Ofcom: Millions still missing out social tariffs
News According to figures from Ofcom, only 220,000 households are taking advantage of social tariffs, despite over four million homes being eligible for the discounts With the cost-of-living crisis continuing to strike the most vulnerable people in the UK the hardest, Ofcom is this week once again calling on operators to do more to promote their discounted service offers, known as social tariffs. For years now, the regulator has been pushing providers to offer more low-cost connectivity...
Home Broadband ISP iTalk Raises Prices for UK Consumers
Internet service provider iTalk has recently become the latest broadband ISP to raise prices across their range of ADSL, FTTC and FTTP based internet and phone packages for consumers, which are all powered via Openreach’s national network. The change applies to their standard monthly prices and doesn’t impact existing first-term discounts. For example, iTalk’s basic […]
Three UK Coughs to Problems with Emergency Alert Test
Mobile operator Three UK appears to have been one of the worst affected yesterday after many of their customers (including yours truly) did NOT receive a notification during the Government’s nationwide test of their new Emergency Alerts service, despite using supported kit. A smaller portion of users on Vodafone, O2 and EE also had problems. […]
BT Win Scotland Wide Area Network Contract Worth up to £350m
The Scottish Government (SG) and NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) have today awarded BT (EE) with a contract worth up to £350m over the next 6-years, which will see the UK telecoms giant become the sole provider to deliver public sector connectivity across Scotland via the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN). The move will complement […]
BT bags £350m deal to upgrade Scotland’s SWAN
News The deal comes as part of the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) programme and will impact over 6,000 public sector sites Today, BT has secured a £350 million contract that will see the operator upgrade connectivity for schools, hospitals, and other public sector sites across Scotland as part of the SWAN programme. Scotland’s SWAN project was first imagined back in 2012, with a partnership between Capita and Updata Infrastructure being awarded the contract to build and operate the network...
Ofcom – 220,000 UK Homes on Cheaper Social Broadband Tariffs
Ofcom has today published their latest UK consumer affordability report, which finds the take-up of cheaper social broadband ISP and mobile tariffs for those on state benefits has increased to 220,000 households (up from 136,000 six months ago). But that still represents just 5.1% of households on Universal Credit (4.3 million). Consumer broadband, phone and […]
Top 5 Most Common Fraud Texts on Virgin Media O2’s UK Network
Mobile operator O2 (VMO2) has, after analysing and blocking tens of millions of malicious and fraudulent text (SMS) messages targeting its UK customers, revealed the top five most common fraud texts blocked on their network (firewall) in March 2023. Topping the table were texts from criminals posing as someone’s mum or dad. Overall, the top […]
Rural UK ISP Truespeed Connects 15,000 Full Fibre Customers
Bath-based alternative network ISP Truespeed, which is building a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of South West England, has today reported that their network is now home to 15,000 customer connections (up from 13k in February 2023). The operator, which holds an “ambitious” target to reach 500,000 properties by the […]
Connected North 2023: The story in pictures
News This week saw the second edition of Connected North take place live in Manchester, bringing together the leading voices in local government, enterprise, and telecoms to discuss some of the biggest issues surrounding Northern connectivity. Over 1,600 people took part in the event over two days, exploring topics big and small, from the ongoing controversy surrounding Equinox 2 to the neverending challenge of collaboration between the public and private sector. Below you can see some of our...
China Mobile mulls HKBN acquisition as it closes in on 1 billion subscribers
News The world’s largest mobile network operator is exploring a buyout of Hong Kong’s largest telecoms firms, HKBN, with experts saying the deal could be worth over $1 billion This week, anonymous sources have told the media that China Mobile has sent a request for proposal to a small group of banks, seeking a partner to help oversee the acquisition of Hong Kong’s HKBN. According to sources, China Mobile is currently receiving approaches from various investment banks and has yet to decide on a...