News

The Government’s Building Digital UK agency has published its latest quarterly November 2024 progress update on the £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme, which now has “over” 30 live contracts in place across England and Wales – supporting planned deployments of gigabit-capable broadband to around 1 million premises. Just to recap. Project Gigabit aimed to extend broadband ISP networks capable of delivering download speeds of at least 1000Mbps (1Gbps) and uploads of at least 200Mbps...

Bangkok, Thailand – November 27, 2024 – Compax Software Development PTE Ltd., the software arm of Compax Digital Group (“Compax Digital”), and Thailand’s AGTR Group Co., Ltd., (“AGTR Group”), announce the formation of MVNO.SERVICES Co., Ltd., a new joint venture designed to transform Thailand’s mobile service sector. MVNO.SERVICES will leverage on Compax Digital’s cutting-edge technology suite with AGTR Group’s extensive expertise in MVNO operations and local market insights, to launch a...

News Allera will be replaced by telecoms veteran Claire Gillies from April next year EE CEO Marc Allera has announced that he will step down from the role at the end of March next year, having spent nine years with BT Group. In a statement, Allera said he was “proud to have led an incredible team through enormous change in the market” over the past nine years. “In that time we have transformed every aspect of our operations to deliver great service to our 25m customers across the UK, with...

News Change is in the air at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with a new review of rules around submarine cables, the first such review since 2001. That, and comments from President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be FCC chair signal a new scrutiny toward the government’s approach to broadband infrastructure.    Carr says ‘important discussion’ needed about BEAD’s future FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said the commission will have to have an important discussion about the future of...

The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA) has today revealed the list of winners from their annual 2024 INCA Awards event, which aims to recognise and celebrate the top alternative networks (altnets) and ISPs from across the UK. Suffice to say that it was a good night for Brsk (Netomnia), Ogi, Quickline, Wessex Internet and others. As usual, the winners were all decided by a panel of five “independent” industry judges (here), which included a mix of people from various network...

Telecoms and broadband giant BT Group has today announced that the CEO of their UK Consumer Division (EE), Marc Allera, is to step down from the role on 31st March 2025. The operator also confirmed that Claire Gillies would then become CEO-Designate and a member of its Executive Committee on 10th December 2024, as part of a transition process. Marc has become somewhat of a familiar face as EE’s boss, having held the position of CEO since as far back as January 2016, before taking on the...

Contributed Article by Rakuten Symphony At Telecoms World Asia 2024, a familiar theme echoed in the halls: a certain virtualization leader’s post-acquisition pricing has reached untenable levels.   Here’s the twist: they may actually have done you a massive favor. Why? These rising costs are a wakeup call. They are forcing operators to take a hard look at whether legacy platforms—once the backbone of networks—can support the demands of modern telecom operations. The cracks in the foundation...

The UK Government (DSIT, UK Space Agency) has today announced the launch of a new £3.5m “Very Hard to Reach Programme“, which will conduct three projects that seek to use hybrid networks (e.g. a mix of satellite, fixed wireless and 5G/6G mobile technologies) to help improve broadband connectivity in remote rural areas. At present a little over 85% of UK premises can already access gigabit-capable broadband services via a fixed line connection (usually FTTP or Hybrid Fibre Coax), which is...

Alternative network operator Grain (Grain Connect) has announced that they’re expanding their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network into the town of Ashington in Northumberland (England). The operator’s network currently reaches 220,000 UK premises RFS (21st May 2024) and has already connected 30,000 customers. The local roll-out in the town, which ultimately aims to reach “thousands of homes” (we don’t get anything more specific than that), is currently entering...

News  The trial paves the way for bringing satellite-enabled messaging to customers in remote areas across Europe  Deutsche Telekom, Qualcomm, and Skylo Technologies have completed what they claim is Europe’s first successful trial of text messaging direct-to-handset over satellite.   The trial, conducted in Greece by Deutsche Telekom’s local subsidiary Cosmote, saw the Cosmote’s terrestrial mobile network integrated with Skylo’s GEO satellite network, allowing the device user to send and...