mbps), but their performance has fallen.

As we’ve said before, mobile data performance can be a very difficult thing to pin down because related users are always moving through different areas (indoor, outdoor, underground etc.), using different devices with different capabilities and the surrounding environment (weather, trees, buildings etc.) is ever changeable.

All of the above can impact your service, and that’s before we even consider the other issues, such as network (backhaul) capacity at different cell sites or differing spectrum ownership between mobile operators. Nevertheless, Ookla’s latest study attempts to examine this by comparing 2,337,622 “user-initiated 5G tests“, taken via their iOS and Android based mobile apps (total of 397,094 devices), from all four of the major UK mobile operators.

The results report that Three UK continued to deliver the fastest average (median) 5G mobile download speeds of 236.25Mbps (down from 255.23Mbps in H1 2024) and uploads of 12.94Mbps (down from 14.47Mbps), which is now a long way from the 292.57Mbps they scored back in H2 2022. However, Three’s rivals also saw a small reduction in 5G download and upload performance, while O2 still remains stuck at the bottom of the table.

Ookla’s UK 5G Mobile Speeds for H2 2024 (vs H1 2024)

Median Download Speed
Three UK – 236.25Mbps (255.23Mbps)
Vodafone – 149.80Mbps (155.90Mbps)
EE – 100.56Mbps (106.61Mbps)
O2 – 73.86Mbps (75.96Mbps)

Median Upload Speed
Three UK – 12.94Mbps (14.47Mbps)
Vodafone – 11.55Mbps (12.27Mbps)
EE – 11.97Mbps (12.23Mbps)
O2 – 8.46Mbps (8.97Mbps)

Median Latency (lower figures are faster)
Three UK – 29ms (29ms)
EE – 30ms (29ms)
Vodafone – 31ms (30ms)
O2 – 33ms (34ms)

Ookla also included some city-specific results for 5G speeds in London, Birmingham and Manchester, which you can see below.

Infracapital-backed ISP Fibrus, which is busy rolling out their alternative gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of Cumbria (England) and Northern Ireland, has confirmed another round of redundancies as their roll-out in N.Ireland comes to an end. But new jobs in customer facing roles are expected to be created.

Just to recap. The operator has already built their full fibre network to cover 400,000 UK premises and have previously claimed to be “fully funded to complete” their roll-out plan for 500,000 premises in the near future (here). In November 2024 they also passed the 100,000th customer mark (here).

However, while their deployment in Cumbria still has a long way to go, Fibrus’ build in Northern Ireland is getting closer to completion and this will inevitably mean a loss of further engineering roles. Not to mention that the company is also having to deal with a pre-tax loss of nearly £60m in its latest accounts (here).

According to the Belfast Telegraph, around 48 jobs could be cut in their civil engineering company, Vibreoptix, which would be on top of those that were lost at the start of last year (here). The latter was also partly due to the fact that network operators across the market are being placed under a lot of strain, not least due to issues like rising build costs (inflation, leases, suppliers etc.) and the difficulty in raising fresh investment during a period of high interest rates.

A Fibrus spokesperson said:

“Fibrus is nearing the completion of its planned build programme in Northern Ireland. We have restructured our teams to support our business priorities and enable the next phase of growth.

We have hired, and will continue to hire, customer-focused roles in line with business expansion plans.”

Put another way, Fibrus, like many other altnets, is now increasingly focusing their efforts on growing the take-up (commercialisation) of the infrastructure they’ve already built. The operator’s most recent accounts also reported a 58% increase in revenues to £17.6m and a record-breaking year for customer growth, including a 143% increase in connected customers, which grew by 46k during the year from 32k to 78k and have passed the 100k milestone subsequent to year end. Customer penetration now exceeds 25%.

News 

Nokia has been selected by Openreach to deliver its One Network Platform, an open-access fibre network designed to connect millions of homes and businesses across the UK 

The project will see Nokia deploy a wide range of technology upgrades across Openreach’s network, aiming to boost efficiencies and simplify further fibre rollouts.  

