Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

Over 1.2 million SMS messages have been delivered over satellite since the service’s launch last year

Veon-owned Kyivstar says it has registered more than 3 million users for Starlink’s Direct to Cell (D2C) low-earth-orbit satellite service since the commercial launch on 24 November 2025.

The operator reported the service has delivered over 1.2 million SMS messages and that take-up has been strongest in Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, and Dnipro. The service also provides “especially vital” support to customers in the southern and eastern regions, where terrestrial infrastructure is frequently damaged or under restoration.

Coverage explicitly excludes occupied areas, border regions, and active combat zones, as part of SpaceX’s efforts to maintain its status as a civilian communications provider.

The service is offered free to all Kyivstar 4G smartphone subscribers as part of their regular plans.

Kyivstar’s figures, released in a company statement, mean roughly 19% of its 15.5 million 4G subscribers have registered for D2C.

“The rapid adoption of Starlink Direct to Cell services by Kyivstar subscribers demonstrates the critical importance of enhancing Ukraine’s resilience and our customers’ appreciation for the availability of satellite-based connectivity,” said Kaan Terzioğlu, VEON Group CEO and Executive Chairman of Kyivstar. “We will continue to lead the way in providing innovative services that Ukraine needs to build its digital future and in meeting the ever-growing demand of our customers for digital connectivity.”

The initial commercial rollout of Starlink’s D2C service is limited to SMS, with voice and video services to be added as part of the constellation’s second generation of satellites, which are currently being launched.

The service is only available on Android devices, with iPhone users with iPhone 13 and later models must wait for a forthcoming software update before they can use the feature, Kyivstar said.

Beyond Kyivstar, Veon is also preparing to launch Starlink’s D2C technology in other markets. Veon’s subsidiary Beeline Kazakhstan, for example, has completed field tests of the service ahead of a planned commercial launch in that market during 2026, pending regulatory approval.

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Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Case Studies

Growing UK fiber internet provider LilaConnect migrated to gaiia in 16 weeks. Here’s how they made it happen, and how it paid off.

LilaConnect, the retail subsidiary of The Freedom Fibre Group, delivers full-fiber broadband to communities across the northwest of the UK. But, with a strategy of rapid growth across multiple towns and regions, the company needed a modern operations platform that could scale as fast as its network.

After challenges with an internal system that had reached its limits and a failed migration to another platform, LilaConnect turned to gaiia to modernize its operations and create a better customer experience.

Why LilaConnect chose gaiia

LilaConnect required a flexible, API-driven OSS/BSS that could integrate seamlessly with its network operator’s systems and support an efficient, scalable retail ISP experience.

Key considerations included:

• An API-first architecture for real-time provisioning and activation.
• A scalable billing and product catalog capable of supporting future growth.
• Workflow automation to eliminate manual steps and improve speed to serve.
• A modern, branded checkout and subscriber portal to enhance the customer journey.

After evaluating multiple vendors, LilaConnect chose gaiia for its open, modular architecture, proven delivery timelines, and collaborative implementation model designed for complex integration environments.

“We needed a partner who could move fast, but also give us the structure and flexibility to build the right foundation. gaiia helped us do both.”

—Phil Steed, Head of Platforms, LilaConnect

Delivering business value in 16 weeks

LilaConnect’s implementation focused on enabling a complete customer onboarding flow, connecting every step from availability check to activation. gaiia enabled LilaConnect to launch a branded online checkout that connected LilaConnect’s new website, directly with their network serviceability.

From the first customer order, the new system has significantly reduced manual work across teams, streamlining how new customers are onboarded and how in-life service changes are handled.

“The new checkout and automated workflows have significantly reduced the manual effort required to onboard customers and manage service changes.”

—Tom Ives, Head of Sales Operations, LilaConnect

The “fab 5” workflows

Both gaiia and LilaConnect teams focused on five core workflows that power daily operations: activation, suspension, reactivation, speed change, and service deactivation. Built in gaiia’s Workflow editor, each process is fully automated and configurable, giving LilaConnect control to adapt and scale as they grow.

Key integrations

The go-live included integrations with:

• LilaConnect’s network provisioning API
• Stripe and GoCardless (payments)
• Sonalake PivOTS 
(One Touch Switch)
• HubSpot, M365, and Twilio (CRM and communications)

The result was a fully automated onboarding and activation process that now runs through a single system, reducing delays, increasing transparency, and improving the experience for both customers and support teams.

