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Customers of the Sky Mobile service, which is an O2 (Virgin Media) powered Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) with nearly 4 million UK subscribers, has today announced that they’re making it even easier to stay connected while travelling by doubling its global roaming destinations from 55 to 120 across the EU/EEA, USA, Australia and more.

Sky’s Roaming Passport Plus essentially lets customers use their UK data, calls and text allowances as if they were still in the UK while in one of the supported 120 destinations for just £2 a day. Some of the other destinations included are India, Egypt, Singapore, Barbados, Jamaica, Bahamas, Morocco, Peru, Mauritius and China.

The £2 roaming activates when customers use data (over 10MB in a day) or make a call or text to a UK number while in one of the destinations. For added ease, customers will get a text to confirm when their 24‑hour roaming period starts, and another when it’s coming to an end.

However, it should be noted that roaming data (mobile broadband) is subject to a 25GB (GigaBytes) fair usage policy per billing cycle, which means you’ll be hit by additional data charges (on a pro‑rated per GB basis) once this limit gets exceeded. But that’s fairly normal for UK mobile operators.

Sky claims their mobile customers will thus pay just £10 for five days data roaming in destinations like the USA, Thailand, and India. “That’s £20 cheaper than EE customers using EE’s Zone 1 Pass or up to £30 cheaper than Vodafone customers using Vodafone’s monthly plan Global Roam or Zone D Passes“, said the announcement. But some consumers might find it cheaper to take a travel eSIM, depending upon your destination and needs (see our article – Summary of Mobile Travel eSIMs).

Sky Mobile’s Roaming Passport Plus destinations list:

A – D:

Albania, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba (Netherlands Antilles), Australia (including Cocos Islands, Christmas Islands), Austria, Azores, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Bolivia, Bonaire (Netherlands Antilles), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Curacao (Netherlands Antilles), Cyprus (excl. Northern Cyprus), Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic,

E – L:

Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, French Guiana (French West Indies), Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Grenada, Guadeloupe (French West Indies), Guatemala, Hong Kong, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Korea (South), Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg,

M – R:

Madeira, Malaysia, Malta, Martinique (French West Indies), Mauritius, Mayotte (French Territories in the Indian Ocean), Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, North Macedonia, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Reunion (French Territories in the Indian Ocean), Romania,

S – Z:

Saba (Netherlands Antilles), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Singapore, Saint Eustatius (Netherlands Antilles), Sint Maarten (Netherlands Antilles), Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, St Barthelemy (French West Indies), St Martin (French West Indies), Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey (incl. Northern Cyprus), Turks and Caicos Islands, UAE, USA, Vatican City, Vietnam, Virgin Islands (British).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Customers of the Sky Mobile service, which is an O2 (Virgin Media) powered Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) with nearly 4 million UK subscribers, has today announced that they’re making it even easier to stay connected while travelling by doubling its global roaming destinations from 55 to 120 across the EU/EEA, USA, Australia and more.

Sky’s Roaming Passport Plus essentially lets customers use their UK data, calls and text allowances as if they were still in the UK while in one of the supported 120 destinations for just £2 a day. Some of the other destinations included are India, Egypt, Singapore, Barbados, Jamaica, Bahamas, Morocco, Peru, Mauritius and China.

The £2 roaming activates when customers use data (over 10MB in a day) or make a call or text to a UK number while in one of the destinations. For added ease, customers will get a text to confirm when their 24‑hour roaming period starts, and another when it’s coming to an end.

However, it should be noted that roaming data (mobile broadband) is subject to a 25GB (GigaBytes) fair usage policy per billing cycle, which means you’ll be hit by additional data charges (on a pro‑rated per GB basis) once this limit gets exceeded. But that’s fairly normal for UK mobile operators.

Sky claims their mobile customers will thus pay just £10 for five days data roaming in destinations like the USA, Thailand, and India. “That’s £20 cheaper than EE customers using EE’s Zone 1 Pass or up to £30 cheaper than Vodafone customers using Vodafone’s monthly plan Global Roam or Zone D Passes“, said the announcement. But some consumers might find it cheaper to take a travel eSIM, depending upon your destination and needs (see our article – Summary of Mobile Travel eSIMs).

