News

Network operator FullFibre Limited (Fibre Heroes), which has already extended their open access Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGSPON) broadband network to cover 380,000 UK premises (up from 339k in May 2024), have today made a faster 2.3Gbps (symmetric speed) tier available to their partner ISPs for consumers and businesses to take. The underlying full fibre network typically covers 170 towns across parts of Derbyshire, Essex, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Herefordshire, Lancashire,...

Interview Following rural ISP Quickline’s recent success in securing its fourth round of government funding earlier this month, Total Telecom sat down with CEO Sean Royce to discuss all things rural broadband  Founded in 2006, Quickline’s mission is to get rural communities connected “to a world of possibilities,” according to the website. The company is based in East Yorkshire and focuses on connecting local communities in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire with fixed wireless access and, more...

News President Joe Biden and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi both made mention of rural broadband at the Democratic National Convention By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities President Joe Biden’s ‘Internet for All’ initiative took center stage this week at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, even eliciting a mention from the president himself. Biden addressed the convention on Monday night, laying out a case for the presidential candidacy of Vice President Kamala...

A specialist broadband provider for the UK education market, Talk Straight (aka – Schools Broadband), has today announced that they’ve successfully completed the 100% cash acquisition of the share capital of E2BN Protex Ltd, trading as Internet4Schools. Both providers appear to serve some of the same market, although Internet4Schools has tended to focus more on the East Midlands region. The Talk Straight Group state the new deal will thus support their strategic growth plan, which aims to turn...

Customers of Hampshire-based UK ISP Onestream, which sells broadband packages using Openreach’s national full fibre network, have criticised the provider after they claim to have been automatically opted-in to take a service from VPN firm NordVPN that indicated they could be charged an extra £4.95 per month if they don’t opt out. ISPreview’s readers will note that we covered this announcement last week (here), although the press release didn’t include any solid details on either the...

A recent ruling by the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in London means that UK mobile and broadband operators will effectively have to pay landowners of rural greenfield mast sites significantly more to place their masts, with the typical rental for such sites being expected to rise from £750 to £1,750 per year. In the past it was often landowners that would extract highly lucrative rental agreements in return for allowing telecoms operators to deploy infrastructure on their land (e.g. mobile...

The LSBUD (Line Search Before You Dig) organisation, which offers an online asset search facility to UK civil engineering firms for underground pipes and cables, has published their annual Digging Up Britain 2024 report and revealed that telecoms remains the “most active industry” when it comes to searching before digging (39% of searches). The report notes that, during 2023, the number of search enquires that passed through LSBUD’s portal reached 3.92 million (up from 3.75m last year). Thanks...

Mobile network operator Three UK has finally confirmed to ISPreview that they’ve withdrawn their old ‘Data Reward’ Pay As You Go (PAYG) plan for existing customers, which previously pledged that those who had already registered for it before 23rd May 2022 would “continue to receive … 200MB [of data] every month for life.” As we’ve always said, consumers would be well advised NEVER to put their faith in “lifetime” style service or promotional pledges like this, as we’ve yet to see any mobile or...

The new Labour-led Government (DSIT) has this afternoon announced that they’ve appointed Hazel Hobbs to act as the “interim” chair of their broadband and mobile centric Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, starting on 1st September 2024. She replaces Simon Blagden, who resigned “with immediate effect“ a month ago (here). Hazel has also been reappointed as a non-executive director of BDUK, having been a member of the Board since the organisation became an executive agency in March 2022. She will...

The Scottish Government (SG) has revealed that their £28.75m 4G Infill Programme (S4GI), which completed earlier this year (here) after spending several years improving mobile voice and data (broadband) coverage by building 55 new masts in remote rural areas, has benefitted 2,211 homes and businesses. The initiative, which was part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and delivered in partnership with WHP Telecoms (the main infrastructure provider), Cellnex UK and the...