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The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has this afternoon opened two separate investigations into whether or not fibre optic network operator Zayo Group UK or digital communications provider Tata Communications (UK) “failed to comply” with the regulator’s requirements in their response to a statutory information request.

The regulator holds various information gathering powers to help them assess, monitor and govern the UK market. Naturally, communication providers are generally required to provide information, in a reasonable period of time, when responding to such requests. Crucially such providers are also required to ensure that the information they supply is accurate, to avoid misleading the regulator.

In this case, both Zayo and Tata were issued, on 23rd June 2026, with a statutory notice under section 135 of the Communications Act 2003 requiring the provision of information to assist Ofcom in assessing compliance with the security duties under sections 105A – 105D of the Act and the Electronic Communications (Security Measures) Regulations 2022

The Notice required the operators to provide information regarding the measures they were taking to comply with their network security duties, but Ofcom found evidence to suggest that neither operator may have provided “complete and/or accurate” information in response. In addition, Zayo alone may not have supplied the information to Ofcom within the required time-frame. See both cases here and here.

Ofcom will now examine whether both operators have failed to comply with their statutory duties in relation to these information requests. Such investigations often take anything from a few months to well over a year to complete, depending upon the complexities involved, thus it’s likely to be either the end of this year or sometime in 2027 before we see the outcome.

Assuming the regulator does find a breach of their rules then the outcome often only attracts relatively small to modest fines – frequently accompanied by a requirement to improve their processes and systems.

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The new UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, yesterday pledged to bring forward the introduction of several planned measures to help consumers exit bad contracts, stop misleading price promotions and to generally tackle “subscription traps“. Some of the new measures will now be introduced from January 2027, rather than next Spring, but others require further consultation.

The new rules appear to mark both an enhancement and acceleration of changes that were broadly already part of the measures first introduced under the recent Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA). The DMCCA specifically included measures to tackle Subscription Traps (i.e. situations in which businesses make it difficult for customers to exit their contract), which we’ve summarised below.

Tackling Subscription Traps

Under new rules, businesses must:

➤ Provide clearer information to consumers before they enter a subscription contract;

➤ Issue a reminder to consumers that a free trial or low-cost introductory offer is coming to an end, and a reminder before a contract auto-renews onto a new term; and

➤ Ensure consumers can exit a contract in a straightforward, cost-effective and timely way.

➤ An enhanced 14-day cooling-off period will also let consumers cancel after a trial or long-term contract renews.

In short, the Prime Minister intends to begin enforcing these measures a few months earlier than originally planned, which will now start from January 2027. We should point out that, when looking at the telecoms side of things, Ofcom and the government already have various rules and charters to encourage fair pricing and treatment of customers (e.g. End-of-Contract Notifications, One Touch Switching and the Telecoms Consumer Charter). The changes above will thus act as a complement to those and probably won’t change all that much.

The newer and thus more interesting part of the Government’s announcement is the plan to tackle “pretend prices and deceptive deals” (fake discounts). A consultation will launch “this autumn” to assess whether tactics such as fake “was” prices, invented discounts and misleading recommended retail prices (RRPs) should be added to the list of practices banned under the DMCCA.

On this point the government is referencing situations where service providers might, for example, briefly set a subscription price at a much higher (artificial) rate than it is usually sold, only to then suddenly introduce a new discount in order to call the deal “half-price” – even though technically it may not be half the price of its usual pricing level or even close.

Existing rules already exist to tackle misleading discount claims like this, but in practice enforcement is difficult, which the government acknowledges (there’s a lot of complexity with different platforms, comparison sites or A/B testing – often offering different discounts for the same package etc.). Suffice to say, even when the rules change, it’s not going to be an easy one to investigate.

“Under current laws, it can be difficult for enforcers to take on these cases. Adding these tactics to this list would mean they will automatically be considered unfair, making it easier to crack down while making rules simpler for businesses to follow,” said the Government’s announcement.

Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, said:

“I know people are sick and tired of rip-off discounts and subscription traps. Westminster has got used to telling people that everyday hassles like this are just part of life. I don’t think that’s right, especially when the cost of living continues to weigh heavily on so many people’s lives. I’m determined to pull every single lever we can to provide people with some room to breathe on the cost of living.

We’re putting an end to phoney bargains. If something is advertised as half price, it should actually be half price. We’re also making it as easy to leave a subscription as it is to join.

These are just two of the everyday fixes we’re going to be rolling out – today is just the start. We want to put more money in people’s pockets and give people hope that politics really can work for them and their everyday lives.”

Sadly the one thing still missing from this discussion is the ongoing issue of unfair mid-contract price hikes (example), which many consumers want to see banned. But so far the Government has tended to flip-flop over the issue more than a fish out of water. At the end of last year the government finally made clear that they had “no plans to ban in-contract price rises” for UK consumers taking broadband, mobile and phone services (here).

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A new report from the National Preparedness Commission (NPC), which is said to be an independent and non-political body focused on preparing the country for a major crisis, threats and incidents, has warned that the UK’s proposed plan to switch-off terrestrial TV signals in favour of broadband internet-based streaming “risks … over-concentrating communications on internet-based networks“.

Just to recap. Back in June 2026 the Government proposed a plan (here) to switch-off Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) signals in either 2034 or 2044 as part of a wider change to reflect the move to internet-based streaming. But the proposals primarily only considered the question of broadcasting policy and didn’t factor in the potential relevance of national resilience.

Funnily enough the Government has previously recognised the broader risk issues attached with an over-dependence upon modern digital infrastructure. For example, the government’s Chronic Risk Analysis assessment states: “Modern infrastructure, ranging from power grids to traffic systems, are deeply reliant on and integrated with digital platforms. Disruptions can lead to catastrophic failures, endangering safety and the economy”.

In short, if the internet goes down, how do you keep a society – one that in the future will have become dependent upon IP-based digital infrastructure – up-to-date without an effective national backup. Obviously, this is very much a worst-case scenario and the internet itself is designed to withstand all sorts of attacks, but it’s a fair point to debate.

Five Key Points of the NPC Report

1. The risk environment has changed.
Recent UK and European incidents, for example the April 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout that left more than half of Spanish mobile users without service within hoursvii, the March 2025 North Hyde substation fire that closed Heathrow Airport for almost a dayviii, and Storm Éowyn in January 2025 which left around a million homes without power and some communities offline for six days, demonstrate that disruption is no longer exceptional. Worse, interconnectedness of systems means that a single failure frequently cascades across sectors, especially where systems share dependencies on power, the internet, satellites and global software supply chains.

2. The UK’s tall tower broadcasting network is a unique, sovereign communications capability that other networks cannot replicate.
The network of more than 1,450 sites – including 16 of the UK’s 20 tallest structures – reaches 98.5% of UK households through a one-to-many architecture that is terrestrial, physically distributed, high-elevation, secure, and self-contained from the internet. Alongside DTT and radio, the tall tower network hosts services used by the emergency services, energy and water companies, and government departments. And the BBC’s FM Rebroadcast Standby Network underpins the Government’s “Go In, Stay In, Tune In” household emergency protocol. Removing DTT would not modernise the UK communications capability, it would narrow it.

3. DTT is the anchor use case that sustains the network’s scale, reach and economics – and the policy question is now clear.
The network operates as a shared infrastructure with a fixed cost base that is recovered across all users of the network (Chapter 3 provides more detail on the economics). DTT is by far the largest single user in cost terms, therefore maintaining DTT through 2044 is vital for the economics of other users of the network. Without it the knock-on increase in transmission charges for the radio sector would be around 35%, sufficient to put the range of services available to listeners at risk. 2044 also ensures the economic viability of the network for the many other users, the potential future use cases for the network, and the vital role it plays in providing public information in emergencies. Replicating these services in the absence of the existing network is a multi-billion-pound endeavour, compared to the £80-90 million annual cost to the public service broadcasters (PSBs) of DTT post 2034.

