News

News The Connected Britain Awards took place last night at the Connected Britain Afterparty. Hundreds joined us for an evening of networking, live music and the highly anticipated winner announcements.   We had a record breaking number of entries this year, reflecting Britain’s ever-growing and rapidly evolving digital economy.  Our shortlist this year represented a fantastic array of diverse organisations and individuals, with the traditional big players being joined by many organisations of...

Press Release Virgin Media O2 has created the “Connected Farm of the Future” in a trial with Cannon Hall Farm in Barnsley, designed to showcase how enhanced mobile connectivity could transform rural agriculture.  Virgin Media O2 is bringing connectivity to every corner of Cannon Hall Farm’s 126-acre estate, including historic blackspots and not-spots, to explore how a network of sensors and monitors can work together to transform the farm, saving valuable time and money. The trial helps create...

Broadband ISP and mobile network operator EE (BT) has announced that it is in the process of updating their existing SCAM and SPAM blocking technologies, which should enable them to root out additional scam tactics (e.g. “Hi Mum, Hi Dad” scams) and help protect consumers from hard to spot scams. The operator reports that its […]

The UK Government has proposed to change the law so that internet-based TV channels on smart TVs, which are delivered over home broadband ISP connections, would need to follow the same Ofcom content rules as on traditional TV to ensure “young and vulnerable audiences are protected from harmful programming“. According to the government, more than […]

The Building Digital UK agency has released their latest September 2023 progress update on the Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme, which is now running live contracts and procurements worth over £2bn in state aid (up from £1.4bn in July) to help extend coverage to an extra 1.1 million hard to reach premises. The […]

Network operator FullFibre Limited (Fibre Heroes), which is rolling out a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband infrastructure across various parts of England for other ISPs to use, has signed a new supply deal with solutions provider NETS International to help “ensure [a] faster network build“. At present the operator is already aiming to extend their […]

CityFibre has announced that they’ve awarded their “first round of contracts” to civil engineering firms under their state-aid supported Project Gigabit broadband rollout contracts in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Hampshire and Suffolk. The deployments will bring full fibre (FTTP) lines to a total of 715,000 extra rural properties. The operator, which is supported by ISPs like Vodafone, […]

Press Release CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre platform, has awarded its first round of contracts to build partners as it mobilises to deliver four county-wide full fibre rollouts under the government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme. The deployments will bring ‘gigabit capable’ infrastructure to 715,000 rural properties that would otherwise be excluded from commercial rollouts. CityFibre has now appointed Granemore Group in Cambridgeshire, OCU Group and CCN Communications in...

Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has signed a new multi-year partnership with UK tech charity Jangala, which aims to help get thousands of people affected by data poverty online by introducing free WiFi hotspots via the roll-out of 5,000 broadband-enabling “Get Boxes” to homes, community centres, refuges, and homeless shelters. The “Get Boxes” appear to […]

The UK government’s new Smart Infrastructure Pilots Programme (SIPP) has committed £1.3 million to help six areas across the country to trial “smart street lamps“, which will be upgraded to house both Electric Vehicle (EV) charging hubs and boost wireless coverage (broadband and mobile), including via 5G or free public WiFi technology. The successful pilots […]