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Articles for Category Tag - Politics

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Feasibility Study on New Subsea Fibre Cable for Shetland Islands Begins

2nd September, 2026 (3 Comments)

The Scottish Government yesterday set out their work plan for the next five years, which among other things initiated a feasibility study to “identify and evaluate potential options” for deploying a new subsea fibre optic cable between mainland Scotland and the Shetland Islands. The goal being to improve broadband and mobile redundancy, as well as performance.

Engineers in Training up Telegraph Poles

DCF Estimate 200,000 Engineers Could Leave UK Telecoms Workforce by 2030

2nd September, 2026 (6 Comments)

A new report from the Digital Connectivity Forum (DCF), an industry think-tank, has today been published that examines the apparently “growing workforce and skills challenges” of the telecoms sector and highlights how 200,000 UK engineers are expected to leave the workforce by 2030 – risking a future “skills cliff“. But quite a few of those may be leaving due to maturity of the full fibre broadband build.

Gigabit Broadband Rollout Contract for Orkney and Shetland to be Awarded Soon

1st September, 2026 (1 Comment)

After a long delay it appears as if the Scottish Government may finally get around to awarding a new gigabit broadband roll-out contract for Orkney & Shetland by the end of 2026. The procurement, which forms part of the UK’s £5bn Project Gigabit scheme, aspires to expand full fibre (FTTP) networks to 13,550 premises in hard-to-reach parts of the remote Northern Isles.

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New Rules for Speeding Up Certain Broadband Installs is Causing Delays UPDATE

30th August, 2026 (0 Comments)

The government’s new changes to the Building Safety Regulator’s (BSR) approval processes in England (here) are causing additional delays to some of Openreach’s new broadband installs. Ironically the changes are being introduced to correct for the delays and increased costs of telecoms operators trying to deploy new networks into large buildings (MDUs etc.) under the prior system.

Report Criticises BT, Sky, Virgin, Vodafone and Others for Confusing UK Social Tariffs

24th August, 2026 (18 Comments)

A new study has highlighted how some of the UK market’s largest fixed broadband ISPs, including BT, Sky Broadband, Virgin Media and Vodafone, appear to be failing in their commitment to making cheaper Social Tariffs easier to access (available to those on state benefits). Instead the providers were found to make the tariffs and their details hard to find and often with unclear contract terms or pricing.

Project Gigabit BDUK Funded Digital UK Broadband Map

August 2026 Contract Progress of UK Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout

24th August, 2026 (0 Comments)

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has today published their August 2026 update on the delivery progress of contracts awarded under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme. The update reveals that some 296,770 contracted premises (up from 287,510 in Jul 2026) have so far been covered out of a planned total of 846,770 (35% complete).

TFW Ffeibr’s Railway Full Fibre Network Connects to Europe’s Largest Data Centre Campus

22nd August, 2026 (0 Comments)

Not‑for‑profit Network operator TfW Ffeibr (TFW Fibre), which is an arm’s-length initiative owned by Transport for Wales (TfW) and thus the Welsh Government, has announced that their railway based full fibre broadband and Ethernet network has been used to link South Wales directly into one of “Europe’s largest data centre campuses” – connecting Cloud Centres and Vantage Data Centres.

£70m High Speed Broadband Project in Wales Gets New Supplier After Error

21st August, 2026 (4 Comments)

The Welsh Government (WG) has revealed that an “unforeseen administrative error” meant they neglected to name one of the approved suppliers for their £70m (public subsidy) Extending High Speed Broadband (EHSB) project when the original list was announced earlier this year (here). The supplier, BB4W Ltd (Broadband 4 Wales), has now been added to the framework.

TV Broadcasters, Banks and UK Telecoms Providers Unite to Get Everyone Online UPDATE

20th August, 2026 (11 Comments)

Britain’s major banks, charities, TV broadcasters, broadband and mobile providers have today united to back a new report from the Connection Project, which calls for “coordinated action to ensure everyone” can get online and take part in a modern economy. But this is not the first time we’ve seen coordinated action on the subject.

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New National Planning Policy Framework Lends Support to Broadband and Mobile

18th August, 2026 (2 Comments)

The Government has published its new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) for England, which finally appears to have laid the foundations for planning authorities to give “substantial weight” to the benefits of “maintaining or improving network coverage, capacity, reliability and resilience” of modern gigabit broadband and 5G mobile networks.

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Government Hands £13m to Boost Wi-Fi on UK Trains and Satellite Broadband

18th August, 2026 (4 Comments)

The UK Space Agency has this morning announced that they’ve spread £13m of public funding across 16 new projects under the ARTES (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems) programme, which covers everything from deploying on-board Wi-Fi on remote Scottish railways to improving the availability of 5G and future 6G mobile networks – typically via satellite-based internet connectivity.

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Government Prepares £20m Phase 2 of Schools Gigabit Broadband Rollout

15th August, 2026 (0 Comments)

The Government’s Department for Education (DfE) has launched an early market engagement exercise to identify organisations that might be interested in supplying the second phase of their gigabit broadband roll-out programme for Schools, which has been allocated £20m of public funding to reach around a further 800 schools across England.

Government Issues UK Mobile Emergency Alert Over Wildfire Risk

14th August, 2026 (49 Comments)

The UK government may have surprised a few people just after 7pm tonight after using the Emergency Alerts service via mobile network operators to send out a national warning about the “very high risk of wildfires nationally“, which advises people across the country to avoid undertaking any activity that could start a fire.

150 Government Funded 4G Mobile Mast Upgrades Now Live Across UK

14th August, 2026 (0 Comments)

The UK Government has published a progress update on their part of the industry-led £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project this morning, which reveals that a total of 150 publicly-funded rural 4G (mobile broadband) mast upgrades have now gone live across the United Kingdom (up from 140 in June 2026).

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Kearney’s Global Telecom Health Index Ranks UK 33rd out of 34 Countries

11th August, 2026 (14 Comments)

Management consulting firm Kearney has today published their latest annual Global Telecom Health Index, which ranks 34 countries across various metrics in order to measure and compare the health of the telecoms (broadband, mobile etc.) sector on a country-by-country basis. Overall the United Kingdom placed near the bottom on a rank of 33rd.

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New Rules to Tackle Fake Discounts Set to Benefit UK Consumers in 2027

10th August, 2026 (5 Comments)

The new UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, yesterday pledged to bring forward the introduction of several planned measures to help consumers exit bad contracts, stop misleading price promotions and to generally tackle “subscription traps“. Some of the new measures will now be introduced from January 2027, rather than next Spring, but others require further consultation.

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Report Warns Against Future TV Plan to Shut Down UK’s Tall Tower Network

10th August, 2026 (16 Comments)

A new report from the National Preparedness Commission (NPC), which is said to be an independent and non-political body focused on preparing the country for a major crisis, threats and incidents, has warned that the UK’s proposed plan to switch-off terrestrial TV signals in favour of broadband internet-based streaming “risks … over-concentrating communications on internet-based networks“.