News

The Conservative Party has today published their own Manifesto for the 4th July 2024 UK General Election, which naturally echoes their existing pledges around fixed line gigabit broadband coverage, as well as their efforts to improve 5G based mobile network coverage across the country. One of the advantages – or disadvantages (depending upon your perspective) – of being the party of Government is that people often go into a General Election with a better idea of what you’d actually aim to...

Network builder and UK ISP Connect Fibre, which is currently deploying their gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) broadband network to cover 100,000 premises across the East of England, has today revealed that they’ve become the latest Altnet to secure the ISO certification for quality management standards (ISO 9001). ISO certifications are a seal of approval from a third-party body, which represents a series of global standards developed and published by the International Organisation for...

Business focused UK broadband ISP, IT and Cloud solutions provider FluidOne has today announced that they’ve agreed a long-term refinancing package with Pemberton Asset Management (Pemberton), which will be used to fuel their “ambitious plans to treble in size over the next five years“. The financial details of this agreement haven’t been revealed, although it is noted that the facilities will be enough to support full refinancing and is providing a committed acquisition facility. The latter...

Oxfordshire-based broadband ISP Zzoomm has today announced that they’ve built their 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to cover 200,000 premises (Ready for Service) across 29 locations in England, which is up from 190,000 premises passed (RFS) on 5th March 2024. The operator, which is being fuelled by an equity investment of £100m from Oaktree Capital (here) and a £100m debt facility via an international banking consortium (here), has typically focused their roll-out on smaller...

Alternative network operator and UK ISP Brsk has this morning announced that they’re going to significantly expand the coverage of their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across Calderdale (West Yorkshire), which currently covers 23,000 premises and will now be increased to 47,000. Currently, Brsk’s network already reaches into parts of Brighouse, Elland, Hipperholme, Bailiff Bridge, Hove Edge, Woodhouse, Rastrick, Lower Edge, Greetland, Stainland, Sowood and...

Community UK ISP B4RN (Broadband 4 the Rural North), which typically works with volunteers inside rural villages across England to help deploy their 10Gbp speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, has officially begun the next phase of their expansion – taking them further into Northumberland and County Durham. Just to recap. B4RN is a registered Community Benefit Society (i.e. they can’t be bought by a commercial operator and profits go back into the community) that has already expanded...

News  After referral from Ofcom, the competition regulator will likely not push the two companies to divest assets  The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published an update on its investigation into the UK’s public cloud infrastructure services (cloud services).  Although the CMA investigation is still ongoing, it has so far concluded that “we are not currently minded to prioritise further consideration of structural or operational separation remedies.” So, while it is unlikely...

The UK Liberal Democrats have today become the first big political party to publish their manifesto for the 2024 General Election (4th July), which includes a couple of broadband and internet related commitments. But as usual with these things, there’s a lack of detail in terms of funding and timescales etc. Prior to today we knew very little about the LibDems position on matters of telecoms and internet connectivity, which is largely because they haven’t, in recent years, really made it into...

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has issued a technical update on their investigation into the UK’s public cloud infrastructure services market, which is currently dominated by Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft (Azure). As part of this, the CMA hints that they’re “not currently minded to prioritise further consideration of structural or operational separation remedies” (e.g. divestment). Just to recap. Ofcom formally referred the market to the CMA in October 2023 (here), which came after...

News The partnership is Vodafone’s 11th landing for the 2Africa cable globally  Vodafone has landed the 2Africa subsea cable system in Bude, Cornwall. The cable is the largest subsea cable project in the world, spanning 45,000 kilometers to connect Europe, Asia, and Africa once it is fully operational.    Once complete the cable will benefit more than 3 billion people in 33 countries, 30% of the global population.  As the cable’s lead UK landing partner, Vodafone will be responsible for...