B4RN Supporters and BT Director Scoop Queen’s Birthday Honours
The annual Queen’s Birthday Honours (2019) was recently published and we’re pleased to report that a number of figures within the United Kingdom’s broadband and telecoms sector scooped up an Order of the British Empire, including among them supporters of B4RN’s rural FTTH broadband network and a BT Director.
The honours system is designed to recognise people who have made achievements in public life and or committed themselves to serving and benefiting Britain, such as by helping to make the lives of other people or communities better. Proposed awards are chosen by the honours committee and their decisions go to the Prime Minister and then to the Queen, who awards the honour.
In total some 1,073 people have received an award this year and several of them are connected to the telecoms and broadband industry (hopefully we caught them all as the official list isn’t particularly descriptive).
Advertisement
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Elizabeth Alana WILLIAMS
Director, Digital Society, BT. For services to Digital Literacy and Social InclusionOfficers of the Order of the British Empire
Andrew Paul FERGUSON
For services to the Economy and Broadband Services in the UK (Thinkbroadband)Medallist of the Order of the British Empire
Dr Leonard Arthur ROBINSON
For voluntary service to the community in South CumbriaGeorge Martyn WELCH
For voluntary service to the community in South CumbriaNOTE: According to B4RN, “Martyn and Arthur are part of a team also known as ‘Dad’s Army’ or B4SW. Their work over the last few years has enabled hundreds of rural people in their area to join the B4RN network and reap the benefits.”
Congrats to all who received an award, excellent work.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
« BigBlu Broadband Blunders in Billing, Debt Collection and Support
Latest UK ISP News
- FTTP (5849)
- BT (3605)
- Politics (2656)
- Business (2372)
- Openreach (2372)
- Building Digital UK (2302)
- Mobile Broadband (2088)
- FTTC (2070)
- Statistics (1856)
- 4G (1763)
- Virgin Media (1710)
- Ofcom Regulation (1537)
- Fibre Optic (1444)
- Wireless Internet (1436)
- FTTH (1383)
‘Mark Jackson OBE’ has a good ring to it.
“Sir” Mark Jackson sounds better. 🙂
Maybe we should all nominate @MJ anyone can nominate – form on Cabinet Office site.
For services to society and economy.
The end of copper is in no small part down to the reality that is imparted by @MJ here and Andrew @TBB.
Prime minister Mark Jackson. Nationwide full fibre for 2025 unlimited funding
Sadly not, as a pragmatist and sensible spender I’d be compelled to recognise the very real-world problems with trying to achieve such a target by 2025 🙂 . Heck if anything the Government’s current 2033 aspiration could be considered optimistic, assuming “nationwide” really does convert to 100% coverage.
So that’s two for B4RN and two for BT then? Martyn and Arthur aka George and Leonard have worked really hard in their community, and built up a network of people who all help each other. We are all really proud of them getting a medal from the Queen, it is really nice when volunteers are recognised in this way… Dads Army.
I agree with previous posters, Mark should have one too for his tireless and unbiased reporting of the sad state of digitalbritain, he doesn’t just regurgitate BT press releases like the tabloids do, Ispreview is a brilliant site and always has the latest news.
Great work and well-deserved recognition for everyone working towards full broadband coverage.
Shame your second paragraph, which started so well descends into revealing your personal prejudices. Mark is unbiased, but its your spin that singles out BT press releases as the apparently only ones he doesn’t “regurgitate”, I’m sure the regurgitation also applies to all press releases – after all that’s what unbiased means
Also kudos to Andrew Ferguson OBE of thinkbroadband for all his also unbiased reporting and work to produce an independent, quantified view of coverage.