News

Network operator nexfibre, which shares some of their parentage with broadband ISP partner Virgin Media (O2), has announced that they’ve extended their 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) network to cover 18,000 additional homes in the West Sussex (England) town of Horsham. The town itself is now well covered by both Virgin Media and nexfibre’s combined gigabit broadband networks, although it’s worth noting that Horsham is also home to several other full fibre networks with...

Alternative network operator AllPoints Fibre Networks, which is the UK wholesale division of Fern Trading’s recently consolidate alternative FTTP broadband ISP networks (Giganet, Jurassic Fibre, and Swish Fibre), has today announced that they’ve acquired Glasgow-based full fibre ISP Brillband for an undisclosed sum. In case anybody has forgotten, Brillband was only founded in 2022 and tended to focus their CityFibre based broadband services toward customers in Scotland. The ISP also once...

Eastbourne-based alternative network builder and ISP Lightning Fibre, which has been building a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across parts of Sussex and Kent in England, has today launched a big winter sale across their various full fibre packages for homes. The operator, which has built to a number of locations like Eastbourne, Brighton and Hove, Worthing, Lancing, Hastings and St Leonards, Heathfield, Hellingly and Broad Oak, Hailsham and Polegate, originally planned to...

Broadband network operator Netomnia (inc. Brsk and YouFibre) will today post their latest Q3 2024 results, which among other things reveals that the annual build rate for their new 8Gbps speed full fibre (FTTP) network has exceeded 1 million premises (total 1.82m, up 258k in quarter) and customer take-up hit 10.4% to total 190,000 (up 9% or 40k in quarter). The combined networks of Netomnia and Brsk currently harbour a short-term target of growing their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband...

A new report from analyst firm Enders Analysis, which was today shared with ISPreview, has calculated that the 20 largest alternative UK broadband networks (i.e. BT / Openreach challengers) collectively suffered losses of around £1.304bn in 2023 (increased from £755m in 2022) – driven by high interest rates and rising build costs. The news won’t come as much of a surprise to our regular readers, as ISPreview has often had to report on the challenges being experienced by network operators over...

News The state-owned telco has reportedly deployed over 50,000 4G sites nationwide, Today, India’s Ministry of Communications has announced that state-run telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has successfully deployed over 50,000 4G sites across the country, around 41,000 of which are currently operational. This represents half of the 100,000 sites that the company estimates will be required to achieve national coverage of its new network. The deployments have been completed using...

Alternative network operator Grain (Grain Connect), which has already built their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 220,000 UK premises RFS (21st May 2024) and connected 30,000 customers, has revealed that they’ve begun to expand their existing deployment in the Cheshire (England) town of Warrington. Just to recap. Back in 2023 Grain announced that they were going to build their FTTP network across “more than” 10,000 homes in Warrington (here). This...

News The divestment will reduce the operator’s stake in the towerco to around 25% Today, Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) has announced that it will sell an 8.33% stake in mobile towers company Cornerstone to infrastructure investor Equitix. The deal, which is facilitated by the sale of a 16.6% stake in a holding company, will see VMO2 receive £186 million upon completion. The stake sale is subject to typical regulatory approvals. Cornerstone is the UK’s largest tower company, formed in 2012 as a 50:50...

The new Chancellor of the Labour Government, Rachel Reeves MP, has today announced her first Autumn 2024 Budget and confirmed that she would commit “over £500m of funding next year” for “improving reliable fast broadband and mobile coverage across our country, including in rural areas“. Just to recap. The previous Government had two headline investment programmes for improving broadband and mobile. The first one was the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) project, which aims to boost...

News  The sale, taking place over the next five years, will help the company improve its cash flow  Kyocera, a Japanese manufacturer of telecom equipment and semiconductor materials, is planning to sell up to a third its stake in KDDI, Japan’s second largest telco, according to a Bloomberg article published today.  Kyocera currently holds a 15.3% stake in KDDI, which Bloomberg estimates to be worth roughly ¥1.6 trillion ($10.4 billion).Kyocera says it plans to sell a third of this stake over...