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.

Internet giant Google has today unveiled a new product called Google Stadia, which from later in 2019 will begin offering the ability to remote play video games using cloud-based streaming technology at up to 4K resolution in the USA, UK, Canada and much of Europe. But what sort of broadband ISP speeds will you need?

Full fibre builder Cityfibre has announced that they will invest £75m to expand the reach of their 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband ISP network across the cities of Bournemouth and Northampton, which will join the other 10 cities confirmed under Phase One and take their coverage to 1 million UK premises.

Openreach (BT) is set to launch a new trial next month that will add 12 new speed steps to their Dynamic Line Management (DLM) system for Next Gen Access (NGA) lines, which appears to be focused on UK Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) connections. The aim is an increase in average speed without a reduction in stability.

The City of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire UK has announced that the £9.2m of public funding secured from the Government’s Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme will be used to “install ultrafast broadband across city” via a new 96km long “full fibre” (FTTP) network from Swedish operator VXFIBER.

Fibre optic UK ISP Hyperoptic has announced that 20,000 units belonging to Network Homes, which is a primarily London focused housing association, will be the next in line to be covered by their 1Gbps capable “full fibre” (FTTP/B) broadband network.

A new report from Dorset’s (England) Economic Growth Committee has revealed that 97%+ of the county (including Poole and Bournemouth) should now be able to order a “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) service from an ISP, which they say leaves 10,000+ premises spread across the county in need of an upgrade.