News

News Elon Musk’s clash with the Brazilian government over moderation of X (formerly Twitter) has resulted in a government ban on the platform Volatile billionaire Elon Musk’s ongoing clash with the Brazilian government has this week seen his social media platform X banned across the country. In addition, the sanctions appear to extend to SpaceX’s satellite constellation Starlink, with reports suggesting that the company’s Brazilian accounts have been frozen. On April 6 this year, Elon Musk...

News  The network will be the first in the UK that is focused on understanding the impact of extreme weather conditions across the country  The UK government has announced a new initiative to provide earlier warnings for devastating floods and droughts. Backed by £40 million, this project will use advanced technology and real-time monitoring to protect communities from the increasing threat of extreme weather.  The project, led by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the UK...

The newly appointed CEO, Tom Rigg, of rural focused full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP B4RN has told Richard Tang, the boss of Zen Internet, in a new interview that their network now passes 27,000 premises in rural areas and is home to almost 14,000 customers. But they have no plans to “split everything off and then try and go wholesale” with the network. Just to recap. B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North) is a registered Community Benefit Society (i.e. they can’t be bought by a commercial...

Alternative network operator Open Fibre Networks Limited (OFNL / GTC / BUUK), which typically serves new build homes with gigabit fibre (FTTP) via several of their supporting UK broadband ISPs, appears to be suffering a major national outage this morning that is also making it difficult to access their Incidents Page. The feedback received from some of OFNL’s customers this morning suggests that everything was working well until around 10am, when the service went down. The good news is that...

Alternative broadband provider Gigaclear, which has built a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to cover 500,000 premises (RFS) in England (inc. 100,000 customers), has introduced a new range of discounts that rejigs their packages and prices for those placing an order during September 2024. The promotion means that Gigaclear are now promoting three packages on their website, including a 300Mbps (symmetric speed) plan that costs just £19 per month on an 18-month term (£46...

Broadband ISP Quickline, which is building a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and 5G powered fixed wireless access (FWA) network across rural and semi-rural parts of the North East and Midlands of England, will this morning significantly cut the prices on some of their packages and introduce symmetric speeds on their full fibre plans. Just to recap. The network operator is currently being supported by funding of c.£500m from Northleaf Capital Partners, as well as c.£296.4m of...

Openreach (BT) have restored their broadband and phone services in the Swanscombe and surrounding areas of Kent (England), which follows a major network outage that struck thousands of local premises. This began after damage was caused to the operator’s core fibre optic cables at around midday on Saturday (31st Aug). The incident caused disruption for customers of both retail broadband ISPs on Openreach’s network and some other network operators that harness the same physical infrastructure...

Oxfordshire-based alternative full fibre operator Zzoomm, which has deployed their 2Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 202,000 premises (RFS) in England, has reportedly accelerated their plans for an M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) drive with the appointment of Acuity Advisors to help identify prospective deals. Just to recap. Zzoomm’s network, which is home to 30,000 customers (c.15% take-up), is currently present across around 29 market towns and small urban...

Several members of ISPreview’s forum community have spotted that broadband ISP and mobile network operator EE (BT) appears to have quietly introduced new / revamped UK plans, which include the first support for their latest 5G Standalone (5G SA) mobile broadband technology. Faster speeds, network prioritisation and other benefits are expected. The majority of UK 5G mobile networks today are Non-Standalone (NSA), which means they are still partly reliant on older and slower 4G infrastructure....

News  The rumours come amid financial difficulty in the sector  Nokia has officially denied rumors that it plans to sell its mobile networks division to Samsung.   Speculation about a potential sale emerged after a Bloomberg report yesterday suggested that Nokia was considering selling or spinning off its mobile networks business, which could be valued at around $10 billion, with Samsung mentioned as a potential buyer.  Citing people familiar with the matter, the article explained that the...