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Techy-focused broadband ISP Olilo, which first launched in early September 2025 (here), has today announced that they’re in the process of starting to go live across Freedom Fibre’s alternative open access full fibre (FTTP) network – available to 350,000 premises across various parts of England and North Wales

Related packages cost from £36 per month on a 12-month minimum term for symmetric speeds of 1Gbps with free installation, which rise up to £56 per month for their top 2.5Gbps speed service. You can take these packages for the same price on a 30-day term, but that attracts a £75 one-off installation charge. In addition, customers will need to supply their own router.

At present it appears as if those wanting to connect via one of these packages in a Freedom Fibre covered area can only register their interest (wait list) to do so, but that should change soon. Otherwise, Olilo also sells broadband package via CityFibre and Openreach’s national FTTP networks.

Finally, the provider informed us that some early Cyber Monday deals had gone live, although it’s difficult to identify them from Olilo’s website.

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Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has this morning announced that they’ve begun to switch on their next-generation 5G Standalone (5GSA) mobile broadband network in Norfolk (England) as part of its UK-wide rollout, which is now live in a total of more than 500 locations (70% of the UK’s population or c.49 million people).

Just to recap. 5GSA networks are pure end-to-end 5G that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better speeds (particularly uploads), network slicing, improved support for IoT devices, increased reliability and security etc. Most existing 5G networks use a Non-Standalone (NSA) approach, which is hobbled by being partly reliant upon older and slower 4G infrastructure.

O2’s 5GSA rollout first began in February 2024 (here) and typically aims to reach “at least 90% outdoor coverage” in every location they target. The same will be true for Norfolk and O2’s new 5GSA network has already gone live across their major hubs in Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Kings Lynn and Thetford. The rural county has a total population of around 940,000.

Dr Robert Joyce, Director of Mobile Access Engineering at O2, said:

“We are investing £2m every single day to improve our mobile network and provide a more reliable experience for our customers. By expanding our 5G Standalone network to Norfolk we are upgrading services for local people and are excited about the opportunities the new network will bring. This customer-centric rollout is about futureproofing our network and will pave the way for exciting customer led innovations that lie ahead.”

The operator claims that their 5GSA network is currently “the UK’s largest“, although EE are only slightly behind them on deployment progress (66% coverage). O2’s network upgrade is also available to customers with compatible devices “at no extra cost“.

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Network analyst firm Streetwave, in collaboration with Growing Mid Wales and the Welsh Government (WG), has shared the results from a recent survey they conducted, which tested the mobile broadband coverage and performance of 4G and 5G networks – including EE, Three UK, Vodafone and O2 – around the recently held Royal Welsh Show.

The show is considered to be one of Wales’ main annual agricultural events, attracting over 200,000 visitors to celebrate farming, rural life, livestock competitions, and local produce. Mobile network connectivity is also considered to be a vital part of delivering this because it allows visitors to communicate and access real time event schedules, while also supporting local businesses to process cashless payments etc.

Suffice to say that there was clearly some interest in seeing how well local mobile connectivity performed during the event. In response, Streetwave used one of its portable data collections units – equipped with Smartphones and SIM cards from all major UK mobile networks – to measure local network performance on 2nd July 2025 (baseline testing) and again on 22nd July 2025 during peak attendance at the show.

Overall, Three UK was the only mobile operator (MNO) to improve network quality, with ‘Essential Coverage‘ rising by 40% across the showground and median throughput speeds increasing dramatically by 18,500%, thanks to the deployment of a temporary mast on-site. By comparison, O2 and Vodafone experienced “significant declines” in both coverage and speeds, plummeting by 99% and 37%, respectively, during the event.

Finally, EE demonstrated more stable performance, with Essential Coverage decreasing modestly from 100% before the event to 93% during the show, likely supported by the recent installation of a permanent mast on the site. Detailed results are available after the comment below.

Aled Rhys Jones, Chief Executive Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, said:

“As hosts of Wales’ premier agricultural event, we pride ourselves on offering a warm welcome to all our visitors, exhibitors, and partners. Ensuring robust digital connectivity is now as vital to the Show’s success as our traditional hospitality. Over recent years, we have worked closely with industry and government to improve mobile coverage and digital services across the showground, but we recognise this is an ongoing journey – there is always more to do.

