The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) looks set to start a year-long trial that will upgrade trains on the Far North and Kyle lines (railway) in the Highlands of Scotland with “the best Wi-Fi experience of any train service” in the UK. The capacity for this will be supplied by unspecified broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

The project, which appears to have the backing of both ScotRail and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), aims to start fitting the new system during this autumn (2024). The service itself would then become available from December 2024 and run until the end of 2025.

Trains that run on these routes typically pass through some of the most intermittent and least reliable areas of mobile network coverage in the UK, which is obviously something that the new system could tackle. But it would cost around £26,700 per two-car train to deliver, which is after the one-off design costs of £95,000 and one-off system integration of £40,000 (i.e. the first train conversion will cost up to just under £162k).

The cost of potentially deploying this across all 25 of the Class 158 fleet of trains based in Inverness (i.e. not only those on the Far North Line) could, however, reach “just” £802,500 if the trial were to be rolled out more widely.

Robert Gardner, Associate Director of the SFT, said (Inverness Courier):

“High-speed broadband internet access on trains would be a major step towards improving the passenger experience and could provide significant benefits to both passengers and train operating companies.

Many rail passengers may need to stay connected to the internet during their journey, whether for work or personal reasons. Providing internet access can make their journey more convenient, attractive, and enjoyable.

Many people use their commute time to catch up on work, answer emails, or complete other tasks. With good internet access, commuters can stay connected and productive during their ride, maximizing their time.”

The article doesn’t mention which satellite operator would supply the service, although both OneWeb (here) and Starlink have suitable LEO broadband networks and related technologies.

Telecoms analyst firm Juniper Research has used an April 2024 survey of 3,300 UK mobile subscribers to identify that iD Mobile ranks top as the “leading network operator in the UK for subscriber roaming satisfaction in 2024“, which saw them achieve a net promoter score of 77%.

The survey claims that 85% of iD Mobile subscribers reported a positive experience when managing their mobile subscription whilst abroad. Since the UK left the European Union (EU), subscribers no longer qualify for the free roaming initiative (Roam Like At Home), which has resulted in a fair bit of variation among roaming offerings and charges.

However, the study claims that iD Mobile “offers the most free roaming data across the EU” in its standard roaming packages (i.e. a fair usage cap of 30 GigaBytes for mobile broadband), and thus its subscribers have not yet been all that negatively impacted by the recent return to roaming charges – as adopted by many other operators. A few others, like O2, also offer inclusive data roaming, but apply different limits (e.g. O2 limits you to 25GB).

Best Five UK Mobile Operators for Subscriber Roaming Experience
1. iD Mobile – 77%
2. O2 (Virgin Media) – 75%
3. Tesco Mobile – 74%
4. giffgaff – 73%
5. Vodafone – 68%

Notably, the survey also claims to have found that 5G connectivity was the “least in-demand element of roaming packages“, indicating subscribers find roaming over 4G networks sufficient for their needs when travelling. But the full details are locked behind a paid survey report and weren’t included in Juniper’s press summary.

Report author, Elisha Sudlow-Poole, said: “To compete effectively with iD Mobile, mobile operators must not only look to reinstate free EU roaming for mobile subscribers, but also seek to improve consumer education around roaming options, by offering user-friendly tools like pre-travel notifications and roaming cost calculators to avoid customer confusion.”

At this point it may be worth noting that Ofcom recently finalised new rules that will require mobile network operators to protect UK consumers who travel abroad from mobile BILL SHOCKS on data (broadband), call and text charges (here).

The London Internet Exchange (LINX), which handles a key chunk of UK and global data traffic through their switches via 950+ members (broadband and mobile operators etc.), has today announced that alternative full fibre network provider toob has become the first ISP to take a 400G (Gbps) port at the IXP for their peering services and more.

Just for some context. Toob is a Hampshire-based operator that was originally backed by £75m from the Amber Infrastructure Group (here) and “up to” £87.5m from the Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund (here). During 2023 the operator also secured £160m of additional funding (debt financing) from Ares Management‘s Infrastructure Debt strategy (here), which could be upsized to £300m over time to support growth.

Toob’s own FTTP broadband network is known to cover 150,000 premises (24th Aug 2023 – not all RFS) and they’re aiming to reach 300,000 premises across parts of Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex in the future. In June 2024 the provider also revealed that they’d passed 50,000 customers (here), which is more than double the 20,000 they had a year earlier.

