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Articles for Category Tag - Politics

North Yorkshire UK Targets 97% Superfast Broadband Coverage

8th October, 2020 (6 Comments)

The North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) will next Tuesday vote on a key decision to award the contract for Phase 4 of their Superfast Broadband North Yorkshire (SFNY) project, which is worth £12.5m and predicted to push local “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) coverage up to 97% (currently 92%).

SMF Report Warns 2025 Gigabit Broadband Target to be Missed UPDATE

7th October, 2020 (15 Comments)

A new report from the Social Market Foundation (SMF), which is a British cross-party think-tank, has warned that the Government is “unlikely to meet its target” of deploying gigabit-capable “full fibre to the premises” broadband to all by the end of 2025 without “significant policy reform.”

Questions for UK Gov as EU Court Rules on Internet Data Snooping

6th October, 2020 (12 Comments)

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has this morning issued a ruling that appears to impose restrictions on the general and indiscriminate retention of phone and internet data, which raises some new questions for the UK Government’s Investigatory Powers Act (IPAct) – also known as the “snoopers charter.”

Quickline Secure £1.8m North Lincolnshire Broadband Contract

5th October, 2020 (0 Comments)

Broadband ISP Quickline (part of the Bigblu group) has today won its third state aid supported UK broadband delivery contract in the space of a month. The latest deal is worth £1.8m and will see the operator expand their fixed wireless and “full fibre” network to cover 1,500 extra premises in rural parts of North Lincolnshire.

Court Clears £800m Sale of OneWeb’s LEO Broadband Satellites

3rd October, 2020 (12 Comments)

The US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has officially approved the £800m ($1bn) sale of OneWeb to the UK Government and Bharti Global (here), which paves the way for the satellite ISP to continue creating a constellation of 650 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites for ultrafast low-latency broadband.

5G Rollout Delays May Cost UK £41bn in Lost Economic Output

2nd October, 2020 (7 Comments)

A new report from the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) think-tank, which was penned by former Government advisers Alex Jackman and Nick King, has claimed that the UK’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is “at risk without a faster 5G rollout” – to the tune of £41 billion. But they have a few recommendations to fix that.

5,000 Herefordshire UK Premises in Ledbury to Get 1Gb Fibre

1st October, 2020 (11 Comments)

A new deal between the state aid supported Fastershire project, rural broadband ISP Gigaclear and rival network builder FullFibre looks set to result in 5,000 premises across the Herefordshire town of Ledbury gaining access to a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

Q2 2020 Progress Update on Wales BT FTTP Broadband Rollout

30th September, 2020 (14 Comments)

The Welsh Government has issued a progress update on their £52.5m Phase 2 Superfast Cymru contract with BT (Openreach), which is deploying a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover a further 39,000 premises. The data to June 2020 shows that 9,895 have so far been completed.

BT Predicts Gigabit Broadband for All UK by 2027 with £9bn in Cuts

28th September, 2020 (33 Comments)

The CEO of BT Group, Philip Jansen, has warned MPs that at the current pace it will take until 2033 to achieve universal UK coverage of gigabit-capable broadband, or 2027 if some £9bn worth of cuts in tax (e.g. business rates) and red tape can be found. Considerably later than PM Boris Johnson’s target for 2025.

Quickline Win £8.1m Lincolnshire Superfast Broadband Contract

23rd September, 2020 (2 Comments)

UK ISP Quickline, which is part of the Bigblu group, has today won another £8.1m contract that will see them extend their fibre optic fed Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network to cover a further 8,000 premises (homes and businesses) in rural parts of Lincolnshire with “superfast” (30Mbps+) and “ultrafast” (100Mbps+) broadband.

Ex-BT CEO to Help UK Gov Hunt for New Telecoms Suppliers

23rd September, 2020 (6 Comments)

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has announced that the Ex-BT CEO and former trade minister, Lord Ian Livingston, will lead a new “Telecoms Diversification Task Force” to help diversify the UK’s telecoms (mobile and broadband) supply chain and reduce reliance on high-risk vendors like Huawei.

Lord Vaizey’s Comical Anecdote for Poor Rural UK Mobile Cover

23rd September, 2020 (16 Comments)

The UK’s former Culture and Digital Minister (2010 – 2016), Lord Vaizey of Didcot, gave his Maiden Speech this week in the House of Lords, during a debate on the new Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill. As part of that he included an amusing anecdote about the impact of his earlier inability to solve rural mobile coverage.

7 West Midlands 5G-Enabled Road and Rail Trials Set to Go Live

22nd September, 2020 (2 Comments)

The state aid supported West Midlands 5G (WM5G) programme has today announced 7 UK-based consortiums, which will each share funding of £2.4m to support the development of new 5G (mobile broadband) based products and services to help “transform transport across the region.”

OneWeb Set to Restart Launches of LEO Broadband Satellites

21st September, 2020 (9 Comments)

Space company OneWeb, which is now owned by a consortium of the UK Government and Indian conglomerate Bharti Global (here), has today confirmed that they will begin sending their high-speed broadband capable Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellites into orbit again from December 2020.

Scottish Government Invests £4m to Boost Interest in 5G Mobile

17th September, 2020 (0 Comments)

The Scottish Government (SG) has today announced a new funding package of £4 million, which will be used to establish a new “national network of hubs” – S5GConnect Hubs – to help accelerate the adoption of ultrafast 5G based mobile (mobile broadband) technology across Scotland.

Alternative UK Fibre ISPs Support Common Wholesale Platform Idea

16th September, 2020 (12 Comments)

Research from the Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA) has claimed that 88.7% of the UK’s challenger alternative broadband network (AltNet) providers would support the creation of a common platform, through which they could provide wholesale services to third-party providers.

New 4G Emergency Services Network Faces Another 2 Year Delay

16th September, 2020 (18 Comments)

The Permanent Secretary for the UK Home Office, Matthew Rycroft, has informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the new 4G based Emergency Services Network (ESN) is now unlikely to completely take over from the existing platform until early 2024 or late 2025. Previously it was due by December 2022.