You are viewing a May 12, 2021 news and article archive where older items are stored for readers to access and view. This is done to keep the systems running smoothly and prevents the front page from becoming too cluttered.
The threat of a major national UK strike by a significant chunk of BT’s workforce appears to have subsided, if perhaps only temporarily, after the two sides involved took steps to calm the situation and re-engage in negotiations. But the thaw in hostilities may only last until early June, unless an agreement can be reached.
Openreach (BT) has today confirmed that a further 27 UK locations have been added to their £12bn Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband rollout plan, which is working to make their gigabit-capable network available to 20 million premises by the mid-to-late 2020s (currently building at a rate of c.42,000 premises per week).
The FTTH Council Europe has published their annual 2021 market panorama, which ranks the countries with the strongest subscriber penetration of “full fibre” (FTTP/H/B) based ultrafast broadband ISP networks. The good news is that the UK has continued to show strong growth, but we remain stuck at third from the bottom.
A new survey from Ericsson, which makes 5G networking kit and services for mobile network operators, has found that the number of UK consumers intending to upgrade to 5G has decreased to 25% (down from 27% in 2019) and others remain confused about what the technology will deliver.
Ofcom’s latest Spring 2021 update for UK broadband and mobile networks has revealed that “full fibre” (FTTP) coverage has grown to 21% (up from 18% in Sep 2020) and 37% or 10.8 million homes are within reach of a gigabit-capable (1000Mbps) network (up from 27%). But sadly 4G coverage has not improved and there’s no mention of 5G.
The CEO of BT’s Consumer ISP division, Marc Allera, has today called on the UK Government to help support the industry by making it easier for home broadband providers to launch new social tariffs via targetted funding or subsidies, which could come in a number of different forms.
After much delay the UK Government will today publish a draft of their new Online Safety Bill (Online Harms), which among other things hands Ofcom a new “legal duty of care” that can be used to force websites into removing “harmful” internet content. Failing to do so may risk being fined or blocked by mobile and broadband ISPs.