Home » UK ISP News Archive » Monthly Archives: July 2013 (127 Posts Found)

ISP News Archives for July 2013

UPD Rural Communities Report Says 2Mbps for All Target Must be the Priority

24th Jul 2013 (2 Comments)

The government’s Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has today been criticised by a new select committee report for its late delivery of the Universal Service Commitment (USC), which aims to ensure that 100% can access a minimum broadband speed of 2Mbps by 2015. The inquiry said this must now be “prioritised over increasing speeds“.

UPDATE Eutelsat and Skylogic Scrap Unlimited Tooway Satellite Broadband

24th Jul 2013 (18 Comments)

Satellite operator Eutelsat (Skylogic) appears to be feeling a strain on its broadband capacity after it began advising ISPs in the UK, and we assume the rest of Europe too, that their current top-end unlimited usage package would be withdrawn by the end of August 2013.

UK ISP PlusNets Growth and Security Needs to Create 250 Jobs in Leeds

23rd Jul 2013 (3 Comments)

Sheffield-based Internet and phone provider PlusNet has announced that it will open a new office in Leeds (England) during October 2013 that should, over the next three years, result in the creation of at least 250 new jobs (making for a total of 1100 employees by 2016).

UPDATE Court Forces Big UK ISPs to Block EZTV and Yify-Torrents Websites

23rd Jul 2013 (12 Comments)

The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and Motion Picture Association (MPA) have won yet another court case that will force all of the country’s largest broadband ISPs to block their customers from accessing EZTV and Yify-Torrents, which were both found to be facilitating internet copyright infringement (piracy).

UPD BT Add 9 Final UK Exchanges to its Commercial Fibre Broadband Rollout

23rd Jul 2013 (44 Comments)

BT has just announced that they’ve been able to squeeze an additional 9 telephone exchanges into their national £2.5bn roll-out of up to 80Mbps (Megabits per second) capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) based superfast broadband ISP products around the United Kingdom.

Average Global Internet Speeds Climb to 3.1Mbps as UK Tops 7.9Mbps

23rd Jul 2013 (3 Comments)

Akamai, a global content delivery network, has revealed in its latest State of the Internet (Q1 2013) report that the worlds average internet download speed hit 3.1Mbps (up 4% from 2.9Mbps in the quarter). Meanwhile the UK topped 7.9Mbps (up 7.3% from 6.5Mbps) and is ranked 12th fastest globally (up from 18th).

Ofcom Calls on UK ISPs to Improve their Broadband Speed Info and Support

23rd Jul 2013 (0 Comments)

Ofcom has published the outcome from their latest mystery shopping study into fixed line ISP compliance with the regulators rules concerning how broadband speeds should be sold and communicated to consumers. Suffice to say that some providers (TalkTalk and O2) have fallen short of expectations but overall the market has improved.

Birmingham UK Signs Deal to Blanket City Centre with FREE Virgin WiFi

23rd Jul 2013 (0 Comments)

As expected the Birmingham City Council (BCC) has signed a new deal with Virgin Media Business (VMB) that will result in the operator rolling out an unlimited free wireless internet (wifi) zone across key parts of the city centre. The latest 3G and 4G (mobile) based small cell technology will also be deployed.

SHEFA2 Fibre Optic Cable Break Disrupts Broadband on the Shetland Islands

23rd Jul 2013 (2 Comments)

The remote Shetland Islands (North of Scotland, UK) have once again had to suffer disruption to some of their local broadband and phone services after the vital undersea SHEFA-2 (Faroese Telecom) fibre optic cable, which links the Faroe Islands with mainland Scotland, was damaged on Friday morning just south of Orkney.

Superfast Cornwall UK Project Tweaks its BT Fibre Broadband Figures Down

22nd Jul 2013 (5 Comments)

The £132m Superfast Cornwall project, which is working to make BT’s fibre optic based broadband ISP technology (FTTC/P) available to 95% of local premises by the end of 2014, has today revised its current coverage figures down to 182,000 premises from the 190,000 reported during early June 2013.

Farmers Angry After UK Considers Diverting their Subsidies to Broadband

22nd Jul 2013 (11 Comments)

The UK government’s Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, has caused anger among farming communities by proposing to divert more than £300 million a year of their subsidies from Europe’s controversial 60bn Euro Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and to use it for improving rural broadband access.

UPDATE Hampshire UK Starting to Consider Full Superfast Broadband Cover

22nd Jul 2013 (10 Comments)

The leader of Hampshire County Council (HCC) has called upon councilors to begin initial work on a new policy that could extend the availability of fixed line superfast broadband (25Mbps+) services well beyond the current 90% coverage target for the end of 2015.

UPD4 Child Internet Safety and Censorship Measures Unveiled for UK ISPs

22nd Jul 2013 (11 Comments)

The Prime Minster of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, has unveiled the government’s plan for helping to protect children online. As expected it includes a series of solutions including one that requires all of the country’s largest broadband ISPs to adopt strict network-level filtering blocks for adult websites and content (Parental Controls).

A Look at the Future Fibre to the Distribution Point FTTdp Broadband Tech

22nd Jul 2013 (21 Comments)

Over the next few years it’s likely that you’ll soon start to hear more about a next generation broadband ISP technology called Fibre to the Distribution Point (FTTdp), which Ofcom are currently encouraging BT to trial. But what is FTTdp and will it really help UK homes and businesses to get ultrafast internet connections? Let’s take a look.

UPD UK PostOffice Swaps Telecom Network and Unveils Faster Broadband

19th Jul 2013 (38 Comments)

The Post Office has finally begun its long awaited £500m migration from a BTWholesale / Logica based managed broadband platform and on to one that’s being delivered by TalkTalk Wholesale and Fujitsu (original may 2012 news). As a result a series of refreshed internet and phone packages have also been launched.

UPD2 Altnet Opportunity as BT Give Only Slow Broadband to Elberton Village

19th Jul 2013 (40 Comments)

Residents of the tiny rural Elberton farming village in South Gloucestershire (England) appear to have become one of the first communities to officially be told that they won’t get a superfast broadband connection from BT or via the state aid supported Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) scheme.

OECD Report Finds UK Fibre Optic Broadband Growth Hit 172% in 2012

19th Jul 2013 (8 Comments)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which covers 34 countries that claim to support democracy and a market economy, has reported that the United Kingdom experienced an annual growth rate of 172% for true fibre optic broadband (FTTH/P/B) ISP connections.