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Articles for Category Tag - Politics

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Broadband Altnets See Encouragement in UK Gov’s Statement of Strategic Priorities

12th February, 2026 (1 Comment)

The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), which represents many of the UK’s alternative broadband networks, has today welcomed the Government’s publication this week of their proposed Statement of Strategic Priorities (SSP) for telecommunications – suggesting it aligns with their perspective on the market and future policy desires.

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Wildanet Withdraws from Project Gigabit Broadband Rollouts for Cornwall UK

12th February, 2026 (18 Comments)

Alternative broadband provider Wildanet, which has built a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across rural parts of Cornwall and Devon in South West England, has today become the latest altnet to withdraw from some of the Government’s publicly funded Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contracts, this time in Cornwall.

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FarrPoint Study Finds UK Councils Still Prioritise Gigabit Broadband in 2026

12th February, 2026 (2 Comments)

Consultancy firm FarrPoint has published their fourth annual (2026) survey of digital leaders at councils across England, Scotland and Wales. The results reveal that expanding the coverage of gigabit broadband remains the top priority for most local authorities, just as it was last year. But ensuring better digital inclusion, a key aim of the current government, has now also become a priority.

Major UK Broadband ISPs Sign Gov Charter to Stop Unexpected Bill Increases

11th February, 2026 (19 Comments)

The Government has managed to get some of the UK’s biggest broadband and phone providers, including BT, Virgin Media (O2), VodafoneThree (Vodafone and Three UK), Sky (Sky Broadband) and TalkTalk, to sign-up to a new Telecoms Consumer Charter that pledges to “stop unexpected bill increases“. But sadly, it’s not an end to mid-contract prices hikes.

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Government Launch Review of UK Mobile Network Market to Help Boost 5G

10th February, 2026 (0 Comments)

The UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has today opened a call for evidence to support their new ‘Mobile Market Review‘, which aims to ensure that their policy and regulatory frameworks are updated to support investment, innovation, competition and consumers. The review could help to boost the rollout of fast 5G and future 6G mobile broadband networks.

Scotland Restart Gigabit Broadband Rollout Tender for Fife, Perth and Kinross

10th February, 2026 (0 Comments)

The Scottish Government (SG) has officially relaunched their proposed gigabit broadband roll-out procurement for Fife, Perth and Kinross. The proposed contract is valued at £28,557,891 excluding VAT and aims to help expand such a network to cover an estimated total number of 17,830 premises in hard-to-reach areas (i.e. those not covered by any other gigabit networks).

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UK Government Project to Test ZBLAN Optical Fibre Cables Made in Spaaace

9th February, 2026 (0 Comments)

The UK Space Agency has today awarded contracts to three companies to investigate the possibility of producing advanced materials in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which includes one project (SkyYield) that aims to design a payload to process ZBLAN fluoride glass in microgravity (i.e. a specialist optical fibre that can transmit light with up to 100 times less signal loss than traditional silica fibre).

Wessex Internet Revise Dorset and Somerset UK Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout

7th February, 2026 (8 Comments)

The UK Government (DSIT) appears set to revise their Project Gigabit contract with rural UK ISP Wessex Internet for Dorset and South Somerset (Lot 14.02), which originally aimed to build a full fibre (FTTP) broadband network to cover “around” 21,400 hard-to-reach premises. But the contract value has now been increased to £38.2m and fewer premises are set to be reached.

New Coop Mobile MVNO Service Launches on the Channel Islands

5th February, 2026 (0 Comments)

A new mobile virtual network operator service has just launched on the Channel Islands called Coop Mobile, which some readers might recall is partly the product of last year’s £48m deal to build a new “world-class” 5G mobile broadband network across the islands (reflecting Sure‘s acquisition rival Airtel Vodafone).

Gigaclear Makes Progress on Cotswolds Project Gigabit Broadband Build

30th January, 2026 (5 Comments)

Rural broadband ISP Gigaclear, which has so far deployed their full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 612,000 UK premises (inc. 160,000 customers), has just put their new network live in the Cotswolds village of Kemble. The deployment forms part of Project Gigabit’s £10.81m East Gloucestershire (Lot 18) contract to upgrade 3,547 premises in hard-to-reach areas.

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Concerns Over UK Funding Shortfall for Gigabit Broadband Raised in Parliament

29th January, 2026 (18 Comments)

The Conservative MP for Bridgwater, Sir Ashley Fox, this week informed other Ministers that Openreach (BT) had raised “concerns that there is a shortfall in funding from the last spending review“, which he said meant there is a “risk that the Government do not meet their 99% gigabit-coverage target by 2032“.

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Gov to Streamline England’s Building Controls for Fibre Broadband and Mobile UPDATE3

28th January, 2026 (1 Comment)

The Government appears to have responded to recent concerns over the Building Safety Regulator’s (BSR) approval processes, which are known to have been causing delays and increased costs for broadband and mobile operators trying to deploy new digital infrastructure into large buildings (MDUs etc.). But a new consultation is proposing changes that may address some of the issues.

BBC Considers Linking Online iPlayer TV Accounts to UK Home Addresses

27th January, 2026 (73 Comments)

The endlessly vexed question of TV licence fee evasion has come up in the press again after it was today reported that the BBC were considering a change to the iPlayer video streaming service. The change would essentially involve linking people’s online BBC accounts to their home addresses for the first time (i.e. to see if anybody is using the service without a licence).

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Jan 2026 Contract Delivery Progress for UK Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout

26th January, 2026 (7 Comments)

The Government’s Building Digital UK agency has published their January 2026 update on the delivery progress of contracts that have been awarded under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme. The update reveals that some 202,270 contracted premises (up from 183,380 in Dec 2025) have so far been covered out of a planned total of 1,002,500.

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House of Lords Votes to Ban UK Children from Using Internet VPNs

26th January, 2026 (63 Comments)

Last week saw the House of Lords pass a vote that would, if approved by the Government, introduce an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (CWSB) that aims to “prohibit the provision” of Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to children (under 18s) in the UK. The goal is to stop children allegedly using VPNs to bypass age verification systems.

Utility Warehouse Join Charter to Protect Vulnerable UK Users in Digital Phone Switch

23rd January, 2026 (0 Comments)

Energy and communications provider Utility Warehouse (UW), which offers broadband, mobile, energy and insurance services to UK consumers, has become the latest telecoms provider to sign the Government’s Public Switched Telephone Network Charter – committing them to protect “vulnerable customers” (e.g. those with telecare devices) when upgrading old phone lines to IP-based digital equivalents.

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ISP Commsworld Win Contract to Build West Lothian Council’s Fibre Network

22nd January, 2026 (0 Comments)

Business UK broadband ISP Commsworld has today announced that they’ve secured a 15-year contract, worth £8.5 million, to deliver a new Wide Area Network (WAN) for West Lothian Council in Scotland. The work will upgrade the council’s existing service with a brand-new fibre optic network and provide a 10-fold increase in available bandwidth.