Using Nokia’s Altiplano and NSP controllers, Openreach will be able to automate its fibre services across various technologies, which they say will simplify operations and reduce network complexity by 85%. The system also includes real-time monitoring tools to give Openreach better insights into how the network is performing. 

Openreach’s network provides wholesale broadband to around 300 service providers, ranging from cities down to remote rural areas. Nokia’s technology will make the new platform flexible, efficient, and scalable to meet customer needs. It will also reduce the number of exchange buildings required to cover the UK, making the network more streamlined. 

The new system is built with a modular design, helping Openreach create a large-scale network while cutting power and the space required by over 50% at Ethernet exchange sites. T 

“This is the next step in our plans to build a future-proof, multi-service, one network platform – that supports both full FTTP and future Ethernet products. Introducing Nokia’s Altiplano and NSP network domain controllers and 7250 IXR data centre routers will boost automation, network visibility and control, and product flexibility for our Communication Provider customers and their end-user customers,” said Trevor Linney, Director of Network Technology at Openreach in a press release. 

“Ultimately, this is about making our network easier to manage, more efficient and reliable, for example, through quicker identification of faults via automation, and helping to cut operational costs,” he continued.the project will expand Openreach’s full fibre network from 17 million properties today to 25 million by the end of 2026, meeting the rising demand for faster broadband. 

How is the UK fibre market evolving in 2025? Join the discussion at Connected North live in Manchester 

Also in the news: 

VEON and Starlink to launch Direct-to-Cell Satellite connectivity in Ukraine
Swisscom completes acquisition of Vodafone Italia
Equinix to buy BT’s Irish data centre business for €59m

News 

Vodafone has announced today that it has sold its remaining 79.2 million shares in Indus Towers Limited, a 3% stake in the company 

The sale raised INR 28 billion ($330 million), according to a recent stock market filing. Vodafone used $105 million of this to repay loans tied to its Indian assets and cover transaction costs.  

The remaining $225 million was invested in its Indian mobile subsidiary Vodafone Idea (Vi), increasing the company’s stake in the operator from 22.56% to 24.39%. Vi will use these funds to settle outstanding payments to Indus Towers, thereby completing Vodafone’s financial commitments to the company. 

Vodafone has gradually been divesting of its Indus Towers stake since 2022, gradually reducing its stake from 28% to 21.5% last year. In June, the company announced it was looking to sell a further 10% in the company, but a surge of interest saw them reconsider the scale of the stake sale. 

Vodafone sold an 18% stake worth $1.8 billion to a variety of buyers, including SBI Mutual Fund, Kotak Securities, and rival telco (and Indus Towers shareholder) Bharti Airtel. Airtel is now the company’s largest stakeholder, owning 49% of the business. 

Vi has faced significant challenges in the Indian market, struggling to stay afloat amid intense competition from Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel for many years. Despite securing funding earlier this year, the company continues to steadily lose subscribers to its rivals. 

The company lags behind competitors in 4G deployment and has yet to roll out 5G services at scale, unlike Jio and Airtel, both of whom launched 5G in 2022 and millions of users. Cash-strapped Vi is taking a more cautious approach, primarily focusing on expanding its 4G network to cover 90% of India’s population by mid-2025. 

In October last year, Vi announced the launch of commercial 5G services by March this year, starting with Delhi and Mumbai, and expanding to other major cities across 17 regions.  

This follows recent multi-billion dollar deals with Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung to upgrade 75,000 existing 4G sites over the next three years.  

Keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news from around the world with the Total Telecom newsletter  

Also in the news: 

VEON and Starlink to launch Direct-to-Cell Satellite connectivity in Ukraine
Swisscom completes acquisition of Vodafone Italia
Equinix to buy BT’s Irish data centre business for €59m

The Swansea Bay City Deal’s Digital Infrastructure Programme has launched a new Prior Information Notice (PIN), which is seeking feedback from suppliers that might be interested in helping to provide “affordable” gigabit broadband to poorly served premises in the Swansea Bay City Region (Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, and Neath Port Talbot).

Just to recap. The UK and Welsh Governments gave their approval for a £55m digital infrastructure investment under the £1.3bn Swansea Bay City Region project back in 2021 (here), which among other things aimed to expand full fibre and 5G mobile connectivity to benefit residents and businesses across Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea. Some of this investment comes from the Local Broadband Fund (LBF) for Wales.

