Rural UK ISP Wessex Internet Wins at National Countryside Alliance Awards
After winning the Rural Enterprise category for the South West region of the 2024 Countryside Alliance Awards earlier this year (here), alternative rural broadband provider Wessex Internet has today announced that they’ve just won the same category at the national awards too. The Countryside Alliance Awards, which are now in their 17th year, exist to help recognise businesses that go the extra mile within their communities, such as by supporting the local economy and championing local goods...
Isle of Wight ISP WightFibre Grows Broadband Customers to 21,000
Network operator and broadband ISP WightFibre, which is building a gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across the Isle of Wight – just off the South Coast of Hampshire (England), has today revealed that they’ve managed to grow their take-up to 21,000 customers (30% market share). The operator has already spent over £80m (Dec 2023) – rising to £110m by 2030 – to cover around 80% of the island (70,000 premises) with their new full fibre network (i.e. the ‘Gigabit Island‘ project),...
Ericsson Mobility Report: 5G driving change in service providers’ FWA strategies
Press Release 5G enabling growing numbers of FWA service providers to offer speed-based tariff plans 5G subscriptions forecast close to 5.6 billion by the end of 2029 Mobile data traffic expected to grow by 20 percent annually through the end of 2029 Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) continues to grow in strength as a 5G use case for communications service providers (CSPs) globally with a sharp increase over the past year in the number of CSPs offering the service. The details, alongside Ericsson’s...
UK ISP Association Sets Out Telecoms Priorities for Next Government
The Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA), which is a trade body that represents UK broadband ISPs and related comms providers, has today set out the key strategic priorities and actionable policies that it thinks the next UK Government will need to focus on in order to continue the work of “transforming the nation’s digital infrastructure”. Unless you’ve been living under a particularly large rock, or in an entirely different country, then you probably already know that the United...
Oxfordshire UK’s GigaHubs Full Fibre Build Connects 180 Sites
The Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) and Neos Networks have revealed that their ongoing £7.25m “GigaHubs” project has now connected 180 public sector sites (schools, hospitals etc.) to a new gigabit-capable full fibre broadband network. But the work won’t complete until they reach the contracted 193 sites, later this year. Neos Networks hold the contract for this, but they’re also partly acting as an aggregator, bringing together several connectivity suppliers — including Openreach, Virgin...
Alternative Broadband ISP Brsk Adds UK Support via WhatsApp
Alternative network operator and UK ISP Brsk, which covers 552,000 premises (536k RFS) in England via their full fibre network and is in the process of being merged into Netomnia (here), has today become one of the first internet providers to introduce real-time customer support via WhatsApp. Despite today’s announcement claiming that Brsk are “the first [in the industry] to introduce real-time customer support via WhatsApp,” it’s worth noting that they’re actually not the first. In fact, a...
Vodafone Adopt Simpler UK Mobile and Broadband Price Rise Policy
Mobile network operator and broadband ISP Vodafone UK is preparing to introduce a simpler pricing policy, which will replace their old inflation-linked approach to annual price hikes with one that simplifies things (i.e. by expressing future annual increases using a clear figure in pounds and pence). The change is designed to reflect Ofcom’s recent move to BAN broadband ISPs and mobile operators from doing mid-contract price hikes that are linked to confusing inflation and percentage-based...
FarrPoint Study Claims EE’s 4G Gives Economic Boost to UK Rural Areas
A new study conducted by technical consultancy firm FarrPoint, which was commissioned by UK telecoms operator EE (BT), has claimed that deploying 4G mobile (mobile broadband) networks can deliver social and economic benefits, worth between £249,000 and £6.9m, to different types of rural communities over 15 years. The new study – ‘Rural 4G connectivity: Analysing the community benefits of mobile investment‘ – appears partly intended to help highlight EE’s efforts in building more than 300 new...
ISP LilaConnect Offers 6 Months Free 1Gbps FTTP Broadband
New customers seeking to join ISP LilaConnect, which following the VXFIBER acquisition is now part of Freedom Fibre‘s UK full fibre broadband network (here), may like to know that the provider has launched a new promotion to celebrate the “summer of sport” by offering their 1Gbps package with the first 6 months free on a 24-month contract. LilaConnect has so far connected over 13,000 customers to its original gigabit full fibre offerings in Stoke-on-Trent, Bristol, Colchester, Wivenhoe, Crewe...
US launches probe into Chinese telcos over data concerns
News The investigation is the latest move in the US and China’s ongoing struggle for global tech dominance The US government is investigating Chinese telcos China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom due to concerns that the firms could provide US data to the Chinese government via their US cloud and wholesale routing services. According to Reuters, citing three sources familiar with the matter, the US Commerce Department has subpoenaed the three companies and has completed “risk-based...