Implementation approach: How to accelerate time to market

Beyond the technical success, LilaConnect’s project has become a model for how ISPs can bring services to market faster through clarity, iterative development, and tight scope control.

Here are the key principles that made the difference:

• Start with the “minimum viable process”
  • Rather than waiting for every edge case, LilaConnect and gaiia focused on the five most critical workflows that represented 90% of customer journeys. This “Fab 5” mindset allowed the team to deliver early business value while deferring non-critical automations to Phase 2.
• Standardize early
  • From the first migration dry-run, the team enforced standard data models, requiring unique property identifiers (UPRNs) and canonical product structures. This reduced friction during imports, simplified integrations, and made it easier to automate provisioning.
• Integrate through APIs, not workarounds
  • With Freedom Fibre’s open-access API as the foundation, gaiia connected every major system (billing, network, appointments, and service status) through direct, authenticated API calls. No CSVs, no scripts. This ensured real-time accuracy across systems from day one.
• Use workflows as the single source of truth
  • Each operational process (activation, modification, or cancellation) was designed as a self-contained, auditable workflow in gaiia. This structure allowed operations and engineering teams to collaborate in the same system without relying on custom code or manual handoffs.
• Stay aligned with a dedicated cross-functional team
  • Weekly syncs across business, technical, and engineering stakeholders from both LilaConnect and gaiia created continuous feedback loops. Decisions were made fast, blockers were surfaced early, and teams shared the same real-time visibility into progress.

The results

In just 16 weeks, LilaConnect transitioned from a constrained in-house system to a fully integrated, API-driven OSS/BSS environment that connects every part of the customer journey, from online checkout to activation.

Photo provided courtesy of gaiia

The impact was immediate. The new checkout and automated workflows reduced manual intervention across teams and dramatically improved customer onboarding speed. What once required multiple systems and manual coordination now runs seamlessly within gaiia.

“Our previous fastest sale ever was 19 minutes from checkout to activation. 
On gaiia, we achieved it in 4 minutes.”

—Matt Ogden, Director of Sales & Marketing, LilaConnect

The LilaConnect team now has a single connected platform that:

• Processes orders and activations in real time through its network provisioning API
• Automates provisioning, billing, and service changes without manual tickets
• Provides customers with a smooth, branded digital experience from purchase to installation

With manual tasks replaced by automation, LilaConnect has strengthened operational efficiency and created a scalable model for future growth while improving the subscriber experience at every step.

This content is brought to you by gaiia.

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The post A case study: LilaConnect’s migration to gaiia in 16 weeks appeared first on Total Telecom.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The relatively new SpeedGeo project, which stems from a Polish team that compares internet quality based on the broadband speeds of real users, has today published their 2025 results for the United Kingdom. The outcome named Virgin Media as the fastest fixed broadband ISP, while Three UK came top for mobile broadband (4G, 5G etc.).

The study is based on data gathered from real measurements conducted by users of their V-SPEED applications, including via their website, as well as on Android, iOS, Windows and macOS. A total of 109,136 tests were conducted across mobile connections using smartphones or tablets during 2025 (4G, 5G etc.), which increased to 842,397 for their fixed broadband (inc. WiFi connections).

As with the above note, there are always caveats to consider with speedtest based studies like this, not least because the results for fixed lines tend to be more reflective of take-up than network availability. For example, some fixed ISPs may have a much larger proportion of customers on slower copper-based lines (ADSL or FTTC), which can weigh against those on faster FTTP services with the same provider (i.e. pulling the average down).

Otherwise, the operators in both fixed and mobile categories were all ranked based on average download speed (from highest to lowest), although we do also get the figures for upload speeds and network latency (milliseconds), which are nice to have. Sadly, the main fixed broadband results appear to only focus on major national ISPs and has thus ignored many of the faster but smaller players.

Fastest UK Fixed Broadband Providers for 2025

Fastest UK Mobile Broadband Operators for 2025

Finally, SpeedGeo has also provided some data on the fastest fixed broadband providers in London, although this does appear to include Three UK into the list (probably due to their 4G/5G based Home Broadband package). But unlike the other tables this one does at least list some smaller networks.