4. Resilience policy increasingly prioritises sovereign capability and maintenance of multiple routes for delivering critical services.
Communications policy should do the same. Across government, resilience planning seeks to avoid single points of failure: the electricity grid is designed with redundancy, cash is protected as a fallback when digital payments fail, and the UK is investing in sovereign Positioning, Navigation and Timing capabilities (PNT). Broadcasting and communications policy should reflect the same logic. If households are advised to keep a battery-powered or wind-up radio for use during emergencies, the infrastructure that broadcasts those services should also be protected.

5. The growth of internet-based services has brought major benefits, but it has also created new shared dependencies and risks.
Many services now rely on the same underlying infrastructure: electricity networks, broadband and mobile connectivity, data centres, cloud providers and subsea cables. When one part of that system fails, the effects can cascade across multiple services. The National Risk Register 2025 identifies reliance on digital platforms and services as a source of chronic risk. A resilient communications strategy should therefore maintain a terrestrial broadcast layer that remains available when internet-dependent systems are disrupted.

The report concludes by making a series of recommendations, such as calling for the adoption of the 2044 switch-off timeline instead of 2034; including the tall tower network’s resilience value into future government thinking (inc. in future impact assessments); and seeking an independent report to analyse the role the tall tower network “can and should play in hosting and delivering emerging sovereign capabilities“.

In fairness the UK would still have the cell-broadcast Emergency Alerts service, even in a future dominated by the internet. But the report makes the point that this “is not, by itself, a complete public-warning system” and during tests not all devices were found to be compatible (80% were compatible, although 7% of those didn’t receive the alerts due to other reasons, such as being in aeroplane mode etc.).

“Broadcast radio and television provide the second, structurally distinct route. Both are present in the household whether or not the household has a smartphone, a charged battery, mobile signal or working broadband. Both are capable of reaching the population at the same instant, without congestion or queuing. And both are integrated into existing public-warning “Go In, Stay In, Tune In” guidance. In the moments when an alert is most consequential, having multiple means of communication is not redundancy, it is deliberate strategic capacity,” explained the report.

Finally, there would be the question of cost and who pays for maintaining the old network infrastructure. The report argues that this may be less of an issue than the cost of replicating the value of the existing tall towers network, which would be a multi-billion pound endeavour and “is one that must be compared against the £80-90 million annual cost to the PSBs of retaining DTT post 2034“, said the report.

The resilience case for retaining terrestrial TV and the UK’s tall tower network
https://nationalpreparednesscommission.uk/../NPC_Broadcast2040_When-the-internet-stops.pdf

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Some existing customers of mobile operator Three UK, specifically those who have the Paramount+ add-on included with their ‘Complete‘ plan, have responded to the looming price hike on the streaming service by taking the option to remove it from their package. The catch is that doing so seems to require you to accept the operator’s new 100Mbps cap on mobile broadband speeds.

Back in April 2026 we reported that Three UK had moved to mirror Vodafone by introducing mobile broadband (4G, 5G) speed caps of between 25Mbps and 100Mbps (Megabits per second) across various mobile plans (here) – those still wanting “full speed” could take it via a £4 add-on. But this was only for new customers, while existing users with uncapped speeds could continue to enjoy it, at least until they needed to recontract.

The latest development relates to customers of Three’s Complete plans, which often came bundled with a free period of the Paramount+ streaming service and currently also offer the bonus of inclusive roaming in over 160 worldwide destinations. Sadly, such users were recently notified that “Paramount+ will increase from £7.99 to £9.99 a month from 27th August 2026 for new and existing customers“.

The problem, as spotted by one of ISPreview’s forum members and Three UK customer MissTuned (here), is not so much the price increase but the fact that when customers take the option to simply remove the add-on, Three UK then rather sneakily seems to change the rest of their contract to impose the 100Mbps speed cap too.

Three UK Customer MissTuned said:

Watch out with Three – they sent me an email about the price of Paramount going up. I have literally never used Paramount and never will, so I decided to go and remove the add-on from my account to avoid getting billed when the free period runs out.

