Cable ISP Virgin Media has announced that, for the first time, they’ve officially expanded the coverage of their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based ultrafast broadband and TV network to a further 2,000 premises in Pontyclun (South Wales), albeit this time by using Openreach’s (BT) existing cable ducts.

The Country Land and Business Association, which represents 30,000+ landowners (farmers and businesses) across England and Wales, has said that “forcing mobile operators to adopt rural roaming” may be the only way to deliver significantly better 4G coverage in rural areas. But operators now favour a barter system of mast sharing.

The Post Office’s UK ISP division has today announced that they’re discounting their ADSL2+ and FTTC based broadband and phone bundles to lower, more competitive pricing across all of their products for new customers. For example, their top 63Mbps package will now become £30 per month instead of £32 (previous discount price).

Surprisingly around a million people in the UK still use premium 118 Directory Enquiries numbers (e.g. elderly users). Last year Ofcom took action to stamp out excessive charges for such numbers, which had seen some operators charging £20 for a 90 second call. But from today such costs will be capped.

A new civil engineering method has been developed called ‘Just Chuck it on the Surface’ (JCoS), which looks set to replace modern approaches by making it both massively faster and cheaper to deploy new Gigabit capable fibre optic broadband networks, with only minimal effort required.

Ofcom’s new system of automatic compensation will tomorrow be introduced, which requires major UK ISPs to compensate consumers (cash or bill credits) for a total loss of broadband connectivity (i.e. if the outage lasts longer than 2 working days), missed appointments or delayed installs.

The Internet Telephony Services Providers Association, which broadly represents the UK VoIP phone industry, has today revealed their shortlist of finalists for their annual 2019 ITSPA Awards event. Sadly they seem to have scrapped the best consumer VoIP provider category for this year.

The UK telecoms regulator has today set out more detail on how they intend to change market regulation in order to promote competition and investment in the roll-out of Gigabit capable “full fibre” (FTTP) broadband ISP networks, which will support the Government’s ambition for “nationwide” FTTP coverage by 2033.

New customers of UK ISP BT can now get an included Google Home AI smart speaker (RRP £129) when they sign-up to one of the provider’s Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC), Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) or G.fast based broadband and phone packages. Reward cards (Preloaded MasterCard) valued between £30 to £120 are also included.

A new project, which is to be assisted by Cityfibre, Capita and £9.5m from the UK Government’s Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme, will result in a Gigabit speed fibre optic broadband network being built to connect 152 public sector sites (schools, council etc.) in the challenging highlands of Scotland.

Chinese-based IT company Huawei, which supplies a good chunk of the broadband ISP and mobile network kit being used by UK providers (routers, cabinets etc.), is under increased pressure after the fifth annual report from the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) oversight board found “new risks” and limited progress.

Gigabit broadband ISP speeds will soon be on their way to all 129 properties in the remote rural Welsh village of Llancarfan (Vale of Glamorgan), which is thanks to a new co-funded Community Fibre Partnership (CFP) project with Openreach (BT). This is said to be the “largest full-fibre … deal of its kind in Wales.“

Broadband ISPs that have taken Openreach’s (BT) Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based 330Mbps (50Mbps upload) product at wholesale will be pleased to learn that the operator has extended their existing rental discount by six months until 30th September 2019, but not all providers will pass the savings on to end-users.

More than 20,000 homes in the large UK town of Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) have now been reached by Cityfibre’s £40 million roll-out of a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network, which is being supported by strategic ISP partner Vodafone.

The Government has reportedly said that its controversial new internet age verification system – targeted at commercial websites and “apps” that contain pornographic content – might not be enforced on 1st April as predicted last year and may not now be ready until later this year.

The new CEO of UK telecoms giant BT, Philip Jansen, is reported to be considering a huge reduction in jobs that could cut another 25,000 staff from their current workforce of nearly 100,000 (i.e. 82,500 direct employees and 12,300 contractors). Such a move might help to fund their roll-out of “full fibre” broadband ISP technology.

A new survey of nearly 4,000 UK residents has found that 36.41% of respondents had at some point received a call on their home phone line from someone they suspected, or knew for certain, was a scammer impersonating a representative of broadband ISP BT. One victim was even conned out of £34,000 from their bank.