Home » UK ISP News Archive » Monthly Archives: October 2019 (116 Posts Found)

ISP News Archives for October 2019

KKR Acquires Majority Stake in UK Full Fibre ISP Hyperoptic UPDATE

14th Oct 2019 (0 Comments)

Urban “full fibre” (FTTP/B) broadband ISP Hyperoptic has today announced that the global investment firm KKR has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in the provider from funds managed by Newlight Partners LP and the Mubadala Investment Company. Sadly financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Private Equity Firm Equistone Sniffs Sale of UK ISP XLN Telecom

14th Oct 2019 (0 Comments)

Private equity firm Equistone has reportedly expressed an interest in acquiring a controlling stake in business broadband ISP XLN Telecom, which is said to be valued at around £200m and has attracted interest from several other parties since unofficially hoisting the ‘for sale’ sign earlier this year.

Sky Broadband’s UK G.fast Packages to Go Live as FTTP Delayed

14th Oct 2019 (27 Comments)

UK ISP Sky Broadband is this week expected to put their new range of G.fast based “ultrafast broadband” packages live for everybody, which follows an initial soft launch in August (here). The bad news is that those waiting for FTTP (Openreach) to be supported may now have to wait until Q1 2020.

Church of England Helps O2 and Vodafone to Boost Mobile Cover

14th Oct 2019 (7 Comments)

The Church of England has reached a new agreement with the network sharing division of Vodafone UK and O2 – Cornerstone – to help boost 4G and future 5G mobile network coverage into poorly served areas (both rural and urban locations), which should make it easier for them to install discreet antennas.

ISP Lothian Broadband Extends Full Fibre Network in Gifford

12th Oct 2019 (1 Comment)

Fixed Wireless Access ISP Lothian Broadband, which covers remote rural parts of East Lothian and Mid Lothian in Scotland, has announced that their fledgling roll-out of an ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network in the East Lothian village of Gifford is being extended to reach many more homes and businesses.

FTTH ISP Community Fibre Confirm SDU House Trial in London

12th Oct 2019 (1 Comment)

Gigabit-capable UK broadband ISP Community Fibre, which aims to bring their “full fibre” network to more than 500,000 premises (mostly social housing) across London by 2022, has confirmed that they could expand beyond big apartment blocks (MDU) and are conducting a Single Dwelling Unit (SDU) trial with individual houses.

Cityfibre Set to Scoop Local Full Fibre Contract for Portsmouth UK

11th Oct 2019 (4 Comments)

Sources have informed us that the Portsmouth City Council will award Cityfibre the £3.8m (public funding) Local Full Fibre Network (LFFN) contract to rollout a new “gigabit-capable” Ethernet and broadband network across the south coast city (inc. nearby areas), which aims to connect public sector sites.

PC Pro Award Zen Internet and Giffgaff Best for Broadband and Mobile

11th Oct 2019 (19 Comments)

PC Pro magazine has released the results of their annual 2019 awards, which saw ISP Zen Internet once again being named as the UK’s “Best Broadband Provider” for the 16th consecutive year. Meanwhile giffgaff scooped the award for “Best Mobile Data” operator. Sadly the results were not so good for the market’s biggest providers.

UK ISP BT Goes Live with New Ultrafast 5G Mobile Plans on EE

11th Oct 2019 (15 Comments)

BT has today – as promised earlier this week (here) – taken the wraps off their new EE-based UK 5G mobile plans with bigger data (mobile broadband) allowances of up to 200GB. But their new “unlimited mobile data” plan will follow in November with the launch of Halo (combining fixed broadband and mobile together).

Rural Wales Wireless Broadband Trial Hits Near Gigabit Speeds

11th Oct 2019 (7 Comments)

Good news for residents in the tiny rural Monmouthshire (Wales) village of Llanddewi Rhydderch. Broadway Partners (UK ISP Broadway Broadband) has informed ISPreview.co.uk that all homes within their local pilot network coverage should now be able to take a true 1Gbps capable ultrafast broadband connection.

Virgin Media Cut Standalone Ultrafast Broadband Prices by £7

11th Oct 2019 (35 Comments)

Cable ISP Virgin Media UK has moved to discount the monthly price of their solo standalone broadband (no phone required) packages by £7 for new customers. For example, their entry-level 54Mbps plan drops to just £30 per month and 362Mbps falls to £45 per month for the first 12 months of service.

Openreach Say Full Fibre Broadband Worth £59bn to UK Economy

11th Oct 2019 (17 Comments)

A new Openreach commissioned report, created by the Centre for Economics & Business Research (CEBR), has estimated that connecting the whole of the UK to a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network by the end of 2025 could result in a £59bn economic boost (equivalent to £1,700+ per worker) – rising to £70bn by 2038.

Scotland Pick BT for Part of £600m Superfast Broadband Rollout

10th Oct 2019 (16 Comments)

The Scottish Government today announced that BT is their ONLY bidder for two of the three areas under the new £600m R100 (Reaching 100%) project, which originally (here) aspired to make “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) ISP networks available to “every single premise in Scotland” by the end of 2021 (March 2022 financial).

New UK Rules to Spread Gigabit Broadband into Big Buildings

10th Oct 2019 (17 Comments)

The UK Government has today proposed a solution as part of the outcome from their recent consultation, which sought a new way of making it easier for “gigabit-capable” broadband ISPs and mobile network operators to access buildings – usually big apartment blocks (Multi-Dwelling Units) – where “rogue landlords” fail to respond.

Ofcom Reveals Key UK Mobile Calling and Data Usage Trends

10th Oct 2019 (0 Comments)

Ofcom and benchmark firm P3 have examined a sample size of 150,000 UK mobile users, which revealed that people in Liverpool make the longest calls (average duration of 6 mins 51 seconds) and more than half of us (60%) use less than “1 gigabit (GB)” – we think they meant GigaByte – of mobile broadband data a month.

KCOM Formally Finish FTTP Broadband Rollout – Plan Expansion

10th Oct 2019 (4 Comments)

After a delay KCOM has today formally announced the completion of their £85m “Lightstream” project, which covers 195,000+ premises around Hull and East Yorkshire in England with their “gigabit-capable” Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network and a little FTTC (VDSL2). But the network could soon grow to cover new areas.

EE Beats O2, Vodafone and Three UK to Top Opensignal Study

9th Oct 2019 (14 Comments)

The latest October 2019 Mobile Network Experience report from Opensignal, which used crowd-sourced data to test 4G and 3G based UK Mobile (Mobile Broadband) performance, has once again named EE as the best overall operator as it beat arch rivals Vodafone, O2 and Three UK in almost every single category.