At the very last moment in the “remove add-on” section, I noticed that the process would also change my speed cap to “up to 100Mbps”, they are sneaking it on with every account change you make! This is a contract that has quite a long time left to run, so it seems that they’re treating “get rid of Paramount” as a contract change which then allows them to hit you with the speed cap.

The other issue, as can be seen in the example screenshot below, is that Three also appears to propose an additional update to the customer’s inclusive roaming on the same plan. But unlike with the introduction of a speed cap, they don’t make completely clear what has actually changed with this one.

“It feels like they are using Paramount, which is a pretty useless also-ran TV streamer, as an add-on that people will want to cancel, and in cancelling it they’ll accidentally speed cap their package. There’s also the unspecified change to roaming, which isn’t clarified other than that the roaming allowance shows as “updated” when you go to remove Paramount, I presume the removal of some countries or partners,” complained MissTuned.

The related Paramount+ price increase notification page on Three’s website makes no mention of the additional caveats. Most operators usually treat adjustments to add-ons separately from wider package features. ISPreview has queried the situation with Three to clarify if this is a mistake or not, and we’ll report back as soon as they respond.

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An important development recently happened in Germany as mobile operators switched off the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), which meant that users would in future be limited to sending pictures, short videos and audio files to other mobile phone users via internet-based messaging platforms (RCS, WhatsApp, iMessage etc.). But this raises the question, when might the UK follow?

The commercial deployment of MMS started around 2002 and only really became popular alongside the introduction of 3G mobile services a year later, which were much better at being able to send such data over nascent mobile broadband connectivity. Unlike regular SMS (text messaging), MMS also allowed users to send media content like pictures.

Despite this, MMS could be quite restrictive (character and file size limits etc.) and sending an individual message via the cellular network was often far from cheap. Even accidentally sending an emoji alongside your text message, which would often convert it to an MMS, could sometimes rack up quite a bill if such messaging wasn’t included in your plan (this caused plenty of annoyance).

However, the service quickly found itself competing for user attention with internet-based (IP) messaging platforms, which became much more viable as mobile data prices dropped. Services like RCS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and so forth have grown significantly over the past decade or so and don’t suffer the same limitations. Suffice to say that MMS has largely been eclipsed by those IP-based platforms.

Dario Betti, CEO of the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF), told ISPreview:

“UK mobile operators including Vodafone UK, O2 UK, EE and Three continue to support MMS, meaning that it is still available for certain consumer and enterprise use cases.

The UK has a strong CPaaS [Communications Platforms as a Service] ecosystem, advanced A2P [Application-to-Person] messaging market and also increasing adoption of RCS Business Messaging. This means that operators are likely to take a more commercially driven approach to any future migration from MMS. Germany’s experience gives us a useful case study which demonstrates both the opportunities and risks associated with retiring legacy messaging services.

For UK operators, the key lesson is not simply whether MMS should eventually be switched off, but whether the industry has built a sufficiently robust RCS, CPaaS and AI-powered messaging ecosystem to replace the reach, reliability and revenue that legacy services currently still provide.”

Crucially it’s unclear how many people still use MMS in the UK (personally I have only sent a single MMS in the last decade) and thus it’s difficult to gauge the real-world economic impact of its potential removal. ISPreview did contact EE, O2 and VodafoneThree to query what they thought about the change in Germany and when the UK might follow suit.

At the time of writing only O2 has responded. A spokesperson for the operator said they couldn’t rule out switching off MMS “one day in the future“, but they currently have “no active plans” to retire it. Regular readers will know that we always take any mention of “no plans” with a pinch of salt, as plans can and often do change, frequently at short notice. We suspect O2’s position will be the same for EE and VodafoneThree.

As for Germany, by the time mobile operators pulled the plug MMS usage had already plummeted by over 96% from its 2012 peak. German mobile users had already long abandoned the service. The operators that turned the service off also saved money on costly licensing fees, reduced backend maintenance, fewer customer support issues and so forth.

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Network analyst firm Streetwave has revealed that they’ve been chosen by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority in England to conduct a real-world study of mobile network coverage and 4G / 5G data performance across the region, harnessing 12,000km of the county’s road network and testing all three of the primary mobile networks – EE, O2 and VodafoneThree (Vodafone and Three UK).

