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Articles for Category Tag - Politics

Openreach Faces Protest in Lincoln Over Rollout of 40 Broadband Poles

9th November, 2025 (42 Comments)

The Street Works and Permitting Manager at Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) in England, Ashley Behan, has asked network access provider Openreach (BT) to “pause” the roll-out of 40 new telecoms poles – needed to expand the coverage of their full fibre (FTTP) broadband network – until they can explain how they’re going to respond to local complaints and engage with the community.

Openreach CEO Threatens to Scrap 30M UK Premises Target for FTTP Broadband

5th November, 2025 (50 Comments)

The CEO of network access provider Openreach (BT), Clive Selley, has warned Ofcom and the UK Government that he is “going to hold fire” on seeking approval for the final phase of the operator’s plan to deploy full fibre (FTTP) based broadband ISP technology to 30 million premises. At least until the regulator and tax environment show themselves to be favourable.

R100 Gigabit Broadband Rollout Reaches 93,800 Premises in Scotland

5th November, 2025 (0 Comments)

The Scottish Government (SG) recently revealed that 93,800 premises have now benefitted from their £697m Reaching 100% (R100) project with Openreach (up from 83,419 in July 2025), which is rolling out full fibre (FTTP) broadband to remote rural areas. But the full roll-out is still not expected to complete until early 2028.

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Business ISP 4Com Criticised Over UK Broadband and Phone Contracts

4th November, 2025 (7 Comments)

Bournemouth-based communications, IT and broadband provider 4Com has come in for criticism from some of their UK customers, who have complained about being hit by dramatically higher prices than they originally agreed over the phone. Sadly, business-to-business contracts lack many of the same protections as consumers enjoy, leaving some small firms in a dire situation.

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Gov Push Ofcom to Tackle Mid Contract UK Broadband and Mobile Price Hikes

4th November, 2025 (27 Comments)

The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Liz Kendall, has now joined the chorus of displeasure at O2’s recent decision (here) to increase their annual mid-contract price rises beyond what customers agreed when they signed-up. In response, the minister has directed Ofcom’s CEO, Dame Melanie Dawes, to “look at in-contract price rises again“.

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Openreach Expand Project Gigabit Broadband Build in Staffordshire and Lancashire UK

3rd November, 2025 (3 Comments)

Network operator Openreach (BT) has issued a progress update on their ongoing roll-out of a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network in rural parts of Staffordshire and Lancashire (England), which forms part of their Project Gigabit contracts with the government (these entered the construction phase earlier this year).

Guernsey Switches Off Copper Network as Full Fibre Rollout Nears Completion

3rd November, 2025 (1 Comment)

Mobile and broadband operator Sure has today started the process of switching off their old copper line telecoms (phone and broadband) network on the English Channel Island of Guernsey, which comes as the network operator’s roll-out of a new gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) network on the island nears imminent completion.

October 2025 Progress Update on BT 10Mbps UK Broadband USO

3rd November, 2025 (2 Comments)

ISP BT has published the biannual (October 2025) progress update on their delivery of Ofcom’s somewhat unpopular 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO) for broadband. The provider has so far helped to build a USO connection to over 8,553 premises (up from 8,411 in April 2025), with 186 further builds in-progress (down from 349).

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Falkland Islands Government Grants Licence for Starlink Satellite Broadband

3rd November, 2025 (5 Comments)

The Falkland Islands Government (FIG) has, after plenty of confusion and debate earlier in the year (here and here), finally granted a VSAT Broadband Connectivity Licence to SpaceX’s Starlink service. The move allows homes and businesses on the remote islands, which are a British Overseas Territory, to take an ultrafast internet service via Starlink’s satellite network.

Uncertainty Clouds Future of North Shropshire Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout

31st October, 2025 (3 Comments)

The MP for North Shropshire in England, Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat), has called on the Government to take urgent action in its ongoing attempts to find a solution after network provider Freedom Fibre scaled back their £24m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for the region in June 2025.

Swansea Bay City Deal’s Digital Infrastructure Scheme Given Green Rating

31st October, 2025 (7 Comments)

The Swansea Bay City Deal’s Digital Infrastructure Programme, which includes various broadband and other digital infrastructure upgrades as part of the wider £1.3bn Swansea Bay City Region project, has received a green rating in its latest Gateway Review, which is said to reflect its progress in improving digital connectivity across the region.

Virgin Media O2 CEO Joins BT in Raising Concern Over UK Biz Rates Hike

27th October, 2025 (18 Comments)

The CEO of broadband and mobile giant Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2), Lutz Schüler, has today warned the UK government against reforming business rates in a way that would impose a “hefty hike” on telecoms providers because, he says, it would act as a “disincentive to invest that will be a real kick in the cabinets” to the industry. At a time when they’re already under pressure.

Bad Weather Delays Fix for Broken Shetland Subsea Fibre Cable Until Tuesday UPDATE

27th October, 2025 (0 Comments)

Bad weather means customers of broadband and mobile providers Vodafone, Sky Broadband and TalkTalk on Shetland, which is a remote UK subarctic archipelago that resides north of the Scottish mainland, will have to wait until Tuesday until repair ship Cable Vigilance can complete its fix of the recently broken SHEFA-2 (Faroese Telecom) subsea cable.

Scottish Government Upgrades Broadband Coverage Checker UPDATE

25th October, 2025 (13 Comments)

The Scottish Government put out a brief notice this week to say that their “upgraded address checker … is now live” for broadband coverage, which apparently “now includes more detailed info on access and our delivery programmes“, albeit seemingly without providing any further specifics to better explain what’s changed.

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BDUK Summarise Progress of UK Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout Contracts

24th October, 2025 (12 Comments)

The Government’s (DSIT) Building Digital UK agency has today finally started to publish monthly updates on the delivery progress of contracts that have been awarded under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme, which among other things reveals that some 150,730 contracted premises have already been built out of a planned total of 1,002,270 (October 2025).

Ofcom Publish Final Results of UK 5G Mobile Auction for 26GHz and 40GHz

24th October, 2025 (4 Comments)

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has this morning revealed the final (assignment stage) results of last week’s auction of the 26GHz and 40GHz millimetre wave (mmW) spectrum bands for use by 5G mobile broadband operators, which sets out precisely which frequencies within each band will be allocated to EE, O2 and VodafoneThree (Vodafone and Three UK).

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Internal Auditors Seek Greater UK Telecoms Role via New Security Code

24th October, 2025 (5 Comments)

The Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors (CIIA), which recently complained that some of the UK’s major broadband ISPs operated without an internal audit (here) – potentially exposing them to “unchecked risks and increasing the likelihood of corporate collapse“, has now sought to drum up new business by pressing the government to make it a requirement of their revised telecoms security code.