Suffice to say that they’ve seen a fair bit of growth and as part of adapting to that they’ve taken the first 400G port at LINX, which actually introduced 400G ports towards the end of 2021 due to customer demand. LINX enlisted technical supplier Nokia to deliver this additional service. But so far at LINX’s UK platforms, it’s mainly global content delivery (CDN) networks or global carriers who have traditionally had demand for this solution.

Sean Teggart, Technology Director of toob, said:

“We are thrilled to pioneer the adoption of 400G technology at LINX, reaffirming our dedication to delivering unmatched broadband connectivity in the UK. This strategic upgrade not only enhances our network’s capacity but also increases toob’s reliability and prepares us to support the future needs of our customers.”

Jennifer Holmes, CCO for LINX, said:

“We are really excited to be supporting and celebrating toob during their upgrade to 400G, the first UK ISP to take this step. This reflects the continued growth and demand of online services, good connectivity and the Internet as a whole in the UK.”

The new 400G port appears to have been connected within LINX’s largest LON1 (London) Ethernet switching platform, which is accessible from 16 data centre locations.

News

AustralianSuper says Optus is failing to deliver the more than 500 additional towers it requires as part of a deal with Australia Tower Network

According to The Australian Financial Review, Australian telco Optus is in the midst of a dispute with pension fund AustralianSuper, with the latter accusing them of failing to build new towers as per their agreement.

Back in 2021, AustralianSuper bought a 70% stake in Australian Tower Network (ATN) from Optus’ parent company Singtel for A$1.9 billion.

As part of the agreement, Optus was obligated to build 565 additional towers via ATN in the next three years, to be added to the 2,312 sites already included in the deal.

Now, with the three-year deadline approaching, Optus is reportedly behind schedule on its tower build, a fact it blames on struggling to identify suitable locations.

The exact tower deficit is unclear.

Reports suggest that discussions between Optus and ATN to resolve the issue are ongoing.

ATN acquired its tower rival Axicom in 2022, a move that saw it roughly double its tower footprint across the country. Shortly after, the company subsequently rebranded as Indara.

Join the conversation around all things connectivity at this year’s Connected Britain conference, 11-12 September in London. Get tickets here! 

Also in the news:
NTT to launch new AI company ‘NTT AI-CIX’
Thousands of kms of fibre could be left underutilised warns asset reuse specialist
IOH launches Southeast Asia’s largest digital intelligence operations centre

News

The partnership will offer businesses the tools they need to innovate while protecting their data 

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) has teamed up with Google Cloud to bring advanced cloud services to Indonesia, addressing the country’s strict data residency, security, and privacy requirements.  

The expanded partnership will introduce Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) to various sectors across the country, allowing organisations to manage AI and data-heavy tasks while maintaining control over sensitive data.  

The collaboration will support industries such as public services, defence, healthcare, finance, energy, and manufacturing.  

GDC offers a range of features, such as a fully managed solution that can operate either fully disconnected from the public internet for highly sensitive tasks or connected between edge locations and Google’s Indonesian data centers. This flexibility allows organisations to choose the setup that best suits their needs. 

Indosat Group will provide hosting options for GDC through its data center unit, ensuring that all data stays within the country and complies with local law. 

“Indonesia is paving the way towards its golden era in 2045. Indosat Group is committed to contributing through technological advancements in pursuit of this vision,” said Vikram Sinha, President Director and Chief Executive Officer of IOH.  

“The partnership with Google Cloud is driven by empowering Indonesia, aiming to deliver the country’s first sovereign cloud and edge cloud solutions. These solutions will equip organizations with the state-of-the-art infrastructure, operational features, and developer tools they need to accelerate digitalization at scale,” he continued. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter. 

Also in the news:
NTT to launch new AI company ‘NTT AI-CIX’
Thousands of kms of fibre could be left underutilised warns asset reuse specialist
IOH launches Southeast Asia’s largest digital intelligence operations centre

News

In the company’s latest annual report directors warned that the business could collapse “in August 2024 or sooner” 

TalkTalk has staved off defaulting on its debt by securing a refinancing package exceeding £400 million, led by its founder, Sir Charles Dunstone. 

Announced today, the deal involves shareholders — including Dunstone, Ares Management, and Toscafund — immediately injecting £65 million in interim funds into the company. 

An additional £170 million is set to follow, contingent upon the finalisation of binding agreements among all involved parties. The total refinancing package is reportedly worth £400 million.  

Assets currently held separately, such as TalkTalk’s Virtual1 subsidiary and the customer bases from Ovo and Shell, will also contribute. 

