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UPDATE BT Openreach Tweaks Line Rental Prices for UK ISPs

20th December, 2013 (0 Comments)

BTOpenreach, which manages BT’s national telecoms network in the United Kingdom, has today tweaked the price of its unbundled (LLU MPF / SMPF) and Wholesale Line Rental products for phone and broadband providers. This follows the conclusion of appeals against Ofcom’s 2012 LLU/WLR charge control.

UK ISP PlusNet Opens YouView TV Trials to Unlimited Fibre Customers

20th December, 2013 (5 Comments)

As expected PlusNet has started to move forward with its plans to launch a YouView (IPTV) based TV product to their UK broadband customers by opening up the closed staff trial to existing customers with an Unlimited Fibre (FTTC) package.

BT Quietly Cuts UK FTTC Infinity 1 Package Usage Allowance to Just 20GB

20th December, 2013 (6 Comments)

New customers who wish to take BT’s entry-level ‘up to’ 38Mbps superfast broadband (FTTC) package, better known as BTInfinity 1, will be displeased to learn that its monthly usage allowance has been brutally cut from 40GB (GigaBytes) to a meagre 20GB and the standard price of £15 a month is unchanged.

UPDATE Fibre GarDen Name ITS Technology as FTTP Broadband Supplier

19th December, 2013 (7 Comments)

The community Fibre GarDen (Digital Dales) project, which aims to build a new fibre optic (FTTP) based superfast broadband network to help connect rural homes in Garsdale and Dentdale (Cumbria, England), has signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with the ITS Technology Group to help build, deliver and manage the service.

UK ISP BT Makes Home Hub 4 Broadband Router Available to Everybody

19th December, 2013 (12 Comments)

In a curious twist BT has decided to make its Home Hub 4 broadband ISP routers available to non-customers, which means that it can be used with any Internet provider just like a router brought in the shops. But is it worth the £99.99 inc. VAT asking price?

UPDATE ISPs BT, Sky and TalkTalk in Compensation Dispute over LLU Lines

19th December, 2013 (0 Comments)

Ofcom has today opened two similar but semi-separate disputes that concern BT’s provision of fully unbundled (MPF LLU) phone and broadband lines to TalkTalk and Sky Broadband, which the national telecoms operator is required to offer on “fair and reasonable terms“.

UPDATE BBC Find UK ISP Filters Fail to Block Porn and Catch Legit Websites

19th December, 2013 (5 Comments)

An investigation by the BBC’s Newsnight programme has unsurprisingly discovered that the new generation of network-level Internet filtering (censorship) technologies, which are being adopted by all of the major broadband ISPs, often catch legitimate websites in their net and can also fail to block porn. Big SHOCK? Nope.

UPD Ofcom UK Propose Faster Line Repairs and Installs from BT Openreach

19th December, 2013 (3 Comments)

The communications regulator has launched a new consultation on proposals that would require BTOpenreach, the company responsible for maintaining BT’s national UK telecoms and broadband network, to meet better “minimum performance standards“. Faster service installations and repairs could be two of the benefits but it won’t help FTTC/P lines.

BT Enhances FREE Online Cloud Storage Service for Broadband Customers

18th December, 2013 (6 Comments)

BT has upgraded its secure online Cloud (BTCloud) storage and backup service, which is added free for all of their broadband customers in the United Kingdom (though the storage space varies between packages), to include a number of new features.

UPD Super Switch on Day for the National Broadband Delivery UK Scheme

18th December, 2013 (36 Comments)

The Government has flushed out a bit of new PR spin today by labelling the 18th December 2013 as “Super Switch on Day“, which apparently marks how the first BT Street Cabinets in a number of local Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) projects have finally gone live with “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services.

BT Openreach Launch Cable Theft and Damage Report Service for UK ISPs

18th December, 2013 (9 Comments)

BTOpenreach has announced that its LIVE cable monitoring system, which proactively notifies broadband ISPs and phone operators about Major Service Outage’s on BT’s national UK telecoms network (specifically those that stem from cable damage or theft), is now out of its long trial and has been made available to ISPs.

Rural Shropshire Gains 50Mbps Wireless Broadband from Unitron Network

18th December, 2013 (6 Comments)

Unitron (Userve Internet), an I.T services company, has spent £50,000 of its own money to develop a new 50Mbps capable superfast broadband wireless network that can cover both urban and rural parts of Shropshire (i.e. mostly around Shrewsbury, Newport and Telford) in England.

UPD Virgin Media UK Bring Cable Network to 2 East Lincolnshire Villages

18th December, 2013 (0 Comments)

Cable operator Virgin Media, which normally focuses its superfast broadband, TV and phone platform on urban areas, has quietly expanded their network to include two small North East Lincolnshire (England) villages, Stallingborough and Habrough (750 homes), and more could follow.

BT Openreach List Next 82 UK Exchanges for FTTP on Demand

17th December, 2013 (48 Comments)

As promised BTOpenreach has today unveiled the next batch of telephone exchange upgrades for the FTTP on Demand (FoD / FTTPoD) service, which makes their “ultra-fast” 330Mbps (30Mbps uploads) capable fibre optic broadband product available via FTTC capable lines.

Greater Manchester Agree GBP15m BDUK and BT Fibre Broadband Rollout

17th December, 2013 (1 Comment)

Several Greater Manchester authorities including Stockport, Bolton, Wigan, Bury, Tameside, Oldham, Trafford and Rochdale have signed a new £15 million deal that will see BT extend their “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network to a further 39,000 local premises by the end of March 2016 (900k have already been passed).

UPD Confusion Over Alleged GCHQ and NSA Backdoor in BT FTTC Modems

17th December, 2013 (15 Comments)

Computer networks, especially the Internet, are complicated animals that can at times be difficult to understand, which may explain why a recent report that claims to have uncovered a secret backdoor for UK GCHQ and US NSA spies in BTOpenreach’s FTTC (VDSL) modems has gained such traction. But is it really a backdoor?

UK ISP Sky Broadband Removes Wrongful Imgur.com Website Block

17th December, 2013 (4 Comments)

The approach of attempting to restrict access to Internet piracy websites by employing dumb DNS or IP based blocks (censorship) claimed another victim over the weekend after customers of Sky Broadband (BSkyB) found that they could no longer access online image sharing website imgur.com, which had been wrongfully blocked by the ISP.