Home » UK ISP News Archive » Monthly Archives: November 2016 (114 Posts Found)

ISP News Archives for November 2016

BT Openreach Publish FINAL Dark Fibre Reference Offer for ISPs

30th Nov 2016 (7 Comments)

Openreach (BT) has today released their Final Draft Reference Offer for the new Dark Fibre Access (DFA) product, which is required by Ofcom and should give rival ISPs “physical access” to the operator’s existing fibre optic cables (i.e. allows them to “take direct control of the connection“).

Virgin Media Tackles Flaky SPAM Filters by Allowing Junk Through

30th Nov 2016 (0 Comments)

Customers of Virgin Media, specifically those who use the operator’s email platform, should by now be quite familiar with its history of flaky behaviour; most of which started after they migrated away from Google’s platform in 2015 (here and here). But it’s about to get interesting again.

UK ISPs to Send Internet Piracy Warning Letters from Early 2017

30th Nov 2016 (7 Comments)

After years of waiting, the Government’s long-held plan to force major broadband ISPs into issuing warning letters / emails to customers, specifically those suspected of having engaged in online copyright infringement (Internet piracy), looks set to get underway from early 2017.

Ultrafast UK Fibre Optic ISP Hyperoptic Wins Broadband Pioneer Award

30th Nov 2016 (0 Comments)

Internet provider Hyperoptic, which specialises in deploying 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premise / Building (FTTP/B) based broadband networks to big residential and business buildings in 20 UK cities, has won the “Broadband Pioneer” award at last night’s World Communications Awards.

Just 6% of UK Businesses Have a 100Mbps+ Broadband Connection

30th Nov 2016 (60 Comments)

The Office for National Statistics has published their annual E-commerce and ICT report, which offers some interesting statistics for UK business broadband connectivity to the end of 2015 (not exactly recent). Overall 83% of all businesses had Internet access (unchanged from 2014), but speeds vary.

UPDATE Virgin Media Launch New 4K Capable Virgin TV V6 Set-Top-Box

30th Nov 2016 (4 Comments)

Cable operator Virgin Media will this morning take a break from focusing upon the ultrafast broadband side of their network and has instead announced the launch of their new Virgin TV V6 Box, which represents an attempt to catch-up with Sky Q (Sky Broadband) and BT TV.

UK ISP Sky Broadband Unveils New 4G Sky Mobile Plans and Prices

29th Nov 2016 (8 Comments)

Sky (Sky Broadband) has today officially soft launched their new 4G based Sky Mobile service in the United Kingdom, which is powered by a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement with O2 (Telefonica UK). The move will turn Sky into a true quad-play provider.

Ofcom Probes Three UK Over Network Availability Blip

29th Nov 2016 (0 Comments)

Mobile operator Three UK is being investigated by Ofcom after the operator voluntarily notified the UK telecoms regulator about a “temporary reduction in the availability of its network“, which may have hindered the ability of some customers to contact the Emergency Services (police, fire, ambulance etc.).

BT Openreach Offer 5 Months Free FTTC for Slow Broadband Lines

29th Nov 2016 (9 Comments)

Openreach has announced that they will soon give UK ISPs the ability to offer 5 months of free rental on their 40Mbps FTTC (VDSL2) based “fibre broadband” service, which will apply to customers who currently only receive sub-10Mbps speeds via their existing copper lines (e.g. ADSL).

UPDATE Three of Jersey’s Vital Undersea Fibre Optic Cables Cut by Ship

29th Nov 2016 (4 Comments)

Reports are coming in that the English Channel Island of Jersey has suffered major telecoms and broadband disruption after a ship, which was dragging its anchor along the seabed, broken through three of the islands main undersea fibre optic cables.

Cityfibre to Roll-out Fibre Optic Broadband to 500 UK Business Parks

29th Nov 2016 (3 Comments)

Urban fibre optic network developer Cityfibre has today announced that their Gigabit (1Gbps+) capable Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) Ethernet and broadband network will be rolled out to around 500 business parks across its footprint of 40 cities in the United Kingdom, which could benefit 22,000 SMEs.

UPDATE3 TalkTalk and Other ISP Routers Potentially Vulnerable to New Mirai Worm

29th Nov 2016 (17 Comments)

It’s spreading fast! A newly modified version of the malicious Mirai worm, which has recently been remotely infecting masses of different broadband routers at other European ISPs (900,000+ in Germany), may soon begin to hit devices in the United Kingdom too, such as TalkTalk’s D-Link DSL-3780 kit.

UPDATE4 Ofcom UK Forces BT to Adopt Legal Separation of Openreach

29th Nov 2016 (66 Comments)

Bad news for BT today. Ofcom confirms that it has been unable to reach a voluntary agreement over the future of Openreach and would now force the operator to adopt “legal separation“. A new UK framework for the next decade of telecoms and broadband regulation will now be established.

UK ISPs Say New Website Blocking Powers Lack “thought or consultation”

28th Nov 2016 (6 Comments)

The United Kingdom’s Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has criticised the Government’s sudden decision to include mandatory blocking of all “adult” websites into the forthcoming Digital Economy Bill 2017, which they say has “the potential to significantly harm the digital economy.”

UPD Ofcom UK Finds Broadband ISP Plusnet May Have Botched its Bills

28th Nov 2016 (14 Comments)

A probe by telecoms industry regulator Ofcom has today found “reasonable grounds to believe” that Plusnet may have continued to incorrectly bill customers of their fixed line broadband and phone services between 7th March 2008 and 3rd September 2015, even after they left.

Aylesbury Vale Broadband Begins FTTH Roll-out to Oving and Stewkley

28th Nov 2016 (2 Comments)

The publicly funded Aylesbury Vale Broadband project has this week started the next phase of expansion in rural Buckinghamshire (England), which will expand their 300Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) network to the villages of Oving and Stewkley.

Kaspersky Lab Reports 25% of WiFi Internet Hotspots are Unsecured

28th Nov 2016 (2 Comments)

Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab has analysed 31 million WiFi hotspots from around the world and found that 22% have no security (i.e. no password or encryption), while a further 2.7% only adopt the weakest form of Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption that is easily hacked.