ISP News Archives for February 2, 2016

Reports are coming in of sporadic problems with gaining access to BT’s websites and also an apparent nationwide fault affecting broadband connectivity on their network, which at the present time does not appear to be hitting TalkTalk or Sky Broadband’s unbundled lines.

The European Commission has today moved to follow by Ofcom’s example and ensure that more radio spectrum will be made available for Mobile Broadband (3G, 4G and possibly 5G) services in the 700MHz band (694-790MHz) by 30th June 2020 “at the latest” (in all EU countries).

BT has revealed some interesting new information on their UK plans for deploying ultrafast 300-500Mbps G.fast broadband technology, as well as SoGEA’s trial status, a possible extension of VDSL (FTTC) Vectoring, a new 18Mbps “Slow Speed” product for upgrading sub-2Mbps rural lines and more.

The situation in Welshwood Park (Essex, England) is not your ordinary tale of slow broadband and stems from a decision 20 years ago, when locals refused to allow new cables to be laid. Sadly this made it harder to upgrade the area and so until now residents have been isolated from faster services.

As feared last year’s cyber-attack (here) had a significant impact upon TalkTalk, albeit not nearly as big as some had predicted (here), with today’s vague trading update reporting that the ISP’s on-net subscriber base declined by -101,000 during the final quarter of 2015 (calendar).