TalkTalk to cut hundreds more jobs in effort to save £120m
News The “radical” restructuring is the latest step to avoid company collapse UK ISP TalkTalk is set to cut hundreds of jobs, as announced in an investor’s meeting last week, The Telegraph has reported. According to the report, the firm has already begun redundancy consultations, as it plans to cut 130 jobs in its consumer division based in Salford. More are set to follow at its wholesale business, Platform X. Earlier this month, the company’s latest accounts revealed that it had reached...
Gigs Raises $73 Million To Enable Tech Companies To Launch Their Own Mobile Service
SAN FRANCISCO, 12th of December 2024 – Gigs, the operating system for mobile services, today announced that it has raised a $73M Series B led by Ribbit Capital. All existing investors, including Google’s Gradient, YC and Speedinvest participated in the round. Gigs will use the funding to expand its geographical footprint and invest in an expanded suite of products and services for tech companies. This will enable more tech brands to meaningfully innovate in telecom, provide more value to their...
Heavily delayed ADC submarine cable system finally goes live in East Asia
News The Asia Direct Cable (ADC) spans approximately 10,000km, connecting China, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam Today, Japanese tech giant NEC Corporation has announced the activation of the long-awaited ADC submarine cable system. The cable, which connects China, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, has a capacity of over 160 Tbps and represents a significant boost to data traffic route diversity in the region. “This new cable marks a significant...
Independent Power Transmission Operator and Serverfarm Join Forces to Spearhead Hyperscale Data Center Development and Operations in Greece
PRESS RELEASE Independent Power Transmission Operator and Serverfarm Join Forces to Spearhead Hyperscale Data Center Development and Operations in Greece Athens, 16th December 2024 The Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO) of Greece and Serverfarm, a global data center developer and operator, announced today the signing of a Heads of Agreement regarding the formation of Gemini, a Joint Venture with the objective of developing and operating state-of-the-art, hyperscale-ready data...
Sky Glass and Stream UK Customers Get New Ad-Skipping Feature
Customers of Sky’s broadband-based Sky Glass and Sky Stream pay TV streaming devices have finally got access to the provider’s new Ad-Skipping feature, which is an add-on pack that appears to have been introduced alongside Sky’s latest firmware update (e.g. QS34.022.00P on Sky Glass). The new update, which started to be rolled out last week, also included various other bug fixes and feature additions (e.g. a new Extra-vivid viewing mode and various tweaks to the User Interface). But the...
Openreach Reveal More 2024 UK Ethernet, PIA and Dark Fibre Price Rises
Network access provider Openreach (BT) has just announced the second batch of annual price increases for 2024 (see first batch), albeit this time focused more on their wholesale Ethernet (EAD, EBD etc.), OSA, Excess Construction Charges (ECC), SOTAP for Analogue, Dark Fibre and Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) products for UK ISPs, businesses and other networks. Just to recap. Ofcom’s regulation (example) allows Openreach to increase prices across their various wholesale products, usually...
Court Dismisses Class Action Claim Over BT’s Alleged UK Landline Overcharging
The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has today dismissed a £1.3bn class action claim by the Collective Action on Land Lines (CALL) campaign against national broadband ISP and phone provider BT, which alleged that the UK telecoms giant had overcharged 2.3 million of its landline-only phone customers between 2015 and 2018. Just to recap. The original claim was first raised at the start of 2021 through UK law firm Mishcon de Reya, which was acting on behalf of a former Ofcom telecoms consultant...
World Communication Awards shine a light on AI Excellence
Contributed Article by Marc Anné, Chair of Judges for the World Communication Awards This year, we counted 219 entries across 23 award categories in the World Communication Awards. As expected, the newly introduced AI Excellence Award became a popular category. 2023 saw the rise of generative AI, 2024 proved to be the year of its integration into telecommunications. Entries showcased incredible innovation and excellence and reflected a wide variety of use cases whereby Gen-AI is generating...
CityFibre Begin Project Gigabit Broadband Build in Leicestershire and Warwickshire
Network operator CityFibre has today announced that they’ve begun the roll-out phase of their £77m state-aid supported Project Gigabit contract for the Leicestershire and Warwickshire (Lot 11) area. This will extend their 10Gbps capable FTTP broadband network to an additional 45,000 hard-to-reach rural premises in those regions. Curiously, the figures given in Cityfibre’s announcement today differ from those they gave when the contract was announced in February 2024 (here), which specified a...
First Customer Live on Project Gigabit Broadband Network in South Wiltshire UK
Rural ISP Wessex Internet has announced that they’ve connected their first customer to a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, which they’ve been building as part of their £18.8m Project Gigabit (Lot 30) contract for South Wiltshire (England). This aims to cover “around” 14,500 hard-to-reach premises in the area. Zoe Hallett from Bapton is the first to benefit, although the roll-out will see the provider expanding their existing full fibre network across more of...