Home » UK ISP News Archive » Article Tag: Building Digital UK (2507 Posts)

Articles for Category Tag - Building Digital UK

GoFibre Win Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout Contract for North East Scotland

15th July, 2025 (15 Comments)

Edinburgh-based ISP and network builder GoFibre has secured a fourth contract under the UK government’s £5bn Project Gigabit scheme. The new deal is worth £105m (state aid) and will see them expand their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover “around” 63,000 premises in hard-to-reach rural areas of North East Scotland.

Openreach Start Rural UK FTTP Broadband Rollout Under Project Gigabit

10th July, 2025 (22 Comments)

Network operator Openreach (BT) has today announced that they’ve kicked off the construction phase for several of their recently awarded Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contracts with the government (BDUK), including in remote rural parts of Lancashire, Wales, Devon, Hertfordshire, Staffordshire and Wiltshire.

Wildanet Engineer's Hand Connecting FTTP Lines

Wildanet’s Project Gigabit Broadband Build in Cornwall Covers 10,000 Premises

9th July, 2025 (5 Comments)

Alternative UK network provider Wildanet has announced that they’ve now built their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband service to an additional 10,000 premises in rural Cornwall. The effort forms part of the three contracts they hold with the government’s wider £5bn Project Gigabit programme, which are worth £77m (state aid).

NUAR-Output-on-Smartphone-from-Nov-2023-Gov-UK-update

LSBUD Identify Top Concerns Facing New Digital UK Underground Cables Map

4th July, 2025 (1 Comment)

The LSBUD (Line Search Before You Dig) organisation, which offers an online asset search facility to UK civil engineering firms for underground pipes and cables, has conducted an industry-wide survey to identify the greatest concerns which remain around the Government’s new digital UK map of underground pipes and cables (broadband, water etc.), ahead of its integration.

CityFibre-2025-van-feel-the-difference-from-back

CityFibre Put First Full Fibre Homes Live in Buckinghamshire for Project Gigabit

3rd July, 2025 (2 Comments)

CityFibre, which has so far deployed their 5.5Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 4.4 million UK premises, has just connected its first customers in Buckinghamshire (inc. Hertfordshire and East Berkshire) as part of their £58m (state aid) Project Gigabit contract (LOT 26) to reach 34,000 hard-to-reach rural premises in the county.

UK-Map-with-Union-Jack-Marker-for-telecoms-123RF-187927761

Coverage of Gigabit Broadband Nears 88 Percent of UK in H1 2025

30th June, 2025 (4 Comments)

ISPreview has this morning published our biannual H1 2025 summary of UK fixed broadband coverage, which reveals that “full fibre” (FTTP) ISP networks have grown to reach 78.06% of premises (up from 73.53% in H2 2024) and 87.84% are within reach of “gigabit” 1000Mbps+ speeds (up from 85.87%). Read on to see details for England, Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland…

R100 Gigabit Broadband Build Reaches 80,000 Premises in Scotland

27th June, 2025 (2 Comments)

The Scottish Government (SG) has today revealed that more than 80,000 premises have now benefitted from their £697m Reaching 100% (R100) project with Openreach (BT), which is rolling out full fibre (FTTP) broadband to remote rural areas. Some 27,000 premises of this have been delivered over the past year, which is up from 20,000 the year before.

EU Reveals 2025 Gigabit Broadband and 5G Coverage Progress vs UK

27th June, 2025 (16 Comments)

The European Commission (EC) recently published their annual 2025 study of broadband coverage in Europe, which reveals how the EU’s fixed gigabit broadband (FTTP and Hybrid Fibre Coax) and 5G mobile networks compare across all of its 27 countries. We compare this with the United Kingdom below.

Freedom-Fibre-female-engineers-next-to-van

Freedom Fibre Scales Back North Shropshire Project Gigabit Broadband Contract UPDATE

25th June, 2025 (12 Comments)

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has just announced that alternative network provider Freedom Fibre has had to scale back their £24m (state aid) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for North Shropshire (LOT 25.02 in England), which originally aimed to cover “around” 12,000 hard-to-reach rural homes (here).

hand with fiber network cables connected to servers in a datacenter by 123rf

National Security Strategy Lacks Detail on UK Telecoms and Subsea Fibre

24th June, 2025 (0 Comments)

The UK Government has published its National Security Strategy (NSS), which may or may not confirm earlier reports (here) that broadband (inc. telecommunications) will now be considered part of national security investment in order to help reach a new NATO target for spending 5% of GDP on defence by 2035. Subsea fibre protection also gets a brief mention.

£50m Funding Boost for Wessex Internet’s Rural UK Broadband Network

23rd June, 2025 (1 Comment)

Rural-focused ISP and alternative network builder Wessex Internet, which is building a mix of full fibre (FTTP) and fixed wireless network across Southern England, has today announced that they’ve secured a £50m investment from the National Wealth Fund (formerly known as the UK Infrastructure Bank).

Road closure, roadworks with traffic cones and warning sign on a rural country road in Buckinghamshire, UK 123rf

Boost for Broadband and Mobile as UK Sets 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy UPDATE

20th June, 2025 (6 Comments)

The UK Government has published its Infrastructure Strategy for the next 10 years – backed by £725bn in long-term funding for maintenance and major projects, which promises to “transform how infrastructure projects are planned and delivered” in order to “deliver stability, investment and national renewal“. And there’s some good news for broadband and mobile networks.

Big Ben, London Westminster Bridge and Houses of Parliament - 123rf

New Data Use and Access Law to Help UK Utility Maps and ISP Comparisons

19th June, 2025 (2 Comments)

The UK government has today announced that their Data Use and Access Bill has become law (Royal Assent), which pledges to inject £10bn into the British economy over 10-years by, among other things, supporting personalised market comparisons for utility pricing and putting a new digital map of underground broadband cables and pipes on a “statutory footing“.

Government Appoints Lesley Cowley as Chair of Building Digital UK Agency

18th June, 2025 (2 Comments)

The Government (DSIT) has this morning announced that they’ve appointed Lesley Cowley OBE to be the new Chair of their broadband and mobile centric Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency. The development comes after former Chair, Simon Blagden, resigned from his position back in July 2024 (here) and was replaced by Hazel Hobbs (Interim Chair).

Scotland May Reissue Gigabit Broadband Tender for Fife, Perth and Kinross

17th June, 2025 (0 Comments)

The Scottish Government (SG) looks as if they could be preparing to “relaunch” their proposed gigabit broadband roll-out procurement for Fife, Perth and Kinross during September 2025. This might take a second stab at trying to find a supplier that can help upgrade the remaining set of hardest-to-reach premises.

tank pointing at bt openreach engineer long

Government May Reclassify UK Broadband as Defence Spending

17th June, 2025 (15 Comments)

A major newspaper has today claimed that the UK government’s imminent National Security Review (NSR), which is due to be published next week, will expand the definition of national security spending to include everything from a third runway at Heathrow Airport to food prices and rural broadband provision (e.g. the £5bn Project Gigabit scheme).

Pound sterling broadband voucher by 123rf (100296328)

Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme Tweaks UK Eligibility Criteria

13th June, 2025 (13 Comments)

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has tweaked the eligibility criteria for their Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) again, which among other things now requires that a home or business must have existing available broadband download speeds of less than 1Gbps in order to be eligible (previously it was 100Mbps).