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KCOM Owner Macquarie to Break Up Business – Focus on Core

12th May, 2020 (0 Comments)

Last year’s £627m takeover of Hull’s incumbent telecoms and broadband ISP, KCOM, by Macquarie Infrastructure (here) has taken another twist. Reports claim that the new owners may now look to carve up the business in order to focus on its core network and expansion across East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

EU Publish Handbook to Help New Rural Broadband Networks

12th May, 2020 (10 Comments)

The European Commission (EC) has published a “dedicated handbook” for rural policy makers and broadband project managers who plan to roll-out new ISP networks into remote areas, which uses examples from the UK (e.g. B4RN etc.) and other EU countries to show how the job can be done both “effectively and efficiently.”

Virgin Media Broadband Covers 150000 Extra N.Ireland Premises

12th May, 2020 (3 Comments)

Good news. Cable operator Virgin Media UK has today effectively completed the target they set in 2017 (here) by growing the reach of their “gigabit-capable” broadband ISP and TV network to a further 150,000 premises in Northern Ireland (total of 375,000). As a result half of all premises in the country can now access their service.

Hyperoptic Deal Brings FTTP to 60,000 Social Homes in Leeds

12th May, 2020 (1 Comment)

UK ISP Hyperoptic, which specialises in building 1Gbps capable “full fibre” (FTTP/B) broadband networks to large buildings, has just awoken from a period of reorganisation to announce that “nearly” 60,000 social housing homes across Leeds will soon gain access to their service thanks to a new partnership with the city council.

Frustration in Shropshire Over Stalled Openreach Fibre Rollout

12th May, 2020 (2 Comments)

Frustration has erupted in Shropshire (England) after it emerged that 1,800 premises covered by several street cabinets in Shrewsbury and Ludlow would not gain access to “superfast broadband” (FTTC/P) ISP technology from Openreach (BT). The cabinets had been due to benefit from the operator’s commercial UK roll-out.

Vodafone UK Home Broadband Growth Surges to 751000 Users UPDATE

12th May, 2020 (8 Comments)

Mobile giant and broadband ISP Vodafone UK has published their latest results to the end of March 2020 (financial Q4 19/20), which saw them reach a total of 751,000 fixed broadband customers (up by +64K in the quarter vs +20K previous quarter). Meanwhile Mobile customers hit 18,042,000 (down by -14K vs +250K previous quarter)

Virgin Media UK Fault Cuts Uploads to Nearly 0Mbps in Watford UPDATE2

11th May, 2020 (36 Comments)

Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK is trying to fix an unusual fault that reduces upload speeds for some users in the Watford (WD18) area to just 0.07Mbps, while download speeds are unaffected. Customers have seen their access slow to a crawl and the struggle to contact the provider’s strained support team hasn’t helped.

UK Internet Providers Celebrate Key Workers in COVID-19 Crisis

11th May, 2020 (5 Comments)

The UK Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA) has today launched their new “Keeping Britain Connected” campaign, which essentially names and celebrates some of the key workers in the telecoms and broadband ISP sector who have been working throughout the lockdown to maintain and support the network.

ISP G.Network Gives All New Customers 900Mbps Broadband

11th May, 2020 (6 Comments)

UK ISP G.Network, which is currently in the process of building a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to homes and businesses across parts of Central London, has announced that all new customers will be “automatically upgraded to a symmetrical 900Mbps connection” for free, at least for awhile.

Interview – Scotland’s R100 Boss Talks Future Broadband Plans

9th May, 2020 (12 Comments)

The Programme Director for the Scottish Government’s £600m R100 (Reaching 100%) programme, Clive Downing, has kindly provided ISPreview.co.uk with some insight into their approach toward the planned extension of “superfast broadband” into some of the hardest to reach premises across Scotland.

N.Ireland Broadband Project Appears to Scale Back Rural Focus UPDATE

8th May, 2020 (14 Comments)

Concerns are growing that Northern Ireland’s long awaited £165m Project Stratum, which originally hoped to extend “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) to cover around 97,000 extra premises, may shun many rural villages due to a decision that could see it only focus on areas with a larger population. But the project team denies this.

Opensignal – Avg. UK 5G Mobile Broadband Speeds Hit 138Mbps

7th May, 2020 (20 Comments)

Crowd-sourced analyst firm Opensignal has today released some updated benchmarks of early 5G based mobile broadband network deployments across several countries, which shows that average download speeds in the UK have reached 138Mbps – way above 4G on 24.9Mbps and WiFi on 34.1Mbps. But other countries are faster.

BT Invest £12bn on FTTP Broadband for 20 Million UK Premises

7th May, 2020 (135 Comments)

The BT Group has today published their Q4 2019/20 (financial) results and announced a tentative “target” to boost the national roll-out of their “gigabit-capable” Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network, which could see Openreach reach 20 million UK premises by the “mid – to late-2020s.”

Virgin Media and O2 Agree UK Broadband and Mobile Merger

7th May, 2020 (45 Comments)

Cable broadband ISP Virgin Media (Liberty Global) and mobile operator O2 (Telefonica) have this morning confirmed that they’ve reached a complementary 50-50 joint venture deal to merge their respective fixed line broadband and mobile network businesses in the United Kingdom. But Vodafone could still crash the party.

ISP Virgin Media UK Reports Mild Broadband Customer Growth

6th May, 2020 (5 Comments)

Cable ISP Virgin Media UK (Liberty Global) has today published their Q1 2020 results, which saw them add +8,200 new broadband customers in the first quarter (up vs +1,900 in Q4 2019) to total 5,279,200. Meanwhile the coverage of their 1Gbps capable broadband and TV network grew by another 93,000 premises.

Openreach Sees Better Broadband Install and Repair Performance

6th May, 2020 (0 Comments)

A new update from Ofcom appears to show that the Quality of Service levels (i.e. minimum standards for repairs and new line provision) they imposed upon Openreach (BT) a few years ago are continuing to deliver improvements, which have also resulted in “more reliable” broadband services for UK consumers.

Vodafone UK Extend NHS Unlimited Data Offer to Care Workers

6th May, 2020 (4 Comments)

Mobile operator Vodafone UK has announced that their offer of free access to unlimited mobile data (mobile broadband) for NHS workers and vulnerable customers has been extended to run for 6 months (originally 30 days). On top of that they’ve also added care workers to those eligible to claim the offer.