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News  The group announced the trial in July last year  BT Group’s startup incubation arm, Etc., has upcycled a now obsolete BT street cabinet in East Lothian, Scotland, into an electric vehicle (EV) charging point.   This is the first installation as part of a wider initiative aiming to explore the feasibility of using BT Group’s existing street cabinets for EV charging, helping to address the country’s shortage of vehicle charging infrastructure.  The charger in East Lothian has been deployed...

New customers of UK internet provider TalkTalk, specifically those who are also looking to take their Android (Google) powered Pay TV service, may like to know that the ISP has started offering a 33% discount on their TV and NOW Entertainment Membership (NOW TV) – reducing the bundle to just £9.99/month for 12 months, saving £5 a month. Customers who take this deal will also receive a NOW Boost included (RRP £6 per month), so they can enjoy streaming in Full HD video quality, ad-free and with...

News Australian telco Vocus has agreed with cable owner Google to connect the existing route to Aukland, New Zealand This week, Australian telco Vocus has announced that it has struck a new deal with Google that will see the Honomoana cable extended to New Zealand. The transpacific Honomoana cable was first announced in October last year, connecting the US to Australia via French Polynesia. It is part of Google’s South Pacific Connect initiative, which includes a second cable system, Tabua,...

Alternative network operator and ISP Airband, which has a target of reaching 400,000 premises in UK rural areas via a mix of fixed wireless access (FWA) and full fibre (FTTP) networks by 2026, has today announced the appointment of Kash Rahman as its new Managing Director. But the company’s CEO and Founder, Redmond Peel, is standing down. The operator, which has been going through a period of restructuring that disrupted some builds and caused redundancies (here and here), has otherwise spent...

Broadband ISP Exascale, which is building a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to several thousand premises – mostly around Telford and Wrekin, has revealed that several core Dark Fibre cables – between Telford and Wolverhampton – were cut this week in what appears to have been a targeted attack by vandals. The incident appears to have started just before midnight on Sunday (28th April 2024) in Wolverhampton and is understood to have affected other network operators too...

Customers of broadband ISP Virgin Media (VMO2), specifically those who take Pay TV services via one of the network operator’s TV 360, STREAM or v6 box platforms, may like to know that the company has added a selection of 11 new FAST channels to its TV service “at no extra cost“. The new FAST channels include History Hunters (A+E Networks), Deal Masters (A+E Networks), Qello Concerts (Stingray), Trace Sports Stars (Trace), Real Crime (Little Dot Studios), Real Life (Little Dot Studios), ZenLIFE...

Telecoms giant BT, specifically their awkwardly named UK digital incubation team, Etc., has today “powered up” their first Electric Vehicle (EV) charger under a 2-year pilot, which is one of potentially tens of thousands that could be established by repurposing Openreach’s old fixed broadband street cabinets. The operator has been planning the pilot since mid-2023 (here), although the process of actually getting it underway didn’t officially start until January 2024 (here) – a few months later...

Welsh internet provider Ogi, which is deploying a gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to homes and businesses across South Wales, has developed a new bespoke and in-house 8-week fibre engineer training programme and the first recruits have just completed the course. The new training programme is said to be made up of a mix of regulatory e-learning modules, peer-led training and a ‘last mile’ practical assessment pilot facilitated by Future Networks Training (FNT)....

Some of our readers have spotted that low-cost UK mobile operator iD Mobile (Currys), which uses Three UK’s national 4G and 5G network via a virtual operator (MVNO) agreement, has recently introduced eSIM (Electronic SIM) support to their mobile service. The eSIM standard is an alternative to physical SIM cards, which works by essentially embedding an electronic SIM into your device (Smartphone) that could – once fully implemented – make it easier and quicker to switch between operators (e.g....

News  The deal comes less than a year after the two companies broke off merger talks  Luxemburg-based satellite company SES has signed a deal to buy Intelsat Holdings for $3.1 billion.  A joint press release from the two companies explained the combination as creating “a stronger multi-orbit operator with greater coverage, improved resiliency, expanded suite of solutions, enhanced resources to profitably invest in innovation, and benefit from the collective talent, expertise, and track record...