Several digital infrastructure projects are already taking place under this programme (examples here and here) and the new PIN forms an additional part of that. According to the detail, the focus seems to be on finding solutions for 2,363 eligible premises (residential and business) in “both rural and urban locations“.

The premises reflect those that are currently in areas where only sub-30Mbps broadband download speeds are possible and which are not set to benefit from either commercial plans or any future publicly funded builds (i.e. not part of either a UK Project Gigabit deployment or existing broadband voucher scheme).

PIN Statement (Better Broadband Infill Project)

We have recently concluded a tender process for the Better Broadband Infill Project, unfortunately, none of the bids received met the necessary criteria. In light of this, we would like to engage with the market to discuss the opportunity further before reissuing the tender.

We are considering increasing the budget allocated for this project while reducing the coverage targets to ensure a more viable and competitive process. This consultation will help align expectations and provide a clearer understanding of the project’s scope.

Requirements (high level overview, subject to change):

New connection must offer affordable broadband packages for residents and businesses.

New connection must be available to the premise to request a service for a minimum of 12 years with no ECCs to the resident/business.

The network built with the subsidy must be open access to all interested service providers on fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory terms. This shall include both Wholesale Access Products and Wholesale Passive Products.

The solution must provide a gigabit capable connection.

The documents include a map that shows, very roughly, the intervention area – residential premises in RED and commercial premises in BLUE. The fact that many of these are quite spaced out may help to explain why resolving them has been a difficult task. We suspect that several network operators, such as Openreach, Voneus and Ogi, are likely to have some interest given the proximity of their existing infrastructure.

Several market engagement sessions are being planned for next week to discuss all this, although we’ll probably have to wait until later this year before learning the final outcome.

Mobile operator Three UK has introduced a new discount this week that cuts the monthly price of their 5G powered unlimited Three Home Broadband package to just £19 per month on a 24-month minimum term, rising to £28 if you only take a 1-month term or £21 for the equivalent 4G service on a 24-month term.

As usual, Three’s Home Broadband packages all include a mobile router (their website currently depicts a ZTE device for 5G), while also promising “average download speeds of 150Mbps” (this will vary a lot between different locations) and a 30-day money-back guarantee. But take note that Three UK’s pricing policy means that, each April, your Monthly Charge will increase by a fixed amount of £2 per month.

The new promotion is likely to be time-limited (follow the link above), although at the time of writing they haven’t given us an end date.

The One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), which is the industry-led company that is helping to implement Ofcom’s solution (One Touch Switching) for easier and quicker UK consumer switching between broadband and phone providers, has now started to consult on contract changes to enable business switching.

The current OTS system is a Gaining Provider Led (GPL) process, where the customer contacts their new (“gaining“) ISP to start and manage the process on their behalf. But the new process is, technically, only a requirement for residential customers.

The national telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has previously stated that this is because “business and residential customers can sometimes have different needs when switching and that there is diversity among business which means it may not be appropriate to specify certain rules that would apply to all business customers in the same way as to residential customers.”

The catch in all this is that businesses are still required by Ofcom to follow most of the same OTS rules (i.e. Ofcom simply have not specified what the process should be for business ISPs) and so, in practice, TOTSCo recognises that many business providers may see a benefit in using their platform in order to deliver a switching solution. But to be clear, there is no requirement for any ISP or Managed Access Provider (MAP) to use TOTSCo’s business switching solution (once it exists). “Business switching is a competitive market,” said TOTSCo’s latest bulletin.

However, TOTSCo has already begun work to develop a switching solution for businesses alongside the separate Gaining Provider Led Business (GPLB) Switching Industry Process (here), which has continued today with the launch of a new 21-day consultation (running until 31st January 2025). This is proposing changes to their User Agreement and MAP Agreement to “enable us to adapt those contracts to the requirements of business switching.” This will be followed by a further 90-day period before the changes, once approved, are adopted.

The organisation has previously indicated that the first integration testing of all this probably won’t begin until Q2 2025.