Sky Mobile’s Roaming Passport Plus destinations list:

A – D:

Albania, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba (Netherlands Antilles), Australia (including Cocos Islands, Christmas Islands), Austria, Azores, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Bolivia, Bonaire (Netherlands Antilles), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Curacao (Netherlands Antilles), Cyprus (excl. Northern Cyprus), Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic,

E – L:

Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, French Guiana (French West Indies), Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Grenada, Guadeloupe (French West Indies), Guatemala, Hong Kong, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Korea (South), Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg,

M – R:

Madeira, Malaysia, Malta, Martinique (French West Indies), Mauritius, Mayotte (French Territories in the Indian Ocean), Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, North Macedonia, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Reunion (French Territories in the Indian Ocean), Romania,

S – Z:

Saba (Netherlands Antilles), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Singapore, Saint Eustatius (Netherlands Antilles), Sint Maarten (Netherlands Antilles), Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, St Barthelemy (French West Indies), St Martin (French West Indies), Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey (incl. Northern Cyprus), Turks and Caicos Islands, UAE, USA, Vatican City, Vietnam, Virgin Islands (British).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today announced that their new Direct-to-Device (D2D) based O2 Satellite service (here), which for just £3 extra per month enables normal Smartphones to connect to their mobile network via Starlink’s satellites, will be extended to work on Apple iPhones from tomorrow.

The service harnesses SpaceX’s global Starlink network in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to support a satellite based 4G mobile data (broadband) connection via part of the 1800MHz (B3) band, which enables connectivity in even some of the remotest parts of the UK. In addition, users also benefit from greater general resilience, at least when outside a building.

The new service, once applied, effectively boosted O2’s UK landmass mobile coverage from 89% to 95%, delivering a coverage uplift equivalent to an area around two thirds the size of Wales. The service is designed to complement O2’s existing mobile network, and customers will connect automatically when traditional cellular coverage is unavailable.

However, at launch in February 2026 it only supported a limited number of handsets, all of which were based off the Android operating system (mostly recent Samsung models). The service also had some other limitations, such as initially only being able to support text messaging and limited data connectivity across specific apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Google Maps and more.

The good news today is that O2 will switch on its satellite mobile service for iPhone users tomorrow (Thursday 28th May 2026). But you’ll need at least an iPhone 13 to benefit.

Chris Bournes, Commercial Director at VMO2, said:

“Earlier this year, we made history with the switch on of O2 Satellite. Expanding the service to iPhone users is a major step forward in making this new, groundbreaking technology accessible to more customers. Whether you’re hiking, travelling or in a remote part of the UK, O2 Satellite helps ensure you can stay connected when you need it most.”

Compatible Apple devices:

iPhone 17 Pro Max, 17 Pro, 17, 17e,
iPhone Air
iPhone 16 Pro Max, 16 Pro, 16 Plus, 16, 16e
iPhone 15 Pro Max, 15 Pro, 15 Plus, 15
iPhone 14 Pro Max, 14 Pro, 14 Plus, 14
iPhone 13 Pro Max, 13 Pro, 13, 13 mini

Compatible apps:

AccuWeather
AllTrails
Apple Compass
Apple Fitness
Apple Maps
Apple Messages
Apple Music
Apple Weather
BBC Weather
Google Maps
Messenger
WhatsApp
X
Yahoo Mail

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Mobile operator and broadband ISP Vodafone UK has this morning announced that their internet security feature – Secure Net Home, and smart router technology, Who’s Home, which were previously only available on their premium Pro 3 fixed broadband packages, has been extended to 900,000 customers on their standard broadband packages too.

Just to recap. The Secure Net Home service includes various features, such as real-time protection against viruses and online threats (malware) for any device connected to WiFi. In addition, the parental controls it includes will enable you to create profiles for children, before assigning groups of devices to apply preferred controls for each individual user.

By comparison, the relatively recent Who’s Home service is designed to proactively alert customers when their loved one’s smartphone connects or disconnects from their hub (here). The feature is said to be “designed to give greater peace of mind and reassurance to customers“ and Vodafone allows individual users to opt-in or out, which helps to avoid the risk of it becoming too intrusive or just creepy.

