CityFibre has today confirmed that they will invest £25 million to deploy their new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across the two neighbouring towns of Rochford and Rayleigh in Essex (England), which will also include the village of Great Wakering. Construction work on the full fibre network in Rochford will begin imminently, while […]

Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK (VMO2) has today confirmed what we published yesterday (here), which is that, starting from March 2023, Virgin Mobile’s 3 million customers will begin being moved to O2’s own equivalent mobile plans with migrations taking place across 2023. The first customer letters about all this will go out next month. The […]

Customers of UK ISP Sky Broadband saw increased internet data consumption during the festive period this year, with data downloads on Christmas Day rising by 9.52% to 115PB (PetaBytes), which is up from 105PB last year. But bigger increases were reported across the rest of the festive season. As we’ve said before, demand for data […]

Network provider Broadway Partners (UK ISP Broadway Broadband), which in 2021 set a bold target to cover 250,000 premises across rural Wales and Scotland with their gigabit broadband (FTTP) network by 2025, has appointed industry veteran Steve Haines to be their new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Steve, who replaces company co-founder Michael Armitage in the […]

Alternative network builder and ISP LightSpeed Broadband, which aims to deploy a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to 200,000 premises in the East of England by the end of 2022 (rising to 1 million by the end of 2025), has shunned the traditional price hikes season by announcing a price freeze promise for customers. LightSpeed, which […]

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Four of the largest telecom operators – Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone – have notified the European Commission about intending to start a joint venture into identity-driven advertising, which will assign digital identities to customers on networks

The concentration is under review until the 10 February pending approval from the European Commission. Copying the market of large tech companies, the EU Commission will review the credibility of this ID-network venture to uphold users’ privacy.

Operators will have to seek consent from regional mobile network users to “opt in” before leveraging their data to deliver targeted marketing and advertising campaigns.

The proposal was filed on 6 January 2023 and details have been published by the Directorate-General for Competition.

Secure “pseudonymised” tokens will be developed from an encrypted identity connected to consenting network users.

The tokenised identities, protecting the personal data of users, will optimise the delivery of personalised ads to network customers. The EC document also specifies that users across all the networks would have access to a privacy portal, containing information about privacy regulations.

All four networks will have equal shares and control over their marketing and advertising endeavours. In December, Meta’s targeted advertising plans were accepted but with a warning on adhering to privacy standards by the EDPB, a body that ensures GDPR compliance.

The largest tech companies delivering digital advertising campaigns, including Meta and Apple, are also being confined by data privacy concerns. Last year, Deutsche Telecom and Vodafone conducted trials to test-run the current proposal with a limited number of publishers and advertisers.

Article by Evie Kim Sing, originally published on IdentityWeek.net

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The satellite company aiming to offer direct-to-mobile internet services claims it is “years ahead” of the competition

This week, Lynk has announced the successful launch and deployment of two satellites set to serve as what the company calls ‘cell-towers-in-space’.

Using patented technology, these orbital base stations will be able to connect to existing standard mobile devices on Earth, providing 2G, 4G, and even 5G connectivity for customers.

“This launch extends Lynk’s leadership in the satellite-direct-to-standard-phone category. While others have just figured out that satellite-direct-to-phone is a big deal, we invented and patented the technology in 2017, started testing the technology in space in 2019, and now have three commercial satellite-cell-towers-in-space,” said Charles Miller, CEO of Lynk. “We are years ahead of everybody else.”

Lynk launched its first commercial-ready satellite base-station, Lynk Tower 1, back in April last year. By September, the company had received a licence to provide satellite-direct-to-standard-phone services from the Federal Communications Service and, in November, and announced tests of the world’s first mobile 5G-from-space payload.

Previously, the satellite operator had said it would aim to launch three more satellites in the near future; today’s announcement accounts for two of these devices but contains no information about the elusive third satellite.

The satellite operator has previously suggested it will launch a global commercial service in 2025, targeting the 90% of the world that they claim is not covered by terrestrial mobile networks. However, to achieve anything close to global coverage will require a lot more of these low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites; UK-based satellite rival OneWeb, for example, has said it will need 648 LEO satellites to achieve full global coverage.

Lynk has said its plans are even bigger, aiming for several thousand devices in orbit by 2025, increasing to 5,000 in the longer-term. This would give it a scale similar to SpaceX’s LEO Starlink constellation, which already has over 3,200 satellites in orbit.

To date, the company has raised over $30 million in funding, but will presumably need much more to achieve its scale-up goals.

Nonetheless, with clearance from the FCC already attained, Lynk say they are gearing up for a limited commercial launch in 2023, though a specific deadline has yet to be announced.

According to the press release, Lynk already has commercial agreements in place with 25 mobile network operators (MNOs) in 41 countries and is actively testing its technology in 17 countries on all seven continents.

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Network builder and UK ISP FACTCO has today announced that their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network is being extended to cover three villages in rural parts of Cheshire (England), including more than 1,000 properties across Crowton, Kingsley and Norley. Construction of the new network, which is being supported by funding from the Government’s Gigabit […]

Alternative network provider Quickline, which is building a mix of Full Fibre (FTTP) and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) based broadband networks across parts of Lincolnshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire in England, has appointed Craig Fairey as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to help grow the business alongside its new rollout plans. Mr Fairey is said to bring […]

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Reports suggest the low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite telecommunications firm has closed its Alaskan test site, with locals bemoaning its services as expensive and unreliable

This week, a report from the Telegraph indicates that UK-backed satellite operator OneWeb has closed its vaunted test site in the village of Akiak, Alaska, following complaints from the Alaska Telecom Association (ATA) and local internet providers.

Akiak was one of OneWeb’s first test sites and was notable for being a keystone the company’s marketing campaign, designed to show that the LEO satellite constellation could provide internet services to one of the most remote communities in the US.

Less than a year since activation, however, and it would seem that the test site is failing to live up to expectations.

According to sources, the ATA and local providers have written to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to complain that the “service is too costly to adopt” and had been discontinued “due to ongoing technical difficulties”.

The nature of these technical troubles has not been revealed.

While this closure is surely something of a blow to OneWeb’s image, given Akiak’s prominence in its marketing campaign, the material impact to the company is likely small. While OneWeb has significant ambitions in the consumer broadband segment, its focus to date has been largely centralised on government, maritime, and enterprise broadband needs.

Furthermore, according to the operator, other rural Alaskan test site are still up and running with positive results, perhaps suggesting that the Akiak site is simply an anomaly.

Nonetheless, such a closure has shone a worrying light on the challenges OneWeb may eventually face in the consumer space, particularly given the meteoric rise of rival SpaceX’s Starlink constellation in the US and beyond.

Starlink launched commercial services to consumers in Alaska in November last year and is seemingly gaining a growing market share in remote locations. The service already covers Akiak and has reportedly been well received by residents.

In a somewhat ironic twist, after OneWeb’s loss of access to Russian Soyuz rockets last year due to the war in Ukraine, SpaceX has been contracted to launch OneWeb satellites. This week marked the companies latest launch collaboration, which saw SpaceX put an additional 40 OneWeb satellites into orbit.

In total, OneWeb now has 502 LEO satellites floating above the Earth, having said they will require 648 for full global coverage. The operator expects its constellation to be fully launched by the end of the year.

What role will satellite play in expanding broadband access to the most remote US communities? Join the telecoms experts in discussion at this year’s upcoming Connected America conference

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