As part of the agreement, the company’s bank lenders and bondholders have agreed to extend two approaching debt deadlines from November and next February to September 2027. This extension affords TalkTalk additional time to roll out its strategic initiatives for PlatformX (its wholesale division) and its consumer division. 

TalkTalk have been struggling with debt for several years, with the total currently standing at around £1 billion.  

Earlier this month, it was reported that Macquarie, who had been in line to acquire a £450 million stake in PlatformX, had walked away from the deal. Reports have suggested that Macquarie could reopen negotiations if TalkTalk’s financial situation improves. 

“The company is pleased to announce that the key terms of a refinancing transaction have been agreed between a group of senior secured notes (SSN) holders, a group of revolving credit facilities (RCF) banks (the SSN group and RCF group together represent approximately 60 per cent of the company’s secured debt), Ares Management Funds and the company’s major shareholders,” said the company in a statement. 

“The proposed transaction will leave the company well-funded to deliver the respective strategic plans of PlatformX Communications and TalkTalk, continuing to capitalise on their strong positions in the market.” 

Join the conversation on the UK connectivity market at this year’s Connected Britain, 11-12 September in London. Get tickets here!  

Also in the news:
NTT to launch new AI company ‘NTT AI-CIX’
Thousands of kms of fibre could be left underutilised warns asset reuse specialist
IOH launches Southeast Asia’s largest digital intelligence operations centre

News 

The UK mobile operators will all be promoting the campaign on their various platforms 

This week, Mobile UK, the trade association for the UK’s mobile network operators (MNOs), has launched its Better Connected Rural Campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the benefits of connectivity to rural communities. 

The campaign began today with a podcast episode featuring Iain Milligan, Chief Network Officer of Three UK, which discussed how mobile connectivity is transforming the UK’s agricultural industry. 

Mobile UK’s Director of Policy and Communications Gareth Elliott will also host a vlog of a trip to the remote Scottish island of South Uist, meeting with local residents and council leaders to discuss the importance of connectivity in remote locations. 

Throughout this week, Mobile UK will be posting and sharing content using the hashtag #BetterConnectedRural. 

All four of the UK’s MNOs are part of the Shared Rural Network (SRN), a joint initiative between the UK government and the MNOs to significantly improve rural mobile coverage. The project involves sharing infrastructure between the operators to ensure that coverage gaps are filled, as well as deploying new shared sites in hard-to-reach locations. By 2025, the SRN aims to see 4G coverage expanded to cover 95% of the UK’s geographic area.  

EE is currently the only operator to have completed its first phase of its SRN rollout, achieving its 2024 targets in January, six months ahead of schedule.  

To complete the first phase of the project, operators have to get rid of coverage ‘partial not-spots’ by extending the reach of their 4G networks. ‘Partial not-spots’ are defined as areas that receive coverage from at least one operator, but not all of them.  

For EE to have completed this phase before its rivals should not come as a great surprise; as the UK’s largest operator, most of this target could be achieved by upgrading the company’s existing sites. EE’s rivals, on the other hand, all need to deploy more new sites to meet their own commitments.  

In fact, this deployment process is taking longer than hoped, with Virgin Media O2, Three UK, and Vodafone jointly requesting a deadline extension of 18 months in order to hit their SRN coverage targets. This request was rejected by the UK government, putting additional pressure on these operators to accelerate their efforts in the coming months. 

Join Iain Milligan on the day one CXO keynote panel at this year’s Connected Britain, 11-12 September in London. Get discounted tickets here! 

Also in the news:
NTT to launch new AI company ‘NTT AI-CIX’
Thousands of kms of fibre could be left underutilised warns asset reuse specialist
IOH launches Southeast Asia’s largest digital intelligence operations centre

News

The deal will see Altice UK’s 24.5% stake in the business transferred gradually to India’s second largest telco, Bharti Airtel

This morning, it has been announced that billionaire Patrick Drahi’s Altice UK is selling its stake in BT to Bharti Airtel.

The move will see Altice UK transfer its 24.5% stake in the business to Airtel piecemeal, with an initial instalment of 9.99%. The rest of the stake will be transferred following the prerequisite security checks by the UK government.

The financial value of the deal was not announced, but is reportedly around £4 billion.

“We welcome investors who recognise the long-term value of our business, and this scale of investment from Bharti Global is a great vote of confidence,” said BT CEO Allison Kirkby in a filing statement.

