Which? has conducted a new “loyalty penalty” study of entry-level “fibre broadband” and phone bundles across 12 of the biggest broadband ISPs in the UK market. This reveals that customers of Virgin Media, TalkTalk and the Post Office are hit by the biggest price hikes (up to 60%) after their initial contract ends.

Customers of broadband ISP TalkTalk are finding that they’ve unable to access their email since mid-morning (around 9-10am) because a connection to the related apps.talktalk.co.uk server has “timed out,” which seems to be affecting both webmail and connections via third-party email software (Thunderbird etc.).

Property developer Persimmon Homes, which says they’ve had “difficulty” ensuring that other telecoms providers deliver broadband to their new build UK housing developments before purchasers move in, looks set to ramp up the rollout of their own Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based “ultrafast broadband” ISP network.

UK ISP BT has changed their gadget offer for June, which means that new customers who take one of their broadband bundles are being offered the choice of either a free Amazon Echo, JBL 650 Live Headphones or Samsung Tablet A when they sign-up to the service. This is on top of the usual reward cards (pre-paid MasterCard).

Customers of both Vodafone’s fixed line broadband and mobile data (3G, 4G and 5G) services from across the UK and Europe appear to be suffering from degraded internet connectivity on their network after an unspecified problem occurred with one of their international transit links, but it’s now being fixed.

Rochdale-based UK ISP Zen Internet has informed us that they’ve discounted the price of their standalone “full fibre” (FTTP) based superfast and ultrafast broadband packages, which offer average download speeds of up to 300Mbps (45Mbps upload); slower and cheaper plans are also available.

Fibre optic network builder Cityfibre has today signed a new multi-million pound strategic supplier agreement with the global Prysmian Group. The latter will supply the operator with a range of cable and connectivity solutions to support their growing UK rollout of a 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network.

Customers of mobile operator Vodafone UK have just become some of the first in the world to be able to make and receive calls via Amazon Echo (Alexa) smart speaker devices from any of their contacts via their existing mobile phone plan, which is thanks to their new OneNumber feature (free for all Red pay monthly customers).

The UK Government has today committed a further £40m from their 5G Testbeds and Trials (5GTT) programme to support another round of projects, which will help to show how the ultrafast mobile broadband tech could support work in the “logistics and manufacturing sectors.” They also want to simplify the planning process to help rollouts.

BT, the owner of EE, has provided information to Ofcom that suggests it failed to apply the regulator’s new price cap on UK calls to 118 numbers (Directory Enquiries) until mid-April 2019, which may have resulted in a tiny number of customers being incorrectly charged.

A legal challenged brought by Liberty in the UK High Court has pointed to the “undoubtedly unlawful” bulk retention of largely innocent peoples communications data (telecoms and internet) by MI5, which stems from an apparent failure to adhere to the safeguards set out in the Government’s 2016 Investigatory Powers Act (IPAct).

New customers to the broadband ISP division of John Lewis are being offered an included Google Home Hub AI smart speaker system alongside any order of their broadband and phone packages (available to take until 30th July 2019), which is on top of an existing 12 month discount for service rental.

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has proposed to defragment (no.. not their computer hard disks) the 3.4-3.8GHz radio spectrum bands after next year’s auction, which could enable mobile network operators to get the best performance and save money on their new 5G ultrafast mobile broadband networks.

UK ISP BT appears to have begun a beta trial of their future Digital Voice service, which will eventually replace the PSTN analogue phone / voice services of today (expected to be completely retired by 2025) in favour of modern Voice-over-IP (VoIP) style alternatives that harness your broadband connection.

The European Commission has published their 2019 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which uses data from 2018 to reveal how the UK’s fixed line broadband and mobile networks compare with the rest of the EU. This year we jumped in overall rank from 6th to 5th out of 28 countries but are only 10th for connectivity.

Some 40 properties in the rural village of Stormontfield (Perth and Kinros, Scotland) can finally access a “superfast broadband” ISP connection, which comes after a local campaign resulted in Broadway Partners deploying a new hybrid fibre optic and fixed wireless network across the community.

The annual Queen’s Birthday Honours (2019) was recently published and we’re pleased to report that a number of figures within the United Kingdom’s broadband and telecoms sector scooped up an Order of the British Empire, including among them supporters of B4RN’s rural FTTH broadband network and a BT Director.