BT Secures £70m IT Services Deal with South West Police Forces
Telecoms and broadband giant BT has today signed a 10-year partnership, worth £70m, to upgrade the IT and network services of both the Devon & Cornwall Police and Dorset Police forces. The two forces currently handle more than 1 million emergency and non-emergency calls and respond to more than 118,000 incidents of recorded crime each year. Under the deal, BT will support public contact and staff collaboration platforms, while frontline officers can also expect to benefit from “improved...
Virgin Media Broadband Comes to 11,000 Extra Homes in Braintree
Network operator nexfibre has today announced that they’ve expanded their 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband network, alongside partner UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2), to cover an additional 11,000 premises in the Essex town of Braintree. Nexfibre has already covered 1 million premises across the UK with their new full fibre network, and they’re currently in the process of investing another £1bn during 2024, which should enable them to cover an additional 1 million UK...
US govt allocates $285m for chip-focussed digital twins institute
News The funding comes as part of the CHIPS and Science Act, aimed at supporting the nation’s domestic semiconductor industry This week, the US government has announced that it is seeking proposals from companies to establish and operate a new CHIPS Manufacturing USA institute focused on digital twins for the semiconductor industry. The government will provide the winning applicant with up to $285 million to help establish the centre, including supporting operational activities, R&D...
Telcom Picked for Phase 2 of New Cardiff Full Fibre Network Build
The Cardiff Council (Gyngor Caerdydd) in South Wales has once again chosen UK broadband operator Telcom Group (WeFibre, HyperCity etc.) to supply residents and businesses in poorly served parts of the city with “hyperfast gigabit connectivity“, which forms Phase 2 of an earlier Phase 1 roll-out. At present the vast majority of Cardiff and surrounding areas are already covered by gigabit-capable broadband networks, mostly via Hybrid Fibre Coax (Virgin Media) solutions and Fibre-to-the-Premises...
Nearly 7 Million UK Premises Can Access to 2 or More Full Fibre Networks
New data from telecoms analyst firm Point Topic has revealed that, at the end of Q1 2024, nearly 7 million UK premises had access to two or more full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP networks, falling to just 0.8m for three or more networks. Some 64.7% of UK premises (20.7m) are now covered by such a network, while Altnets are still seeing good growth. The latest progress report (here) notes that Openreach’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network now covers 40.3% of all UK premises, which is up from...
Three UK Blocks More Than 173 Million SPAM Texts in Two Years
Mobile operator Three UK has today revealed that the anti-spam filters on their network have blocked more than 173 million spam texts, equivalent to 10,000 every hour of the day, in the last two years, as part of its efforts to protect customers from rising online fraud – thanks in no small part to their Mavenir platform. In case anybody has forgotten, Three UK started to implement Mavenir‘s network-level anti-spam filter technology during 2019. The system uses AI learning to automatically...
CTG Become First UK Telecoms Firm to Complete New Building Assessment
The Complete Technology Group (CTG), which is a landlord advisory service that also runs sister company Complete Fibre (i.e. they install full fibre broadband infrastructure into large apartment blocks), has today become the first company in the telecoms sector to complete Stage 2 of the new Building a Safer Future (BSF) Champion Assessment. As the name suggests, the non-profit BSF assessment is all about ensuring that building companies adopt the safest environment and practices – for both...
Virgin Media O2 Boosts UK 5G Private Network Plans with Accenture
Broadband and mobile giant Virgin Media O2 has teamed-up with IT services company Accenture to boost their 5G private network capabilities for UK businesses, which may help them to “seize opportunities” in the country’s growing mobile private network market – estimated to reach £528 million by 2030 (STL Partners forecast). Private 5G networks are typically created to serve specific sites, such as busy ports or factories, while the more familiar public networks are the sort that we all use when...
Shortlist of Network Operators Named for the UK Fibre Awards 2024
The shortlist for the third annual UK Fibre Awards event, which is due to take place next month (6th June 2024) in London, has today been released. The event usually sees various broadband ISPs and full fibre network builders across several categories pick up awards for their achievements. The event, which is arguably a bit too similar to existing industry award ceremonies (e.g. from the ISPA and Connected Britain), is typically backed by telecoms / ICT centric media and event organisation...
Report Examines Why Openreach’s UK Full Fibre Take-up Beats AltNets
A new report from strategic consultancy firm Eight Advisory has examined the question of why the average consumer take-up across alternative full fibre (FTTP) broadband networks (Altnet) is currently still at 16%, while Openreach stands at c.34%, despite the collective footprint of the new challengers now equalling that of the incumbent. Network access provider Openreach (BT) recently revealed that their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network had covered 14 million UK...