“BT has enjoyed a long association with Bharti Enterprises, and I’m pleased that they share our ambition and vision for the future of our business. They have a strong track record of success in the sector, and I look forward to ongoing and positive engagement with them in the months and years to come.”

Drahi first took a 12.1% stake in BT back in 2021, creating Altice UK specifically for the purpose. Since then, Altice UK has slowly grown its stake in the business to today’s 24.5%, with Drahi consistently assuring stakeholders that it had no intention of taking over the UK largest telco.

This did not stop rumours flying, however, with reports last year suggesting the billionaire was looking to increase his stake even further, potentially up to 29.9%

In the last year, however, Altice’s fortunes have changed. Drahi’s considerable telecoms empire has been built on a mountain of debt that now stands at around $60 billion. Interest on these debts already account for the majority of the Group’s operating capital, with some of these loans maturing as early as 2027. As such, the Drahi has recently reversed course with Altice, moving to streamline the business and sell off its less critical business units.

This, it seems, is the primary motivation for the sale of the company’s stake in BT.

For Airtel, on the other hand, the acquisition represents a vote of confidence in Kirkby and her long-term strategic vision for the UK operator.

“BT to my mind has a much brighter future ahead and they need to be following their strategy, if I may say, even more boldly,” Bharti chair Sunil Bharti Mittal told reporters.”We are not in this for making a buck or looking at stock markets up or down. We are long-term telecom investors.”

Airtel is not the only company to show growing interest in BT in recent months. Earlier this summer, America Movil’s owner, billionaire Carlos Slim, purchased a 3% stake in the business for £400 million.

Join the conversation around the UK’s connectivity landscape at this year’s Connected Britain, 11-12 September in London. Get tickets here! 

Also in the news:
NTT to launch new AI company ‘NTT AI-CIX’
Thousands of kms of fibre could be left underutilised warns asset reuse specialist
IOH launches Southeast Asia’s largest digital intelligence operations centre

New data from Thinkbroadband has provided an updated independent assessment of how big – in terms of network coverage (premises passed) – the top 20 largest Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP networks in the UK have become by the end of July 2024. In this article, we compare that data against official coverage claims.

One of the challenges with keeping tabs on the rapid UK growth of full fibre broadband networks is that some network operators often make coverage claims that are difficult to independently verify. This is relevant because we’ve often times found that the official “premises passed” figures put out by some providers may not entirely reflect reality.

For example, in some cases those figures could include part-built networks that aren’t fully live yet and, in other cases, the network may be technically built, but customers in some of the covered areas won’t be able to get it ordered or installed by an ISP (i.e. not yet truly “Ready for Service” – RFS). Similarly, in a smaller number of cases, operators can sometimes make mistakes in their data (example).

The latest State of Broadband Report (July 2024) from TBB is thus very useful because we get an up-to-date run-down of how much coverage has been independently verified to exist (RFS) across the largest alternative network (altnet) operators in the full fibre space. We can then compare TBB’s data with the official coverage claims from operators.

Naturally, there are a few caveats to consider when doing this, which need to be reflected for the proper context. Firstly, TBB is not perfect, and they do sometimes miss bits and pieces of network coverage (please email them if you spot this). Secondly, conducting independent analysis of network builds like this is slow and laborious work, thus over the years we’ve tended to perceive that TBB’s latest data can be 2-3 months behind actual build.

Such a time lag, which is likely to vary between operators, may not seem like much, but it can create disproportionately large gaps between independent and official figures. Big gaps are most likely to occur during the early ramp-up phase of a new network build, where smaller networks may go from having a few tens of thousands of premises passed to hundreds of thousands and all within the space of a year (some networks are still in this phase).

Suffice to say, it’s wise not to make the mistake of automatically inferring that a big gap is because an altnet may be overstating their coverage. In addition, we’ve also dated the official claims below as most operators only very occasionally provide an update on their build progress and some haven’t done one in a long time, which will thus be out of step with TBB’s latest modelling.

