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DEFRA Open UK £20m Rural Community Broadband Fund for More Bids

10th May, 2012 (3 Comments)

The UK governments Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has today opened up their £20 million Rural Community Broadband Fund (RCBF), which is designed to help lift thousands of farms and rural businesses into the modern internet age, for a second round of bids.

ISP BT Top 6.28M Broadband Customers as FTTC Passes 10M UK Homes

10th May, 2012 (36 Comments)

National UK telecoms giant BT has released its latest results to 31st March (Q1-2012), which saw their retail broadband ISP subscriber base add +136,000 customers (down from +146k in Q4-2011) to hit a total of 6,280,000. Elsewhere its FTTC superfast broadband service has now passed 10 million homes and businesses (almost 40% of the country), well ahead of their original Q4-2012 target.

BT Explains the Challenges to Delivering Self Install Superfast Broadband

10th May, 2012 (25 Comments)

Earlier this week we reported on how BT had launched a new trial that could pave the way for consumers to install their own superfast broadband (FTTC) services, without the need for an engineer visit (here). Sadly there are still some significant technical challenges to overcome, which BT has today been kind enough to discuss with ISPreview.co.uk.

UK ISP Allpay Promises FREE Internet for Every Herefordshire Housing Tenant

9th May, 2012 (8 Comments)

A new deal has been announced that will result in every Herefordshire Housing tenant being given access to a free wireless broadband service within the next five years. The service itself will be delivered by local wifi ISP Allpay Broadband.

UPD Power Outage Hits BT Phone and Broadband Services in Eastbourne UK

9th May, 2012 (6 Comments)

Approximately 20,000 BT broadband and phone customers in the Eastbourne and neighbouring Brighton area (dial code 01323), including local schools and hospitals, have today suffered a serious loss of connectivity after a power outage struck the local Eastbourne telephone exchange this morning at around 9:39am.

Queens Speech Confirms Expansion of UK CCDP Internet Snooping Law

9th May, 2012 (5 Comments)

As expected the UK government has used today’s Queens Speech (State Opening of Parliament) to outline the revival of a £2bn plan to expand the reach of existing ISP based internet snooping laws (data retention) to log a much bigger slice of your online activity (e.g. Skype and Facebook access); regardless of whether or not you ever committed a crime.

ASA Bans Virgin Media Advert for Misleading UK Fastest Broadband Claim

9th May, 2012 (4 Comments)

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a technology magazine advert for Virgin Media’s 50Mbps superfast broadband service after BT complained that its claim to offer the “UK’s fastest broadband” was misleading. Several other ads were also banned because they failed to include the cost of Virgin’s Phone Line service.

UK ISP TalkTalk Calls on Ofcom to Push BT for Cheaper Superfast Broadband

9th May, 2012 (4 Comments)

Internet provider TalkTalk, which established itself in the UK market by offering extremely cheap home broadband services over their unbundled ADSL2+ (LLU) network, has called on Ofcom to develop a new regulatory framework that would effectively force BT to cut the wholesale / rental cost of superfast broadband services to ISPs from 2015.

UPDATE Anonymous DDoS Attack Knocks the Virgin Media UK Site Offline

9th May, 2012 (11 Comments)

The website of UK cable operator Virgin Media looks to have been targeted by the Anonymous activist group, which has launched a serious Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack against the provider. The move is believed to be in retaliation after the ISP responded to a court order (here) that required it to block broadband customers from accessing The Pirate Bay piracy site.

UK Government Complicates Superfast Broadband Definition with 30Mbps Target

8th May, 2012 (11 Comments)

The UK governments Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office has quietly complicated its existing definition of “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) by bringing it more into line with Europe’s Digital Agenda target of 30Mbps by 2020 (minimum download speed / Megabits per second), but the subtle change could prove tricky to apply.

BT Openreach Trial Brings Self Install Superfast Broadband a Step Closer

8th May, 2012 (41 Comments)

BTOpenreach, which is responsible for managing access to BT’s national UK telecoms and internet access network, has moved the prospect of a self install superfast broadband service (i.e. no engineer required) one set closer today by announcing a technical trial of Microfilters for its 40-80Mbps Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) lines.

Tiny Suffolk UK Hamlet of Shingle Street Gets Superfast Wireless Broadband

8th May, 2012 (0 Comments)

The small coastal hamlet of Shingle Street in Suffolk (England), which is home to a total of just 25 houses, has been delivered into the modern digital age after a local campaign (Wilford Bridge Broadband Project) succeeded in getting Buzcom to deploy its superfast wireless (wifi) broadband service (FibreWiFi) across the area.

Web Filtering Firm Smoothwall Warns UK Not to Force Net Censorship on ISPs

8th May, 2012 (3 Comments)

Smoothwall, the UK’s largest supplier of school based website filtering (blocking) solutions, has warned the government not to force broadband ISPs into imposing default internet censorship of adult websites upon their customers. The firm claims that such systems are a “very blunt instrument” and don’t stop young people who “actively seek” such content.

Irish Fibre Optic Broadband ISP Magnet Networks to Launch UK 100Mb Service

8th May, 2012 (1 Comment)

Dublin-based ISP Magnet Networks, which operates a superfast broadband service in Ireland using Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) technology, has entered the UK market by acquiring a 90% stake in internet provider Velocity 1 and signing a new TV distribution deal with Sky. The first rollout will begin in Wembley City and Greenwich Penninsula (London).

UK ISPs Lag Behind Europe in IPv6 Internet Address Standard Adoption

5th May, 2012 (6 Comments)

The Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC), which handles the distribution and registering of numeric internet addresses for most of Europe’s broadband ISPs, has released a new table that shows the UK lagging behind the top 20 nations in terms of IPv6 adoption (just 17.3% of the country’s networks have been upgraded).

O2 WiFi Brings FREE Wireless Internet to 1300 UK Costa Coffee Shops

5th May, 2012 (0 Comments)

Mobile operator and ISP O2 UK (Telefonica) has signed a new deal with Costa, the UK’s largest coffee shop chain, that will see its free wireless internet (wifi) services being rolled out for use by the groups 14 million monthly customers.

27 UK Cities Shortlisted for Tiny GBP50m Pot of Ultrafast Broadband Funds

4th May, 2012 (6 Comments)

The UK governments Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has today published a shortlist of 27 smaller cities that will be able to bid for a slice of £50 million in public funding, which was set aside in the recent 2012 Budget to help roll-out “ultrafast” fibre optic based 80-100Mbps+ (Megabits per second) broadband services.