News

The business division of mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today confirmed that, as part of their plan to switch-off 2G and 3G services across the United Kingdom, they’ll also be withdrawing inbound roaming services on both of those older mobile networks from 1st October 2025. Just to recap. Last year saw VMO2 become the final operator to reveal their plan for switching off their 3G mobile (mobile broadband) network (here), which will begin in 2025 and the withdrawal will then...

Mobile operator and broadband ISP Sure has successfully managed to improve the 4G and 5G signal across the north of Guernsey (English Channel Island) by hiding a new mast in plain sight, which was achieved by deploying the new infrastructure in a marina and making it look like a tall white yacht mast. Trying to hide or disguise large mobile masts is rarely an easy task. Over the years we’ve seen various attempts at concealment, some of which work better than others (e.g. painting them to blend...

The Welsh Government has today issued a progress update on their Local Broadband Fund (LBF), which was launched in 2020 and has so far allocated £12m – across four funding phases – to help local authorities and social enterprises to deliver faster broadband networks to areas and sites that need it (i.e. those unable to access speeds of 30Mbps+ today). For example, three adult residential care homes in Newport, including Parklands Care Home, now have gigabit-capable full-fibre broadband for the...

The Scottish Government has finally caught up with similar legislation in England (here and here), which was introduced at the end of 2022, by effectively mandating that property developers must ensure their new build homes are constructed with support for gigabit-capable broadband connections. This will become effective from 1st January 2025. At present every new building and building unit in Scotland must already be designed and constructed in such a way that a “high-speed ready” (30Mbps+)...

Interview Is the new Labour government’s approach to digital infrastructure going to be effective? In this Connected Britain interview, Simon Miller, Director of Public and Regional Affairs at Virgin Media O2, describes the “encouraging” discussions with government so far and how the UK’s digital infrastructure landscape is shifting in 2024. Check out the full interview from the link...

Press Release Nokia today announced the launch of a new sustainability calculator for private wireless networks for enterprises. This tool helps companies estimate the environmental and social benefits of using private wireless networks and the new Industry 4.0 applications they enable. Notable benefits include improved operations, reduced costs and carbon emissions, and fewer workplace accidents. Nokia commissioned PwC UK to support the development of a Private Wireless Sustainability...

In a rather unusual service outage, some of Sky UK’s customers are suffering from a serious and ongoing issue that is preventing them from being able to switch-on their broadband-based Sky Glass and Sky Stream pay TV streaming devices. We can’t say we’ve ever heard of many issues quite like this one before, but hopefully the devices can be remotely recovered. The bulk of complaints about this most bizarre of faults began to surface just before 5pm yesterday and more issues started to be...

The annual Mobile Industry Awards event for 2024 was held last night at the Royal Lancaster in London, which among other categories saw Sky Mobile being named the ‘Best MVNO‘ (virtual) operator, while EE won the ‘Retailer of the Year‘ and VOXI’s GenAI Chatbot was named ‘Innovation of the Year‘. As usual, this is one of those industry events where the shortlists for each of the categories are all judged by a panel of 20 people who either work directly within or alongside the same industry, with...

A new London-registered alternative network provider called Countryside Fibre has cropped up with a plan to deploy a gigabit-capable full fibre broadband network (FTTP vs GPON) across parts of North Somerset in England. The provider will sell packages both directly to homes and businesses, as well as via wholesale through other ISPs. Applications for Code Powers are typically sought to help speed-up deployments of new fibre and cut costs, not least by reducing the number of licences needed for...

News The operator says it is the first in the country to launch 5G standalone (SA) on a “national scale” This week, French mobile network operator Free, owned by telecoms giant Iliad Group, has announced the launch of 5G SA services. “Today, Free is announcing that it has deployed 5G SA (Standalone Access) on the 3.5 GHz frequencies of its public network on a national scale. By doing this, it has become the first mobile operator in France to offer this technology to its subscribers,” reads the...