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Articles for Category Tag - Politics

Calls for Scottish Government to Rethink Rural Broadband Vouchers

12th February, 2024 (1 Comment)

The Shetland MSP, Beatrice Wishart, has called on the Scottish Government (SG) to “rethink” the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS) after it was revealed that only around 3-4% of the c.80,000 homes and businesses eligible for support under this measure had taken it up.

Car traffic light trail on city road by 123rf

Full Fibre Expansion for London Boroughs of Wandsworth, Merton and Richmond

6th February, 2024 (15 Comments)

A new project has claimed that “residents and businesses” across the London UK boroughs of Wandsworth, Richmond upon Thames and Merton will benefit from the rollout of a new full fibre broadband and Ethernet network, which is being supported by Boldyn Networks, the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Transport for London (TfL).

Connexin Win Gigabit Broadband Rollout for Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire

6th February, 2024 (2 Comments)

Network operator and UK ISP Connexin has today announced that they’ve secured a contract under the Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout programme, which will see them extend their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to 34,320 hard to reach premises in parts of Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire (Lot 10).

CityFibre Win Five Big UK Project Gigabit Broadband Contracts

6th February, 2024 (55 Comments)

CityFibre has today secured another five of the UK government’s Project Gigabit broadband rollout contracts, totalling over £394m. The deals will spread their full fibre (FTTP) ISP network to over 202,000 hard to reach premises across parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Sussex, Kent, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire & Milton Keynes.

Vodafone Confirm Three UK Merger Under National Security Probe

5th February, 2024 (34 Comments)

The CEO of Vodafone Group, Margherita Della Valle, has revealed that their proposed mega-merger with Three UK (CK Hutchison) is being reviewed by the Government under the National Security and Investment Act 2021, which reports suggest is linked to CKH’s perceived ties to China and any potential risks of access to sensitive national infrastructure.

Works to lay new paving slabs and temporary footpath closed red warning sign on London sidewalk by 123rf

Gigabit Broadband Still Top Digital Priority for UK Councils

2nd February, 2024 (9 Comments)

Technical UK consultancy firm FarrPoint has today published their second annual (2024) survey of digital leaders at councils across England, Scotland and Wales. The results reveal that getting more areas covered by gigabit broadband is still the top priority for the second year running, while 5G divides opinion.

mobile network speed test on UK smartphone

UK Struggles in 2024 Country Ranking of Mobile Broadband Speeds

1st February, 2024 (18 Comments)

Crowdsourced benchmarking firm Opensignal, which collects data from consumer speedtests, has today published a new summary of mobile broadband (4G and 5G) speeds across Europe – based on data from Q4 2023. But if you want to find the UK, you’ll need to look toward the bottom of the tables.

Openreach Bring FTTP Broadband to Half of All Premises in Wales

31st January, 2024 (12 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has revealed that their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network has now been deployed to cover 50% of properties in Wales. The coverage equates to a total of 816,000 premises (up from 700k in July 2023) and reflects an investment of £240m+ (up from £210m).

Central London UK Broadband Picture 2024 - 123rf

Local London Set Strategy to Tackle Gigabit Broadband Notspots

31st January, 2024 (5 Comments)

The Local London organisation, which is one of four sub-regional partnerships in the UK’s capital city, has today published a new Digital Infrastructure Strategy, which among other things aims to tackle over 150,000 premises in south and east London that “do not have access to high speed – Gigabit capable – internet connections“.

Cityfibre UK Complete Bury St Edmunds FTTP Broadband Build

30th January, 2024 (9 Comments)

CityFibre has announced that they’ve completed their “primary build” of a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network in the Suffolk (England) town of Bury St Edmunds. The network is now Ready for Service for over 16,000 homes, which is said to reflect about 81% of homes and most businesses in the town.

LNER-Mobile-Upgrade-Engineers-on-East-Coast-Mainline

Better Mobile Coverage Getting Closer on East Coast Mainline

29th January, 2024 (3 Comments)

The London North Eastern Railway (LNER) has reported that their joint project to deploy new 4G / 5G mobile network infrastructure into train tunnels outside London King’s Cross station has reached a key milestone, with a new (bespoke) antenna being installed inside the Gasworks and Copenhagen tunnels.

Pound sterling broadband voucher by 123rf (100296328)

Gov Eligibility Conflict Disrupts Some UK Gigabit Broadband Builds

27th January, 2024 (15 Comments)

A tricky conflict over eligibility for gigabit broadband vouchers and state aid subsidised contracts via the UK Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit scheme, which is overseen by the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) agency, appears to be disrupting the roll-out of full fibre (FTTP) networks in some rural parts of the country.

Competition Watchdog Investigates Vodafone and Three UK Merger UPDATE

26th January, 2024 (47 Comments)

In an expected development, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has today launched a formal Phase 1 investigation into the proposed mega-merger (here) between mobile operators Three UK and Vodafone, which will slash the number of mobile operators in the market from four to three and may impact upon competition, consumer prices, jobs and security.

O2 UK Highlights New Masts to Boost Shetland 4G Mobile Cover

24th January, 2024 (7 Comments)

Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today highlighted the deployment of a new mobile mast to boost 4G (mobile broadband) coverage on the remote rural Shetland island, which sits far away off the north coast of Scotland. Several more masts are due to follow under the £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project.

Scottish Government to Evaluate £600m R100 Broadband Project

24th January, 2024 (4 Comments)

In an unsurprising development, the Scottish Government recently issued a new contract notice to help it commission an evaluation study of their £600m Reaching 100% (R100) “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) rollout programme with Openreach (BT), which will aim to assess the project’s Value for Money.

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.