The findings from Streetwave’s independent research highlight just how much bandwidth is consumed during the Royal Welsh Show, underlining the importance of continued investment and innovation to meet the growing needs of our rural community and the thousands who join us each year.”

You can see more results below, although it will be interesting to see whether the outcome for O2 and Vodafone is a bit better for next year’s event, particularly after the recent VodafoneThree merger.

Download Speeds

Upload Speeds

Essential Coverage

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

One of our readers has spotted (here) that mobile operator TPO (The People’s Operator) appears to be in the process of gearing up for a relaunch into the UK market, which may come as a surprise to many after the original company went bust in early 2019 (here) – disrupting services for around 15,000 customers in the process.

The revived brand appears to be backed by Uplands Mobiles (Uplands Onetelco Ltd) and aims to “encourage reusing, recycling, and refurbishing mobile devices to cut down on e-waste” (i.e. offering customers cash to recycle their old gadgets), while also committing to contribute “10% of our profits … to causes you care about“.

The refreshed brand has been live online for a while, but they recently added a wait list for their mobile service. “Our wait list is now live. Join today and be first to experience the new TPO eSIM with an amazing founder deal, transparent values, and connectivity that does good,” said the service via social media in October 2025.

The only eSIM plan currently being promoted for this appears to be promising unlimited calls, text and data (mobile broadband) for £15 per month via an eSIM on a 30-day rolling contract. But there’s also vague talk of a “transparent fair usage” policy, which will apparently only be used for “extreme misuse, with notice“. At present, it’s unclear what mobile network (MVNO) this will harness, although the site uses the plural “networks“, suggesting it may be a UK roaming style plan.

The big question now is, once it does finally launch, whether consumers will still trust the brand after the last attempt failed.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Press Release

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Mobile operator O2 has revealed that more than 50% of Scotland’s population can now be reached by their 5G mobile network, while its next generation 5G Standalone (5GSA) network has so far gone live across 54 Scottish towns and cities. On top of that, Virgin Media has invested £330m to expand gigabit broadband to more than 1.5 million Scottish premises.

The updates were provided as part of a visit by Scotland’s First Minister, John Swinney, to VMO2’s new Maxim Park office in Lanarkshire (home to 350 staff). O2 also revealed that the operator had more generally upgraded its 4G/5G mobile network in more than 28,000 Scottish postcodes this year alone, enhancing mobile reliability and performance (part of their wider £700m Mobile Transformation Plan).

However, at the time of writing, it’s unclear whether Virgin Media’s separate £330m gigabit broadband upgrades on their fixed line network in Scotland include separate investment from nexfibre. The ISP and network operator notes that their fixed line network now covers “50% of the population, officially making it Scotland’s largest gigabit provider“, except Thinkbroadband’s latest data notes that Openreach’s full fibre (FTTP) covers nearly 57% of premises.

First Minister, John Swinney, said:

“Digital connectivity is central to how we live, work, and learn. It supports our public services, enables economic growth, and connects people and businesses throughout Scotland – something that is particularly important for our rural and island communities.

Delivering better connectivity across the country requires collaboration, and Virgin Media O2 is a valued partner in that work: from investment in fibre and creating new mobile infrastructure, to supporting digital inclusion and our Connecting Scotland programme. I very much welcome the company’s ongoing commitment to Scotland and the invitation to visit its new Scottish headquarters at Maxim Park.”

In addition to the above, VMO2 said they’d now also partnered with the Scottish Government and Citizens Advice to provide 1,200 refurbished smartphones to people who cannot afford devices or data. This is via their Community Calling Partnership with environmental charity Hubbub and the National Databank scheme.

Finally, the provider has also recently announced that they’re working with the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and Jangala to bring free Wi-Fi connectivity to mobile library services across Scotland. “This first-of-its-kind UK pilot will see mobile library vehicles in rural locations equipped with Jangala’s ‘Big Box’ technology, powered by mobile data donated by O2, that will provide a WiFi connection for residents“, said VMO2.

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The ITS Technology Group, which have deployed various open access full fibre broadband and Ethernet networks across the UK, has today announced that they’ve partnered with bandwidth infrastructure company euNetworks to provide enterprises with direct connectivity to Europe’s “most strategically important” data centres.

The partnership brings together ITS’s business-grade full fibre network, which is already said to reach more than 25% of the UK’s commercial premises (and passing a third of data centres), with euNetworks’ footprint of 582-plus connected data centres across Europe.

