News

Broadband provider BT has issued an update on the national UK rollout of their new Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) based Digital Voice product, which was “paused” in May 2022 (here) following complaints about service outages during power cuts etc. But the ISP now says this is “likely” to restart during the “spring of 2023“. Just to recap. […]

Broadband ISP Fibrus, which is busy rolling out their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) networks across parts of both Northern Ireland and the North of England, has revealed that 14 of their vehicles are now electric (EV) and they’ve deployed five rapid chargers at their Dargan site to support that. At present, Fibrus has already deployed their […]

Openreach (BT) has today announced large price increases across their various high-capacity Ethernet (EBD, EAD etc.) products and Excess Construction Charges (ECC) for UK ISPs, which are all due to be introduced from April 2023. The changes also help to position their 1Gb services as the new entry-level products. Under Ofcom’s most recent Wholesale Fixed […]

The UK Government’s Secretary of State for Business, Grant Shapps, has ordered investment company LetterOne (L1T FM Holdings UK) to sell its entire stake in alternative broadband network provider Upp (formerly Fibre Me) in order to “prevent, remedy, or mitigate the risk to national security“. Upp is currently investing £1bn (£300m in equity and the […]

Rural ISP County Broadband, which aims to cover 500,000 premises across the East of England with their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network by the end of 2027, has appointed civil engineering firm Highway Workforce to help conduct their ongoing rollout across rural parts of Norfolk in England. The provider, which is being supported by an […]

A new alternative network (altnet) builder called Meliora Networks Limited has emerged on to the scene with a plan to rollout a hybrid Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and gigabit-capable Full Fibre broadband network, which will focus on “areas of the UK that do not presently have access to next generation connectivity.” The details came to […]

Mobile giant EE (BT) has officially become the first operator to make use of Freshwave‘s deployment of a new small cell based outdoor 4G and 5G mobile network in the central City of London area, which is currently in the pilot phase. O2 (VMO2) and Vodafone are expected to follow. We first reported on Freshwave’s […]

The UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) announced an interesting new campaign in partnership with Meta yesterday, which among other things decided to label “password sharing on streaming services [e.g. Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.] … without paying a subscription” as breaking copyright law. That’s a lot of new criminals. The new anti-online piracy guidance states: […]

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has announced that Starlink’s global mega constellation of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based ultrafast broadband ISP satellites has managed to grow its customer base to over 1 million, which is double the 500,000 they reported just six months ago in June 2022. At present Starlink currently has around 3,320 LEO satellites in […]

Sources have indicated to ISPreview that broadband customers of UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) might face bigger price hikes in the future than usual, with the provider being tipped to adopt the same annual style of inflation busting RPI + 3.9% hikes as those of their mobile base (e.g. O2 sims). In recent years, much […]