Top 20 Largest UK Full Fibre Networks by Coverage – July 2024

Operator
Premises Jul 2024 (Jan 2024) – TBB Analysis

Official Claim

Openreach (BT)
14.8 million (12.5m)
15m – Jul 2024

CityFibre
3.8m (2.9m)
3.6m Built (3.3m RFS) – May 2024

Virgin Media (RFOG)
1.6m (1.5m)
It’s complicated (see below)

CommunityFibre
1.5m (1.3m)
1.3m homes & 185k businesses – Nov 2023

Hyperoptic
1.1m (1.1m)
1.73m – Jul 2024

Nexfibre (Virgin Media)
1.1m (546,000)
1.28m – Jul 2024

Netomnia (YouFibre)
1m (745,000)
1m RFS – Jul 2024

Brsk
583,000 (390,000)
573,050 RFS – Jul 2024

Gigaclear
508,000 (389,000)
500,000 RFS – 27th Mar 2024

Trooli
421,000 (334,000)
370,000 RFS – 19th Jul 2024

FullFibre Limited
379,000 (172,000)
339,000 RFS – 23rd May 2024

Fibrus
353,000 (291,000)
354,000 (337k RFS) – 31st Mar 2024

AllPoints Fibre
289,000
none

KCOM
281,000 (276,000)
297,000 – Mar 2023

G.Network
250,000 (248,000)
330,000 – Mar 2023

F&W Networks
238,000
410,000 RFS – Feb 2024

Grain (Grain Connect)
211,000
220,000 RFS – May 2024

Zzoomm
202,000 (182,000)
200,000 RFS – Jun 2024

ITS Technology (mostly biz fibre)
191,000 (187,000)
none

MS3
184,000
200,000 (171,814 RFS) – May 2024

As usual, we aren’t going to micro analyse each operator above, but most of TBB’s real-world focused estimates of Ready for Service (RFS) coverage are roughly where we’d expect them to be when compared with official claims. But there are a few caveats to point out above for certain operators.

Firstly, Virgin Media’s network is currently in the middle of a major upgrade, which is seeing XGS-PON based FTTP being deployed into areas that could previously only access their Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network. Currently, it’s a little bit difficult to track these XGS areas, and thus TBB has only included the figure for their older Radio Frequency Over Glass (RFOG) based FTTP build.

Meanwhile, the nexfibre build is technically a separate company and so gets its own entry, despite only selling packages via Virgin Media. The official nexfibre figures also haven’t yet been updated to add 175,000 premises from Upp’s recent merger, but that should happen soon. Officially, Virgin Media and Nexfibre claim to have passed a total of 5 million premises with FTTP.

Elsewhere, Netomnia and Brsk are in the process of merging, thus in the future they’ll combine and would be today delivering around 1.6m premises passed – putting them above CommunityFibre in the above table. As for CityFibre, it’s currently unclear whether TBB’s figure of 3.8m has included their recent acquisition of Lit Fibre or not (technically Lit’s premises have yet to be integrated into City’s network).

The table this time also includes the additions of F&W Networks, Grain, AllPoints Fibre (this largely reflects the combination of Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre and Giganet) and MS3. Finally, it’s important to remember that a lot of these FTTP operators are overbuilding rivals in different parts of the country, particularly dense urban locations. But if we were to just look at the UK coverage of alternative networks (excluding Openreach, Virgin Media and KCOM) then they’d reach 35.9% of premises (up from 30.78% in Jan 2024).

The Horsham-based Telecom Acquisitions Group (TAL), which is a holding company for several familiar UK residential broadband brands (Home Telecom, Eclipse Broadband etc.), has today announced that they’ve acquired the remaining residential customers of ISP Gigabit Networks that were on CityFibre and FullFibre Ltd. networks.

In case anybody has forgotten, TAL first announced in June 2024 (here) that they’d acquired the CityFibre (FTTP) linked residential customer base of ISP Gigabit Networks (here), which left the retail ISP to focus on the business connectivity (wholesale etc.) side of their operations. The move impacted some 2,000 customers.

The change today is that TAL have now purchased the remaining residential customers that were on both the CityFibre and FullFibre Limited networks, which in total represents an additional circa 2,300 customers. As usual, the acquired base will be switched to TAL’s Home Telecom ISP brand, which pledges to “respect and honour the customers current prices and terms and conditions.”

This is on top of a record month in July 2024, which saw the group deliver 3,748 new sales through organic growth (some 500 of that alone came from new customers via MS3’s full fibre network) – putting them ahead of their forecast for the 2024/2025 year.

Nigel Barnett, TAL CEO, said:

“We are really pleased with the further acquisition of the remaining customer from David Yates Gigabit Networks. The first tranche of customers migrated very successfully with no loss of service or customers, allowed us to obtain the remaining residential base. Going forward with our organic growth, we will still look towards any further possible acquisitions whatever the size to complement our growth.”

The TAL Group is now home to over 100,000 broadband customers and has returned a turnover of £40m.