The annual Broadband Genie 2018 survey has today announced that Virgin Media have yet again been named as the fastest “widely-available” broadband provider in the UK for download speed (71.5Mbps), while Vodafone took the same award for upload speed (10.1Mbps).

A recent report from the Centre for Cities think-tank has revealed the top ten best and worst cities for coverage of fixed “ultrafast broadband” (100Mbps+) connectivity across the United Kingdom, which sees Luton rank top with 95% of homes and businesses being within reach and sadly Aberdeen came bottom on 2.3%.

Customers of cable ISP Virgin Media Business can now access a new flexible mobile data plan, which for example would allow small and medium sized businesses to buy a company-wide data pool of up to 1000GB (GigaBytes) per month and then share it across a group of SIM cards / devices.

The seemingly endless debate over the use of Huawei’s kit in mobile networks has today resulted in the European Commission (EC) recommending a set of new “operational steps and measures,” which have been designed to help mobile operators to ensure a “high level of cybersecurity of 5G networks across the EU.”

Cable ISP Virgin Media has today announced that they’ve joined the Tameside’s Digital Infrastructure Cooperative (TDIC), which should enable them to further extend their broadband network via commercial re-use of around 50km of existing local authority owned cable ducts and fibre optic cable.

Fibre optic network builder Cityfibre, which is currently working alongside ISP Vodafone to roll-out a 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 5 million UK premises by the end of 2024, has today signed a new multi-million pound deal with Emtelle to help supply their £2.5bn project.

Mobile operator Vodafone has warned that it would consider a legal challenge against Ofcom’s forthcoming auction of the 5G friendly radio spectrum bands at 700MHz and 3.6GHz – 3.8GH, unless the regulator changes their proposed strategy of auctioning these as part of a bundled package.

European Satellite and Fixed Wireless ISP Bigblu has revealed that they’re planning to launch a new a “fibre like service from the sky,” which will start from the middle of 2020 with broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps and “unlimited data allowances” across the UK and several other European countries.

The ITS Technology Group has joined forces with the Wilton Centre in order to launch a new “superfast” hybrid fibre optic and fixed wireless broadband ISP network, which is designed to reach poorly served businesses and possibly even homes around part of Teesside.

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today published their final annual plan for 2019/20, which summarises all of the major work they intend to do this year (e.g. boosting mobile coverage, new consumer protections, implementing the 10Mbps USO for broadband and promoting investment in “fibre” networks etc.).

Political leaders from 20 cities and towns across the North of England have written an Open Letter to Ofcom that calls for a more coordinated way of deploying new Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP networks, which could speed-up the effort by avoiding the need to dig up streets several times over.

The latest biannual survey of consumer satisfaction from consumer magazine Which? has criticised UK ISPs BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Vodafone for continuing to come bottom of their table. Meanwhile Zen Internet was praised for “comfortably taking top spot in our rankings.“

Energy provider and UK ISP First Utility, which supplies over 700,000 households, has officially been re-branded to Shell Energy. The move follows a 2017 agreement to sell the business (valued c.£200m-£300m) to Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell Petroleum Company Ltd (here).

A new Portsmouth-based ISP called toob, which we reported last month had been created by several of Vodafone’s former directors and planned to roll-out a 900Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network to 100,000 UK premises by the end of 2021 (here), has secured a huge investment of £75m.

National UK cable ISP Virgin Media has confirmed that their soon-to-be 500Mbps capable ultrafast broadband and TV network is about to be rolled out to cover 6,000 premises in Musselburgh, which is the largest coastal settlement within the East Lothian (Scotland) area and home to about 21,000 people.

Lately we’ve been seeing a lot of new “full fibre” providers launch and now another one, Lightning Fibre, looks set to join the fray. The ISP appears to be initially targeting the roll-out of their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network toward the Eastbourne area of East Sussex.

The UK and Welsh Governments have today jointly announced that the £67m Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which normally offers up to £2,500 to help businesses and surrounding homes gain access to a 1Gbps capable broadband ISP connection (ideally “full fibre” FTTP), is to be boosted up to £5,500 in Wales.