Starlink Quietly Add £8 Roaming Plan to UK Satellite Broadband Service
SpaceX’s Starlink service, which offers ultrafast broadband speeds via a mega constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), appears to have quietly added a new and super cheap £8 per month roaming plan for customers in the UK. But as usual, there are a few catches to consider. At present Starlink has over 7,000 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (c.3,00 are v2 Mini / GEN 2A) – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km – and they’re in the process of adding thousands more by the end of 2027....
EU commits €8 billion to strengthen submarine cable security
News The European Commission has announced an €8 billion investment to improve the security and resilience of submarine cables This includes major funding for projects such as the Baltic Synchronisation (€1.23 billion), the Great Sea Interconnector (€658 million), Bornholm Energy Island (€645 million), the Biscay Bay Interconnector (€578 million), and the Celtic Interconnector (€531 million). Speaking in Helsinki, Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen outlined the EU’s plan to protect...
Study Compares UK and EU 5G Standalone and NSA Mobile Broadband Speeds
Network testing firm Ookla (i.e. Speedtest.net, Downdetector.co.uk) has today published an interesting new report that examines the adoption and performance of 5G Standalone (5GSA) based mobile broadband networks across the UK and Europe. This also compares the new technology against existing Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G networks. Just for some context. 5G SA networks are pure end-to-end 5G connections that remove the legacy of slower 4G connectivity (still present in current NSA networks) and can...
CEO of Broadband ISP Community Fibre Apologises After Second Outage
Hopefully bad things don’t come in threes. Graeme Oxby, the CEO of London focused full fibre broadband ISP CommunityFibre, has apologised to customers after the operator suffered a second service outage yesterday, which much like the first one appears as if it could have been related to their Domain Name Servers (DNS). But this outage was much shorter. In case anybody has forgotten, CommunityFibre was hit by a protracted outage on Monday (here), which lasted for several hours and impacted a...
Virgin Media Set to Open Upgraded Full Fibre Network to UK Customers
Several credible sources have informed ISPreview that broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2) is gearing up for an important new product launch, which is expected to occur in March 2025 (delays still possible). The expectation is that this will reflect the opening up of their new XGS-PON powered full fibre network in existing coax (cable) areas to live customers. The operator is currently in the process of upgrading millions of their legacy Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC / DOCSIS 3.1) powered areas to support...
Signs of Life as UK Broadband Altnet WhyFibre Spotted Building FTTP
Four years have passed since we first reported on the emergence of a new alternative network (altnet) called WhyFibre (here). The operator had expressed a plan to build a new gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across “underserved” parts of South England, but until recently they had appeared to be dormant. Just to recap. ISPreview’s original article in 2021 noted how WhyFibre were busy securing Code Powers from Ofcom to help speed-up their planned deployment of new...
Eutelsat OneWeb in First Successful Trial of a 5G Non-Terrestrial Network
European satellite operator Eutelsat has announced that their OneWeb network, which is a global constellation of broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) that is partly still supported by the UK government (11% stake), has just conducted the “world’s first successful trial” of a 5G Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN). OneWeb (aka – Eutelsat OneWeb) currently has 654 small (c.150kg) first generation (GEN1) LEO platforms in space – orbiting at an altitude of 1,200km (c.600 of them for coverage...
CityFibre UK Completes Primary FTTP Broadband Build in Aberdeen
Network access provider CityFibre, which has so far built their 2.5Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 4.3 million UK premises (4.1m Ready for Service), have confirmed the completion of their “primary” £59m build in the city of Aberdeen (Scotland). The long-running network deployment, which was originally announced in February 2018 (here), has now built to over 105,000 homes in Aberdeen (around 97% of the city’s premises) via over 762km of new fibre cable....
Vodafone using drones to plug holes in damaged networks
News Using Taara’s wireless optical networking tech, two drones can establish a birectional connection over multiple kilometres, allowing the operator to bypass damaged sections of its network This week, Vodafone has announced it is piloting a new drone solution aimed at helping networks stay operational in the event of cable damage. The drones, operating in pairs and equipped with wireless optical technology from the Taara Project, aim to provide a wireless bridge across damaged network...
GSMA AI Customer Care Study 2025: How MNOs are leveraging AI to Revolutionize Customer Support
Stockholm, Sweden – 19 February 2025 – SUBTONOMY, the world’s leading telecoms technical customer support vendor, is featured in a new report released today by the GSMA’s Mobile World Live, the online communications hub for the global mobile industry. Subtonomy sponsored insight into AI adoption in the customer care domain in the newly-released AI Survey 2025, which provides a barometer of uptake of AI as the mobile industry shifts to intelligent operation. Mobile Operators see huge potential...