Home » UK ISP News Archive » Monthly Archives: March 2015 (108 Posts Found)

ISP News Archives for March 2015

Nothing New as Government Responds to EFRA UK Rural Broadband Report

26th Mar 2015 (7 Comments)

The Government has today issued its official response to the recent Select Committee report for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, which called for a 10Mbps minimum broadband speed to be adopted and suggested a few other tweaks. But most of the official response merely echoes existing policy and last week’s Budget 2015 announcement.

Another Blow for the UK Gov’s Mobile Coverage Plans – No Tall Masts

26th Mar 2015 (12 Comments)

The Government’s agreement with mobile operators (i.e. Three UK, O2, EE and Vodafone) to extend the geographic coverage of 2G (voice and text) networks from 80% today to 90% by 2017 (the target for 3G and 4G is 85%) appears to have suffered another blow after operators were warned that they might not be allowed to build taller masts.

UPDATE KC Bringing Fibre Optic Broadband to 105,000 Hull UK Premises

26th Mar 2015 (12 Comments)

Remember last month when KC announced that their Lightstream fibre optic broadband (FTTP/C) network would cover 60,000 premises by spring 2016? Forget about it! The incumbent telecoms operator for East Yorkshire and Hull has now decided to push out even further to reach more than 105,000 by March 2017.

UPD3 Latency Woe as BT Deploy Physical Retransmission on FTTC Broadband

26th Mar 2015 (37 Comments)

Earlier this year BTOpenreach confirmed (here) that they were deploying Physical Retransmission ReTX (G.INP – ITU G.998.4) technology to improve the performance of their ‘up to’ 40-80Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) lines. But at least one ISP has noticed that this is also increasing latency times by around 15ms (miliseconds) and in other cases a loss of speed is observed on some lines.

Sky, TalkTalk and CityFibre to Expand 1Gbps FTTP Broadband Rollout in York

26th Mar 2015 (4 Comments)

CityFibre’s Joint Venture with Sky Broadband and TalkTalk, which is deploying an “ultra-fast” 1000Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) broadband network to homes in the city of York (England), claims to have completed its first roll-out phase and confirmed plans to accelerate and increase the scale of their deployment.

Newcastle and Gateshead Rollout FREE BT WiFi After GOWEX Flop

26th Mar 2015 (0 Comments)

The plan to deploy a new network of free public WiFi hotspots across Newcastle and Gateshead in north east England, which last year took a hit after the project’s original partner (Spain’s GOWEX) collapsed due to falsified accounts (here), looks set to continue after the local authorities signed a deal with BT instead.

Gigaclear Starts Build of 1Gbps Ultrafast Broadband in Rural Leicestershire

26th Mar 2015 (0 Comments)

Pure fibre optic broadband provider Gigaclear has announced that they’ve exceeded their pre-order threshold for a group of rural villages in the Welland Valley area of Leicestershire (England), which means that they can now proceed to build their first 1000Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network in the county.

Ed Vaizey Calls on Councils to Push Superfast Broadband for New Builds

25th Mar 2015 (3 Comments)

The UK Government’s Digital Economy Minister, Ed Vaizey MP, has made public a copy of the letter that he recently distributed to local authorities across England. The letter itself appears to encourage council leaders to ensure that new build housing developments include provision for superfast broadband connectivity.

UK High Court Adds 17 Internet Piracy Websites to the Block Lists of Big ISPs

25th Mar 2015 (10 Comments)

The High Court in London has once again used Section 97A of the United Kingdom’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA) to force major broadband ISPs into blocking their customers from being able to access 17 predominantly MP3 download sites, which were found to be facilitating Internet copyright infringement (piracy).

Akamai’s Global 2014 Internet Speeds Report Sees UK Hold Steady vs EU

25th Mar 2015 (0 Comments)

Akamai has today published their latest global State of the Internet (SotI) report for Q4 2014, which reveals that average broadband download speeds in the United Kingdom increased slightly by 1.4% in the quarter to 10.9Mbps. The data suggests we’re now the 18th fastest in the world, which is up one place from Q3.

UK Superfast Broadband Connection Vouchers Help 14,000 Businesses

25th Mar 2015 (7 Comments)

The Government’s Connection Voucher scheme, which offers grants worth up to £3,000 to help small and medium sized businesses around multiple cities across the United Kingdom to install a superfast broadband (30Mbps+) service, has so far helped 14,000 SMEs gain access to better connectivity.

BT Goes Quad Play and Launch Cheap UK Consumer 4G Mobile Service

25th Mar 2015 (16 Comments)

BT has today taken the wraps off their new 4G consumer mobile phone service (BTMobile), which is underpinned by EE’s national network and will turn the United Kingdom’s largest telecoms operator into a quad-play monster. The new SIM-Only tariffs start from just £5 a month for their existing broadband customers (prices rise by £5 for non-BT subscribers), which is all good unless you demand data Tethering.

Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry Reveal Next Fibre Broadband Rollouts

25th Mar 2015 (2 Comments)

The CSW Broadband project, which recently signed an extended deal to bring BT’s “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) network to “nearly” 94% of Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry by summer 2019, has revealed the next batch of areas that can expect to receive faster connectivity in the very near future.

Essex UK Extends BT’s Fibre Broadband to 51,000 Extra Premises

25th Mar 2015 (3 Comments)

The £24.62m Superfast Essex project in England, which aims to make BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network available to 87% of local homes and businesses by the end of summer 2016, has agreed to continue their partnership with BT and extend the coverage to a further 51,000 premises.

UPDATE Three UK Finalises Deal to Buy O2 from Telefonica for £10.25bn

24th Mar 2015 (7 Comments)

The parent company of mobile operator Three UK, Hutchison Whampoa, has confirmed that they’ve finally reached a “definitive agreement” to buy O2 UK from debt-laden Telefonica for the previously touted price of £10.25 Billion (cash). But we’re still not sure where the long-term advantage can be found.

Study – UK Mobile Coverage Will Improve, But Only if Land Owners Lose Out

24th Mar 2015 (0 Comments)

A new Deloitte report, which was commissioned by the Mobile Operators Association, has claimed that up to £270m could be saved by updating the current Electronic Communications Code so that UK mobile operators can improve their network coverage without having to pay huge fees to install wireless masts on private land.

Sky Go and Virgin TV Anywhere Slammed for Lack of Android 5 Support

24th Mar 2015 (8 Comments)

Customers of Sky Broadband with Sky TV, specifically those who enjoy accessing their TV content on an Android based mobile device via the Sky Go app, have criticised the operator for not updating their app to work properly with the latest Android 5.1 release. But it could be worse; they might be users of Virgin Media’s TV Anywhere service.