News

News   The purpose of the extension is to create a point-to-point connection within Southwest Asia, the company said.  Verizon announced a two-year extension to its Global Network Solutions (GNS) contract with the Department of Defence (DoD), boosting the contract’s total value to over $98 million. Originally awarded in 2016, this extension will support secure communication networks in Southwest Asia, a region critical to US government operations.  Under the contract, Verizon will establish a...

Mobile operator Lyca Mobile, which is a virtual network operator (MVNO) on EE’s platform in the UK, has partnered up with global eSIM provider Sim Local to offer “high data plans” (mobile broadband) as a regional eSIM option in the UK, France, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Portugal and the US (Lyca also offers eSIMs across its network of 23 countries). Just to be clear. Sim Local typically caters to global travellers and allows them to avoid expensive roaming charges by opting to use one...

New customers looking to join Smarty, which is a virtual mobile operator (MVNO) on Three UK’s national network, may like to know that they’ve kicked off their Black Friday deals, such as by doubling the data on their £10 per month 40GB plan to 80GB and offering 15GB for £7 per month (an extra 7GB). All of Smarty’s plans operate off a monthly (30 day) contract term, come with unlimited UK calls and texts, support 4G and 5G connections, unrestricted Tethering, inclusive EU roaming (with a 12GB...

News Among the stories from North America last week, Comcast announced the launch of a new brand in Canada and a major industry advocacy group pledged to work with President-elect Donald Trump to advance rural connectivity in the United States Here’s a look at the five biggest stories over the last week from our sister publication, Broadband Communities:  Comcast announces launch of Rogers Xfinity in Canada  Rogers Communications has announced the first phase of their deployment of Comcast...

Mobile operator and ISP Vodafone UK has today published their Q2 FY25 financial results, which reveals that their fixed line broadband base grew again to total 1.477 million customers (up by 50k in Q2 vs 44k in Q1) and their mobile base fell again to total 18.474 million (down by -93k in Q2 vs -71k in Q1). In terms of their UK fixed broadband services, the operator has continued to report strong growth, with a quarterly addition of 50,000 customers – thanks in part to being widely available...

Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today marked an important milestone by switching on the UK’s first publicly funded “Total Not Spot” (TNS) 4G (mobile broadband) mast site on South Uist in Scotland, which forms part of the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) programme and its efforts to extend mobile coverage into remote rural areas. The SRN – supported by £501m of public funding and £532m from operators – involves both the reciprocal sharing of existing masts in certain areas and...

The Building Digital UK agency and Department for the Economy (DfE) have this week begun the supplier procurement phase of their future Project Gigabit broadband roll-out for Northern Ireland, which values the contract at up to £81m (state aid) and could potentially achieve almost universal coverage of 1000Mbps+ broadband speeds. So far a mix of commercial builds and some state-aid funded deployments under the £197m Project Stratum scheme have already helped to extend the coverage of fixed...

Neos Networks, which operates one of the biggest 34,000km long business fibre networks in the UK – spanning 550 exchanges, 90+ data centres and 676 Points of Presence (PoPs), has today signed a new deal to harness the 100Gbps capable full fibre network that has been built by ISP Vorboss in London. Just to recap. Vorboss recently completed the deployment of a 500km dedicated point-to-point fibre optic network across Central London (covering most of zones 1 and 2), which we’re told is enough to...

Events This week saw Total Telecom’s Connected Germany conference make its triumphant return to Munich The two-day event saw more than 1,200 attendees come togther from across the country to discuss the biggest challenges facing Germany connectivity industry. From the country’s rapidly accelerating fibre and 5G rollouts, The event’s extensive agenda featured over 150 speakers representing every corner of Germany’s digital economy, from network builders and operators, to the public sector and...

News  The deal follows a similar one with Verizon last month  UScellular has announced a deal to sell part of its spectrum assets to AT&T for $1.018 billion. This transaction is part of the company’s strategy to monetise spectrum not included in its earlier agreement with T-Mobile. AT&T joins Verizon and other carriers in purchasing spectrum from UScellular as the company continues to streamline its holdings.  Following this sale, UScellular will have sold around 55% of its spectrum...