News

Interview As the telecoms industry gradually moves towards tackling Scope 3 emissions and the wider challenge of sustainability, Unipart Logistics’ Steve Carter discusses making the supply chain more circular at Connected Britain 2024 You can view our full interview below! Also in the news: Meta resumes use of UK user posts to train its AI models Verizon’s 4,800 job cuts will cost over $1.9 billion CMA questions Vodafone–Three merger after second...

News The deal covers over 6,000 towers across all 50 states and Washington D.C. Verizon has announced this week that it intends to sell the rights to lease, operate, and manage 6,339 mobile towers to infrastructure giant Vertical Bridge. The towers, which are reportedly located across the US, are currently owned by various Verizon subsidiaries and have a collective value of $3.3 billion. Upfront proceeds from the deal are expected to total around $2.8 billion in cash. As is typical of tower...

News  A final decision on the merger is expected by the end of the year  This week, Vodafone and Three have published a joint statement on the company’s merger in response to a statement from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) earlier this month, which outlined its provisional findings.  Following a second probe earlier this month, the CMA once again raised concerns that the deal could lead to higher prices and reduced service quality for millions of UK mobile customers. Specifically,...

News The deal includes the creation of a “Korea-customised” AI model based on OpeAI’s GPT-4o    South Korean telco Korea Telecom (KT) and Microsoft have announced a five-year, multibillion-dollar partnership to drive AI innovation across the country. The collaboration will bring AI-powered solutions to over 650,000 businesses and 17 million consumers, with a focus on industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, the companies have said.  A key aspect of the partnership is the...

Alternative broadband provider Pulse Fibre, which is aiming to complete over 250,000 unique “full fibre” (FTTP) connections into new build dwellings and MDUs (here), has today announced that they’ve signed a new deal with property developer Cavanna Homes to extend their service and cover new build homes in Dorset. The first Cavanna Homes site to benefit from this will be the new development at Warmwell Rise (Crossways, Dorchester) in Dorset (England), which currently starting to build 140...

Interview At this year’s Connected Britain, we caught up with TP-Link’s ISP Presales Director Paul Howard to discuss the enormous impact Wi-Fi 7 is having on the connected home sector Our interview covers everything from the latest technologies to the relationship between Wi-Fi and WAN, and the ongoing evolution of the connected home. Check out our full interview here! Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter   Also in the...

Customers of UK broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2), specifically those who also take their pay TV service and have kids, may like to know that the provider will be offering free access to children’s TV channels throughout the whole of October 2024 “as a way of saying thank you to customers and helping to keep families entertained throughout the month“. In other words, from Tuesday 1st October until 6am on 31st October 2024, all Virgin TV customers will be given access to additional kids TV...

Network operator Brsk, which is in the process of being merged into Netomnia (here), are facing an investigation by Ofcom after the regulator suggested that the operator may have “failed to comply with its obligations” under Code Powers during the roll-out of new “telegraph poles” as part of their new full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network in Birmingham. The operator, which has already reached 633,000 homes, is currently building out its new network across parts of West Yorkshire, Lancashire,...

Alternative network provider Cityfibre has today announced that they’ve connected the first homes to their new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network in rural parts of Norfolk, which is being built as part of their £114m state aid supported Project Gigabit contract (Lot 7) with the Government. CityFibre currently aspires to cover up to 8 million UK premises with their new FTTP network (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity, c.£4.9bn debt and c.£800m of BDUK / public subsidy)...

Mobile network operators Vodafone and Three UK (CK Hutchison) have today responded to the recently raised competition concerns over their proposed mega-merger by setting out a series of commitments, which they hope will satisfy the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) enough to approve the deal. Just to recap. The merger would see Vodafone retain a 51% slice of the business and CK Hutchison (Three UK) holding 49%. The agreement was promoted as something that would be “great for customers,...