Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
The Competition and Markets Authority has published its preliminary findings for their fast-tracked Phase 2 investigation into the £2bn acquisition of full fibre broadband network Netomnia (Substantial Group) by the parents of nexfibre and Virgin Media (O2). Overall the CMA found the deal would result in a “substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in the wholesale supply of fixed broadband services.” (more…)
Original article Total Telecom:Read More
Today, SoftBank has completed the acquisition of digital infrastructure asset manager, DigitalBridge.
The $3.1 billion deal, first announced in December 2025, makes DigitalBridge a fully owned subsidiary of SoftBank and is aimed at boosting SoftBank’s ability to “originate, finance, operate, and scale digital infrastructure opportunities worldwide”.
DigitalBridge will continue operating independently and will continue to be led by the company’s existing CEO, Marc Ganzi.
“As AI transforms industries worldwide, we need more compute, connectivity, power, and scalable infrastructure,” said SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO, Masayoshi Son. “DigitalBridge is a leader in digital infrastructure, and this acquisition will strengthen the foundation for next-generation AI data centres, advance our vision to become a leading ASI platform provider, and help unlock breakthroughs that move humanity forward.”
DigitalBridge has around $108 billion in digital infrastructure assets under management, including data centres, fibre networks, mobile towers, wireless infrastructure, and edge facilities.
These data centres are of particular interest to SoftBank, which is pursuing an aggressive AI strategy based around building its own vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform.
The company is securing power, land, and data-centre capacity, partnering with OpenAI through the Stargate project to supply large-scale compute, and increasingly moving toward operating the compute itself through SB Neo, its planned US neocloud business.
While Stargate has moved slower than hoped – notably shelving its plans in the UK, for example – Son and SoftBank have continued to drive forwards. The company has raised around $11 billion this year in order to invest $30 billion into OpenAI, with Son notably calling talk of an AI bubble ‘blasphemy’ earlier this year.
SoftBank has said it intends to use external financing to limit its own capital burden while continuing to support its growth in the AI data centre sector.
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Original article Total Telecom:Read More
ICEYE, the European leader in sovereign intelligence from space, and Nokia, a global leader in connectivity infrastructure, today announced a partnership to develop secure, sovereign and high-performance broadband low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications systems for governments, supporting missions from defense and border security to emergency services and disaster response. Built on trusted European technology, the jointly developed satellite communications systems will give nations ownership and control of the satellites, ground segment and terminals. The first communications satellites are expected to be launched in 2028.
When terrestrial networks are disrupted or compromised, defense forces, first responders and civil authorities risk losing access to the information and command systems they depend on. Governments therefore need resilient communications infrastructure that remains available under the most demanding conditions, and that they can fully own and control.
The jointly developed sovereign systems will deliver targeted, high-throughput, low-latency connectivity over priority mission areas. Designed to complement military and commercial networks rather than replace them, it will add reach, resilience and capacity, helping governments and defense organizations maintain critical connections wherever operations take place.
The partnership brings together ICEYE’s track record delivering sovereign satellite missions with Nokia’s extensive experience in secure networking technologies and growing defense portfolio. Together, the companies will integrate satellites, ground infrastructure and ruggedized end-user terminals to extend ICEYE’s sovereign intelligence from space business model to satellite communications.
“Together with Nokia, we are building on our proven space intelligence expertise and delivering sovereign, high-performance satellite communications. Nations must be able to fully own and control their communications, without dependency on a foreign commercial operator’s terms of service. We delivered Poland its own radar satellite system in under a year. Partnering with Nokia lets us move at a similar speed for satellite communications, on the timelines nations need,” said Rafal Modrzewski, CEO and Co-founder of ICEYE.
“Sovereign operations depend on the ability to sense, decide and act in real time. Physical AI makes that possible, but only with secure, resilient connectivity across land, sea, air and space. By bringing together Nokia’s trusted networks with ICEYE’s proven sovereign space capabilities, we will deliver a satellite communications capability—complementing existing terrestrial networks, and giving nations the situational awareness, connectivity, and control they need to operate with confidence in contested environments across all domains,” said Justin Hotard, President and CEO of Nokia.
How is satellite communication evolving? Join the dicussion at Satellite Live 2027, co-located with Connected Britain
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The post ICEYE taps Nokia to deveop satellite comms systems appeared first on Total Telecom.
Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
Communications and broadband provider BT Business has today announced the launch of their new AI Receptionist tool, which as the name suggests is a new service that is designed to help small and medium-sized UK businesses to manage customer calls around the clock. (more…)
Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) directorate has today published a final evaluation of their publicly funded pre-2021 broadband voucher schemes, including the earlier incarnation of their Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) and the Rural Gigabit Connectivity (RGC) scheme. Overall both were found to have produced various positive impacts. (more…)
Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
London-focused UK broadband operator G.Network, which claims to have built their FTTP (XGS-PON) network footprint to cover 420,000 premises across the city (395k RFS), has today followed our earlier report by launched two new multi-gigabit residential broadband products – HomePro3 and HomePro10 – offering symmetrical speeds of up to 2.5Gbps and 8.5Gbps respectively. (more…)
Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
In a slightly confusing announcement, telecoms giant BT (EE) has today announced that their pay TV product, BTTV, will be “available from 15 October [2026]” as part of a new-ish bundle that “[brings] together TV, streaming services and premium content in one place, powered by BT’s award-winning broadband“. Except BT has had a bundled TV service for years. (more…)
Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
Just like last year. Customers of broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2), specifically those who also take their pay TV service and have children, may like to know that the provider will once again be gifting free access to their premium children’s TV channels throughout the whole of October 2026 “at no extra cost“. (more…)
Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
Network kit manufacturer FRITZ!, which is a German developer of home networking products (e.g. FRITZ!Box routers are bundled by several UK broadband ISPs), has today informed ISPreview that they’ve begun to roll-out their latest FRITZ!OS 8.50 software update that includes various new features. Hopefully this will be less buggy than some prior updates. (more…)
Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
The lead bidder, Epiris, for part of the debt-ridden TalkTalk Group, which is now in the final stage of its turbulent efforts to dispose of both their consumer broadband ISP business and the PXC (PlatformX Communications) wholesale business, has reportedly asked network supplier Openreach (BT) to waive several months of payments to support a rescue deal. (more…)