New customers looking to take one of Sky Broadband’s plans may like to know that the ISP has begun offering their FTTC and FTTP powered “Superfast” (61Mbps) and “Ultrafast Plus” (500Mbps) packages at half price until the end of 2023, which means that they now cost £17 (£34.50 thereafter) and £24 (£48 thereafter) respectively. The […]

Residents in the Eden Valley (Cumbria) villages of Warcop, Sandford, Coupland Beck, Bleatarn and Ormside have been left angry after the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, which had been due to supply gigabit vouchers to help them get a new full fibre (FTTP) network installed, put their project into limbo. Community ISP and fibre […]

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It has possibly been one of telecoms worst kept secrets, ever since Vodafone and CK Hutchison confirmed they were talking about a merger last October, but now the two have formerly entered into binding agreements relating to their UK telecommunication businesses.

The combined business (Mergence) will be 51% owned by Vodafone and 49% by CKHGT and according to Vodafone Group Chief Executive, Margherita Della Valle, it’s going to be great!

Well at least that is the message “great for customers, great for the country and great for competition.” which is also reflected on the MergeCo microsite vodafoneandthree.uk

The announcement flags a range of benefits for the UK and customers including the suggestion that the merger will create jobs and support digital transformation of the UK’s businesses, delivering up to £5 billion per year in economic benefit by 2030 and that it will deliver its own version of levelling up by creating a third operator with scale and increasing competition in the UK market.

Analysts are suggesting that this merger has a greater chance of going through than previous attempts at consolidation with James Robinson, Senior Analyst at Assembly commenting that “With the Government’s recent Wireless Infrastructure Strategy, the merger announcement, with its commitment to investment and jobs, comes at an opportune moment. Together, Three and Vodafone would be better equipped to deliver ultrafast, reliable and secure mobile connectivity throughout the UK – the exact thing the Government’s pro-investment strategy wants to see.”

Whilst Paolo Pescatore of PP Foresight said “A marriage of convenience makes sense. Scale is key to help lower costs and improve margins. It will take years before we see the real fruits of this deal come to fruition. The question is, can the UK wait that long? However, convergence still remains the achilles heel if this does get over the line. It would create a mobile champion that could increase competition in the wholesale segment of the market and become a partner of choice for MVNOs.”

Ahmed Essam, Vodafone UK Chief Executive and Robert Finnegan, CEO of Three UK delivered a video statement on the plans which you can watch on the microsite.

How will the merger play out? It is sure to be a hot topic for discussion at Connected Britain this September – get your ticket today!

Mobile network operators Vodafone and Three UK (CK Hutchison) have today confirmed that they’ve reached a formal merger agreement, which is said to be worth an estimated £15bn and will see the former party owning a 51% slice of the business (CKH will hold 49%). But they’ll still have to satisfy the regulators, and that […]

Network builder and UK ISP Zzoomm has today announced that the first customers in the Worcestershire (England) town and civil parish of Bewdley are now able to connect to their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure, although the same area is also being targetted by Openreach and FullFibre Limited. The operator, which aspires to cover 1 […]

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Whilst member countries across the European Union are facing the possibility of being forced to ban companies deemed a security risk from their 5G networks, elsewhere the company most impacted by the action, Huawei, is being funded by the EU to conduct research into future technologies.

A report in todays Financial Times reveals that Huawei is receiving funding from the EU totalling around €3.89 million as part of the Horizon Europe research programme, which covers areas including 6G, AI and cloud computing.

Horizon Europe is the EU’s flagship research and innovation programme, which last week saw the European Commission proposing that it should benefit from €12.8 billion funding in the 2024 EU budget. This is out of a total proposal of €13.6 billion on research and innovation funding in 2024.

The largest proportion of Horizon Europe money is dedicated to what are classed as collaborative projects with Huawei reportedly providing AI platforms and infrastructure equipment.

The EU considers that a number of countries, and in particular Germany, have been laggards when it comes to curbing use of “high risk” vendors who may prevent a security risk. It has been confirmed by a European Commission spokesperson that they will shortly present their second 5G toolbox review and it is expected that a number of countries, and possibly operators, will be named when the report is issued.

Analyst Paolo Pescatore commented that any toughening of Germany’s stance “would be the nail in the coffin for Huawei in Europe”.

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The UK Labour Party’s Shadow Digital Minister, Stephanie Peacock MP, has this week given her support to full fibre broadband ISP Hyperoptic in its ongoing campaign to stop mid-contract price rises by rivals, which often increases consumer prices well above the current level of inflation (hikes of 13-15% hit many consumers earlier this year). The […]

Openreach has notified UK ISPs of an upcoming trial on their hybrid-fibre G.fast based “ultrafast broadband” (100Mbps+) products (including SOGFAST), which looks as if it will attempt to improve line performance by establishing the “most effective” Dynamic Line Management (DLM) thresholds. Just to recap. Before the FTTP rollout took centre stage in 2018/19, Openreach initially […]

A new survey conducted by Opinium with 2,000 UK adults, which was commissioned by Sky Mobile (vested interest), has found that 19% of UK mobile phone users have never changed their network operator, while 28% haven’t switched for more than 5 years and could thus potentially be missing out on over £100 every year in […]

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The company aims to upgrade the companies’ existing hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) networks to fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP)

In summer last year, Belgian operator Telenet formed a partnership with utility company Fluvius to set up a fibre joint venture, aimed at deploying full fibre throughout the Flanders region.

The JV, then known simple as NetCo, would focus on upgrading the duo’s existing HFC networks in the region to full fibre, or to DOCSIS technology where FTTP would be unfeasible.

Telenet said that it would own 66.8% of the business, with Fluvius owning the remaining 33.2%.

Combined, the partners said they would invest up to €2 billion in the business over the following eight years to achieve the goal of providing everyone in Flanders with access to gigabit-capable broadband.

The JV received approval from the European Commission two weeks ago, paving the way for the company’s initial fibre deployments, which are scheduled to begin next month.

With this in mind, the company has now announced its new brand name: Wyre.

Aside from the obvious fibre-related pun, Wyre says that the ‘y’ in its name stands for ‘you’ – a reminder of the company’s pledge “to take everyone into the digital future”. A tenuous explanation, yes, but no doubt the title will be functional for SEO purposes.

Micha Berger (pictured), previously Telenet’s special projects lead, will serve as Wyre’s CEO.

In somewhat related news, Liberty Global formally began the process of buying out Telenet’s shares earlier this month, seemingly seeking to take advantage of the company’s depressed share price.

Join the telecoms community in discussion at this year’s Total Telecom Congress live in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

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