The troubled Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) project has signed two extension contracts with UK ISP Airband and telecoms giant BT (Openreach), which will see a further 8,200 premises gaining access to faster “fibre broadband” (mostly full fibre FTTP) connections by the end of 2021.

Broadband ISP Zen Internet has confirmed that they’ve this week begun to soft launch a new range of packages based off Openreach’s latest 550Mbps (75Mbps upload) and 1000Mbps (115Mbps upload) consumer Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) tiers, although you won’t see them on their website for another week or two.

The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), which represents various alternative broadband ISPs and network builders, has called on the UK Government to put “urgent investment” toward training and apprenticeships in the telecoms sector to help skill-up new engineers.

Homes and businesses both in and around the rural village of Scourie, on the north west coast of Scotland, look set to benefit from faster wireless broadband ISP connectivity, which came after a local Salmon Farm (Loch Duart) awarded the area £14,400 from its community fund to help cover the installation.

Remember that £5bn pledge by the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to have “gigabit broadband sprouting in every home” by the end of 2025 (here)? Perhaps unsurprisingly, it now looks like the Government are watering down their language on that to “go as far as we possibly can by 2025.”

Senior broadband and mobile figures from UK telecoms giants BT and Vodafone have today warned cross-party MPs on the Science and Technology Committee that they’d need at least 5-7 years to fully remove Huawei’s kit from their networks, or “blackouts” could be a risk. The cost may also rise into the billions.

Consumers in the UK who own one of AVM’s popular FRITZ!Box broadband routers or a FRITZ!Repeater (WiFi) may like to know that they’ve released a major new firmware update – FRITZ!OS 7.20. The new software adds lots of improvements, such as support for WPA3 encryption, better WiFi, DNS over TLS and faster performance.

The Worcester Crown Court (WCC) has this week convicted three men after they dressed up as fake engineers in order to steal vital backup batteries from Openreach’s (BT) street cabinets, which supply broadband and phone connectivity to homes and businesses. The thefts took place across the UK.

The European Commission has revealed the winners from their final call-up for vouchers under the €120m WiFi4EU initiative, which includes just 2 municipalities in the United Kingdom that should now receive vouchers worth up to €15K (£13.42K) to help them install FREE public WiFi broadband hotspots by the end of 2020.

Telecommunications network services provider KN Circet, which is part of the Circet Group and operates across the UK and Ireland (clients include Openreach, Vodafone, Virgin Media, BT, Zayo and many others), has acquired ARCC Communications as part of its strategy to expand into UK wireless activities and infrastructure.

The latest biannual UK Customer Satisfaction Index (July 2020) from the Institute of Customer Service, which reveals the top 50 organisations for customer service, finds that only three telecoms companies have made it into the top table – mobile operators Tesco Mobile, Sky Mobile and giffgaff.

Some 4,500 homes in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, have now gained access to Virgin Media UK’s new “gigabit-capable” Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband and TV network. The work forms part of their on-going Project Lightning network expansion.

Sky (Sky Broadband) has today unveiled a “raft of new features” for their Sky Q TV boxes and service, such as a new expanded view User Interface (UI), simple new show and sports centres, intuitive smart buttons, Disney+ in HDR (for the first time) and improved voice discovery. But still no Sky Q over broadband.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has, following a complaint raised by BT, banned two press adverts for mobile operator O2 UK after it promoted a special deal on a bundle with the Microsoft Surface Pro X and iPad devices, albeit without making all of the associated costs completely clear.

Over the past few months’ we’ve seen the UK Government step-up market engagement exercises as part of work to develop a framework for their £5bn investment, which aims to ensure that “every home” can access “gigabit-capable” broadband by the end of 2025. As a result we now have a better idea of what this will look like.

The remote Shetland Islands Council (SIC) has decide to start exploring the possibility of extending “superfast broadband” coverage across the island(s) by itself, which they say is due to a “failure to deliver” under the Scottish Government’s wider £600m R100 (Reaching 100%) programme.

Full fibre ISP Jurassic Fibre, which aims to cover 350,000 UK premises with a 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across South West England (here and here), appears to have refreshed their packages and reduced prices on several tiers.