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Truespeed Add 12 Areas in South West England to Full Fibre Build

1st Nov, 2022 (3 Comments)

Rural broadband ISP Truespeed, which is rolling out a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across parts of South West England, has today announced that they’re investing £22m to extend their deployment across 12 new locations in parts of South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath.

ISP Zzoomm Expands UK FTTP Broadband Rollout into Wiltshire

1st Nov, 2022 (1 Comment)

UK ISP Zzoomm has revealed that they’re expanding the rollout of their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network further south to include the county of Wiltshire (England). The first location to benefit from this will be the town and civil parish of Calne.

ISP Virgin Media O2 UK Confirms New Broadband Speed Boosts UPDATE

1st Nov, 2022 (69 Comments)

UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) has today confirmed that both new and existing customers of their fixed line broadband packages, specifically those on their M100 and M200 tiers, will benefit from a modest boost to their download and upload speeds. As a result, M100 is being renamed to M125 and M200 becomes M250.

Mobile giant Vodafone UK and Sky (Comcast) have reportedly two among several "groups" that have approached budget conscious fixed broadband ISP TalkTalk about a potential deal (most likely an acquisition), which in theory could create a much larger provider with more influence over the industry. Just to recap. In 2020 TalkTalk became the subject of a £1.1bn takeover by Toscafund - controlled by hedge fund tycoon Martin Hughes (here), which including debt valued the broadband provider at around £1.8bn. The deal took the ISP private and gave them more financial flexibility for their future plans. Since then, they've backed Freedom Fibre (here) and this week made the notable acquisition of Ethernet provider Virtual1 (here). According to the FT (paywall) and Sky News, TalkTalk is now said to have asked investment bank Lazard to review its options after allegedly being approach by several groups, including Vodafone and Sky (Sky Broadband). Lazard is a logical choice as they recently acted as Financial Advisor to TalkTalk on the Virtual1 transaction. Some industry analysts have reportedly suggested that TalkTalk itself could now be worth "at least" £3bn. But this seems rather optimistic for an ISP that doesn't have any significant fixed line broadband infrastructure to call its own (excluding their old unbundled LLU network) and largely just piggybacks off Openreach (BT), CityFibre and Freedom Fibre. But TalkTalk do have a strong business and wholesale side. Funnily enough, Sky Broadband are in a similar position with their own fixed line base, while Vodafone also likes to piggyback off Openreach and CityFibre. At present, Vodafone has a fixed broadband base of 991,000 customers, while Sky Broadband is estimated to be home to around 6.7 million and TalkTalk has approximately 4.2 million. Suffice to say, anybody gobbling up TalkTalk would instantly become a much larger provider, giving them a greater say in how the UK broadband market develops and more opportunities for convergence (Vodafone with mobile, and Sky with mobile and TV). Crucially, TalkTalk's consumer base is mostly made up of those on older copper and hybrid fibre lines (i.e. ADSL and FTTC / VDSL2), which are ripe for a future migration to FTTP. At the time of writing, all of the aforementioned operators have decline to comment on the reports, and TalkTalk has yet to receive any serious formal offers. In other words, we strongly suspect that this is largely just an exercise in spin to help TalkTalk drum up some more productive interest in the idea. But at the same time, it's not unreasonable to suspect that they might succeed, as the interest seems genuine. On the other hand, we see reports like this every year or so and only a very few ever convert into a serious offer. Time will tell. Much may depend upon whether or not TalkTalk’s new owners are more flexible and pragmatic about doing a deal than the previous lot. Arguably, TalkTalk might have gone much further by now had they taken some different decisions a few years ago (e.g. co-investing in FTTP instead of Pay TV).

Virgin Media O2 UK Puts Possible £3bn TalkTalk Merger on Ice

31st Oct, 2022 (12 Comments)

A major newspaper has reported that Virgin Media (VMO2) has allegedly gone cold on the idea of reaching a £3bn merger deal with budget UK ISP TalkTalk, which would have added the provider’s broadband base of over 4.2 million to their own base of 5.6 million in order to more effectively compete with BT.

BT’s October 2022 Progress Update on 10Mbps UK Broadband USO

31st Oct, 2022 (9 Comments)

UK ISP BT has issued the latest biannual October 2022 update on the progress they’ve made in delivering the 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO) for broadband, which confirms that they’ve so far built a USO connection to over 5,900 premises (up from 4,600), with more than 2,000 further builds in progress (down from 2,300).

Virgin Media O2 UK Celebrate 1 Million Volt Broadband and Mobile Customers

31st Oct, 2022 (12 Comments)

Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK and mobile operator O2, which not so long ago agreed a £31bn mega merger to become VMO2, have today celebrated after managing to attract 1 million customers to take-up their first joint product (bundle) under the ‘VOLT’ title – just one year after launching it.