London’s Fastest Fixed Broadband Providers for 2025

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

A major newspaper has claimed that creditors of the indebted Abingdon-based alternative broadband ISP Gigaclear, which has built a full fibre (FTTP) network across 612,000 premises in rural parts of England and is home to c.160,000 customers, are set to take control of the business after an attempt to sell the company failed.

The provider currently still holds an aspiration to extend their network reach to 1 million UK premises. However, like so many other alternative networks (altnets), they’ve recently also had to scale-back their network build and cut jobs, due to the pressures from high interest rates, rising build costs and a highly competitive environment (here and here). Nobody ever said deploying fibre optic cables into rural areas was easy or cheap.

Suffice to say that funding has recently become somewhat of a hot topic for Gigaclear, particularly after reports emerged in November 2025 that they had begun hunting for a buyer (here). A consortium of the provider’s existing banks then followed that report up, in December 2025, by agreeing to pump “at least” £80m of new funding into the company (here), which Gigaclear said meant they were now “fully funded to deliver its plans“.

As Nathan Rundle, CEO of Gigaclear, said last month: “There’s still more work to do to close the digital divide but combined with our achievement of EBITDA positivity earlier this year and strong customer growth, this funding reflects a business that is financially secure, operationally robust and focused on sustainable long-term delivery.”

However, according to a new report in the FT (paywall), the company’s creditors, including the UK taxpayer-backed National Wealth Fund (NWF), as well as banks such as NatWest and Lloyds, are now allegedly “set to take control of heavily indebted broadband provider” after Gigaclear failed to find a buyer for the business. The creditors are also said to have explored options, such as writing down their debt (this could impact taxpayers too, due to the NWF’s involvement via a £240m guarantee on the aforementioned £1.5bn debt facility).

At the time of writing, most of the parties involved have declined to comment on the report, although Equitix are said to have expressed disappointment that “the financial performance of the investment did not meet the targets that Gigaclear set itself”. The expectation is that the company’s creditors will assume control of Gigaclear and then attempt another sale process. None of this is expected to have an impact upon their customers, which will continue to receive the same service, although related cost-cutting can sometimes impact service and support quality in other ways.

The reported move comes shortly after another altnet broadband provider with similarly significant financial challenges, G.Network, was acquired by FitzWalter Capital for an undisclosed sum (here). Barely a week had passed before G.Network then followed that up by filing a Notice of Intention (NoI) to appoint an administrator (here).

As time goes on, we may well see more indebted altnets going down a similar path during 2026, particularly if they fail to find a consolidation partner or financial buyer via more traditional approaches. Quite a few altnets have already spent 2024 and 2025 trying to find such solutions, but only a few have done so and the longer it takes the more painful the outcome could become, especially for investors.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Openreach (BT) has just published the next batch (Tranche 23) of 132 exchanges in their “FTTP Priority Exchange” stop sell programme – covering 1.23 million premises. This reflects areas where over 75% of premises are able to get full fibre lines and will thus stop selling copper based legacy phone and broadband products (i.e. FTTP becomes the only product option, where it’s available).

Currently, there are two schemes for moving away from old copper lines and services, which can sometimes cross over a bit. The first starts with the gradual migration of traditional legacy voice (PSTN / WLR) services to digital all-IP technologies (e.g. SOGEA), which is due to complete by 31st January 2027 and is occurring on both copper and full fibre products (i.e. ISPs are introducing digital voice / VoIP services). The national “stop sell” on legacy phone services began on 5th September 2023 (here).

The second “FTTP Priority Exchange” programme involves the ongoing rollout of gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines – using light signals via optical fibre instead of electrical signals via slow copper lines. Only after this second programme has largely completed (75%+ FTTP coverage) in an exchange area can you really start to completely switch-off copper-based products, which will come later as you have to allow lots of time for natural customer migrations.

Between the scrapping of legacy phone services, the full fibre rollout and the gradual switch away from copper lines themselves, this process will take several years in each area to complete, and the pace will vary (i.e. some areas have better coverage of Openreach’s full fibre lines than others). Just to be clear, though, premises that can’t yet get FTTP will continue to be served by copper-based broadband products.

132 New Exchange Locations (Tranche 23)

In this programme, the migration process away from legacy services starts with a “no move back” policy (i.e. no going back to copper) for premises connected with FTTP, which is followed by a “stop-sell” of copper services to new customers (12-months of notice is given before this starts and that is what today’s list represents). This stage is then followed by a final “withdrawal” phase, but that comes later.

