News

Customers of Sky’s UK TV service can now get subscription-based video streaming service Hayu free for 3 months, included with their Sky package. The limited-time offer is provided by Sky VIP to celebrate the launch of Hayu on Sky Q, following on from the earlier launches of Hayu on Sky Stream and Sky Glass. Sky Q customers can find the Hayu app in the dedicated apps section of the UI and also through the voice remote by saying “Hayu” to launch the app. With Sky VIP, customers can simply claim...

Alternative broadband provider LilaConnect, which following the recent VXFIBER acquisition is now part of UK network operator Freedom Fibre (here), has announced that they’ve expanded the live coverage of their existing full fibre (FTTP) networks in the Staffordshire (England) city of Stoke-on-Trent and the town of Leek. According to the latest progress update, over the next twelve weeks more than 6,900 additional homes and businesses across Leek, as well as Etruria, Cliffe Vale and Shelton in...

Interview We spoke with Luis Uribe, the CTO of Entel, to share his experience and insights on the latest optical transport technology and how is digitally transforming Chile in F5G (Fixed 5th Generation)-Advanced era Watch the full interview from the link below. When it comes to digital services, Entel is a highly diverse telecoms company, offering mobile, fixed broadband, and enterprise services to customers throughout Chile and Peru. “Our optical transport network builds a solid foundation...

The first government-funded rural 4G (mobile broadband) mast upgrades for England have today been completed in the market town of Keswick (Cumbria), which forms part of the industry-led £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project with EE (BT), Vodafone, Three UK and O2 (Virgin Media). A further 82 masts in England are also set for upgrades. The SRN – supported by £501m of public funding and £532m from operators – involves both the reciprocal sharing of existing masts in certain areas and the...

News Both Viettel and Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) won 5G licences, allowing them to move from trials to full commercialisation Vietnam’s journey towards commercial 5G has been a bumpy one. Despite arguably being one of the leaders in the technology around 2020 through various technical projects, commercial deployment has been heavily delayed due to multiple failed spectrum auctions. In fact, the country’s Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) had not...

The relatively new alternative broadband ISP Gig-ability, which we first wrote about in January 2024 (here), has announced that they’ve started the first build phase of their plan to deploy a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across poorly served rural villages in Shropshire (England). Just to recap. Gig-ability originally informed us that they aspired to cover 10,000 “extremely rural premises“, starting in January 2024 with a build in the small Shropshire parish and...

Comparison site Broadband Genie has today published a new 2024 Mobile Data Affordability Index, which explores the global landscape of mobile data (mobile broadband) pricing and affordability. Overall, the United Kingdom was found to rank 5th most affordable for mobile data out of 179 countries, putting it ahead of “global powerhouses” such as Germany (13th), Italy (20th), the USA (35th) and China (51st). The study itself produced its results by comparing the average cost of a monthly mobile...

Low-cost mobile operator iD Mobile (Currys), which harnesses Three UK’s national 4G and 5G network via a virtual operator (MVNO) partnership, could be sold. The news came after one of Currys’ top investors, JO Hambro, encouraged the consume electronics retailer to sell the operator (valued at c.£350m) to help resolve its current difficulties. Over the past few months Currys has faced two failed takeover bids for its wider business. The most recent one occurred after US investor, Elliott,...

Broadband ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) has today begun rolling out a new service called “Smart Support” to a sizeable but limited subset of their customer base, which they say will help to “boost broadband reliability” by proactively identifying and tackling issues remotely at no extra cost for customers. The new service has been built using technology from Cisco’s ThousandEyes (formerly SamKnows) platform (i.e. cloud-based data sets and advanced device identification technology) and will initially...

Broadband ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) has today restarted their Digital Landline Switchover programme (i.e. migrating old analogue landline phones to IP-based services), which was paused at the end of 2023 as part of their commitment under a Government-led charter that is designed to limit risks for vulnerable users. But changes are afoot. At present, most network operators are in the process of shifting from old analogue style phone services to digital ones, which is due to several reasons. For...