News

Network operator Freedom Fibre, which has deployed a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 300,000 UK premises (27th Mar 2024) – mostly in the North West of England, is extending their “Freedom Fund” to North Shropshire in England from 5th April 2024 and has allocated £25,000 for distribution. Just to recap, the operator’s fund is usually open to non-profit community groups and environmental projects in areas where Freedom Fibre are currently deploying their...

The UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has conducted a new Censuswide survey of 2,563 UK respondents to assess public attitude towards using poles for overhead full fibre broadband delivery, which found that 75% of respondents “clearly recognise the benefits of having access to faster and more reliable broadband even if that is delivered via poles.” Hopefully, by now, most of our readers will already be familiar with the debate around poles, which has become somewhat of a...

SIM-only mobile provider spusu, which holds a UK Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement via BTWholesale to harness EE’s national 4G and 5G network, has responded to recent price increases at other providers by announcing a price freeze until the end of January 2026. The move is actually an extension of the operator’s previous policy, which had committed to a price freeze until the end of 2024. Now, the price freeze will extend into 2026. Currently, spusu’s SIM-only plans start from...

Insight   At MWC this year, we caught up with Ari Banerjee, Senior Vice President at Netcracker Technology, to discuss the importance of data security as telcos increasingly adopt Generative AI (GenAI) solutions  Undoubtedly, the biggest topic at this year’s MWC was GenAI and the many ways telcos are looking to incorporate it into their businesses, both to increase efficiency as well as generating new revenues. But in order for telcos to fully embrace AI effectively, a successful digital...

News  The dispute dates back to the liberalisation of the Italian telecoms sector nearly 25 years ago  The Italian government had been ordered to pay Telecom Italia (TIM) €1 billion, after the Rome Court of Appeal ruled in favour of TIM regarding a historic license fee dispute. The Italian telecoms sector was liberalised in 1997 and, the following year, TIM was forced to pay a license fee of around €500 million. Since 2009, TIM has been attempting to recover this fee, plus revaluation and...

Press Release The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will take a crucial vote this month that could lead to the reinstatement of net neutrality From the Office of FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has announced the commission will vote during its April open meeting to restore net neutrality, which would bring back a national standard for broadband reliability, security, and consumer protection. If adopted, the chairwoman’s proposal would ensure that...

Interview At Mobile World Congress this year, we spoke with Mr. Hudson Lou, Director of Network and Services Development of Macau CTM, to discuss Macau’s digitalization journey and the potential of 5.5G Macau occupies a relatively unique position within the global telecoms market, being one of the few cities in the world to have full coverage of both fiber and 5G. Combining this with the city’s high rate of technology adoption, it is easy to see why Macau has quickly become a hotbed of...

News The UK’s antitrust watchdog said the operators had declined to offer remedies to the Authority’s competition concerns Today, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that it will launch a Phase 2 investigation into the £15 billion merger between Vodafone UK and Three UK, a move that would shrink the number of mobile players in the market from four to three. The regulator said last month that it was considering launching this full-blown investigation into the merger,...

After skipping this study last year due to workload, we’ve today published an updated summary of the key UK consumer ISP choices for 1Gbps speed packages on Openreach’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network – currently available to over 13 million homes and businesses. The current market is chocked full of alternative full fibre networks, but despite this Openreach remains the largest open-access provider of such infrastructure, and as such none of the main ISPs can afford to...

News The Dutch operator shut down its 3G network back in 2022 This week, KPN has announced formal plans to shutdown its 2G network by December 2025. In a post on the company website, the operator explained the rationale for the move to customers as a way of strengthening the company’s more modern 4G and 5G networks. “We are turning off our 2G network because fewer and fewer people are using 2G and are already using the internet via 4G and 5G,” the post explained. “In addition, we use 2G...