The ITS Technology Group has joined forces with the Wilton Centre in order to launch a new “superfast” hybrid fibre optic and fixed wireless broadband ISP network, which is designed to reach poorly served businesses and possibly even homes around part of Teesside.

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today published their final annual plan for 2019/20, which summarises all of the major work they intend to do this year (e.g. boosting mobile coverage, new consumer protections, implementing the 10Mbps USO for broadband and promoting investment in “fibre” networks etc.).

Political leaders from 20 cities and towns across the North of England have written an Open Letter to Ofcom that calls for a more coordinated way of deploying new Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP networks, which could speed-up the effort by avoiding the need to dig up streets several times over.

The latest biannual survey of consumer satisfaction from consumer magazine Which? has criticised UK ISPs BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Vodafone for continuing to come bottom of their table. Meanwhile Zen Internet was praised for “comfortably taking top spot in our rankings.“

Energy provider and UK ISP First Utility, which supplies over 700,000 households, has officially been re-branded to Shell Energy. The move follows a 2017 agreement to sell the business (valued c.£200m-£300m) to Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell Petroleum Company Ltd (here).

A new Portsmouth-based ISP called toob, which we reported last month had been established by several of Vodafone’s former directors and planned to roll-out a 900Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network to 100,000 UK premises by the end of 2021 (here), has secured a huge investment of £75m.

National UK cable ISP Virgin Media has confirmed that their soon-to-be 500Mbps capable ultrafast broadband and TV network is about to be rolled out to cover 6,000 premises in Musselburgh, which is the largest coastal settlement within the East Lothian (Scotland) area and home to about 21,000 people.

Lately we’ve been seeing a lot of new “full fibre” providers launch and now another one, Lightning Fibre, looks set to join the fray. The ISP appears to be initially targeting the roll-out of their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network toward the Eastbourne area of East Sussex.

The UK and Welsh Governments have today jointly announced that the £67m Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which normally offers up to £2,500 to help businesses and surrounding homes gain access to a 1Gbps capable broadband ISP connection (ideally “full fibre” FTTP), is to be boosted up to £5,500 in Wales.

Mobile operator O2 (Telefonica UK) has been fined £75,000 by Ofcom for “failing to provide accurate and complete answers” to the regulator, which occured as part of last year’s investigation into the operator’s Traffic Management practices on their 3G and 4G network.

Rochdale-based ISP Zen Internet has informed us that both their new and existing customers can now benefit after they cut the price of their FTTC based Unlimited Fibre 1 (35Mbps average speed) and phone plan from £37 to £29.99 per month, which will be maintained as its new standard pricing.

The Scottish Government (SG) has been heavily criticised by an opposition Conservative MP, John Lamont, after it confirmed that the bidding process for their £600m R100 (Reaching 100%) programme was still ongoing and that contracts would now be vaguely awarded some time “during 2019.”

Mobile operator Three UK has today released their full year results for 2018, which amongst other things revealed that monthly Mobile Broadband (3G / 4G) data usage per customer grew by 22% during the year (vs 7% in the previous year) from 6.8GB to 8.3GB (GigaBytes) and population coverage is now 99% (up from 98.5%).

Telecoms giant BT (EE) has called for an “end to exclusive concessions agreements” on UK council owned street furniture, which they say has become a “barrier” to the roll-out of 4G and 5G mobile (mobile broadband) services, not least by only granting certain companies access to use it but not others.

Openreach (BT) has today officially launched its first major industry consultation on the process of switching from their old legacy copper broadband and phone lines to new ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure, which includes discussions over how they should “eventually retire the existing copper network.”

Sadly a fair few of Openreach’s (BT) green broadband and phone street cabinets in Sheffield (England) are “often targeted with graffiti.” In response the operator has joined with the Kelham Island and Neepsend Community Alliance (KINCA) to turn a number of them into “works of art” instead. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

A bit of good news from rural “full fibre” provider Gigaclear, for a change. The ISP has announced that Greenmeadows Park (Bamfurlong, Cheltenham), which was last year named as the slowest street for broadband speeds in the United Kingdom, has now become one of the fastest after a 900Mbps+ capable FTTH network went live.