The stop sell is applied at premises level, so it shouldn’t impact you if you don’t yet have access to FTTP, although edge-case conflicts may still occur due to rare quirks of network availability.

The 132 exchanges confirmed today takes the total number of exchange upgrades, by mid-February 2026, that have already been placed under active “stop sell” rules to 1,281 – reflecting 12.5 million premises or around 51% of Openreach’s full fibre footprint. The stop sells in today’s list will become effective from 12th February 2027.

James Lilley, Openreach’s Managed Customer Migrations Director, said:

“Our stop sell programme is a vital step in accelerating the UK’s transition to a modern full fibre future. As copper’s ability to support modern communications declines, the immediate focus is getting people onto newer, future proofed technologies.

By phasing out legacy copper-based services in areas where fibre is now widely available, we’re ensuring customers and providers move onto faster, more reliable, digital infrastructure. This approach not only reduces the cost and complexity of having to maintain both old and new networks but also supports the industry-wide migration ahead of the legacy copper-based Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) now just over 12-months away, by which time everyone will need a digital phone line.”

The operator also has a Stop Sells Page on their website, which makes it easy to see all the planned changes. Otherwise, the following list is tentative, so changes and delays will occur (exchanges can and are often shifted around into different tranches).

132 Stop Sell Exchanges in Tranche 23

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network operator KCOM, which has deployed their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across a big chunk of East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England, has today announced that they’ve promoted Richard Schäfer to the position of permanent Chief Executive Office (CEO) to replace Tim Shaw, who stepped down last year (here).

Richard originally joined KCOM in February 2025 as Chief Finance Officer (CFO), before stepping up as interim CEO six months ago after Tim left. Clearly KCOM’s board were happy enough with his performance to retain him in the role on a permanent basis.

Richard has more than 25 years of history working in senior leadership roles within the domestic UK and international telecommunication sector, including roles at Three UK, Vodafone UK, Onecom, Lebara and most recently the Lyca Group where he was Group CEO.

KCOM Chairman, Richard Greenleaf, said:

“We’re grateful for Richard stepping into the CEO position last year. His commercial background, financial acumen, deep understanding of telecoms and his passion for delivering KCOM success make him the right person to take the company forward.”

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Broadband and mobile giant BT (EE) has today announced that they’re following the UK government’s latest guidance, which requested that they “proactively move customers onto price changes with clear pounds and pence pricing amounts instead of inflation-linked rises“. But the risk is that this may result in some customers being hit by much bigger mid-contract price hikes in the future.

In case anybody has forgotten, there’s currently a growing storm circling around the policy that Ofcom introduced at the start of 2025. The change required telecoms providers to adopt a new approach to mid-contract price hikes, which did away with the old percentage and inflation-based model – replacing it with one that sets out such price hikes “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up” (here). This made annual price hikes clearer and more transparent, but it also hit those who could least afford it with much bigger price hikes.

Most providers initially adapted to the new policy by following BT’s early example, which in 2024 – before the rules came into force – started setting out a new pricing policy that increased the monthly price broadband customers paid by a flat £3 extra from March or April each year (varying a bit between providers). Mobile providers often adopted the same approach, albeit usually via smaller increases.

However, a degree of controversy started to occur last year after BT (here) – followed by other providers (Vodafone, TalkTalk, Virgin Media etc.) – then increased the amount of their mid-contract hikes from £3 to £4, which seemed at least partly intended to reflect the fact that inflation had remained higher than originally forecast. But BT and most other providers only applied this to new customers (as well as some re-contracting subscribers).

One of the reasons why this approach has become so unpopular, despite the noted improvement in pricing transparency, is because it deliberately hits those who can least afford it the hardest For example, somebody on a cheaper plan, paying say c.£20 per month, gets hit with the same £4 rise in April every year as those on the most expensive packages, which could be paying £50-£70 or so per month. The change doesn’t scale, so people with cheaper plans are penalised.

Government intervention

The Government did initially appear to be taking a tougher line over all this (here), which occurred after O2 took the unusual approach of forcing their recent over-inflation hike in mid-contract pricing on to existing customers (here). Initially, the government seemed to hint that Ofcom should consider stopping the practice, only to later retreat by saying they had “no plans to ban in-contract price rises” (here).

