Broadband and telecoms giant BT has announced that they intend to recruit over 600 apprentices and graduates this year (up from 428 last year), which forms part of their September 2022 intake. This will reflect roles spanning areas such as engineering (5G and FTTP etc.), UK customer service, research and cyber-security.

A recent report from banking giant Credit Suisse has estimated that Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband networks will cover 90% of the UK by 2025. The country was also found to be the “most attractive market” for incremental investment in such networks, thanks to “strong build momentum and interest” in faster broadband.

Mobile operator EE (BT) has today announced that they’ve joined with existing network supplier Nokia to conduct one of their first UK trials of Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN) technology in the East Yorkshire City of Hull, which they hope will “enhance [the] mobile broadband experience” for locals.

The Institute of Customer Service has today published their latest biannual UK Customer Satisfaction Index (Jan 2022), which saw Tesco Mobile, Sky Mobile and giffgaff all managing to make the UKCSI’s ranking of the top 50 organisations – the only telecommunications providers to make the cut.

Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company MediaTek claims to have conducted the “world’s first live demo” of the next generation Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) wireless networking technology, which is theoretically capable of peak data speeds up to around 40Gbps and “can be a true wireline / Ethernet replacement.”

Openreach (BT) has this morning published the first update of 2022 to the £15bn rollout plan for their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network, which adds 113 new locations (towns and villages) to their coverage plan. The operator aims to reach 25 million premises (80% of the UK) by December 2026.

Mobile operator Vodafone UK has today announced that they will begin to retire their “legacy” 3G network from 2023 onwards. The gradual phase-out will enable them to repurpose the related radio spectrum bands to help boost the performance (faster broadband data), reliability and coverage of their existing 4G and 5G services.

Broadband ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) will this morning discount the price of their top “Gig1 Fibre Broadband” (1130Mbps download and 52Mbps upload) package, for new customers, from £62 to £50.99 per month on an 18-month term (a one-off £35 setup fee also applies).

UK ISP Brsk, which is busy building a new gigabit-capable and “open access” Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, has today announced a major expansion that will see them aim to cover 150,000 premises across the Greater Manchester area (i.e. Stockport and the surrounding areas, with plans for Middleton and Oldham).

And now for something completely different. Broadband ISP Jurassic Fibre, which is building a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across parts of South West England, has volunteered staff and vans to assist in Hospiscare’s (charity) Christmas Tree Recycling fundraiser. A total of 1,200 trees were collected, raising £16K.

After a long wait, CityFibre has announced that their £31m project to deploy a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network across the city of Gloucester (Gloucestershire, England) has finally started to go live and connect the first local homes and businesses.

A new 6-month long trial has been launched by broadband ISP and mobile operator Virgin Media (VMO2) in the City of York, which will see the provider working alongside the city council to repaint vandalised street cabinets and bring them back to their original state.

Mobile operator Vodafone UK is allegedly reported to have explored a move to merge with rival Three UK by acquiring them from parent CK Hutchison Holdings. But the expression of interest, which is said to have been made last year, did not lead to an agreement and is no longer part of active negotiations.

A new cross-party UK report from the DCMS Select Committee has warned that the Government’s new Online Safety Bill (OSB), which will task Ofcom with tackling “harmful” content online, fails to get the balance right and “neither protects freedom of expression nor is it clear nor robust enough to tackle illegal and harmful online content.”

Openreach made a somewhat comical gaffe this week after they told an end-user, who lives in a copper “stop sell” area and was trying to order a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband service, that the best way to resolve a problem with getting his UK address recognised was to “place an order for a telephone service only“.

Mobile operator EE has quietly confirmed that their indoor femtocell based signal booster device (‘Signal Box‘), which used an existing fixed line broadband ISP connection to create its own indoor 3G mobile signal over a specific band (e.g. 2100MHz), will be “fully closed” (for existing customers) by 30th June 2022.

The CEO of Infracapital backed broadband ISP Fibrus, Dominic Kearns, has said he’s “horrified” at BT’s recent 9.3% price hike (here) and, unlike the incumbent, pledges that they “will not be putting our prices up.” The provider is currently building a new full fibre network across parts of Northern Ireland and Northern England.