Previously if you wanted either of these features then you needed to pay extra for one of Vodafone’s premium Pro packages and Who’s Home in particular initially only worked on their latest Wi-Fi 7 capable Ultra Hub 7 Fibre broadband router. But as of today, both Secure Net and Who’s Home are now available to Vodafone customers with a standard broadband package and the regular Power Hub router.

In terms of cost, the Who’s Home feature is being added “at no extra cost“, while Secure Net Home on standard packages will be free for the first three months to new users, followed by £2 a month thereafter with the flexibility to cancel any time.

Online protection for Vodafone customers doesn’t stop at home. Secure Net Mobile is also available to all Vodafone mobile customers for £2 a month and provides round‑the‑clock protection against viruses and malware, advanced parental controls, and 24/7 ID monitoring. Most recently, Scam Call Protection was added to Secure Net Mobile – an AI‑powered feature that flags scam and suspected nuisance calls before customers even pick up.

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The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has released their May 2026 update on the delivery progress of contracts awarded under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme. The update reveals that some 256,680 contracted premises (up from 250,000 in April 2026) have so far been covered out of a planned total of 837,340 (31% complete).

The figures in this update are not directly comparable to the figures published in BDUK’s general quarterly statistics releases. This is because today’s report tracks the number of contracted premises to which a supplier has delivered a gigabit-capable connection under the main Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS) programme, whereas the general statistics also include gigabit premises delivered via any public / BDUK subsidy (i.e. that includes other schemes too, like gigabit vouchers and contracts that pre-date Project Gigabit).

So far, most of the country’s gigabit-capable broadband coverage has been delivered by commercial deployments (predominantly focused on urban and semi-urban areas), while Project Gigabit focuses on the final bits that they fail to reach (usually rural areas). The project has already committed most of its budget up to 2030, but there are still some contracts yet to be awarded and others that have been scaled-back or switched suppliers (e.g. here, here, here, here and here).

Otherwise, it’s worth remembering that these contracts were all awarded at different times and are thus at very different stages of development (some started several years apart). A few of the listed contracts have already completed their delivery, such as Wessex Internet’s build for North Dorset and GoFibre’s roll-outs for County Durham and North Northumberland. Meanwhile, others, such as Openreach’s new contract for Cheshire (here), were only added in the April 2026 update.

The biggest change this time around is CityFibre’s significant reduction in planned build (here), which played a major role in slashing the total contracted premises figure from 1,047,200 last month to 837,340 now (-209,860 premises).

On top of that we’ve also noted some quirks this time around, such as for CityFibre’s Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes contract, where the already ‘built’ premises figure has gone from 4,570 in April to 4,150 in May. BDUK states that 420 premises missing from this will be “re-added at a later date“. The Freedom Fibre contract for North Shropshire suffered an even bigger monthly fall of -2,140 and BDUK said the same about that, albeit without providing any context for the change.

As previously reported, CityFibre’s contract for Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire (Lot 10) has also been removed from the contracted list this month as part of their recent change. BDUK are now working to find an alternative solution.

Project Gigabit – Contracted Premises and Built Premises by Contract (May 2026)

Remember – it’s important to understand the context behind each contract before judging delivery progress, since a face-value assessment will often overlook key realities. Speaking of which, some of the contracted figures may differ from the original announcements, which reflects the usual modifications (i.e. the scope of delivery can increase or decrease, such as due to commercial builds by other operators going further than expected or builds costing more than expected etc.).

For some extra context, you can check out the previous figures for April 2026 (here).

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Network analyst firm Streetwave has today published the results from a new study they conducted, which examined mobile network (4G, 5G) coverage and mobile broadband performance across part of the River Thames (Putney Pier to Westminster Pier) in London, while travelling onboard an Uber Boat (Thames Clippers). Vodafone came out on top.

The live survey, which used Streetwave’s portable network measurement and monitoring kit, was conducted during the afternoon rush hour on 20th May 2026 (3:40pm to 4:29pm). The kit captured real-world signal quality and service speeds across one of London’s busiest commuter river routes.

