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NFU Warn Farms Being Excluded from UK Gigabit Broadband Rollout by Cost

22nd April, 2025 (9 Comments)

The National Farmers Union, which represents over 44,000 Farmers and Growers in England and Wales, has warned that a good proportion of farms in rural parts of the country are still being excluded from the ongoing deployment of gigabit-capable broadband ISP technology – often even when the network covers the local road.

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Ofcom Confirm Ban of Global Titles to Tackle Abuse of UK Mobile Networks

22nd April, 2025 (3 Comments)

The national telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today confirmed that it will ban UK phone operators from leasing Global Titles (GTs) – numbers like +44 (for the United Kingdom) that support mobile services – to third parties. Sadly, such leasing can be misused to try and intercept messages and calls, disrupt the operation of networks and track the location of users of other networks.

O2 Expand UK 3G Mobile Switch Off to Norwich, Telford, Guildford and Torquay

22nd April, 2025 (12 Comments)

Mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today begun to notify customers about the next batch of four UK locations to go through their 3G mobile (broadband) switch-off programme, which recently started with a pilot in Durham (here). Norwich, Telford and Guildford will be the next areas to have 3G withdrawn on 16th July, with Torquay to follow on 4th August 2025.

Summary of the Switching £ Credits Offered by UK Broadband ISPs

22nd April, 2025 (8 Comments)

Most internet providers typically try to entice new customers via a mix of direct discounts (e.g. cheaper monthly rental), gifts (e.g. free TV, shopping vouchers) or the inclusive addition of attractive value-added extras. But people often overlook that some ISPs also offer another type of switching incentive, a contract buyout, which is often not well promoted but can be significant.

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Virgin Media O2 UK Cuts Carbon Emissions by 56 Percent Since 2020

22nd April, 2025 (5 Comments)

Broadband, mobile and TV giant Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2) has today revealed that they’ve reduced carbon emissions by 56% against their 2020 baseline (up from 45% last year). At the same time, they also increased their fleet of Electric Vehicles (EV) to 350 (up from 281) – edging slowly toward their target to transition to a fully EV fleet by 2030 (c. 4,300 vehicles).

Starlink Preps New UTR-251 Router for Satellite Broadband Service

20th April, 2025 (2 Comments)

SpaceX’s Starlink service, which offers ultrafast broadband speeds via a mega constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), has notified the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the USA of their intent to launch a new Wi-Fi router for their customers – model code UTR-251. The new kit appears positioned to replace the previous Gen 3 (UTR-231) kit, but it has some caveats.

Comparing ISP Prices for 1Gbps UK Home Broadband – 2025 vs 2022

19th April, 2025 (28 Comments)

A couple of years have now passed since ISPreview last examined how much money broadband ISPs were charging consumers for their gigabit broadband (1Gbps) tiers, so we’ve decided to take another look to see how things have changed between 2022, 2023 and 2025. But it might surprise some readers to learn that prices have broadly continued to fall.

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Study Examines Patchy UK Mobile Coverage on the South West Mainline

18th April, 2025 (12 Comments)

Network analyst firm Streetwave has conducted an anecdotal study of UK mobile coverage (4G, 5G etc.) and mobile broadband speeds along the South West Mainline – as operated by South Western Railway (SWR). This found that customers connected via mobile operator EE received the best coverage, while O2 were the weakest.

Fibrus Founder Criticises Openreach “Pole Tax” on UK Fibre Broadband Builds

17th April, 2025 (27 Comments)

The co-Founder & Chair of UK broadband ISP Fibrus, Conal Henry, has criticised network operator Openreach (BT Group) for the “pole tax” they claim is being levelled against them, which is said to be “twice the cost of paying our own staff, just to rent some poles and holes built by the British taxpayer“.

Plusnet UK Discounts 900Mbps FTTP Broadband to £36.99 with £100 Reward

17th April, 2025 (0 Comments)

UK ISP Plusnet has today introduced a bunch of new Easter discounts across their home broadband plans for new customers, which for example has cut the monthly price of their top 900Mbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) package to just £36.99 per month on a 24-month term (mid-contract price hikes apply). Plus there’s a £100 reward card thrown-in.

Which? Awards the Best and Worst UK Mobile Operators for H1 2025

17th April, 2025 (8 Comments)

Consumer magazine Which? has published the results from their latest UK mobile network satisfaction survey, which questioned 4,153 adults in January 2025 about their chosen operators. Overall, Smarty topped the table with a customer satisfaction score of 82%, while Three UK placed last on just 62%.

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UBS Predicts Openreach to Lose 800k UK Broadband Lines in 2025

17th April, 2025 (90 Comments)

The latest analyst note from Swiss Bank UBS has maintained their long-running “sell” rating on the BT Group and predicted that Openreach could lose 800,000 broadband lines to rival networks in 2025 (up from 707k in 2024). The analyst warned that the operator needed to “deploy fibre faster” to stem the bleed and “accelerate [its] cost-cutting“, otherwise they claim it may face a downside risk to free cash flow in FY26.

UK ISP TalkTalk Business Recovers Email After Long Outage

16th April, 2025 (5 Comments)

Customers of broadband ISP TalkTalk Business (TTB) are once again able to use the provider’s email service after a protracted service outage, which lasted nearly a full week and appears as if it was caused by a misconfiguration of their Domain Name System / Servers (DNS).

Big Move as UK Civil Engineering Giant M Group Acquires Telent

16th April, 2025 (2 Comments)

Street works firm M Group, which was last year acquired by private equity firm CVC (here) and also harbours a telecoms (broadband and mobile) focused division, has today announced that they’ve acquired rival UK and Ireland focused technology, telecoms and civil engineering firm Telent for an undisclosed sum.

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Ookla Study Finds London 5G Mobile Performance Lags Behind Other UK Cities

16th April, 2025 (16 Comments)

Network testing firm Ookla (i.e. Speedtest.net, Downdetector.co.uk) has today published a new study that examines the performance of 5G mobile (mobile broadband) networks across the major UK cities of Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield. But the UK’s capital city was found to be lagging behind.

EE UK Launch Tech Drops – Giving Big Discounts on Modern Technology

16th April, 2025 (10 Comments)

Mobile operator and broadband ISP EE has updated their online “Tech Store“, which sells a mix of extra services and gadgets (e.g. TVs, games consoles, laptops etc.), to introduced “Tech Drops“. This is a new monthly scheme that sees their store “offer a huge saving on a limited amount of stock of the hottest tech“, purchased via their App on a “first-come-first-serve basis“.

Broadband ISP PlusNet UK Set to Trial IPv6 on High Touch Network

16th April, 2025 (18 Comments)

Internet service provider PlusNet, which is part of the wider BT Group, has informed customers that they’re “now ready” to finally start trials of Internet Protocol v6 (IPv6) addressing on their “High Touch” broadband network. The ISP has previously only conducted a small scale technical trial on their “Low Touch” network (here) – used by c. 90% of customers.