ISP News Archives for March 2017

The European Commission has released their 2017 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which uses data from 2016 to reveal the United Kingdom’s progress towards the EU’s Digital Agenda goals (e.g. NGA 30Mbps+ broadband for all by 2020). Sadly we’ve dropped from 6th to 7th place.

At the start of this year we reported that TalkTalk were working on a “completely new” Mobile TV solution in order to replace or improve their TV Player app (here). The ISP has now confirmed this “large-scale update” and revealed some of its planned improvements.

Internet provider Pulse8 Broadband has reduced the standard monthly price of their unlimited superfast “fibre broadband” (FTTC) packages for homes, which has the unique selling point of a 1 month contract and does not apply any termination charges or minimum call costs.

Some £53,313 worth of donations from 1,861 people have this week enabled Liberty, a prominent Human Rights group, has launched a legal challenge against the Government’s controversial mass Internet surveillance powers in the new Investigatory Powers Act.

BT has today announced that it will aim to create 1,700 new apprenticeship and graduate jobs during 2017, with the new employees being expected to work in a variety of roles, ranging from cyber security and engineering roles to production at BTSport (some will also go to EE and Plusnet).

The Superfast Surrey project in England has revealed that an additional 6,000 homes and businesses in the region are next in line to gain access to an FTTC/P based “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) network from Openreach (BT), which will take place over the next two years.

A small but important change occurred this week after BT’s network access division for the United Kingdom, Openreach, finally started to make official use of the social media account that they first setup on Twitter during August 2016. No doubt it won’t be too long before they’re flooded with requests and gripes.

Openreach (BT) has today announced another round of sharp Ethernet (EAD, WES, WEES and BES) price reductions for their business customers and ISPs, which will be introduced from 1st April 2017 and apply to a number of their 100Mbps and 1Gbps speed products.

The Cambridgeshire County Council has today revealed that the next phase of their Connecting Cambridgeshire scheme in England will aim to extend “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) coverage to 99% of homes and businesses in the county by the end of 2020.

Low cost ISP Plusnet has today cut the price of their unlimited ‘up to’ 17Mbps (ADSL2+) broadband and phone package to just £18 per month (plus a £10 one-off activation fee) on an 18 month contract (£27.98 thereafter) for new subscribers, which also gives £50 cashback.

The Government has today set out their future Digital Strategy for the United Kingdom, which aims to “create a world-leading digital economy” and “deliver world-class connectivity” but most of their broadband infrastructure commitments are re-announcements of existing policy.

Cable operator Virgin Media has today taken the surprise decision to introduce a new range of broadband products with 1 month rolling contracts, which includes standalone services as well as their various other service bundles with phone and TV etc.