News

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today introduced changes that are designed to improve their spectrum sharing framework, which among other things have been designed to add more flexibility, facilitate more effective spectrum sharing and increase spectrum supply to support new types of fixed wireless (broadband) and mobile (4G, 5G etc.) services. The existing spectrum sharing framework was first introduced in 2019 (here) and paved the way for many smaller mobile and fixed wireless data...

Contributed Article  Recently, Huawei launched its new 5G-AA solutions, designed to address the growing demands of Mobile AI.   The solutions aim to deepen the integration of 5.5G networks with AI technologies, improving both network capabilities and user experiences. As such, these solutions focus on two complimentary concepts: ‘Networks for AI’ and ‘AI for Networks’.   ‘Networks for AI’ seeks to ensure that mobile networks are equipped with the necessary capacity and flexibility to support...

News  BT has long been a cornerstone of the UK’s emergency connectivity, handling 999 emergency calls since 1937  BT has signed a £1.29 billion contract with the Home Office to provide mobile services for the UK’s Emergency Services Network (ESN) over the next seven years, the company announced over the weekend.  The ESN is a critical system that uses the 4G network to deliver secure and reliable voice, video, and data communications for the UK’s emergency services. It allows police, fire, and...

Broadband ISP and mobile operator EE (BT) has today announced that customers of their pay TV service have just gained access to the new Paramount+ streaming App via their TV Box Pro and TV Box Mini hardware (set-top-boxes). This offers access to a wide selection of blockbuster movies and TV shows etc. But there’s a catch for those with a Premium plan. In addition to the ‘Standard’ (£7.99 per month) Paramount+ plan, customers can also sign-up to the recently introduced ‘Basic (with ads)’...

The Bridgend County Borough Council (BCBC) today claims to have become the “first local authority in Wales” to complete a digital switchover of its telecare alarms. This has seen them move away from BT and Openreach’s old copper-based analogue line services (PSTN phones and WLR) to adopt internet-based solutions instead. Just to recap. The shift to digital landlines is an industry, not government, led programme that is partly driven by the looming retirement of copper lines in favour of full...

The UK Government has signed a new £1.29bn deal with BT (EE) to extend their operation of the 4G based Emergency Services Network (ESN) for another 7-years. But after years of delays and disputes, only some of which is related to EE’s side of things, the Home Office still doesn’t expect the ESN to be fully operational until 2029. Just to recap. The emergency services (police, fire, ambulances etc.) were originally due to have moved away from the old Motorola-owned Airwave network several years...

A year and a half has now passed since the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron (Lib Dem), highlighted the connectivity limbo (here) that several villages in Cumbria – including Ormside, Warcop, Hilton, and Murton – had been left in by the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme. But locals have just been asked to wait a little bit longer. Just to recap. Some or all of the aforementioned communities were originally in the process of being lined up to receive gigabit...

Energy provider Electricity North West (ENW) has said its engineers were “left speechless” after discovering that a telecoms operator in the Lancashire (England) town of Burnley had erected a steel mast “just one metre away” from 132,000-volt overhead electricity lines. “One wrong move could have resulted in a death,” said ENW. The “potentially fatal” situation in Burnley is said to have been discovered on Wednesday by ENW’s “tree cutting teams“, who were carrying out maintenance in the area....

Partner Article The deployment, which Huawei says is the world’s first ‘large-scale integrated 5G-Advanced intelligent network’, will provide services to over 10 million people in the Chinese capital China Unicom Beijing has deployed a far reaching 5G-Advanced network covering stadiums, schools, scenic areas, metro stations, commercial areas, residential areas, and other facilities in Beijing.  The new three component carrier (3CC) network will provide 5G coverage for roughly 10 million...

News The European parliament has approved Ursula von der Leyen’s selected commissioners for her second term as President of the European Commission Earlier this summer, Ursula von der Leyen was re-elected as President of the European Commission, granting her a second five-year term as head of the European Union’s most powerful institution. Now, this week has seen von der Leyen’s selection of European Commissioners ratified by parliament, setting the stage for a new European regulatory era to...