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Articles for Category Tag - Politics

Clarifying Scotland’s R100 Broadband Rollout Progress UPDATE

19th January, 2024 (8 Comments)

Yesterday the First Minister of the Scottish Government, Humza Yousaf, revealed that the £600m Reaching 100% (R100) broadband upgrade project with Openreach (BT) “remains on track to complete build … by 2028” and had so far covered “more than 36,100 premises“. But in October 2023 the figure was stated as 42,000, so which is correct?

Fibrus-Trainee-Engineers-via-Project-Gigabit

Job Losses as UK Full Fibre ISP Fibrus Start Redundancy Process UPDATE

19th January, 2024 (21 Comments)

In a perhaps unsurprising development, given recent news, Infracapital-backed broadband ISP Fibrus, which is building a new full fibre (FTTP) network across Northern Ireland and parts of North England, have begun a redundancy consultation that is expected to result in an unspecified number of job losses among their civil engineers.

price-rise-uk-broadband-and-mobile-households

Jan 2024 Inflation Figures Reveal UK Broadband ISP Price Hikes

17th January, 2024 (22 Comments)

The Office for National Statistics has published their latest UK inflation figures, which saw the Consumer Price Index fall to 4% (down from 10.5% this time last year) and the Retail Price Index reach 5.2% (down from 13.4%). As a result, we now know how big the annual inflation-linked price hikes will be from most of the major UK ISPs.

Government Confirms Gigabit Broadband Covers 80 Percent of UK

15th January, 2024 (21 Comments)

The Government has today confirmed that 80% of the United Kingdom now has access to a gigabit-capable broadband ISP network, which marks good progress on their way to achieving at least 85% coverage by 2025, and then “nationwide” (c.99%) coverage by 2030. But most of the progress so far has been fuelled by commercial builds.

Devon UK Use BT Broadband Gainshare to Tackle Council Deficit

15th January, 2024 (8 Comments)

The Devon County Council (DCC) in England has confirmed that it plans to use £7.8 million returned by BT, which relates to the clawback (gainshare) mechanism in past rural broadband upgrade contracts, to help plug the local authority’s financial deficit – instead of reinvesting it into further broadband upgrades.

BT and EE Explore Starlink to Boost UK Broadband and Mobile

15th January, 2024 (10 Comments)

National telecoms giant BT (EE) has reportedly entered into talks that could eventually see them harnessing SpaceX’s global constellation of Starlink ultrafast low-latency broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which could be used to help improve both internet and mobile connectivity to remote areas.

A Look at UK Domain and IP Address Seizures in the Criminal Justice Bill

12th January, 2024 (16 Comments)

The new UK Criminal Justice Bill (CJB), which was first tabled in parliament toward the end of last year, includes a number of interesting new powers that can force Regional Internet Registries, Local Internet Registries or Internet Service Providers (ISP) to suspend internet domain names and IP addresses used for criminal purposes.

Fibrus Grow FTTP Broadband Cover in Cumbria to 36K Premises

11th January, 2024 (6 Comments)

Infracapital-backed broadband ISP Fibrus, which is building a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across Northern Ireland and parts of North England, has revealed that their deployment in Cumbria has now reached 36,000 premises (including nearly 12,000 across the town of Workington).

MS3 Error Sees Broadband Poles Installed in Historic Monument Area

11th January, 2024 (18 Comments)

Fibre optic network builder MS3 has apologised after a mistake resulted in several of its new telecoms poles being erected within an area of Hedon (East Yorkshire) that has Scheduled Monument status. The government-linked Historic England agency said consent had not been granted ahead of the work.

Jeremy Hunt UK MP Standing Outside Next to Lake

Questions After UK Chancellor Says CMA May Probe Mid Contract UK ISP Price Hikes

11th January, 2024 (46 Comments)

The UK Government’s Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has, in a new ITV interview with MSE’s Martin Lewis, raised a few questions after he proposed to ask the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to probe mid-contract prices hikes by broadband ISPs and proclaimed that the network costs for providers “don’t go up at all.“

New UK BT Group CEO Allison Kirkby to Start Job on 1st Feb 2024

8th January, 2024 (10 Comments)

Broadband, mobile and technology giant BT Group (inc. Openreach, Plusnet and EE) has this afternoon revealed the start date for their future CEO, Allison Kirkby, who will now officially replace Philip Jansen in the role on 1st February 2024. Allison was named as the group’s new CEO last year (here), albeit without a solid handover date.

AltNet UK Broadband Engineers Unfairly Accused of Exposing Sites to Cyber Attack UPDATE2

2nd January, 2024 (38 Comments)

A major UK newspaper has suggested that some alternative broadband operators, many of which are deploying new gigabit-capable full fibre ISP networks, are being “lazy” by failing to hand over information about “when and where they are working on BT’s network“, which allegedly risks “exposing hospitals and banks to cyber attacks“.

BT Miss Deadline to Remove All Huawei Kit from UK Core Network UPDATE

2nd January, 2024 (54 Comments)

Telecoms giant BT (EE), and possibly several other UK network operators, have reportedly missed the 31st December 2023 deadline to remove Huawei’s equipment from their network cores. This puts them at risk of being fined up to 10% of their revenue or £100,000 per day for every day that they fail to comply.

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

2024 New Year Honours for TalkTalk CEO and Tove Valley Broadband Leader

30th December, 2023 (20 Comments)

The UK Government has published the New Year Honours List for 2024, which sees the CEO of UK ISP TalkTalk, Tristia Harrison, being named a Dame for services to telecommunications. The Founder and Chair of the Tove Valley Broadband project, Eric Malcomson, also picked up an MBE for services to his community.

World-broadband-download-and-upload-speeds

2023 vs 2022 – UK Broadband and Mobile Speeds vs the World

30th December, 2023 (21 Comments)

As usual, we’re ending 2023 by taking a look back to see how the United Kingdom’s position, at least in terms of the top 50 fastest countries for both fixed broadband ISP and mobile (4G, 5G) data speeds, has changed since 2022. The UK fell from 44th to 51st for mobile and was unchanged at 56th for fixed lines.

fair isle picture from Openreach Dec 2023 PR

Full Fibre Rollout to Remote Fair Isle Sets New Openreach Record

28th December, 2023 (16 Comments)

Openreach (BT) has announced that they’ve managed to bring their gigabit Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network to the remote Fair Isle, which is a tiny island that sits around halfway between Shetland and the Orkney islands (Scotland) – the longest distance (100km) they’ve been able to transmit a continuous fibre signal anywhere in the UK.

Wi-Fi icon, sign. Vector illustration. Flat design. Connect green sign. Blue background.

Mayor of London Ponders Single FREE Open Access WiFi Network

27th December, 2023 (44 Comments)

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has launched a new consultation to investigate the possibility of launching a free city-wide public WiFi broadband network that would be open-access for everybody to use. The suggestion being that users wouldn’t need to go through the usual sign-up / login processes and could simply connect.