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UK Declines in European Ranking of Mobile and Broadband Connectivity

26th February, 2016 (6 Comments)

The European Commission has published their 2016 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which sees the United Kingdom’s country ranking for mobile and fixed line broadband connectivity fall from 4th to 6th place; mostly because other countries are improving at a faster pace.

Major UK ISPs to Appeal Website Blocks for Trade Mark Abuse

25th February, 2016 (10 Comments)

Several major broadband ISPs including BT, Sky Broadband, EE, TalkTalk and Virgin Media will in April go to the Court of Appeal (London) in order to argue against a 2014 ruling by the High Court, which extended court ordered website blocks to include sites that sell counterfeit goods (abuse of Trade Mark).

UPD7 Ofcom Confirm NO Openreach Split from BT, But Change is Coming

25th February, 2016 (72 Comments)

The telecoms regulator has today published its preliminary proposals as part of a major Strategic Review of the United Kingdom’s Digital Communications market, but the big news is they’ve decided NOT to completely split BT from its national broadband and phone network (Openreach).

Government Opens Review to Improve Business Access to Broadband

24th February, 2016 (33 Comments)

The UK Government Departments for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) have today jointly launched a new review that aims to specifically look at increasing the level of “affordable and high quality fibre broadband” available to businesses.

Swansea Propose Better Broadband as Part of GBP500m City Deal

24th February, 2016 (1 Comment)

The city and county of Swansea (Wales) has today proposed a new £500m City Deal to the Government that could improve local health, business, energy and broadband services, not least by supporting a new transatlantic fibre optic cable with North America.

ITS Technology Opens UK Ultrafast Fibre Networks to Wholesale

24th February, 2016 (0 Comments)

The ITS Technology Group has made their growing collection of “ultrafast fibre networks“, which are spread out in various locations across the United Kingdom, available to partners as part of a wholesale solution and on a 45 day lead time for service.

PlusNet Extends FREE Unlimited Broadband Offer to 18 Months

24th February, 2016 (3 Comments)

UK ISP Plusnet has extended their 12 months free unlimited broadband (up to 17Mbps) promotion for new subscribers to last for a total of 18 months (£9.99 per month thereafter), although you still have to pay the usual line rental charge on top of that.

BT Pledge Over GBP1bn to Boost UK Broadband, But is it New Money

24th February, 2016 (40 Comments)

The CEO of BT Group, Gavin Patterson, has made a final plea ahead of tomorrow’s Strategic Review outcome and informed the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona (Spain) that he would “significantly” increase investment (£1bn+) in order to further improve national broadband connectivity.

UPDATE Entanet Laments Loss of Openreach Approved VDSL Modems

23rd February, 2016 (15 Comments)

Shropshire-based communications provider Entanet has today warned of the “potential for confusion and misunderstandings” when BTOpenreach finally withdraws its VDSL Modem from their own FTTC “fibre broadband” installation service at the end of March 2016.

HTTPS Foiling Piracy Blocks by BT, EE, Virgin Media and TalkTalk

23rd February, 2016 (3 Comments)

Broadband customers of BT, EE, Virgin Media and TalkTalk are allegedly still able to directly access (i.e. no Proxy or VPN required) some of the Internet’s most prolific piracy websites (copyright infringement) simply by typing https:// in front of the domain instead of http://.

HS2 Select Committee Calls for Train Project to Improve UK Broadband

23rd February, 2016 (13 Comments)

The High Speed Rail Committee has published its final report and called on the Government’s expensive High Speed Two (HS2) project, which aims to build a new rail link between London and the Midlands, to do more to improve broadband connectivity along the route.

10Gbps Capable 5G Mobile Broadband Could Arrive as Soon as 2017

23rd February, 2016 (5 Comments)

Most EU and UK telecoms regulators don’t expect the first commercial roll-out of future 5G capable Mobile Broadband services to happen until 2020 or later, but that hasn’t stopped Nokia and Verizon aiming for it to be launched far sooner.. in 2017! Field trials have already begun.

Priston in North East Somerset to Get 100Mbps FTTP Broadband in April

23rd February, 2016 (27 Comments)

North East Somerset (England) ISP TrueSpeed Communications (formerly Wansdyke Telecom) has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that their new symmetric 100Mbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network should be going live in the rural village of Priston during April 2016.

Ofcom Set to Approve Inmarsat’s Aircraft Based Satellite Broadband

22nd February, 2016 (0 Comments)

Inmarsat’s slow moving plan to improve broadband connectivity on aircraft took another step forward today after Ofcom launched a consultation to authorise new terrestrial base stations, which should allow “direct air-to-ground” Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) to aircraft via the 2GHz band.

Sky’s UK CEO Ignores Weekend Reports – Makes Final Plea to Split BT

22nd February, 2016 (62 Comments)

The CEO of Sky UK (Sky Broadband), Jeremy Darroch, has today made a final plea in the hope of encouraging Ofcom to split BT from control of their national telecoms network (Openreach), which Darroch claims is the only way to encourage investment in 1Gbps+ FTTH/P broadband and to stop BT “[sweating] its copper assets” for slower connectivity.

Survey Finds Strong Support for a 10Mbps UK Broadband USO

22nd February, 2016 (13 Comments)

A new survey of 1,823 ISPreview.co.uk readers has discovered that 77% support the Government’s plan to introduce a new Universal Service Obligation, which could require BT and others to ensure that everybody can access a broadband speed of 10Mbps+ by 2020. But most want an even faster speed.

BT Set to Avoid Openreach Split as Ofcom Opts for the Middle Ground

21st February, 2016 (70 Comments)

The UK telecoms regulatory will publish the outcome of their ‘Strategic Review of Digital Communications‘ on Thursday and unsurprisingly there have been some leaks, which appear to confirm our expectation that Ofcom will NOT move to split BT from control of its national phone and broadband network (Openreach).