Adding to the feeling of the government being tone-deaf on the issue, they then called on telecoms operators to “take proactive steps to move legacy customers onto the pounds and pence approach for price communications“. This is despite what we’ve just said above about the reality that, for some consumers, the old CPI + X% policy will actually be resulting in customers paying lower mid-contract hikes than the new pounds and pence one.

Extract from the Government’s Letter to Industry

The commitments that industry has made through the Digital Inclusion Action Plan, and wider efforts, such as the provision of the lower cost social tariffs are vital in supporting vulnerable and digitally excluded consumers. However, it is clear that more needs to be done to protect all consumers. Ordinary people should feel empowered when engaging with the sector and confident they are getting a good deal.

We are asking you to reinforce your commitment to treating customers fairly, including by confirming customers under contract will not face price rises beyond those that they signed up to. We would also like you to take proactive steps to move legacy customers onto the pounds and pence approach for price communications with no impact on the timing of planned price increases.

In a new blog post today, BT has confirmed that they’re “very supportive of the Government’s call” and “will begin moving those customers who contracted with us before we introduced our pounds and pence approach onto these terms as part of our price change this year“. Once again, there’s lots of focus on the transparency benefits, albeit without much consideration for the negatives of Ofcom’s required policy.

BT’s Statement

We have listened and will begin moving those customers who contracted with us before we introduced our pounds and pence approach onto these terms as part of our price change this year. This change means all our customers will benefit from a transparent approach to pricing, aligned with Ofcom and Government priorities.

We will be initiating our 2026 price change for these out of contract customers from 1st March. The date when this price change will apply will be confirmed in each customer’s price change notification.

To be clear these customers moving to pounds and pence terms are outside of the minimum term of their contract with us and will not be entered into a new minimum term contract. We are also not adjusting the annual price change for customers within the minimum term of their contract, something that has been heavily scrutinised recently.

We will be contacting customers in the coming weeks with specific information relating to their pricing.

Breaking news.. more to follow..

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Over the past few months a number of broadband ISPs have announced an increase to their annual mid-contract price hikes policy of £4 (BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk etc.). But a new Opinium survey of 2,000 UK adults, which was conducted during December 2025 for Uswitch.com, claims to have found that 24% of broadband users view such a rise as “unmanageable“.

Not that anybody needs reminding, but at the start of 2025 Ofcom began requiring telecoms providers to adopt a new approach to mid-contract price hikes, which did away with the old percentage and inflation-based model – replacing it with one that sets out such price hikes “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up” (here). This made annual price hikes clearer and more transparent, but rarely cheaper.

In response, many providers later followed BT’s lead by setting out a new pricing policy that increased the monthly price broadband customers pay by a flat £3 extra from March or April each year (varying a bit between providers). However, as above, inflation has remained higher than originally anticipated and, partly as a result of that, many of the markets largest players have since announced that they will increase their annual hikes (e.g. several have jumped from £3 to £4).

Suffice to say that there is a growing feeling among consumers that ISPs are becoming increasingly unfair in their pricing practices, not least by hitting those who can least afford it the hardest (e.g. somebody on the cheapest plan gets hit with the same £4 rise as those on the most expensive ones). The new survey estimates that some mobile and broadband customers could thus be set to face hikes of up to 13.4% as a result of the recent changes.

The survey claims that 24% of broadband customers would view a £4 monthly mid-contract increase as “unmanageable“. On average, consumers say they would only tolerate a £2.70 broadband increase before considering switching. But we know from real-world data that, in reality, only around 1.62 million consumers actually switched their fixed broadband and phone provider between Sept 2024 and 2025 (here).

Mobile users face a similar squeeze. Some 19% of bill payers say they would struggle with a £2.50 monthly rise in their bill, whilst 17% say they would not accept any rise at all. Finally, a third of respondents (32%) say they now spend more mental energy worrying about utility bills than they did two years ago, while 19% say they tolerate such increases but are also actively looking for a reason to leave.

The good news is that there are plenty of fixed and mobile providers that have shunned the trend toward mid-contract price hikes and instead used fixed price contracts. But this often comes from smaller providers and alternative networks, which are often unfamiliar brands and, in some cases, may not be available to every location.

