Home » UK ISP News Archive » Monthly Archives: February 2016 (112 Posts Found)

ISP News Archives for February 2016

The Knives Come Out as BT Strikes Back at MPs Demanding Separation

13th Feb 2016 (68 Comments)

Instead of going on a charm offensive BT’s CEO, Gavin Patterson, appears to have taken a more confrontational approach by privately writing to every (650) elected UK Member of Parliament and highlighting how he felt that many of their recent claims against the operator were “inaccurate and misleading“.

Ofcom Probes KCOM About Reduced Network Availability in Hull

12th Feb 2016 (3 Comments)

The UK telecoms regulator has started a new probe into KCOM Group’s (KC) compliance with their rules due to a “temporary reduction in the availability of its network“, which was formally notified to Ofcom by the operator. But don’t worry, it’s nothing bad.

UK ISP TalkTalk Offer FREE £90 Mobile SIM to Broadband Customers

12th Feb 2016 (4 Comments)

Internet provider TalkTalk are continuing to try and win back the trust of subscribers and today’s effort involves offering both new and existing customers of their SimplyBroadband and Essentials TV bundles a free Mobile SIM worth £90 (100 minutes, 250 texts and 200MB of data).

UK Scientists Squeeze 1.125Tbps Through a Single Fibre Optic Receiver

12th Feb 2016 (3 Comments)

A team of researchers working out of the University College London have given fibre optic communications technology a further boost by achieving the highest data throughput ever reported (1.125 Terabits per second) for a single coherent optical receiver.

2,000 Isle of Skye Homes to Benefit from Community Broadband Rollout

11th Feb 2016 (0 Comments)

More than 2,000 homes on the Northern side of the Isle of Skye in Scotland, which will not be reached by BT’s roll-out, could soon benefit from superfast broadband (30Mbps+) services after a local community project secured the necessary public investment from the Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE).

uSwitch Reveals the Best UK Mobile Operators in 2016 Awards

11th Feb 2016 (7 Comments)

The annual uSwitch Mobile Awards 2016, which took place this week at The Barbican venue in London, have crowned giffgaff as the “Best Network of the Year” after it won several categories. A number of other operators also picked up awards, although it wasn’t such a good night for the big boys.

Staffordshire Celebrates 90 Percent Superfast Broadband Coverage

11th Feb 2016 (0 Comments)

The Superfast Staffordshire project in the West Midlands (England), which includes Stoke-on-Trent, has today announced that 90% of premises in the county should be able to order a superfast broadband (24Mbps+) service.

Japanese Scientists Push 100Gbps Wireless Broadband Using 300GHz

11th Feb 2016 (4 Comments)

Last week we reported that Japanese scientists had managed to build a wireless network that could send data at a speed of 56Gbps (Gigabits per second) using the 72-100GHz (GigaHertz) radio frequency bands (here) and now another team claims it can hit 100Gbps by pushing into the TeraHertz (300GHz+).

UPDATE Joint Committee Scalds UK Government’s ISP Internet Spying Bill

11th Feb 2016 (6 Comments)

The cross-party Joint Committee, which was setup to review the Government’s controversial Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB) that aims to force broadband ISPs into logging and monitoring a bigger slice of your Internet activity, has criticised the bill and said that “significant” work will be needed to fix it.

UK ISP BT Soft Launches Free Service to Tackle Nuisance Calls

11th Feb 2016 (13 Comments)

Nobody likes receiving unwanted marketing calls, unless they’re exceptionally lonely. In keeping with that BT has today launched a new blacklist service, which aims to redirect related calls to a junk voicemail box and thus prevent them from irritating their customers.

BT Confirm Next Areas to Get Superfast Broadband in the Black Country

11th Feb 2016 (12 Comments)

The £12.2 million Black Country Broadband Project (England’s West Midlands) has made good progress since it began deploying last year and has already expanded BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network to an additional 10,000 premises. Today the next batch of upgrades have been confirmed.

Eutelsat and ViaSat Prep 100Mbps Satellite Broadband for EU and UK

11th Feb 2016 (5 Comments)

Satellite operators Eutelsat and ViaSat have announced that they’re teaming up via a Joint Venture. On top of that ViaSat has also announced plans to build three new ViaSat-3 spacecraft, which could deliver broadband speeds of 100Mbps+ to customers around Europe and possibly the UK.

UPDATE TalkTalk’s Customers Complain of Website and Email Woes

11th Feb 2016 (3 Comments)

Customers of TalkTalk’s Internet and phone services could be forgiven for feeling a little uneasy this morning after several of their websites appeared to wobble. Meanwhile a number of email problems have also hit the provider.

UPDATE Blow for Wireless Broadband in Swindon UK as Masts Rejected

10th Feb 2016 (48 Comments)

The state aid supported plan to bring superfast broadband (24Mbps+) services to North Swindon (Wiltshire, England) has been dealt a blow after the local planning committee rejected UKB Networks proposal to erect five new 15 metre tall masts in Taw Hill, Oakhurst, Haydon End and Redhouse.

EE and Three UK Named Best Mobile Operators for H2 – 2015

10th Feb 2016 (6 Comments)

RootMetrics has today published their latest biannual report into the reliability, call / text performance and Internet (3G and 4G data) speeds of the United Kingdom’s four primary Mobile Network Operators (MNO), which saw EE pick-up the most wins and Three UK come a more distant second.

Virgin Media Comes Top in 2016 Home Broadband ISP Survey

10th Feb 2016 (8 Comments)

The latest annual UK Home Broadband Genie 2015 survey has announced that Virgin Media came out top as the overall “Best Broadband Provider“, although Sky Broadband and PlusNet also managed to pick up a few awards in different categories. Sadly TalkTalk often found itself at the bottom of the pack.

Ofcom Shows the Gap Between Wholesale and Retail Line Rental Prices

10th Feb 2016 (6 Comments)

Ofcom has today published their tenth annual Consumer Experience Report, which among other things helps to reveal the growing gap between what UK ISPs pay for their line rental and how much they charge their subscribers.