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Space cat! Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California claims to have recently conducted the first video stream from deep space using lasers via their new Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) network, which naturally consisted of a 15-second video featuring “Taters” the cat chasing a laser cursor.
Rural broadband ISP Wessex Internet has today announced that they’ve entered the roll-out phase of their £14m state aid supported Project Gigabit broadband contract for the New Forest area (Lot 27.01) of Hampshire (England), which will see them extend a full fibre (FTTP) network to “around” 10,500 hard-to-reach premises.
Mobile operator O2 (VMO2) has today furnished us with a brief progress update on the 4G and 5G network upgrades they’ve been making across rural postcodes over the past year. Some of these have been focused on ensuring that their network is ready to cope with a surge in traffic over the peak Christmas shopping period.
Network access provider Openreach (BT) has just announced the second batch of annual price increases, albeit this time focused more on their wholesale Ethernet (EAD, EBD etc.), OSA, Excess Construction Charges (ECC), Dark Fibre and Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) products for UK ISPs, businesses and other networks.
The latest Connection Nations 2023 UK digital infrastructure report has today been published by Ofcom, which finds that “gigabit-capable broadband” ISP networks now cover 78% of the UK (up from 70% in 2022), while outdoor 5G mobile cover from at least one operator is available to 85-93% of premises (up from 67-77%).
Customers who first acquired their mobile number from Vectone Mobile, which one operator says “recently ceased all UK operators“, appear to be facing ongoing problems with routeing of calls and texts after major service problems began a couple of months ago. The bad news is that a change of number may be required to fully resolve it.