Simplicity, versatility, and sustainability: Commscope talks priorities at Connected Britain
Interview At Connected Britain 2024, we caught up with Dean Giles, FAE Manager at Commscope, to discuss the company’s latest R&D efforts and how the company’s latest product line is is prioritising ease of installation and sustainability. Check out the full interview here! Keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news with Total Telecom’s daily newsletter 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...
Industry reactions mixed as Deutsche Telekom joins BUGLAS
News The company made the announcement at Fibre Optic Partner Day in Bonn, Germany This week, German incumbent telecoms operator Deutsche Telekom has joined the German Federal Association for Fiber Optic Connections (BUGLAS), an industry association focussed on promoting and expanding fibre infrastructure throughout Germany. While this move may seem outwardly benign, it has been met with trepidation by much of the German fibre industry, with BUGLAS having historically represented the...
Broadband Forum Seeks More Energy Efficient Full Fibre Networks
The Broadband Forum has launched a new project that is seeking to lower the energy consumption of fibre optic broadband networks when accessing the internet. This will build on the ITU-T’s recommendations and guidelines on power-saving in fibre equipment, while adopting some of the forum’s own standards. First things first. Modern fibre optic networks are already highly energy efficient, particularly when compared with older copper-line technologies at similar speeds. But this sort of...
Airtel tackling India’s spam call epidemic with AI
News The operator says its AI-powered spam detection solution is catching over 100 million potential spam calls a day This week, Bharti Airtel has announced the rollout of its new AI-powered spam detection solution. The solution, which has reportedly been developed over the past year, is able to analyse calls and alert the receiver of a potential spam call in just 2 milliseconds. The caller then has the option of whether to block the call or not. The solution uses a purpose-built algorithm to...
Northern Ireland Ministers Call for Improvements to Rural Mobile Coverage
The Northern Ireland Assembly yesterday met to debate the need for improvements in rural mobile coverage, which among other things highlighted problems with “major delays in the planning process” for approving new 4G / 5G masts, the need for greater infrastructure sharing and question marks over what impact the barrier busting task force has actually had. In case anybody has forgotten. The Department for the Economy (DfE) published a rather vague Mobile Action Plan for Northern Ireland (MAP...
London Broadband ISP Community Fibre Discounts 500Mbps to £20
London-focused broadband ISP CommunityFibre (CF), which has rolled out their 3Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to around 1.4 million UK premises (predominantly in the city), has launched a new discount that cuts their mid-tier 500Mbps (symmetric) speed package to £20 per month on a 24-month term (price increases £4 post-contract). Just to put this in perspective. Residential customers of CF typically pay from £21 per month on a 24-month term for speeds of 150Mbps (symmetric)...
Rural Full Fibre Broadband ISP Gigaclear Summarises Annual UK Progress
Alternative network provider Gigaclear, which as of March 2024 has built a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 500,000 rural premises (RFS) in England (inc. 100,000 customers), has this week published their annual accounts to the end of 2023 and revealed some key figures for the year. Just to recap. Gigaclear is principally owned by Infracapital, together with Equitix and Railpen. The company previously had investment commitments estimated to be worth up...
Opensignal Name the UK Top 4G and 5G Mobile Operators for H2 2024
Crowdsourced benchmarking firm Opensignal has today published their latest Mobile Network Experience Report for H2 2024, which examines the 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) services of all four primary networks – EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three UK – to find which delivers the best performance. Overall, EE scooped 10 out of 14 awards. As usual, the report is based off data (speed and signal tests etc.) gathered from people using hundreds of thousands of devices (Smartphones etc.) between 1st June and...
ASA Bans NOW TV Advert Over Lack of Clarity for Significant Conditions
The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a website ad for Sky’s broadband ISP and subscription-based TV streaming sub-brand, NOW TV (NOW Broadband), after it failed to make clear the “significant conditions” of its free trials, which would automatically auto-renew at a fee. The promotion itself was for one of NOW TV’s standard Entertainment Membership plans, which showed up after clicking the “Choose your membership” button on the company’s website in December 2023. Upon...
Aqua Comms upgrades AEC-1 subsea network
News The 5,536km-long America Europe Connect (AEC-1) cable links the US to Ireland and the UK Subsea connectivity company Aqua Comms has expanded its network capacity by lighting a new fibre pair on the AEC-1 submarine cable system. The cable, which is Ireland’s first dedicated subsea cable, connects New York, Dublin, and London. The move is designed to meet the increasing demand for fast and reliable data transmission between the three nations. Aqua Comms says the move has also...