Enterprise customers will now be able to take advantage of new high-bandwidth connections, with the two organisations providing connectivity up to 10Gbps from any point on the ITS network to any location across euNetworks’ European footprint. “Enterprises gain direct, secure links to IT workloads and multiple cloud environments, with guaranteed resilience, assured connectivity, and data sovereignty,” said the announcement.

For ITS’s 500+ channel partners, the agreement provides access to integrated point-to-point or point-to-multipoint services with the “most strategically important data centres across the UK and Europe … Offered through a single contract, they will benefit from streamlined ordering, consolidated billing, end-to-end delivery, and in-life service management“.

Daren Baythorpe, Chief Executive Officer at ITS, said:

“UK businesses are demanding faster, more resilient ways to connect to their critical applications and data. By linking our full fibre leased line services with euNetworks’ reach, we’re giving enterprises and partners the ability to scale, innovate and stay secure, without complexity. This collaboration is about delivering the performance and simplicity customers need to thrive in a cloud-first, data-driven world.”

Marisa Trisolino, CEO at euNetworks, said:

“As a European provider of critical bandwidth infrastructure, euNetworks is proud to be able to extend the value of our expansive data centre footprint to ITS’s customers and partners as part of this collaboration. Our joint focus on automation and streamlined operations makes it even easier for UK enterprises to benefit from our combined reach, allowing us to quickly and proactively address the ever-increasing demand for scalable, secure, AI-ready connectivity.”

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Alternative UK broadband ISP Brsk, which harnesses Netomnia’s growing national full fibre network (here), has today officially started to make Netgem TV‘s new IPTV set-top-box and streaming service – PLEIO – available via their broadband and TV bundles. The new kit is both more powerful and features support for the new Freely live TV streaming service.

The development won’t come as much of a surprise because Netgem TV already announced that Brsk would be one of the first ISPs to adopt PLEIO as part of last week’s launch (here), although at the time Brsk hadn’t yet made the new hardware and service available to their customers. But that changes today.

The enhanced BetterTV service from Brsk is currently available exclusively to new full fibre broadband customers. Normally priced at £10 per month, the service is available at launch for a promotional rate of £5 per month (with a £10 activation fee) until 31st January 2026. Readers that want more detail on this should check out last week’s launch announcement above.

Matt Whitworth, Commercial Director at brsk, said:

“Our mission at brsk has always been to deliver simple, reliable, and high-quality connectivity that makes life better. Thanks to our continued relationship with Netgem through PLEIO, we’re able to take that same philosophy into the world of entertainment. We’ve always said that ‘Better Broadband’ deserves ‘Better TV,’ and with this new product, we are now offering a premium alternative to our competitors at a much more affordable price.”

Alternatively, anybody can buy PLEIO at retail via Amazon for £99, but this doesn’t include their optional service subscription for premium channels and games (that’s an extra £9.99 monthly if you buy the hardware at retail). Demand for the new set-top streaming box has also been quite high since it launched, which took Netgem TV by surprise, and thus there’s currently about a one-week wait for delivery (this probably won’t apply to those taking it via brsk).

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Energy and communications provider Telecom Plus, which trades as Utility Warehouse (UW), has just published their latest H1 FY26 Results to the end of September 2025 and revealed that their broadband ISP grew its total UK customer base to 561,086 (up by 176,196 in the year) and their mobile base grew to 698,054 (up by 171,887).

As previously reported, the company’s broadband base has been given a particularly big boost this year after they took on 95,000 of TalkTalk’s broadband customers via Origin Broadband (here and here). “We are making good progress with migrating these customers onto our platform, which we expect to complete ahead of the year end,” said the results.

The provider added that the acquisition of broadband customers from TalkTalk were also “allowing us to trial cross-selling our other services to these customers” and results from that are said to have “exceeded our expectations” (around 5,000 related customers have been upgraded and cross-sold). Elsewhere, UW noted that 65% of new customers who join their service are now taking full fibre (FTTP) services.

The results went on to note that UW expected to start selling to additional alternative networks in 2026, using their existing relationship with wholesale provider PXC. On top of that, they’re also gearing up to launch a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) based phone product for customers during the second half of 2026 (H2 FY26), but no further details on that were provided.

