SK Telecom invests $10m in gen AI search engine Perplexity
News The platform aims to be a Google rival, having already received backing from the likes of Nvidia and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos South Korean telco SK Telecom has announced today that it will invest $10 million in US-based generative AI search engine start up Perplexity. The two companies will collaborate to further develop Perplexity’s GenAI search engine platform, which is attempting to disrupt Google’s hegemony over the industry. Founded in 2022, Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search...
Voneus UK Bring Gigabit Wireless Broadband to Walney Island
Rural network builder and UK ISP Voneus, which aims to cover 370,000 premises via both their gigabit-capable fixed wireless access (FWA) and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband networks, has announced that they’ve begun to build a new gigabit wireless network that will connect thousands of homes on Walney Island in the south of Cumbria. The project, which has been in the works for a while, is getting underway in the North Scale area and the first customer installations are scheduled for the...
Carlos Slim acquires a 3% stake in BT
News Slim and his family own and manage América Móvil, one Latin America’s largest telcos Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has bought a 3.16% share of BT for roughly £400 million, making him one of the company’s largest shareholders. The share was purchased through Slim’s financial company, Inbursa, and two other group companies. Slim is now the third largest shareholder in BT, after fellow billionaire Patrick Drahi, who owns an 24% stake through his subsidiary Altice UK, and Deutsche Telekom...
Labour Sets Out UK Broadband and Mobile Plans in 2024 Manifesto
The UK Labour Party has today published their Manifesto for the forthcoming 2024 General Election, which is due to be held on 4th July 2024. As usual, ISPreview has taken a quick dive into the document to see what the party may be planning in terms of their broadband, mobile and internet related policies. Since the last election, the party appears to have moved away from their heavily nationalisation focused “free full-fibre broadband to all by 2030” pledge of 2019 (here), which raised more...
Freshwave to deploy small cells in Manchester for VMO2
Press Release Residents, visitors and businesses in Manchester city centre and surrounding areas will soon be enjoying enhanced mobile connectivity from Virgin Media O2 thanks to a new agreement between Freshwave and Manchester City Council. Connectivity infrastructure-as-a-service provider Freshwave will be deploying more than 20 outdoor small cells on behalf of Virgin Media O2 in busy areas of the city, including outside the Arndale Shopping Centre, Manchester Piccadilly Station and...
Plaid Cymru Sets Out Welsh Broadband Plans in 2024 Manifesto
The Party of Wales (Plaid Cymru) has today become the latest political party to publish a Manifesto for the 4th July 2024 UK General Election, which we’ll take a brief look at below because it includes a couple of commitments related to broadband and mobile connectivity. The Plaid Cymru Manifesto for the Westminster General Election 2024 (PDF) document, which has just been published this morning, states that it would “seek to invest in our digital infrastructure and guarantee a high-speed...
DePIN company Uplink closes partnership with WBA OpenRoaming, Gateway to 3+ Million Wi-Fi Access Points
The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), the global organization that connects people with the latest Wi-Fi initiatives, has added Uplink, the world’s first decentralized internet platform enabling both existing and new internet infrastructure, as an official member of its organization, along with being a speaker at Wireless Global Congress Americas 2024. As a member of the WBA, Uplink will have access to leading enterprises and the latest trends in connectivity. Contributing to the...
Virgin Media O2 UK Expand Mobile Small Cells to Central Manchester
Mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today continued to boost the provider’s 4G and 5G mobile (mobile broadband) capacity across the UK by expanding their ongoing roll-out of small cells into Manchester city centre, which is being supported by agreements with both Freshwave and Manchester City Council. Small cells are like mini shoebox sized mobile base stations, which have been designed to deliver limited coverage (usually up to around 80-120 metres) and thus tend to be more focused...
SGP.32: A reality check on the latest remote SIM provisioning standard
Spotlight Series by Matt Hatton, Founding Partner at Transforma Insights The SGP.32 (“IoT”) standard for Remote SIM Provisioning was unveiled in May 2023, promising a more streamlined and user-friendly mechanism for enterprises to manage the connectivity on their cellular devices. In this article, based on a recently published Transforma Insights Position Paper, sponsored by Eseye, ‘Key considerations for Enterprises looking to adopt SGP.32’ , the report’s author Matt Hatton examines the...
Study Ranks the Fastest UK Business Broadband ISPs by Speed
Comparison site Broadband Genie has today published the results of a new study, which analysed 113 business broadband ISPs to find which one delivered the fastest speeds. The results found that Telcom is the UK’s “fastest business broadband provider” – averaging a download speed of 391Mbps and an upload of 357Mbps. The study also found that business services offered faster internet speeds than UK home broadband products. By comparison, households recorded an average download speed of 137Mbps...