Streetwave Maps Mobile Network Speeds in Caerphilly Using Bin Lorries
Mobile network analyst Streetwave has partnered up with the Caerphilly County Borough Council (CCBC) in Wales to harness local refuse (bin) collection trucks in order to map the local network (mobile broadband) performance across the area, which covers services from EE (BT), O2 (Virgin Media), Vodafone and Three UK. The idea of using bin collections to map 4G and 5G mobile coverage is one that has only recently been implemented. In fact, Streetwave are a key partner on a similar scheme (here)...
Vodafone and Meta Boost UK Mobile Network Efficiency for Videos UPDATE
Mobile operator Vodafone has announced that they’ve worked with Meta (Facebook etc.) to trial and deploy a new mobile broadband (4G, 5G) “network optimisation” for “short-form videos” across the UK and 10 other countries, which is said to “free up network capacity” for customers and allows them to “view more high-quality short videos“. The description “short-form videos” typically tends to reflect the kind of short videos you’d find on services like TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and...
Tesco Mobile, UW and Giffgaff Named in UK Customer Satisfaction Top 50
The Institute of Customer Service (ICS) have just published their second biannual UK Customer Satisfaction Index for July 2024, which reveals that three mobile and broadband (telecoms) providers made it into their table of the country’s top 50 organisations – Tesco Mobile (20th), Utility Warehouse (23rd) and giffgaff (32nd). But it’s not all good news. The research typically reflects the results from a large online survey of over 15,000 customers – balanced to be representative of the UK adult...
UKIB Commit £150m to Hyperoptic’s UK Full Fibre Broadband Rollout
City-focused gigabit broadband ISP Hyperoptic, which has now built a full fibre (FTTP/B) network to cover “more than” 1.73 million homes across parts of 64 UK towns and cities (up from 1.6m on 3rd June 2024), has today secured £150m from the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) to help “accelerate” their network expansion. The operator, which is now home to a broadband customer base of 340,000 (up from 300,000 on 5th Oct 2023) and is targeting 500,000 for the future, was previously known to be aiming...
Grain’s New UK FTTP Broadband Network Goes Live in Brighton
Alternative network operator and ISP Grain (Grain Connect), which has already grown their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 220,000 premises RFS (21st May 2024) and 30,000 customers, has today announced that they’ve put their service live in part of Brighton (East Sussex, England). The operator’s full fibre network can now be found in 59 UK locations (plus over 150 new build housing developments), which includes a lot of small-to-modest sized patches...
New 2.2Gbps Broadband Package Goes Live from Vodafone UK
Customers of mobile operator and UK ISP Vodafone may like to know that the operator has finally introduced their new 2.2Gbps (symmetric) speed home broadband package, which is based off CityFibre’s national Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network and includes their premium “Pro II” features. But they also have a 1.6Gbps option on Openreach’s network. Just to be clear on something. CityFibre’s new wholesale tier on their latest XGS-PON powered full fibre network actually offers speeds of 2.5Gbps...
First Customer Live on CityFibre’s Cambridgeshire Project Gigabit Broadband Build
CityFibre have today announced that the first customer has just gone live on their new full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network in Cambridgeshire (England) under the £69m state aid supported Project Gigabit rollout contract (Lot 5), which began its construction phase back in February 2024 (contract was awarded in March 2023). The original contracted announcement stated that a total of “around” 45,000 premises (hard-to-reach homes and businesses) in the county are ultimately expected to be...
Australian Government and AWS Collaborate to Strengthen country’s Cybersecurity
News The Australian Government has announced a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bolster Australia’s cybersecurity capabilities with an investment of at least $2 billion over the next decade The partnership will involves establishing a Top Secret (TS) AWS cloud in Australia, which the country will move its secret intelligence data to, in collaboration with the Australian Signals Directorate (an Australian government intelligence agency). The platform aims to enhance the...
Solving congestion challenges in FTTP deployment
Viewpoint Article by Evan Rogers, Solution Innovation Manager EMEA, Corning Optical Communications The UK is currently building Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) at an unprecedented rate. Figures published by Ofcom in April 2024 confirmed that 62% of UK households (as of January 2024) can now access full-fibre broadband – a 48% year on year increase. Powering this charge towards a more connected Britain are, of course, the likes of Openreach and a host of altnets, who must work smartly to utilise...
Netomnia’s Full Fibre Broadband Covers 1 Million UK Premises
One of the UK market’s largest alternative network operators, Netomnia (YouFibre), has today announced that after four years of work they’ve managed to build their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP infrastructure to cover 1 million premises passed (Ready for Service) – rising to 1.6m once the Brsk merger (here) completes. The figure of 1 million premises (RFS) represents another significant improvement from the 960,000 they had just a month ago, which shows that their...