Home » UK ISP News Archive » Monthly Archives: January 2015 (82 Posts Found)

ISP News Archives for January 2015

BT’s Likely Acquisition of EE is the End of Orange and T-Mobile UK

24th Jan 2015 (22 Comments)

Reports suggest that EE will move to completely phase out their Orange and T-Mobile brands in the United Kingdom ahead of BT’s acquisition, which is partly because the national incumbent has no plans to retain them. On top of that EE will stop selling separate 3G contracts and instead focus on 4G.

Gigaclear Begin FTTP Broadband Rollout for Rural Northamptonshire Villages

24th Jan 2015 (3 Comments)

Towards the end of last year Gigaclear announced a new plan to roll-out their 1000Mbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP/H) broadband network to several thousand homes and businesses in a number of rural Northamptonshire villages (East Midlands of England) by the end of 2017. The good news is that this installation work has now started.

Gloucestershire and Herefordshire Reveal H1 2015 Fibre Broadband Upgrades

23rd Jan 2015 (1 Comment)

It’s been awhile since we ran any coverage on the £56.6m Fastershire project (still the best name ever), which aims to make BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network available to around 90% of premises in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire by the end of 2016 (148,000 premises). But the good news is that we now have the roll-out plan for the first half of 2015.

KC’s Fibre Optic Broadband Reaches 40,000 Hull and East Yorkshire Premises

23rd Jan 2015 (2 Comments)

The incumbent telecoms operator for Hull and East Yorkshire in England, KC (KCOM), has announced that the roll-out of their new superfast “Lightstream” fibre optic (FTTP/C) broadband network in the region has now reached 40,000 premises passed, with 12,000 having already subscribed (30% uptake).

Gigaclear Start Rollout of 1Gbps FTTP Broadband for 8 Peterborough UK Villages

23rd Jan 2015 (62 Comments)

Fibre optic ISP Gigaclear has begun construction of a new 1000Mbps (Megabits per second) capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) based broadband network for approximately 1,500 premises in the rural Peterborough (England) villages of Ashton, Bainton, Barnack, Helpston, Pilsgate, Southorpe, Tallington and Ufford.

UPDATE3 Lords Sneak UK Internet Snooping Law into Bill – Minus Safeguards

23rd Jan 2015 (14 Comments)

Opponents of the Government’s plan to revive the twice failed Internet Snooping law, which would force ISPs into logging a much bigger slice of everybody’s online activity and also make it more accessible to security services, are crying foul after dirty politics resulted in 18 pages of new law being snuck into the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill (CTSB) at the last minute.. and without the promised judicial oversight (safeguard).

Confirmed – Three UK Enters Exclusive Talks to Buy O2 for £10.25bn

23rd Jan 2015 (7 Comments)

The Spanish owner of mobile network operator O2 UK, Telefonica, has confirmed that they’ve entered into an “exclusivity agreement” with Hutchison Whampoa (the parent of rival mobile operator Three UK) to buy the provider for £10.25bn in cash. Unless the talks fail, which at this stage seems unlikely, then Three UK will ultimately end up merging with O2.

Another Tale of BT and UK House Developers Not Building Good Broadband

22nd Jan 2015 (75 Comments)

Residents of the new Woodilee Village estate between Lenzie and Kirkintilloch in Scotland, which includes 900 contemporary homes built by CALA, Charles Church, Miller Homes and Springfield, are campaigning for better broadband connectivity after they were left with “up to” 2Mbps download speeds (plus uploads of 300-400Kbps) and told that they’d have to fork out £15k to £30k for an upgrade.

Virgin Media Business Brings Faster Broadband to London’s Tech City

22nd Jan 2015 (0 Comments)

Cable operator Virgin Media Business has jumped on the recent moans of poor broadband connectivity in central London, specifically the eastern Tech City area, by announcing that thousands of local firms will soon be able to benefit from a new managed “fibre” Internet access service, which can be installed into buildings with shared occupancy (office blocks etc.).

Blow for UK Mobile Coverage Plans as Landowners Win Access Charges Fight

22nd Jan 2015 (1 Comment)

The Country Land and Business Association, which represents thousands of landowners from across England and Wales, appears to have partially won its recent complaint against the Government’s proposal to regulate the price that landowners can charge telecoms operators for access to their land.

UPDATE EE UK Suffers Mobile Data Network Wobble

22nd Jan 2015 (0 Comments)

Customers of EE’s mobile network, especially those trying to access Mobile Broadband (data) services, are reporting sporadic connectivity problems from various locations across the United Kingdom; although most appear to be centred on London (probably due to its huge population)

UK Based TWEETHER Project Promises 10Gbps mmW Wireless Broadband

22nd Jan 2015 (1 Comment)

A team of international scientists working out of Lancaster University in England have officially kicked off a new consortium called TWEETHER, which aims to harness the millimetre wave (mmW) radio spectrum (specifically 92-95GHz) in order to develop a new wireless network that could offer economical broadband connectivity with a capacity up to 10Gbps (Gigabits per second).

UPDATE Vodafone Unveil Last 40 Rural Communities for 3G Mobile Broadband

21st Jan 2015 (4 Comments)

Mobile operator Vodafone has today reportedly announced the final batch of 40 rural communities across the United Kingdom that will soon start to receive improved 3G based mobile broadband and voice network coverage via their on-going Rural Open Sure Signal project. But where are they?

Westminster City Council Calls for Better Business Broadband

21st Jan 2015 (13 Comments)

The Westminster City Council in central London has added its voice to the growing calls for local businesses to be given access to better broadband connectivity, which comes after it was earlier revealed by Ofcom that only 47% of the city’s premises have access to “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) speeds.

UPDATE Virgin Media DNS Fail – 3 Weeks of Woe for League of Legends Gamers

21st Jan 2015 (3 Comments)

Customers of cable broadband ISP Virgin Media, specifically those who play a popular online multiplayer PC game by Riot called League of Legends (LoL), have been struggling to connect to their favourite pastime for approximately three weeks due to a problem with the operators now notoriously flaky Domain Name Servers (DNS).

UPDATE Sky, TalkTalk Join Three UK in Possible O2 Collaboration Talks

20th Jan 2015 (8 Comments)

A new report claims that Sky (Sky Broadband) and TalkTalk have now both entered the ring as a possible merger or, more likely, collaboration partners for Telefonica’s British mobile network sibling, O2 UK. The news comes only a day after Three UK’s parent, Hutchison Whampoa, said that they were still in talks over a possible £9bn acquisition of O2.

UPDATE BT Openreach Reveal Significant UK Ethernet Price Reductions

20th Jan 2015 (3 Comments)

Industry sources inform ISPreview.co.uk that BTOpenreach will later today or tomorrow announced another round of seemingly significant price reductions for their business Ethernet services, such as the Ethernet Access Direct (EAD) and Ethernet Backhaul Direct (EBD) products. Better yet, we’ve been given a sneaky peek.