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Censorship Blocked Website Message by UK ISP

Quad9 Founders on the Dangers of Global DNS Blocks by Rights Holders

30th August, 2023 (13 Comments)

The founders of third-party Domain Name Service (DNS) provider Quad9, including Chief Security Officer, Danielle Deibler, and GM, John Todd, have today spoken to ISPreview about the impact of recent court rulings that will force them to block sites suspected of internet copyright infringement (piracy) at DNS level.

Internet and UK Telecoms Security Picture

UK Court Convicts Lapsus$ Hacker for Breaching ISP BT and EE UPDATE

24th August, 2023 (16 Comments)

The Southwark Crown Court in London has today found an autistic Oxfordshire teenager, Arion Kurtaj (18), responsible for having hacked a number of major companies – including, among others, broadband ISP and mobile giant BT (EE)- while acting as a member of the wider Lapsus$ hacking group.

Mobile giant Vodafone UK and Sky (Comcast) have reportedly two among several "groups" that have approached budget conscious fixed broadband ISP TalkTalk about a potential deal (most likely an acquisition), which in theory could create a much larger provider with more influence over the industry. Just to recap. In 2020 TalkTalk became the subject of a £1.1bn takeover by Toscafund - controlled by hedge fund tycoon Martin Hughes (here), which including debt valued the broadband provider at around £1.8bn. The deal took the ISP private and gave them more financial flexibility for their future plans. Since then, they've backed Freedom Fibre (here) and this week made the notable acquisition of Ethernet provider Virtual1 (here). According to the FT (paywall) and Sky News, TalkTalk is now said to have asked investment bank Lazard to review its options after allegedly being approach by several groups, including Vodafone and Sky (Sky Broadband). Lazard is a logical choice as they recently acted as Financial Advisor to TalkTalk on the Virtual1 transaction. Some industry analysts have reportedly suggested that TalkTalk itself could now be worth "at least" £3bn. But this seems rather optimistic for an ISP that doesn't have any significant fixed line broadband infrastructure to call its own (excluding their old unbundled LLU network) and largely just piggybacks off Openreach (BT), CityFibre and Freedom Fibre. But TalkTalk do have a strong business and wholesale side. Funnily enough, Sky Broadband are in a similar position with their own fixed line base, while Vodafone also likes to piggyback off Openreach and CityFibre. At present, Vodafone has a fixed broadband base of 991,000 customers, while Sky Broadband is estimated to be home to around 6.7 million and TalkTalk has approximately 4.2 million. Suffice to say, anybody gobbling up TalkTalk would instantly become a much larger provider, giving them a greater say in how the UK broadband market develops and more opportunities for convergence (Vodafone with mobile, and Sky with mobile and TV). Crucially, TalkTalk's consumer base is mostly made up of those on older copper and hybrid fibre lines (i.e. ADSL and FTTC / VDSL2), which are ripe for a future migration to FTTP. At the time of writing, all of the aforementioned operators have decline to comment on the reports, and TalkTalk has yet to receive any serious formal offers. In other words, we strongly suspect that this is largely just an exercise in spin to help TalkTalk drum up some more productive interest in the idea. But at the same time, it's not unreasonable to suspect that they might succeed, as the interest seems genuine. On the other hand, we see reports like this every year or so and only a very few ever convert into a serious offer. Time will tell. Much may depend upon whether or not TalkTalk’s new owners are more flexible and pragmatic about doing a deal than the previous lot. Arguably, TalkTalk might have gone much further by now had they taken some different decisions a few years ago (e.g. co-investing in FTTP instead of Pay TV).

Complaints Prompt UK ISP TalkTalk to Suspend Doorstep Sellers in Newcastle

17th August, 2023 (4 Comments)

Budget focused broadband ISP TalkTalk has “suspended all door-to-door sales activity” in the Newcastle area after residents complained about cold calling occurring in parts of the city designated as a No Cold Calling Zone (NCCZ), which should be fairly self-explanatory to everybody, if not so much the sellers themselves, apparently.

Error message concept. Alert, attention notification. Important reminder

Hiya – UK Remains the Worst Place in Europe for Call Fraud

10th August, 2023 (14 Comments)

The latest Q2 2023 data from caller ID verification firm Hiya, which among other things also works with UK broadband ISP BT (EE) to help detect and block SPAM and fraud calls, has revealed that 27.3% of UK calls from non-contacts are spam (79.3 million) and, of that figure, 18% were classified as “nuisance calls” and 9.3% were “fraud calls“.

Internet law uk broadband and telecoms by 123rf

Legal Opinion Warns of “unlawful” Clause in UK Online Safety Bill

19th July, 2023 (12 Comments)

The UK Government’s controversial new Online Safety Bill is facing more criticism today after Dan Squires KC and Emma Foubister of Matrix Chambers issued a legal opinion on its “prior restraint” clause. This suggests that there is “likely to be significant interference with freedom of expression that is unforeseeable and which is thus not prescribed by law“.

