News

Spotlight Series Article By Janet Watkin, Managing Director, Zenith Choice Telcos are not making enough money from their networks, and this, coupled with the continued uncertainty about the source of future revenues, has resulted in major headcount reductions. The rollout of AI-enabled process automation is already underway, aimed at replacing manual tasks and serving customers more efficiently. This has been cited as a contributing factor to the large numbers of layoffs announced during 2023....

The third annual UK Fibre Awards event was held yesterday in London, which saw a number of broadband ISPs and full fibre network builders across several categories pick up awards for their achievements. Some of this year’s winners included Wildanet for ‘Best Rural Fibre Provider’ and Brsk for ‘Best Urban Fibre Provider’. The event, which is arguably very similar to existing industry award ceremonies (e.g. from the ISPA and Connected Britain), is typically backed by telecoms / ICT centric media...

The long-running 2Africa project, which is in the process of building a 45,000km long subsea (submarine) fibre optic cable between the United Kingdom and most of coastal Africa, has confirmed that telecoms giant Vodafone has just helped to land the new cable in England at a site in Bude (Cornwall). The new network expects to deliver more than the total combined data capacity of all subsea cables serving Africa today, which should help to support faster broadband speeds, boosting mobile network...

A seemingly fairly new network operator called Frogfoot Networks has revealed that they’re planning to deploy a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across the United Kingdom, with England, Wales and Scotland being part of their “initial deployment” that will “predominantly serve residential homes and small businesses.” The plan was revealed as part of the company’s application for Code Powers from Ofcom. Such powers are typically sought to help speed-up deployments of new fibre...

News Ex-CEO Philip Jansen, who left BT in January, saw his remuneration increase 25.8% in the last financial year, including bonuses of £2.6 million This week, BT has revealed that the company’s outgoing CEO, Philip Jansen, was paid £3.72 million for the financial year ending March 31. This total comprises a fixed pay of £1.11 million and a bonus of £2.6 million, (up from £1.62 million last year). The bonus took the form of £1.45 million in cash and £1.15 million in shares. The pay increase...

News Vodafone Spain’s enterprise unit says it will work with the Swedish equipment vendor to organise various conferences throughout the country to highlight the potential of private 5G networks Private 5G networks for enterprise and industry has proven one of the wireless technology’s greatest successes, with deployments taking place all over the world in locations ranging from university campuses to offshore oil rigs. Offering lower latency, higher capacity, and improved security over...

UK ISP Cerberus Networks has given ISPreview an unexpected surprise this afternoon after they began informing their customers about their decision to introduce “high-speed satellite internet services“, which will aim to deliver broadband speeds of “up to 150Mbps” and should complement their existing range of fixed line plans. According to the notice, seen by ISPreview, the new service will harness Eutelsat’s recently launched Konnect VHTS (Very High Throughput) broadband satellite, which went...

News The newly appointed CEO blamed planning setbacks for the state of UK infrastructure    BT CEO Allison Kirkby has said that the Scandinavian countries are “way ahead” of the UK in terms of its telecoms infrastructure.  Speaking at the Deloitte and Enders media and telecoms conference in London this week, Kirby said: “What I would say is Scandinavia is way ahead of the UK. Part of that is very much driven by the regulatory environment, the planning environment and the general adoption of...

Rural-focused ISP and alternative network builder Wessex Internet, which is deploying a full fibre (FTTP) gigabit broadband service across parts of Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Somerset in England, has today appointed their first Chief Operations Officer (COO) in the shape of Gavin Davies. The operator’s existing network footprint is currently said to cover “tens of thousands of homes” (some of this may include their old fixed wireless network too), while their business plan targets an...

The wholesale division of broadband and Ethernet provider Virgin Media UK (VMO2) are suing the “owners and all persons claiming an interest” in a fishing trawler, the Irish-registered MV The Lida Suzanna, for €800k (£680k) after the ship allegedly damaged one of their subsea fibre optic cables between Ireland and England. The Sirius South cable itself was originally deployed in 1998 by NTL, which later became part of Virgin Media after the merger with Telewest. Virgin also operates a second...