The Welsh Government (WG) has issued their first quarterly progress update on the £22.5m Phase 2 contract they have with Openreach (BT), which aims to extend gigabit-capable “full fibre” (FTTP) broadband to a further 26,000 premises by March 2021 (here and here). So far 8,283 rural premises have been completed.

Broadband and mobile giant BT (EE) has announced that they will re-open their high street retail stores from the 15th June 2020 as part of a phased roll-out alongside new social distancing measures, which is in stark contrast to rival Virgin Media’s recent decision (here) to completely abandon their high-street presence.

The Dumfries and Galloway Council (DGC) in Scotland has secured a public investment of £1.36M under the UK Government’s £200m Rural Gigabit Connectivity (RGC) programme, which will be used to help 35 rural primary schools in the region to access a new “gigabit-capable” broadband or Ethernet connection.

Mobile operator EE (BT) has started to extend their new 5G ultrafast mobile broadband network to cover an additional 9 towns and cities across the United Kingdom, including locations such as Southend-on-Sea, Stirling and Weybridge.

Northern Ireland firm Obelisk Networks UK (formerly Obelisk Communications), which is part of a civil engineering group that normally builds infrastructure for others, appears to be considering a plan that would see it build a new FTTP broadband network and then offer direct retail products or wholesale out to ISPs.

A new survey by the GSMA has reported that energy consumption and carbon emissions from telecoms networks have remained “mostly unchanged” in recent weeks, which is despite the COVID-19 crisis causing some significant increases in broadband ISP and mobile data traffic during the lockdown (much of that has since subsided).

The Business Division of UK ISP TalkTalk has today announced a reshuffle of its senior Director-level leadership team, which aims to help the internet provider “focus on a full fibre future” and boost growth in their other broadband, fibre and Ethernet data services.

The City of London Police (Action Fraud Squad) and UK Trading Standards are to target sales of the bizarre £300 5GBioShield, which was recommended by a member of Glastonbury Town Council’s much criticised 5G Advisory Committee and falsely promised to create a shield against 5G mobile radiation. Except it’s just a USB stick.

Urban UK fibre optic network builder Cityfibre has announced that they’ve started construction on their £14m project to build a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network in the sea side Suffolk town of Lowestoft, which will be supplied by ISP partners Vodafone (and eventually TalkTalk).

Rural fibre optic UK ISP Gigaclear has confirmed that their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in West Berkshire – built with support from public investment via the Superfast Berkshire project – is now nearly complete following massive delays. Some 14,000 local premises can already access the service.

Cable and fibre optic broadband ISP Virgin Media UK has today decided that they will NOT reopen any of their 53 remaining high street retail stores after the current COVID-19 (Coronavirus) lockdown ends, although all of those impacted by the move (341 staff) will be offered alternative roles within the company.

The European Court of Justice (General Court) has today annulled a decision by the European Commission’s competition authority, which in 2016 blocked mobile operators O2 and Three UK from merging. The ruling found that the decision to block the £10.45bn deal had failed to prove that such a merger would damage competition.

City focused FTTP/B broadband ISP Hyperoptic, which covers more than 400,000 UK premises with their 1Gbps capable network (mostly large apartment blocks), has today launched a new pricing plan, where customers can choose to lock-in a no-price-rise promise, free speed upgrade and the ability to cancel anytime with no exit fee.

New research from Analysys Mason, which was commissioned by Chinese technology firm Huawei (vested interest), has today warned that the United Kingdom and most EU countries will miss the European Commission’s (EC) future broadband targets unless they tackle the remaining challenges and barriers being faced by operators.

Rural full fibre UK ISP TrueSpeed, which is backed by an investment of £75m from Aviva Investors and has been deploying a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across Somerset in South West England for the past few years, appears to now be extending into the large village of Saltford.

The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has today published a new report that examines the issue of infrastructure resilience in the face of major disruption (floods, power cuts etc.), which among other things recommends that digital (mobile and broadband etc.) infrastructure may benefit from new standards and stress testing.

Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) UK ISP Wildanet, which is currently building a new broadband network in rural parts of South West England, has begun offering businesses in Cornwall “guaranteed superfast broadband, with no payments in the first three months and a free standard installation” to help with the impact from COVID-19.