The UK Government has today officially launched their new £200m Rural Gigabit Connectivity (RGC) programme, which was originally announced during the 2018 Budget and aims to encourage an “outside-in” approach to building new ultrafast broadband ISP networks by focusing on helping to connect rural areas.

UK ISP BT has revived their entry-level 36Mbps (average speed) capable “Fibre Essential” (FTTC/P) broadband and phone package at the cheaper price point of just £26 per month for 18 months of service (£37.99 thereafter), which is also being bundled alongside their remaining stock of older HomeHub 5 routers.

Rural broadband ISP Gigaclear has been fined £10,339.17 in Somerset UK after it admitted that some of its work, which involved deploying a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network around the small market town of Wellington, had failed to comply with the 1991 New Road and Street Works Act.

Cable operator Virgin Media UK has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that they’ve wisely “taken over” rival ISP Sky Broadband’s 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network in Swandicote (Derbyshire), which was originally built as part of a trial and is believed to have covered up to 5,000 local homes.

Ofcom has closed an enforcement programme that was setup to examine the Traffic Management practices of broadband ISPs and mobile operators, which was done to test compliance with the EU’s Open Internet Access (net neutrality) and Roaming Regulations. Instead they’ve published a framework to help providers “self-assess proactively.”

Telecoms and broadband ISP giant BT Group are understood to be considering a change of logo today, which our sources suggest will be based upon the one they originally trademarked all the way back in 2016 (pictured), except the new version will be mainly white and may have a glow around it.

Full fibre network builder Cityfibre and UK ISP partner Vodafone have today announced that the first residents in the city of Stirling (Scotland) are now connecting to their new £10m and 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) ultrafast broadband network. The build is due to complete next year.

Residents of Craigavon in County Armagh (Northern Ireland) have vented anger at the quality of work and disruption caused after UK cable ISP Virgin Media began street works in the area. This forms part of a major expansion to extend the coverage of their TV and 500Mbps ultrafast broadband network.

Ofcom has today set out the final details of their new end-of-contract notification system (sent by text, email or letter) for UK customers of broadband ISPs, Pay TV, landline phone and mobile operators, which is designed to help tackle the so-called “loyalty penalty” and will keep consumers informed about the best available deals.

Crowd-sourced network analyst firm OpenSignal has conducted a short, albeit very interesting, analysis of how the different amounts and frequencies of radio spectrum owned by 4G mobile operators (Three UK, Vodafone, O2 and EE) can impact mobile broadband speeds across the United Kingdom.

Customers of Virgin Media’s (Virgin Mobile) EE powered mobile network (MVNO) platform are suffering a major outage today, which appears to be preventing many of them from making calls, sending texts or accessing data (mobile broadband) connectivity.

A new study has ranked the top 20 cities across the United Kingdom by comparing their fixed line broadband coverage, performance and 4G mobile network availability in order to produce an index score. Overall London came out as being the UK’s “best digitally connected city,” albeit mainly thanks to its mobile coverage.

Shropshire-based ISP Aquiss has once again reduced the price of their symmetrical 1Gbps Fully Managed Business Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) “full fibre” broadband product to £330 +vat per month, which is now available across parts of 22 UK towns and cities.

Fixed line ISP and mobile operator Vodafone UK has released their latest quarterly results to the end of March (Q4 FY19), which saw them add another 50,000 fixed broadband customers (up from +46K in the previous quarter) to total 575,000. Plus they’ve announced the 3rd July 2019 launch of their UK 5G network.

The Welsh Government’s Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport, Lee Waters AM, finally said something last week that has been becoming increasingly obvious over the past few years, “we need to confront the fact that the market’s appetite, even with subsidy, for reaching premises with [FTTP] broadband is coming to an end.”

UK ISP Sky Broadband (Comcast) will today rebrand their existing range of ADSL2+ and FTTC based broadband and phone packages. On top of that they’ll be introducing some new add-ons and the information suggests that they’re preparing to launch three new “ultrafast broadband” plans (150Mbps upwards).

The £34m+ Digital Durham project, which has so far worked with Openreach (BT) to help increase the coverage of FTTC and FTTP based “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) ISP networks to around 96% of local premises, is preparing to tender for a third contract to further extend coverage (starting in 2020).