Unite Raise Conflict of Interest Concerns Over Vodafone and Three UK Merger

13th July, 2023 (16 Comments)

Unite the Union, which has previously expressed its opposition to Vodafone and Three UK’s proposed merger (here), is attempting to up the ante by pressing some of Vodafone’s largest shareholders (e.g. Blackrock, Vanguard, Norges Bank and local authority pension funds) to take a stand, on conflict of interest grounds, at the next AGM.

Vodafone Warn Gov 5G Targets to be Missed if Three UK Merger Blocked

10th July, 2023 (39 Comments)

The CEO of mobile operator Vodafone, Ahmed Essam, has indirectly warned regulators that a decision to block its attempted merger with Three UK (CK Hutchison) would result in them cutting their investment in digital infrastructure (5G broadband etc.) and being unable to deliver on the Government’s goals.

BT Reveal Cause of 999 Emergency UK Call Handling Outage

30th June, 2023 (25 Comments)

Broadband and telecoms giant BT has revealed that last Sunday’s outage and disruption to their 999 emergency services number, which resulted in 11,470 unique emergency calls being “unsuccessfully connected“, was caused by a “complex software issue” that had never previously been seen through their testing regime.

Cable Thieves Continue to Attack Openreach’s Cambridgeshire Network

28th June, 2023 (21 Comments)

The Cambridgeshire Constabulary has appealed for information after they revealed that Openreach’s UK broadband and phone network in the county had been attacked eight times since May 2023 by criminal gangs, which typically target the theft of underground copper cables and often cause significant service outages.

Vodafone-UK-and-Three-UK-Merger-Illustration

Vodafone and Three UK Sign Agreement for Mobile Mega Merger

14th June, 2023 (73 Comments)

Mobile network operators Vodafone and Three UK (CK Hutchison) have today confirmed that they’ve reached a formal merger agreement, which is said to be worth an estimated £15bn and will see the former party owning a 51% slice of the business (CKH will hold 49%). But they’ll still have to satisfy the regulators, and that may require concessions.

Netflix Account Sharing Add-on Blocked by UK ISP Pay TV Bundles

30th May, 2023 (10 Comments)

Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing in the UK has finally revealed why they needed to discuss the matter with several major UK broadband ISPs (i.e. those that bundle their service with Pay TV products), including Sky Broadband, BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk (here). The new extra member and profile transfer features won’t work on such packages.

Netflix Warns UK Broadband ISPs of Password Sharing Crackdown

16th May, 2023 (23 Comments)

Internet video streaming giant Netflix has reportedly contacted several major UK broadband ISPs that bundle their service with Pay TV products, including Sky Broadband, BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk, to discuss the potential impact on customers of their imminent crackdown on password / account sharing.

ICO Fines UK ISP Ice Comms £80k for Making Illegal SPAM Calls

16th May, 2023 (8 Comments)

Crewe-based broadband and phone provider Ice Telecommunications Ltd (Ice Comms) has been fined £80,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) after they were found to have made 72,682 unsolicited marketing (SPAM) calls to businesses registered with the CTPS or TPS between 13th Sept 2021 and 31st Jan 2022.

Ofcom UK Test New Way to Detect and Block Spoofed Numbers

28th April, 2023 (13 Comments)

Ofcom has today begun seeking feedback from the industry on the potential future adoption of Calling Line Identification (CLI) authentication, which – once the UK has fully transitioned to digital landlines – could be adopted as a new approach to detecting and blocking “spoofed” (fake) phone numbers.

Three UK Coughs to Problems with Emergency Alert Test UPDATE

24th April, 2023 (74 Comments)

Mobile operator Three UK appears to have been one of the worst affected yesterday after many of their customers (including yours truly) did NOT receive a notification during the Government’s nationwide test of their new Emergency Alerts service, despite using supported kit. A smaller portion of users on Vodafone, O2 and EE also had problems.

LetterOne Challenges Gov Order to Sell UK Full Fibre Network

7th April, 2023 (13 Comments)

The investor behind Upp’s £1bn project to deploy a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across 1 million premises in the East of England by 2025 (here), LetterOne, has launched a legal challenge against the UK Government’s order for L1 to sell its entire stake in Upp in order to “prevent, remedy, or mitigate the risk to national security” (here).

Mobile Operators to Test UK Wide Emergency Alerts on 23rd April

20th March, 2023 (39 Comments)

The government and mobile operators have officially started activating the new UK-wide Emergency Alerts service, which has been designed to warn mobile users if there’s a “danger to life nearby” (e.g. severe flooding, fires and extreme weather). But it will only work on modern 4G and 5G Smartphones.