The Government did initially appear to be taking a tougher line over all this and even seemed to hint that the practice could be stopped (here), only to later retreat by saying they had “no plans to ban in-contract price rises” (here). Despite this, Ofcom have still been directed to take another look at the issue, although few people expect the regulator to tackle the issue effectively.

In case anybody has forgotten, before the global COVID-19 pandemic, it was often normal for mid-contract hikes to push up prices by around 5-7% per year (averaged), which ran for many years while CPI itself typically fluctuated between around 1% and 2.5%. Suffice to say, it’s hard to shake the feeling that some providers may have realised they can get awake with even larger hikes and appear to be continuing the trend.

However, it is still important to recognise that network operators often do still have to increase prices due to costs rising in other areas, such as for service provision, regulation, energy and the need to invest in new network upgrades etc. But it’s not strictly necessary for this to be done mid-contract, and such pricing only makes the market more complex and confusing.

On the bright side, switching between telecoms providers has been made significantly quicker and easier in recent years, thanks to systems like One Touch Switching (OTS) on broadband + landline phone or Text-to-Switch (Auto-Switch) on mobile. Consumers can often vote with their feet if they choose, but many remain wary of doing so.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network access provider Openreach (BT), which is currently busy investing £15bn to deploy Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology to 25 million UK premises by the end of 2026 (currently 21m premises passed), has today announced that they’ve promoted Garret Kavanagh to be their new Managing Director for Complex Engineering, effective April 2026.

Garret began his career as an engineering graduate at BT Group in 2006 and, since then, has built plenty of experience across a number of field operations and service delivery roles. For the past four years he has led Openreach’s Northern Ireland division, where he and the team have taken full fibre coverage to more than 90% of the country – one of the highest coverage levels anywhere in the UK.

Openreach’s website currently lists Andy Whale as their Chief Engineer and Managing Director of Complex Engineering, but after today’s news Andy will still retain the title of Chief Engineer, leading a team focused on engineering standards and innovation.

Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said:

“Garret’s been running our Northern Ireland team with distinction – so he’s more than ready to step into this critical role for Openreach. In Complex Engineering, Garret will focus on leading the team to finish the UK build, as we get into more complex, rural and remote areas. He will also continue to transform and enhance our Ethernet business – which provides critical connections for public and private sector customers all over the country.”

As part of these changes, Openreach Northern Ireland will also be moving from the Commercial unit to be hosted by Complex Engineering. The recruitment process for a new Director of Northern Ireland is already underway. Lauren McGaughey will continue to lead the team in an acting-Director capacity, a role she has held since Garett went on Family Leave in Spring 2025.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The ITS Technology Group, which have deployed various open access and business-focused full fibre broadband and Ethernet networks across parts of the UK, recently published their annual accounts and revealed an expansion of their network length by 13%, as well as a 12% increase in coverage and a 99% rise in take-up (on-net grew 77% and off-net grew 30%).

The operator’s full fibre network was last year said to “pass” more than 465,000 UK businesses (inc. commercial premises), and they often claim to “reach the rest” through their trusted operator partners’ infrastructure, which includes the likes of BTWholesale, Sky, PXC and Virgin Media Business. The new results don’t provide an update on that figure or state exactly how many customers they have, but we do get a lot of financial data.

According to the latest results to the end of 2024 (accessible via ‘ITS (HOLDCO) Limited‘), turnover has increased to £34.48m (2023: £26.85m), while gross profit jumped 47.6% to £16.42m (2023: £13.56m) and the company reported a lower operating loss of -£14.22m (2023: -£16.5m). Total assets less current liabilities then increased to £186.82m (2023: £150.97m) – primarily due to fixed asset additions in the year of £44.13m.

ITS also saw a 33% increase in active network partners, while there was a 29% reduction on ‘Mean Time to Provide’, as the connection volume increased in the year. The Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) has similarly grown by 7%, although we don’t get an exact figure for this and other network stats. Finally, the company was home to a total of 238 employees during the year, which is up from 199 in 2023.

Daren Baythorpe, CEO of ITS, said:

“The directors have received a letter of support from the ultimate parent undertaking confirming its intention to provide financial support to enable the Group to meet its liabilities as they fall due for a period of 12 months from the date of approval of these financial statements.

On this basis, the directors have concluded that the group will be able to meet its liabilities as they fall due and a reasonable expectation that the Group has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future, and therefore continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing these financial statements.”