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UK ISP and energy provider Shell Energy has this afternoon confirmed that they’ve reached an agreement to acquire some 465,000 phone and broadband customers from the Post Office’s telecoms division, for an undisclosed sum (previous estimates put the value of this deal at around £80m to £100m).
Three of Openreach’s street cabinets, and an unrelated mobile phone mast in Chelmsford (Essex), have been seriously damaged after arsonists attacked them this morning, which has sadly left almost 3,000 premises (homes and businesses) without access to either broadband or phone connectivity during a pandemic!
Broadband ISP BT has just informed us that almost all of their BTSport TV customers will, from tomorrow, be able to access a range of new ‘Matchday Experience‘ features, with accessibility for the first time via Android mobiles and tablets (this builds on existing Apple / iOS device availability).
A new Bath-based network operator called Brsk Limited has just cropped up with tentative plans to deploy a new “open access” Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to UK homes and businesses, albeit initially starting in the “north of England” rather than the south, where it’s based.
Mobile operator O2 has today announced that they’ve completed another successful trial of Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN) tech, albeit this time working alongside the NEC Corporation, as well as using virtualised RAN software from Altiostar and hardware from GigaTera Communications and Supermicro, among others.
The UK Government (DCMS / BDUK) has confirmed a few more details about the future of their £200m Rural Gigabit Connectivity (RGC) programme to broadband ISPs, which is due to end on the 31st March 2021 but is widely expected to be superseded by a new programme with a fresh pot of “over” £250m.
Openreach (BT) has faced some criticism after it sent a letter to one or more of Northern Ireland’s (NI) local authorities, which appeared to suggest that the operator would have provided FTTP broadband to more premises than the winner of the £165m Project Stratum contract, had they won it instead.