Belfast-based ISP Fibrus, which until now has been focused on building gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across Northern Ireland, has this afternoon revealed its £200m expansion plan for Great Britain – aiming to reach 113,000 premises by 2025 (starting in Cumbria).

The Communications Workers Union (CWU), which represents c. 40,000 staff at the UK telecoms and broadband ISP giant BT (inc. Openreach), has today – following a dispute over pay – voted to hit the operator with its first national strike in 35 years. Delays to service provision are expected, unless a last minute deal can be done.

Network builder CityFibre has reached a new wayleave (access) agreement with Yorkshire Housing, a charitable housing association that manages nearly 20,000 homes across Yorkshire (England), which will enable them to deploy their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to “thousands of tenants“.

Broadband and mobile giant VMO2 (Virgin Media and O2) has revealed that they’ve deployed more than 1,300 live 4G and 5G capable Small Cell sites across London, which are often used to boost mobile coverage and capacity in high density urban areas (shopping malls etc.). The operator plans to expand this into other parts of the UK.

Broadband ISP WightFibre, which is currently deploying a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across 80,000 premises on the Isle of Wight (South Coast of Hampshire, England), has started a programme to switch their vehicle fleet to electric (inc. hybrid electric) with the arrival of several new cars and vans.

The Chief Technology Officer for UK telecoms giant BT (EE), Howard Watson, has revealed that the operator is seeking more time from the Government for it to remove Huawei’s kit from the sensitive core of their national broadband and mobile network (this is due to be replaced by similar kit from Ericsson).

Mobile operator Vodafone UK has today published a new Digital Ambition 2030 study, which among other things claims that investment in 5G could be worth up to £7bn per year to the UK economy by 2030 and that failing to attract such investment may “undermine” the Levelling Up agenda, with “towns and smaller cities having the most to lose“.

UK ISP Zzoomm has today announced that their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network has added the Cheshire East (England) town of Sandbach to their rollout plan, which is eventually expected to reach 7,000 premises in the community.

Broadband ISP YouFibre has revealed that their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which is being built by network partner Netomnia across various UK towns (live in 22), has just connected their 10,000th customer (up from 5,000 in Feb 2022). To celebrate, they’re offering new users up to 6 months free.

Mobile network operator Lebara, which harnesses Vodafone’s Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) platform, has begun contacting their existing customers to inform them that they’ve finally started rolling out two popular service features – Wi-Fi Calling and 4G Calling (VoLTE).

The Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG), which is a think-tank that advises the UK Government on various related areas of telecommunications policy, is no more and has been replaced by the Digital Connectivity Forum (DCF). The new group touts a “redefined mission and vision” that has been crafted with industry stakeholders.

A new Opinium survey of 4,000 UK adults, which was commissioned by Uswitch, has claimed that almost 11 million consumers experienced “broadband outages” of 3 or more hours over the last year – stopping 16% of respondents from doing their work at home. As a result, the economy took a £1.28bn hit due to outages.

The Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) programme has announced that their existing full fibre broadband rollout contract with rural UK ISP Wessex Internet is to be extended, which will see a further 1,110 homes and businesses in South Somerset gaining access to their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

Broadband ISP Zzoomm, which is busy building a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to reach 1 million UK premises in 85 towns by the end of 2025, has been awarded the Silver ERS (Employment Recognition Scheme) award on National Reserves Day 2022 to recognise them as a forces-friendly (army etc.) employer.

The shortage of skilled UK fibre broadband engineers is quite a well-known problem, which has resulted in a number of network buildings and ISPs establishing their own training centres. CityFibre has now moved to do the same in South Yorkshire, which is being done in co-operation with civil engineering partner O’Connor Utilities.

New customers of UK ISP and mobile operator EE, specifically those taking out one of their fibre-based home broadband packages (FTTC, G.fast or FTTP), can now benefit from an additional discount that offers the first three months of service at half-price (sale ends 7th July 2022).

A new survey of over 1,000 British Micro and SME businesses, which was commissioned by Three UK, has warned that such firms (i.e. those who provide their employees with work phones) are losing out on an average of 1 hour of working time per employee per week due to poor connecting – costing them £18.77bn a year.