ISP TalkTalk UK Closes “Obsolete” UFO Full Fibre Product in York

31st Oct, 2022 (19 Comments)

Customers on TalkTalk’s 944Mbps Ultra Fibre Optic (UFO) broadband service in the City of York, which is a full fibre (FTTP) network that was originally launched in 2015 as part of a partnership with Sky Broadband and Cityfibre (here), have been informed that the “trial” service is now “coming to an end” because its “equipment is obsolete“.

fibre optic uk network cable flay glowing - 123rf

VXFIBER and Council Owned ISP Extend FTTP Broadband to Wivenhoe UPDATE2

31st Oct, 2022 (3 Comments)

Network builder VXFIBER UK has announced that they’ve joined forces with the local authority owned ISP Colchester Fibre (part of Colchester Amphora Trading) to make their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network (dedicated point-to-point fibre) available to over 3,500 homes and businesses in the town of Wivenhoe.

Clive Selley - openreach uk ceo picture 2021

Openreach Preps More FTTP Broadband Price Cuts for UK ISPs UPDATE

30th Oct, 2022 (33 Comments)

Good news for consumers. Openreach appears set to launch another round of wholesale prices cuts for UK ISPs that sell their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband lines. Dubbed ‘Equinox 2‘ after last year’s discount, the move will help the operator to stay competitive. But some rivals may raise competition concerns.

Openreach’s Wireless-to-the-Cabinet Network on Coll Broken for 3 Weeks

29th Oct, 2022 (18 Comments)

Some 40 homes on the remote Scottish Isle of Coll, which is home to around 200 people, have been left without broadband until at least Monday because Openreach’s engineers cannot safely reach the island by boat in order to repair their niche Wireless-to-the-Cabinet (WTTC) network. Some homes have now been offline for 3 weeks.

Cityfibre FTTP Splicing Close Up Picture 2022

CityFibre UK to Begin £17m Loughborough FTTP Broadband Rollout

28th Oct, 2022 (16 Comments)

Cityfibre has today revealed that they’ll invest £17 million over the next few years to ensure that “almost every home and business” in the Leicestershire (England) market town of Loughborough is covered by their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network.

Full Fibre ISP Octaplus Joins Cityfibre’s UK Broadband Network

28th Oct, 2022 (3 Comments)

Broadband ISP and Pay TV provider Octaplus (Octaplus Supercharged), which initially launched via MS3’s gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network in East Yorkshire during September (here), has now officially become “available in all locations” across CityFibre’s network where homes are ready for service.

Virgin Media O2 UK Trials Emergency 5G Mobile from Drones

27th Oct, 2022 (9 Comments)

Broadband ISP and mobile operator Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2) has teamed up with the Snowdonia Aerospace Centre in Wales to trial 4G and 5G connected drones, which in an emergency could be deployed to help create a temporary airborne mobile network for both visitors and emergency services (Mountain Rescue).

Altnet UK ISP Box Broadband Appoints New Divisional CEO

27th Oct, 2022 (0 Comments)

Box Broadband, which is owned (majority stake) by CommunityFibre (here) and presently rolling out a gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across parts of South East England (e.g. Surrey and Sussex), has today announced the appointment of Nathan Vautier to be its new Divisional CEO.

Bill Proposed to Improve UK Consumer Telephone Service Standards

27th Oct, 2022 (21 Comments)

The Conservative MP, Robert Halfon, has proposed a new Private Members Bill that seeks to clampdown on utility providers (broadband ISPs, energy etc.) and “certain other services” that run telephone support lines, specifically those that make it difficult or force you to wait for ages before being able to speak with a human.

EE Boost UK 5G Rollout with New Ericsson AIR 3268 Radio Antennas

27th Oct, 2022 (13 Comments)

Mobile operator EE (BT) has announced that they’ve begun to rollout Ericsson’s new ultra-lightweight Antenna-Integrated Radio (AIR 3268) hardware to more than 1,000 UK sites, which is smaller and lighter than existing antennas, uses up to 40% less energy and should deliver better 5G (mobile broadband) speeds and coverage.

Starlink for RV Motorhomes on Moving Vehicle

Pricey Starlink Broadband Dish Launched for Moving Vehicles

27th Oct, 2022 (10 Comments)

SpaceX has informed customers that they’ve launched a new variant of their Starlink for RVs (Recreational Vehicles / Motorhomes) product via their constellation of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based ultrafast broadband ISP satellites, which includes new hardware that enables the service to be used while in-motion.