Just to recap. Streetwave works by harnessing waste bin (refuse) collection lorries to map mobile network coverage and data speeds across various parts of the UK (e.g. here, here, here, here and here). In this setup, refuse trucks are installed with several off-the-shelf Smartphones using special software, which run continuous network tests (once every 20 metres in rural areas and 5m in urban areas) as the vehicles go around their routes.

The data they collect is often then used by local authorities to help identify areas that may require additional intervention in order to improve local mobile coverage and or network capacity, while also giving locals access to some of this data via address-based coverage checkers and interactive maps (https://app.streetwave.co/coverage-checker/).

The region-wide mobile coverage monitoring programme for West Yorkshire will include the areas covered by Leeds City Council, Bradford Council, Calderdale Council, Kirklees Council and the Wakefield Council. Suffice to say this is a large area and, over the next 12 months, StreetWave will need to conduct two full surveys of each local authority area (road network) – passing masses of homes, businesses and public sector sites etc.

“This will help identify connectivity gaps, monitor improvements over time, and support future digital infrastructure investment across the region. The results will also be shared with the region’s 2.4 million residents through Streetwave’s free to use coverage checker. Together, the surveys will provide the evidence needed to improve digital connectivity across one of England’s largest combined authorities,” said the company.

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A new report has today claimed that Octopus Investments, via infrastructure investor Fern Trading, is on the verged of entering into advanced talks to acquire TalkTalk Group’s wholesale broadband and Ethernet business – PlatformX Communications (PXC). TalkTalk’s consumer business is also now said to be fielding interest from Opus Broadband, in addition to Vodafone and possibly others.

Last month ISPreview reported that PXC had attracted interest from both Africa-focused Telecel and private equity firm Epiris (here), the latter of which was said to have teamed up with PXC executive chairman Tom O’Hagan (he only recently helped acquire business provider Entanet from full fibre operator CityFibre – here). But SkyNews now claims that Octopus appears to have beaten interest from Epiris to become the front-runner for a deal.

The talks, if confirmed in the very near future, are expected to value the business in the hundreds of millions of pounds and will require a period of exclusivity – lasting several weeks – in order to try and finalise an agreement. The deal is particularly interesting because Fern Trading also backs wholesale fibre business AllPoints Fibre Networks (APFN) and London-focused business ISP Vorboss.

The news follows shortly after other reports indicated that broadband and mobile operator Vodafone (VodafoneThree) had tabled a bid for TalkTalk’s consumer business (here), which is a pairing that would seem to be quite complementary. According to SkyNews, wireless ISP Opus Broadband (formerly 6G Internet), which is connected to network operator IX Wireless and Tahir Mohsan, is also understood to have expressed an interest in bidding.

Suffice to say that the future of TalkTalk’s various debt-troubled businesses may finally be decided before the end of 2027, although it’s important to stress that anything can happen and no final agreements have yet been reached. But of course it’s also possible that the leaks to Sky could be part of a tactical strategy by interested parties.

One other thing worth considering is that TalkTalk’s consumer business is strongly linked to PXC’s wholesale products. In other words, any deal for one side of the business or the other may well require some agreement on how that relationship continues into the future.

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Liverpool-based UK ISP Giant has introduced a new network-level internet content filtering and security service called ‘Guardian‘ for their customers, which is available for free on all of their broadband packages and is designed to “work across every connected device — no downloads or per-device setup required“.

Guardian is designed to give Giant’s customers a single, simple switch so that they can block malicious websites — and optionally adult content — across every phone, laptop, smart TV, games console and IoT device on their Wi-Fi network.

Just to be clear, existing customers can also access the new feature for free, so it’s not only a product for new subscribers. Customers of the service can simply switch Guardian on directly from the Giant portal, choosing between three different levels:

• Guardian Off — Standard internet with nothing blocked, for customers who already run their own filtering.
• Guardian Standard — Automatically blocks websites known to spread malware, phishing scams and credential theft. Recommended for every household.
• Guardian Family — Everything Standard blocks, plus adult content. Designed for households with children.

