Virgin Media O2 UK Expand Mobile Small Cells to Central Reading
Mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today continued with their effort to boost 4G and 5G mobile (mobile broadband) capacity across the UK, not least by expanding their ongoing roll-out of small cells into the central part of Reading (town) in Berkshire – supported by Ontix. Small cells are like mini shoebox sized mobile (radio) base stations, which have been designed to deliver limited coverage (usually up to around 80-120 metres) and thus tend to be more focused on busy urban areas...
VMO2 and Ontix partner on 4G small cells in Reading
Press Release Visitors, residents, businesses and students in Reading town centre will begin to benefit from an improved mobile experience and faster speeds after the first Virgin Media O2 small cells are deployed across the Borough. Virgin Media O2 and Ontix partnered to bring small cells to Reading where the innovative technology is already boosting mobile capacity and reducing network traffic in major destinations at busy times. The small cells have been deployed in some of the busiest...
Report Claims Fixed Wireless Broadband Could Give UK a £4bn Boost
A new report from the UK Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (UKWISPA), which was put together by Intelligens Consulting, has claimed that fostering greater use and acceptance of the latest innovations in fixed wireless broadband networks by the government could deliver £4bn of “quantifiable impact” in the UK. The government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency and its £5bn Project Gigabit broadband roll-out programme have, thus far, tended to prefer network solutions that adopt...
New Kit Sends Gigabit WiFi Network Speeds Through 30cm of Concrete
A Silicon Valley company called Airvine has developed a rather unique network bridge that can extend a Local Area Network (LAN) running at multi-Gigabit speeds, seemingly using only WiFi style wireless signals via the 2.4GHz and 6GHz bands, through “up to” 30cm (12″) of solid concrete walls – it can even bend around 90-degree solid concrete corners. As somewhat of a general rule, wireless networking signals don’t usually like going through solid walls and the thicker they are, the more trouble...
Three UK’s Home Broadband Users Suffer Intermittent Connectivity
Some customers of mobile network operator Three UK, specifically those who are taking one of their 4G and 5G powered unlimited Three Home Broadband packages, have – for the best part of a year – been complaining about an intermittent connectivity problem that is sporadically disrupting their use of various internet services. The issue, which has in recent months been experienced by members of ISPreview’s forum and is also covered via a 41-page thread on Three’s forum (here), first surfaced in...
ISP Equity Networks Add Paid Security Feature to UK Users Without Consent
Business broadband ISP and managed service provider Equity Networks has recently become the latest company in a growing list to irritate some of their UK customers, which it did by automatically adding a paid (£12.99 a month) internet security feature – ‘SafeWeb’ – to their accounts, without first getting explicit consent. Over the past few weeks’ we’ve reported on how both Onetsream (here) and Daisy Communications (here) have managed to attract the ire of their customers by adding an extra...
Virgin Media UK Adds Support for Rakuten TV Streaming App
Customers of UK broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2), specifically those who take their pay TV service via one of the operator’s TV 360 or Stream platforms, may like to know that the Rakuten TV App is now available on their service at no extra cost – offering an array of content (8,000+ titles on demand, including new releases to rent and buy, 150+ FAST channels and more). Access to the Rakuten TV app is said to be direct, with no subscription necessary. Virgin TV customers simply need to head to...
Ofcom Sets Guidance to Improve Resilience of UK Broadband and Mobile Networks
The UK telecoms and media regulator, Ofcom, has today set out how they intend to update their guidance on network resilience in order to give broadband ISPs, mobile operators and other digital network providers greater clarity on how they can “reduce the risk of network outages“. But proposals to improve battery backup on mobile networks will come later. Communications providers in the UK currently have a legal obligation to identify, prepare for and reduce the risk of anything that...
Ofcom Study Benchmarks Speeds of UK 4G and 5G Mobile Networks
The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today published their 2024 Mobile Matters report, which uses Opensignal’s crowdsourced data (collected between October 2023 and March 2024) to benchmark the performance of UK mobile broadband networks by both technology (2G to 5G), nation and operator choice – including Three UK, O2, Vodafone and EE. The results hold few surprises, but they do still reveal some interesting details. For example, 78% of cellular network connections were to 4G networks over...
Openreach Calls on Virgin Media to Open UK Cable Ducts to Rivals UPDATE
The CEO of Openreach (BT), Clive Selley, has today set out their position with respect to Ofcom’s forthcoming Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR), which amongst other things sees the UK operator call for the regulator and Government to push Virgin Media (O2) and others into opening up access to their cable ducts to help reduce the number of broadband poles being built. The regulator’s Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR) is a wide-ranging market study, which is typically only conducted every...