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Articles for Category Tag - Politics

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.

Project-Gigabit-UK-Gov-Investment-Scheme-2025

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).

ip address Fiber optic cables for backbone lines on blue network background

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.

Building Digital UK Publish Annual Report, Accounts and Fraud Data for 2024 – 2025

23rd October, 2025 (0 Comments)

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, which oversees their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband roll-out and the Shared Rural Network (SRN) programme for upgrading 4G coverage in remote areas, has today published their combined annual progress report and accounts for the period 1st April 2024 to 31st March 2025. This also includes some data on the level of fraud in their programmes.

Quickline-engineers-planning-broadband-work

Quickline Bring FTTP Broadband to 6 More East Yorkshire UK Villages UPDATE

23rd October, 2025 (1 Comment)

Alternative network ISP Quickline, which is rolling out a new gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) and wireless (FWA) broadband network across rural parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England (3-Year Rollout Plan), has just extended their fibre network to three more rural communities along the banks of the River Ouse – the villages of Swinefleet, Reedness and Whitgift. Plus Patrington, Tickton and Broomfleet in other areas.

fibre optic connection to house by 123rf

20 Broadband Altnets Launch New UK Network Infrastructure Sharing Venture

22nd October, 2025 (17 Comments)

The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), which represents many of the UK’s alternative broadband ISP networks, has announced that their efforts through the previously announced Infrastructure Sharing Group (ISG) have now resulted in the creation of a new infrastructure sharing venture – supporting the use of 500,000km of “spare fibre capacity“.

UK fibre optic gigabit broadband map CoPilot for MJ on 12092024

Major UK Banks Scale Back Support for Alternative Broadband Networks

22nd October, 2025 (11 Comments)

Two of the largest backers of the UK’s alternative broadband networks, NatWest and Lloyds, have now scaled back new lending to the heavily indebted sector. The move follows an earlier report in August 2025 (here), which revealed that a number of banks had set aside funding to cover loans issued to altnets (now deemed unlikely to be repaid in full).

Major UK Pension Funds Commit £40m to Improve Rural Broadband UPDATE

20th October, 2025 (7 Comments)

The UK Government has announced the launch of the Sterling 20 initiative, which is a partnership of the country’s twenty largest pension funds and insurance companies (Nest, Aviva, Legal & General, M&G etc.) that have all agreed to pump extra investment into local infrastructure and businesses to boost growth. Rural broadband will be one of the winners.

Shetland Expecting Fix for Broken Subsea Fibre Cable to Occur Next Weekend

18th October, 2025 (2 Comments)

Homes and businesses on Shetland, which is a remote UK subarctic archipelago that resides north of the Scottish mainland, could see the full restoration of local broadband services by around next weekend. Connectivity was disrupted earlier this month after Storm Amy caused damage to the main SHEFA-2 (Faroese Telecom) subsea fibre optic cable (here).

Derbyshire County Council Commits £900k to Plug Rural Broadband Gaps UPDATE

18th October, 2025 (0 Comments)

The Derbyshire County Council (DCC) in England has agreed to invest £900,000 to support the launch of two grant programmes, which will aim to improve broadband connectivity in at least some of the communities – predominantly rural ones – that are currently still expected to miss out on access to faster connections.

BT Group Warn UK Gov Not to Choke Broadband Investment with Biz Rates Hikes

16th October, 2025 (19 Comments)

The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of BT Group, Simon Lowth, has called on the UK government to “rethink” its proposed changes to UK business rates, which they warn could “risk a slowdown” in digital infrastructure (broadband and mobile) investment and lead to “higher bills” for consumers and businesses.

Ofcom Reveal Initial Results of UK 5G Mobile Auction for 26GHz and 40GHz

16th October, 2025 (12 Comments)

The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, has this morning revealed the initial (principal stage) results from their auction of the 26GHz and 40GHz millimetre wave (mmW) spectrum bands for use by 5G mobile (mobile broadband) operators, which saw EE (BT), O2 (Virgin Media) and Vodafone (VodafoneThree) pay a combined £39m to secure more airwaves.