The changes, once applied, are said to take effect in seconds and can be reversed at any time. There are no data caps, no throttling, and no impact on connection speed.

Callum Longworth, Direct of Giant, said:

“We wanted online safety at Giant to be genuinely easy — no downloads, no per-device setup, no confusing settings pages. Guardian is one tap in your account and it protects everything. It’s the kind of thing we wish every broadband provider had built in as standard, so we did it.”

A number of other broadband ISPs also have network-level security filters, including most of the major ISPs, although some of them do tend to reserve their more advanced features for a paid upgrade. However, we would always advise consumers to ensure that they’re also using good anti-virus/firewall software on their computers, as network-level filtering like this doesn’t catch everything.

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European satellite operator Eutelsat just published their results for the year ended 30th June 2026 and reported that their revenues from OneWeb’s constellation of ultrafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) “beat expectations“, jumping by 69.5% to €297m (accounting for 25% of the group’s overall revenues).

OneWeb, which regular readers may recall was originally rescued from bankruptcy by the UK government and Indian group Bharti Global, before later becoming a part of Eutelsat – with concessions (here), currently has 654 small (c.150kg) first generation (GEN1) LEO satellites in space – orbiting at an altitude of 1,200km (c.600 of them for coverage and the rest for redundancy).

Plans also exist to renew and enhance the constellation with a further 440 satellites being planned for launch (aka – “Eutelsat Next“) – starting later in 2026 (here). Eutelsat’s latest results also confirm that an approximately €1 billion Export Credit Agency (ECA)-backed financing facility exists to support the acquisition of those new satellites from Airbus Defence and Space.

“These satellites will provide full operational continuity for OneWeb LEO constellation customers, gradually replacing existing satellites at the end of their operational life,” said the company. The results didn’t add much to that, but did reveal that the OneWeb side of the business now has 496 employees, which is slightly down from the 510 they had last year.

The first of the second generation of Eutelsat’s LEO satellites (Eutelsat Next) are due to be delivered by around the end of 2026. The first generation OneWeb satellites will then be gradually de-orbited as they reach the end of their useful lifespan (LEO spacecraft are designed to only have a short c.5 year lifespan before gravity and atmospheric drag pulls them down again).

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The Director of Network Technology at national UK broadband operator Openreach (BT), Trevor Linney, has today reported that “full fibre usage” – driven by live TV video streaming and new video game updates – across their network increased by 37% in the first half of 2026, compared with the same period last year.

“That tells us something important: people aren’t just using more data, they’re increasingly relying on Full Fibre to do more online, more reliably and with fewer frustrations. And it’s not hard to see why. Today’s typical households often have several people online at the same time – streaming, gaming, video calling, shopping or working. Full fibre is built for that world,” said Linney.

Sadly, we don’t get much context for that 37% figure (i.e. is it total data consumption, peak daily usage or something else), which makes it tricky to analyse in the correct context. But at the start of this year Openreach did report (here) that broadband usage across their UK network increased by the more expected figure of 4.8% in 2025 (down from 10.5% in 2024) to total 108,599 PetaBytes (PB) of data (up from 103,590PB). But at the same time, they said that data usage on their full fibre network had “exploded” by 40% in the prior year.

The average Full Fibre customer on their network was previously also said to be chewing through 22.1GB (GigaBytes) a day, although they haven’t issued an updated figure on that today. Just for some extra context, Ofcom reported at the end of 2025 that the average monthly fixed broadband data usage per connection is now 583GB across “all technologies” (up from 531GB in 2024), which increased to an average of 738GB for full-fibre connections (oddly this was down a bit from 766GB).

Demand for data is of course constantly rising and broadband connections are forever getting faster, thus new peaks of usage are being set all the time. But broadband ISPs often mitigate this somewhat by harnessing sophisticated Content Delivery Networks (CDN), which cache popular content closer in the network to users (i.e. improves performance without adding strain, which also keeps costs down).