Mobile UK Publish Familiar Plan to Boost 4G and 5G Coverage
Industry trade body Mobile UK, which represents Three UK, EE (BT), O2 (Virgin Media) and Vodafone, has joined with the Mobile Infrastructure Forum (MIF) to set out a series of recommendations for how the next government can tackle an “underfunded and under resourced planning system” to “unlock growth and get Britain fully connected” to the latest 4G, 5G and future 6G networks. Ofcom recently reported that, as of January 2024 (here), geographic coverage of 4G mobile (mobile broadband) networks...
Lyca Mobile UK Auditor PKF Littlejohn Refuses to Sign Off Accounts
News reports have indicated that the auditor – PKF Littlejohn – for mobile network operator Lyca Mobile, which is a virtual operator (MVNO) on EE’s platform in the UK, were unable to sign off the company’s most recent accounts (to December 2022) due to various concerns, such as the recoverability of a due balance of nearly £150m. According to Lyca’s latest company accounts (here), which were published at the start of this month, the operator had 1.7 million subscribers at the end of 2022, a...
Rural UK ISP GoFibre Cover 100,000 Premises with FTTP Broadband
Edinburgh-based network builder and ISP GoFibre (BorderLink), which is rolling out a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of North England and the Scottish Borders, has today announced that they’ve passed a key milestone by covering “more than” 100,000 premises with their new infrastructure. The announcement represents significant build progress for such a young alternative network, which aims to cover 500,000 premises in the North of England and...
MS3 Networks Launch UK Broadband Customer Referral Scheme
Network operator MS3, which is rolling out a 10Gbps capable open access full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network across 30 UK locations (mostly East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire), has today announced the launch of a customer referral programme that will offer a £50 shopping voucher to all those who make use of it. The Asterion-backed operator currently aims to cover 535,000 UK premises by the end of 2025 and they’ve already covered 200,000 premises (171,814 Ready for Service). A big chunk of that...
Manx Telecom Warn of FTTP Broadband Build Delay Over Pole Objections
Broadband ISP Manx Telecom (MT), which serves premises on the Isle of Man (a British Crown Dependency) in the Irish Sea between England and Ireland, has warned that its ongoing work to deploy a new full fibre (FTTP) network across the island could be delayed due to issues with getting planning approval for new poles. In case anybody has forgotten. Back in 2020 the Isle of Man Government agreed (here) to invest £10m with MT in order to help them extend the coverage of their gigabit-capable...
Openreach Trial Gift Cards to Boost UK FTTP Broadband Take-up
Network access provider Openreach (BT) are preparing to trial a new “end customer voucher scheme“, which will offer a special gift card for shopping worth £50 to consumers who follow the promotion and sign-up via a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband package from one of their many retail ISPs. The idea of a wholesale provider offering an incentive directly to consumers is nothing particularly new in this market (i.e. as a complement, NOT replacement, to any offers that retail ISPs...
Brsk and Netomnia Agree Large UK Full Fibre Broadband Merger
As first rumoured on these pages during April 2024 (here), two of the markets largest alternative UK network operators – Netomnia (YouFibre) and Brsk – both of which have deployed a significant amount of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP infrastructure to cover UK homes and businesses, have today formally agreed to merge. Firstly, some context. Brsk is currently the smallest of the pair and have, thus far, been fuelled by an investment of at least £259m (mostly via Advencap and the...
BT Correcting Error in Online A-Z Phone Book Directory
Telecoms giant BT has confirmed to ISPreview that they’re aware of an annoying error that impacted many entries in a couple of the online .PDF (Adobe Reader) versions of their A-Z Directory of Business & Residential Listings (phone book), which have recently begun to replace the old printed Phone Book. In this case, the issue stemmed from the fact that BT had accidentally added an extra zero (0) on to the end of all the residential listings for places like Horsham (here), which is now in...
Vodafone looks to sell $2.3 billion Indus Towers stake
News Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and BNP Paribas have been hired to manage the sale in the Indian market Vodafone is seeking to sell its 21.5% stake of India’s Indus Towers, which is worth around $2.3 billion, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The sources said that the final stake sale remains undecided, but could be lower than 21.5% if demand is insufficient. Indus Towers are one of the largest tower companies in the world, with 219,736 towers and 368,588 co-locations...
NOW Broadband Launch Sky UK Powered 75Mbps Full Fibre Plan
Customers of Sky’s sibling NOW Broadband ISP sub-brand, which is best known for its associated NOW TV streaming service, should take note that the provider has today launched a new 75Mbps Full Fibre (FTTP) tier via Openreach’s network and will now only sell new packages via Sky’s website (i.e. NOW no longer has their own order system). The move reflects a continuation of the strategy that we first saw in February 2024 (here), when NOW introduced their first Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) package...