Home » UK ISP News Archive » Monthly Archives: December 2014 (98 Posts Found)

ISP News Archives for December 2014

BTOpenreach Add Phone Number and Address Check for “Fibre Broadband”

16th December, 2014 (22 Comments)

BTOpenreach has updated the “fibre availability checker” on their Superfast Openreach website with some new options, which helps to identify whether the area where you live has been upgraded to support the operators latest ‘up to’ 80Mbps capable NGA Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) or 330Mbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service.

TalkTalk’s FREE UK Mobile Sim with Broadband Plus TV Bundles Goes Live

16th December, 2014 (0 Comments)

As previously reported new customers who take TalkTalk’s triple-play Plus TV bundle of unlimited broadband, phone and YouView television services will, effective from today, also receive a Free Mobile SIM that includes 100 minutes, 250 texts and 200MB of data per month.

£700K for Faster Broadband in Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks

16th December, 2014 (0 Comments)

The Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) project in England has successfully raised an extra £700,000 to help roll-out “superfast fibre broadband” (although curiously the speeds are stated as sub-superfast “up to 24Mbps“) across hard to reach communities in the Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks.

Fuel Broadband Adds Chromecast to 12 Months FREE Unlimited Internet

16th December, 2014 (1 Comment)

Budget ISP Fuel Broadband (formerly Primus Saver) has moved to make their existing offer, which is promoting 12 months of free unlimited broadband (up to 16Mbps) with included UK weekend and evening calls (normally £4 per month), even more attractive by throwing Google’s Chromecast video streaming device into the mix.

BT TV Bring Sky Sports 1 and 2 to its Broadband Based YouView Boxes

16th December, 2014 (2 Comments)

Customers of BT’s broadband powered YouView TV (IPTV) service can, following the operators successful application for interim relief at the Competition Appeal Tribunal, now get access to the Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 channels alongside their existing BTSport, ESPN and Eurosport content. The move also means no more BTVision+ boxes.

Ofcom UK Appoints HM Treasury’s Sharon White to CEO Role

16th December, 2014 (1 Comment)

The United Kingdom’s telecoms and media regulator, Ofcom, has today announced that Sharon White will in late March 2015 take over the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) from Ed Richards, who steps down at the end of this month. The regulators Strategy and Technology Director, Steve Unger, will cover the intervening period as acting CEO.

Digital Agenda Publishes 2014 Study on Broadband Coverage in Europe

16th December, 2014 (4 Comments)

The European Commission has published its annual report into the coverage of superfast broadband (Next Generation Access) services around the EU, which again shows that the United Kingdom is making good progress on 30Mbps+ capable Next Gen (NGA) service delivery but still lags miles behind most other EU28 countries in terms of pure fibre optic connectivity (FTTH/P/B).

Broadband Connection Vouchers Tweaked to Help Firms with Multiple Premises

16th December, 2014 (4 Comments)

The Government’s Connection Voucher scheme, which offers grants worth up to £3,000 to help SME businesses install a superfast broadband (30Mbps+) service in any of 22 cities across the United Kingdom (note: many more cities will soon be added), has received another small but notable tweak in an effort to make it more attractive.

UPDATE Superfast Broadband Delivery UK Project Starts TV Advertising

15th December, 2014 (9 Comments)

As expected the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme, which with BTOpenreach’s help hopes to make fixed line superfast broadband (24Mbps+) services available to 95% of the population by 2017, will tonight launch a major new TV advertising campaign in the hopes of boosting take-up

O2 UK Rejected – BT Confirm EE Selected as Exclusive Acquisition Target

15th December, 2014 (19 Comments)

National UK telecoms giant BT has this afternoon moved to bolster their plans for launching a new consumer 4G mobile service in Q2-2015 by confirming that they’ve entered a period of exclusive talks to buy EE (Everything Everywhere) from joint owners Deutsche Telekom (Germany) and Orange (France) which, unless there are complications, effectively rules out a deal with O2.

UK ISP TalkTalk Raises Early Broadband and Phone Termination Charges

15th December, 2014 (2 Comments)

Existing TalkTalk customers, particularly those who are still under contract with the ISP, should take note that some of the providers Early Termination Charges (i.e. the ones you pay when leaving a contract before it has ended) for broadband and phone bundles will be increased in price from 15th February 2015.

Community Project Aims Superfast Broadband for Scotland’s Inner Hebrides

15th December, 2014 (8 Comments)

One problem with BT’s recently completed and state aid supported £26.9m subsea fibre optic roll-out project (here) for Scotland’s Western Isles is that not everybody on those islands will benefit from the new connectivity. As a result a new community project has been established to fill in the gaps.

UPDATE UK ISP TalkTalk Users Struggle to Disable Website Search Hijacking

15th December, 2014 (4 Comments)

Customers of TalkTalk have been left frustrated after the budget broadband provider spent months dragging its feet by failing to fix an Opt-Out feature for their Error Replacement Service, which is a system that effectively hijacks and monetises typographical errors in your website browsers address bar.

EE Delivers the Fastest Mobile Broadband Speeds in London for H2 2014

13th December, 2014 (10 Comments)

RootMetrics has released its latest study of Mobile Broadband (3G and 4G) performance across the city of London (England) for the 2nd half of 2014, which found that EE remains the faster mobile network operator with median download speeds of 23.15Mbps (up from 17.8Mbps in H1 2014 and 13.6Mbps in 2013). Meanwhile Three UK is the slowest.

BT Infinity FTTC Broadband Users Suffer Week of Slow Website Problems

12th December, 2014 (22 Comments)

Customers of the BTInfinity (FTTC) “Fibre Broadband” service, including some ADSL2+ subscribers, appear to have spent the past week or two suffering from a variety of problems with websites and emails being slow or failing to load, with some reports dating back to the very start of this month. The issue has also impacted connectivity to other services, such as Xbox Live and YouTube etc.

Sky and Virgin Media Top Ofcom’s Phone and Broadband Satisfaction Study

12th December, 2014 (10 Comments)

The United Kingdom’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has today published their annual study of consumer satisfaction with fixed line broadband, phone, pay TV and mobile providers, which is based on feedback received from around 6,000 consumers who were interviewed as part of the research. Overall it’s good news for Sky Broadband and Virgin Media, but less so for the others.

BT Asks – Would You Like FREE Chocolate With That Broadband?

12th December, 2014 (7 Comments)

As promotions go this one is certainly odder than most, which makes it worthy of a mention and that’s probably why they did it. In short, new customers who subscribe online to BT’s broadband, phone and or TV bundles, between now and 18th December, will also receive a free Cadbury’s Selection Stocking (chocolates).