All four of the major UK operators – EE, O2, Vodafone and Three UK – were found to have delivered strong ‘Basic Coverage‘ scores along the route. Streetwave also measured ‘Good Coverage‘, a higher threshold that reflects the speeds needed for video calls and data-intensive tasks, where results varied more between networks and O2 was particularly poor.

Streetwave defines Basic Coverage as reflecting locations where the mobile network provides users with data speeds of above 1Mbps download, 0.5Mbps upload, and below 100ms (milliseconds) of latency (i.e. supporting only the most basic of use cases or needs).

The company also defines Good Coverage as being locations where the mobile networks provide at least 5Mbps download, 1.5Mbps upload, and less than 50ms latency – supporting a wider range of everyday tasks including video calls, remote working, and higher quality streaming. The results were as follows.

Basic Coverage Scores

Good Coverage Scores

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

The scale of the UK’s commercial fibre rollout means some target areas no longer warrant government support

Today, fibre network operator CityFibre and Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency have agreed to ‘re-scope’ the nine contracts the operator holds as part of Project Gigabit.

The decision, the companies say, comes “in response to the accelerated rollout of commercially funded full fibre across Project Gigabit areas”, meaning government subsidies are no longer necessary.

Officially launched in 2021, Project Gigabit promised £5 billion in government subsidies to help fibre network operators reach some of the UK’s hardest-to-reach premises.

In 2023, CityFibre won ten Project Gigabit contracts with subsidies totalling around £782 million. This funding, CityFibre said, would help the company to reach 1.3 million homes and businesses across rural or hard-to-reach areas.

Work related to each of the contracts was reportedly underway by the start of last year, with CityFibre saying it had reached 150,000 premises in the covered areas, 70,000 of which had made use of subsidies.

Now, following analysis of information gained from BDUK’s ongoing Open Market Review process, the partners agree that the scope of the contracts is too broad for today’s market conditions. As a result, the revised targets will see CityFibre aim for 450,000 rural or hard-to-reach premises by 2030, with 226,000 of these directly subsidised by Project Gigabit.

In addition, a £58.6 million contract covering Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire will be ‘returned’ to BDUK.

“We are immensely proud of CityFibre’s involvement in Project Gigabit, an ambitious programme that has helped unlock the benefits of full fibre infrastructure for households and businesses previously at risk of being left behind. BDUK’s commitment has helped spur further investment and continued innovation and the time is right to focus on where we will have the biggest impact as we establish the competitive digital infrastructure market the UK deserves,” said Simon Holden, CityFibre’s Chief Executive Officer.

The government was quick to take credit for facilitating the rapid rollout of fibre across the UK.

“Over the past 18 months, this government has delivered upgrades to more than 229,000 hard-to-reach premises across the country. Our reforms to the telecoms market have unlocked a surge in commercial broadband rollout, meaning many areas previously in scope for CityFibre’s Project Gigabit contracts will now be upgraded without cost to taxpayers,” said Liz Lloyd, Telecoms Minister.

The announcement notes that this revision “will not affect BDUK’s ability to achieve the UK government target of 99% UK gigabit coverage by 2032”.

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

Also in the news
TELUS and L-SPARK give Canadian startups access to AI supercomputer
Belden to acquire RUCKUS Networks for $1.85bn
VMO2 taps Suffolk solar farm for 10 years of clean energy

The post UK’s fibre fiesta sees CityFibre’s Project Gigabit contracts ‘re-scoped’ appeared first on Total Telecom.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

The scale of the UK’s commercial fibre rollout means some target areas no longer warrant government support

Today, fibre network operator CityFibre and Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency have agreed to ‘re-scope’ the nine contracts the operator holds as part of Project Gigabit.

The decision, the companies say, comes “in response to the accelerated rollout of commercially funded full fibre across Project Gigabit areas”, meaning government subsidies are no longer necessary.

Officially launched in 2021, Project Gigabit promised £5 billion in government subsidies to help fibre network operators reach some of the UK’s hardest-to-reach premises.

In 2023, CityFibre won ten Project Gigabit contracts with subsidies totalling around £782 million. This funding, CityFibre said, would help the company to reach 1.3 million homes and businesses across rural or hard-to-reach areas.