UW Summary of Broadband and Mobile Services

Broadband

Alongside our Which? Recommended Provider status for Energy, we are now also a Which? Recommended Provider for Broadband, the first provider ever to hold both awards at once. Broadband service numbers increased to 561,086, with 65% of new customers enjoying the benefits of Full Fibre Broadband. Our acquisition of broadband customers from TalkTalk is allowing us to trial cross-selling our other services to these customers and results so far have exceeded our expectations.

We are making good progress with migrating these customers onto our platform which we expect to complete ahead of the year end. Our partnership with CityFibre remains strong and we look forward to continuing this as they expand their footprint. Our relationship with PXC should also see us onboarding additional alternative networks in 2026.

We expect to be able to launch VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) to our customers during H2 which we expect to result in the percentage of new customers taking Full Fibre broadband increasing further.

Mobile

Our mobile base increased to 698,054, an annualised increase of around 29%. We have further demonstrated our competitiveness in mobile by improving both of our core tariffs. Our new Essential Max tariff is one of the most competitive entry level tariffs we have ever offered at £5 for 10GB of data, whilst additional SIMs on our Unlimited Max tariff are free for the first 6 months. These improvements, coupled with the benefits of EE’s network, have seen a further acceleration in our mobile service growth which we expect to see continue through the second half.

Meanwhile, on the financial front, the operator saw total half year revenues grow by 6.7% to £744.5mm (2024: £697.8m) – “mainly due to customer growth, including the broadband customers acquired from TalkTalk“. But gross profit fell by -6.1% during the same period to £157.6m (2024: £167.8m) and adjusted pre-tax profit was sharply down by -29.5% to £32.5m (2024: £46.1m), which was attributed to the “previously announced change in phasing of certain energy industry costs (such as metering) more evenly across the financial year“.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

Rome, 25 November 2025

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, and Planhotel Hospitality Group, an international company managing a network of luxury hotels in Tanzania, Kenya, the Maldives, Switzerland and Italy, announce a project to accelerate the digital transformation of the Group’s properties through faster and more secure connectivity.

Founded in Lugano, where it is headquartered, Planhotel Hospitality Group has been a key player in the tourism industry for over twenty years, with a portfolio of luxury resorts and hotels across the Indian Ocean region. The Group is internationally recognised for its ability to combine local traditions with Swiss style and service excellence.

Thanks to Sparkle’s Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solutions, Planhotel aims to optimise its network architecture, improving the quality and reliability of Internet connections and enabling employees to securely access the company’s information systems.

The SD-WAN solution intelligently balances and prioritizes traffic across multiple Internet connections – including satellite links – using advanced routing techniques to enhance service quality and continuity. The integration with SASE architecture further optimises and strengthens security, protecting access to corporate resources.

In recent months, Sparkle has completed implementation in two resorts in Tanzania, resulting in a significant improvement in performance and operational continuity, particularly for applications such as videoconferencing and booking systems. Following these positive results, Planhotel intends to extend the project to a third hotel opening soon, with plans to connect additional properties in the future.

With this agreement, Sparkle confirms its role as a key partner in the digital transformation of international companies, thanks to a portfolio ranging from connectivity to advanced solutions such as Cloud Connect, SD-WAN, SASE and IoT Global, as well as post-quantum security services designed to protect the most sensitive data.

“We are proud to support Planhotel in its digital transformation journey,” said Annalisa Bonatti, Vice President Enterprise at Sparkle. “With our SD-WAN and SASE solutions, we enable secure, high-performing and scalable connectivity, a key element for companies operating in international and distributed environments such as hospitality.”

“For us, technological innovation is an integral part of service excellence,” said Marco Rosso, Chief Digital & Business Automation Officer at Planhotel Hospitality Group. “A more powerful and secure network allows us to optimise daily operations and offer our guests an even smoother and more reliable experience, in line with the Group’s quality standards.”

About Sparkle

Sparkle is TIM Group’s global operator, first international service provider in Italy and among the top worldwide, offering a full range of infrastructure and global connectivity services – capacity, IP, SD-WAN, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming and voice – to national and international Carriers, OTTs, ISPs, Media/Content Providers, and multinational enterprises. As a leading player in the submarine cable industry, Sparkle owns and manages a network of more than 600,000 km of fiber stretching across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia. Sparkle’s sales team has a global presence, with representatives in 32 countries.

Find out more about Sparkle following its X and LinkedIn profiles or visiting the website tisparkle.com

Media Contacts:

sparkle.communication@tisparkle.com

X: @TISparkle