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BT Offer 6 Months Free Fibre, Phone and Mobile to 1000 SMEs

2nd October, 2020 (4 Comments)

Back in July BT Business promised a new bursary scheme to help 1,000 UK start-ups and entrepreneurs to recover from the COVID-19 crisis (here). The ISP has now revealed that, as part of that, they will be giving 6 months of “free fibre broadband, digital phone line and mobile” to those small businesses that apply.

5G Rollout Delays May Cost UK £41bn in Lost Economic Output

2nd October, 2020 (7 Comments)

A new report from the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) think-tank, which was penned by former Government advisers Alex Jackman and Nick King, has claimed that the UK’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is “at risk without a faster 5G rollout” – to the tune of £41 billion. But they have a few recommendations to fix that.

5,000 Herefordshire UK Premises in Ledbury to Get 1Gb Fibre

1st October, 2020 (11 Comments)

A new deal between the state aid supported Fastershire project, rural broadband ISP Gigaclear and rival network builder FullFibre looks set to result in 5,000 premises across the Herefordshire town of Ledbury gaining access to a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

copper vs fibre optic openreach engineer

9 Attacks on Openreach Cables in London Prompt £20k Reward

1st October, 2020 (11 Comments)

Back in August we reported on a spate of copper telecoms cable thefts (Metal Theft) in East London, which had disrupted broadband ISP and phone connectivity on Openreach’s (BT) UK network for those living nearby (here). After a ninth attack the reward for information has now been raised from £1k to £20k.

Ofcom Open 100GHz+ Bands for Short Range Wireless Links

1st October, 2020 (2 Comments)

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has announced that they’re making 18.2GHz worth of spectrum available in the 100-200GHz bands (116-122GHz, 174.8-182GHz and 185-190GHz), which they hope will help to foster the development of extremely fast high capacity data links over short distances, among other things.

network cables and fiber optic closeup with keyboard background

BT and Toshiba Deploy First UK Industrial Quantum Secure Fibre Network

1st October, 2020 (10 Comments)

After years of development BT and Toshiba have today announced that they’ve made the UK’s first “industrial deployment” of a quantum-secure network using Openreach’s “standard” fibre optic infrastructure, which runs between the National Composites Centre (NCC) and the Centre for Modelling & Simulation (CFMS).

EE UK Moves to Continue Unlimited Data Offer for the NHS

1st October, 2020 (1 Comment)

Mobile operator EE (BT) has announced that their current offer of free unlimited data (mobile broadband) to customers who work for the National Health Service (NHS), which was due to expire on 9th October 2020 after running for 6 months, is to be extended until 31st January 2021 due to the on-going COVID-19 crisis.

Virgin Media Discount Standalone Broadband and Add 5GB SIM

1st October, 2020 (10 Comments)

Cable ISP Virgin Media UK has just introduced a new set of discounts on the monthly prices of their standalone ultrafast home broadband packages and also thrown in an included 4G Mobile SIM, which comes with 5GB of data, unlimited texts and unlimited minutes for the 18 month contract term.

NordVPN Named Top VPN for Speed in 2020 AV-TEST Benchmark

1st October, 2020 (15 Comments)

A new report from internet security firm AV-TEST has benchmarked several popular Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers and found that NordVPN was the “clear winner” for measured broadband download and upload speeds in three major world regions (UK, Japan and the US west coast). Well.. they did commission the “independent” test.

Full Fibre ISP Gigaclear to Extend Network into Braintree Town

30th September, 2020 (3 Comments)

Rural focused UK ISP Gigaclear has announced that their existing deployment of gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology in the Braintree District of Essex is to be extended into the local town of the same name. As a result the provider now expects to cover 20,000 premises in the area.

Quick Update for Virgin Media Speed Issues on IPv6 Tunnels

30th September, 2020 (29 Comments)

Customers awaiting a firmware update from Virgin Media UK to fix the throttling of broadband speeds on IPv4 internet traffic – specifically when data packets carry Protocol 41 (i.e. the IPv6 encapsulation / tunnel protocol) – may be unhappy to learn that there’s still no ETA, despite the issue being acknowledged 8 weeks ago.

Spend on UK Home Telecoms Services Falls as Broadband Speeds Rise

30th September, 2020 (9 Comments)

Ofcom has today published their annual 2020 Communications Market Report (CMR), which reveals the latest information about the take-up, revenue and impact of fixed line broadband, phone, mobile, TV and radio services across the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland).

Q2 2020 Progress Update on Wales BT FTTP Broadband Rollout

30th September, 2020 (14 Comments)

The Welsh Government has issued a progress update on their £52.5m Phase 2 Superfast Cymru contract with BT (Openreach), which is deploying a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover a further 39,000 premises. The data to June 2020 shows that 9,895 have so far been completed.

bluewave_wireless_coverage_map_wales_2020_uk

Wireless ISP Bluewave Faces Criticism for Poor Connectivity

30th September, 2020 (4 Comments)

Wireless broadband ISP Bluewave, which serves rural premises across parts of Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire (Wales) with claimed speeds of “up to” 40Mbps for £29.99 per month, has been criticised by some of its customers for taking publicly funded vouchers and then failing to deliver a good or working service.

Openreach Tweak Guidance on FTTC Speeds for Lift and Shifts

29th September, 2020 (15 Comments)

Openreach (BT) has issued some interesting new internal guidance to its UK engineers for handling Lift and Shifts (i.e. moving a line to a new DSLAM port) on Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) based broadband cabinets, which now allows ports to be used if the max line speed is above 72Mbps.

Virgin Media UK Launch Free Mobile Screen Repair Service

29th September, 2020 (0 Comments)

Customers of Virgin Media’s mobile division, specifically new and existing Pay Monthly users who upgrade before 8th Nov 2020, will now also be entitled to a “one-off screen replacement” service in the first 12 months of their contract. But sadly this will only be offered to a very limited selection of Smartphones (when supplied via Virgin).

BT Makes Nokia its Largest UK 5G Mobile Equipment Supplier

29th September, 2020 (8 Comments)

Broadband and mobile giant BT (EE) has today announced a new deal that, as part of their on-going work to phase-out Huawei, will turn Finnish telecoms firm Nokia into their “largest infrastructure partner” for ultrafast 5G based Radio Access Network (RAN) equipment and related UK network coverage.