Work related to each of the contracts was reportedly underway by the start of last year, with CityFibre saying it had reached 150,000 premises in the covered areas, 70,000 of which had made use of subsidies.

Now, following analysis of information gained from BDUK’s ongoing Open Market Review process, the partners agree that the scope of the contracts is too broad for today’s market conditions. As a result, the revised targets will see CityFibre aim for 450,000 rural or hard-to-reach premises by 2030, with 226,000 of these directly subsidised by Project Gigabit.

In addition, a £58.6 million contract covering Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire will be ‘returned’ to BDUK.

“We are immensely proud of CityFibre’s involvement in Project Gigabit, an ambitious programme that has helped unlock the benefits of full fibre infrastructure for households and businesses previously at risk of being left behind. BDUK’s commitment has helped spur further investment and continued innovation and the time is right to focus on where we will have the biggest impact as we establish the competitive digital infrastructure market the UK deserves,” said Simon Holden, CityFibre’s Chief Executive Officer.

The government was quick to take credit for facilitating the rapid rollout of fibre across the UK.

“Over the past 18 months, this government has delivered upgrades to more than 229,000 hard-to-reach premises across the country. Our reforms to the telecoms market have unlocked a surge in commercial broadband rollout, meaning many areas previously in scope for CityFibre’s Project Gigabit contracts will now be upgraded without cost to taxpayers,” said Liz Lloyd, Telecoms Minister.

The announcement notes that this revision “will not affect BDUK’s ability to achieve the UK government target of 99% UK gigabit coverage by 2032”.

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

Also in the news
TELUS and L-SPARK give Canadian startups access to AI supercomputer
Belden to acquire RUCKUS Networks for $1.85bn
VMO2 taps Suffolk solar farm for 10 years of clean energy

The post UK’s fibre fiesta sees CityFibre’s Project Gigabit contracts ‘re-scoped’ appeared first on Total Telecom.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The High Court has granted rights holders, such as Columbia Pictures and others, more flexibility to require the UK’s major broadband ISPs (e.g. BT, EE, Plusnet, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband and TalkTalk) to block customers from accessing websites that have been found to facilitate internet copyright infringement (piracy).

At present ISPs subject to blocking orders, which in the UK usually flow from Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA), have over the past 16 years or so become very common. Hundreds of sites have been blocked through this approach (thousands if you include their many proxies and mirrors), which usually include file sharing (P2P / Torrent), streaming sites, Sci-Hub and those that sell counterfeit goods etc.

Since then, we’ve also seen similar kinds of restrictions being imposed via some third-party Domain Name System (DNS) providers and efforts have also been made to target Virtual Private Networks (VPN) in some countries, as well as CDN providers and internet search engines etc. But keeping up with the ability of serious copyright infringers to rapidly change websites remains a common and often costly problem.

However, the new ruling – ‘Columbia Pictures and others v British Telecommunications and others’ (Case ID: IL-2025-000240), which has not yet been published in public, appears to represent a new generation of UK blocking orders that ISPs will soon need to contend with.

According to the MPA and TorrentFreak, it allows Columbia Pictures, Disney, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros (claimants in the case) to seek blocking of any “structurally infringing audiovisual piracy services that meet defined criteria, without having to bring a fresh court application for each new domain or site name available in the future … This is particularly important where piracy operators use generic, descriptive, or frequently changing names to avoid being captured by brand-based or domain-specific orders“.

MPA Summary

The Court accepted that this broader form of relief was necessary and proportionate in light of the scale and evolving nature of the problem of online infringements, the operational burden of repeated applications, and the demonstrated responsible use of site blocking remedies by rights holders over many years.

The order has a duration of 6 months and can be extended also depending on an ex-post reporting obligation, requiring rights holders to submit to the Court information on implementation and effectiveness, thereby preserving judicial oversight and accountability. This type of order does not require expanding intermediary liability but rather ensuring that existing no-fault injunction mechanisms remain practically effective in rapidly evolving online environments.

This development is particularly relevant in light of recent changes in the technical and operational behavior of piracy operators. While fully autonomous “agentic AI” systems are not yet known to be widely used in the piracy ecosystem, several technological developments are already materially lowering the barriers to large-scale domain hopping and evasive schemes, so that pirate operators can now rapidly deploy cloned streaming sites using openly available codebases and low-cost automated domain registration systems, often combined with bulk registration APIs and redirect-based migration strategies.

As a result, infringing services increasingly operate through rotating networks of domains, including generic or non-brand-related names specifically designed to evade traditional domain-specific or brand-based blocking measures. In some cases, operators maintain multiple interchangeable domains with substantially identical infrastructure, content libraries and functionality, allowing users to be seamlessly redirected to replacement domains.

Essentially, the new approach is much more automated and appears to cut out a fair bit of the process cost, at least for Rights Holders, in order to deliver both more rapid blocking and even unblocking, where needed. But it’s difficult to know how far this goes without being able to see a copy of the final legal text, and what, if any, safeguards might be in place to reduce the risk of accidental overclocking (lack of transparency).

Admittedly, this is still very much a game of whack-a-mole for Rights Holders, but the new order may help them to keep pace.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

ESPOO, FINLAND, May 26, 2026—Telia Finland and QMill have developed quantum-enhanced message encryption for mobile networks. QMill’s new encryption method is enabled by local or cloud quantum computers. Once completed, the method is designed to protect messages against attacks carried out using either classical or quantum resources.

”The security of our networks is becoming more crucial, especially for our mission-critical customers. In this first demonstration with QMill we focused on the most critical part of our network, but this method could be applied more widely and, in the long-term, it could potentially establish a new standard for encrypted communications,” says Jari Collin, Head of Customer Segment Defense, Telia Finland.

 “It is important that we were able to include Telia as a telecom operator in this phase. We will continue developing our quantum-enhanced security method with the objective of making it available as a standalone product, while also using it to complement other encryption methods by adding an additional layer of security,” says Hannu Kauppinen, CEO of QMill, which is a pioneering quantum algorithm and software company based in Finland.

The method has also been demonstrated to the Finnish Defense Forces. 

According to the C5 Division of the Defense Command Finland, “Encryption is a critical component of the Defense Forces’ information networks. It is important for us to monitor developments in both encryption and quantum technology, and to assess their impact on the systems used by the Defense Forces. Testing in collaboration with companies offers an interesting perspective on this.”

This demonstration complements Telia’s previous achievement of being the first commercial operator to successfully test quantum key distribution (QKD) in their network, done as part of Finland’s national quantum-secure network NaQCI.fi project. Quantum key distribution is based on transmitting quantum states. In the future, it could serve as one of the means of ensuring a high-level of security in dedicated infrastructure, as opposed to a standard mobile network, which was used in the latest demonstration.

In the future, Telia and QMill will expand the newly demonstrated point-to-point connection with quantum-enhanced security to a wide variety of use cases as part of their ongoing collaboration project.

_ _ _

About Telia
Telia is a technology company that provides telecommunications, IT and digital services to its millions of consumer and business customers as well as public administration. Telia has approximately 3300 employees in Finland, and our customers have nearly 4.4 million subscriptions in our various services. Safety is the starting point for everything we do. Telia strengthens its critical infrastructure by investing approximately EUR 200 million annually in Finland’s nationwide telecommunications networks and secure ICT services.

Telia Finland is part of Telia Company, which operates in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Telia Company’s revenue in 2024 was EUR 8 billion. The company is committed to achieving net zero emissions throughout its value chain by 2040.

Read more: www.telia.fi/medialle,  X: @teliafinland, LinkedIn: @Telia.

About QMill
QMill is a quantum‑algorithm and software company making quantum computing practical and accessible for real-world industrial use cases on existing and near‑term quantum computers. The company develops algorithms especially geared towards the NISQ era, supporting quantum researchers and developers as well as industrial sectors such as defense, energy, telecom, and transport. QMill is headquartered in Espoo, Finland. www.qmill.com

The post Telia and QMill demonstrate a new quantum-enhanced data encryption method for mobile networks appeared first on Total Telecom.