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Articles for Category Tag - Statistics

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).

Broadband ISP TalkTalk UK Predicts Data Traffic Growth to 2027

22nd February, 2023 (3 Comments)

UK ISP TalkTalk has revealed that peak internet usage on their broadband network is higher now than it was during the height of the pandemic, having risen by a fifth (21%) since 2020, with the average evening peak of 7.23Tbps (Terabits per second) in 2022 vs 5.95Tbps in 2020. But come 2027 it’ll be much higher.

Ookla Q4 2022 Study Sees Rise in UK Starlink Broadband Speeds

22nd February, 2023 (3 Comments)

Ookla, which runs the popular Speedtest.net service, has published their latest Q4 2022 report into the internet download, upload and latency performance for UK customers – and other countries – on SpaceX’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based Starlink ultrafast broadband satellites. The good news is that speeds seems to be rising again.

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Ofcom Predicts UK to Hit 50% Full Fibre Coverage in March 2023

17th February, 2023 (14 Comments)

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today used its latest data to predict that the country will finally achieve 50% coverage of full fibre (FTTP/B) broadband ISP networks in March 2023, which is actually slightly down from the prior prediction of 55% that they issued in December 2022.

LINX and UK Broadband ISPs See Huge 15th Feb Traffic Surge UPDATE2

16th February, 2023 (11 Comments)

Internet traffic across UK broadband ISPs surged to a new peak on Wednesday night (15th Feb 2023), with customers of TalkTalk setting a new record of 10.25Tbps (Terabits per second), while Virgin Media hit 24.77Tbps, BT topped 29.11Tbps and the London Internet Exchange (LINX) reached a peak of around 7.87Tbps.

Ookla Warns of Declining UK 5G Mobile Broadband Speeds

15th February, 2023 (41 Comments)

Ookla, which operates the popular internet Speedtest.net service, has warned that median 5G performance (mobile broadband download speeds) are declining in many early launch markets like the United Kingdom, where speeds fell by -38.26Mbps (Megabits per second) year-on-year.

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Top UK Local Authorities by Predicted Full Fibre Growth for 2025

15th February, 2023 (9 Comments)

A new study has attempted to forecast which ten UK local authorities will see the most significant increase in their coverage of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP networks over the next two years. Topping the table were North East Lincolnshire, Oxford and Stevenage.

Feb 2023 – UK Top and Bottom 10 Local Authorities by Full Fibre Cover

14th February, 2023 (10 Comments)

A new biannual update from Point Topic has revealed how the top and bottom 10 UK local authorities have changed to December 2022, at least with respect to their coverage of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband networks. In addition, more than 1.3 million premises can now choose between at least three independent fibre ISPs.

Hyperoptic’s Full Fibre Broadband Covers 1.15 Million UK Homes

14th February, 2023 (8 Comments)

Broadband ISP Hyperoptic has today confirmed that their “full fibre” (FTTP/B) network now covers 1.15 million UK homes, which will need to almost double in order to hit their goal of 2 million by the end of 2023. The provider has also launched a TV campaign to criticise ISPs that adopt “misleading” mid-contract price hikes.

A Quick Look at the Changing Growth of UK Full Fibre AltNets

6th February, 2023 (24 Comments)

We’ve recently been talking a lot about the challenges being faced by alternative broadband network providers (AltNets) and related ISPs in the UK, so it’s worth taking a minute to scan over the latest data from Intelligens Consulting. This summarises the build plans and changing market shares of the largest ten players.

BT Results See Openreach Near 10 Million FTTP Premises Milestone

2nd February, 2023 (30 Comments)

The BT Group has today published their latest Q3 FY23 results to December 2022, which saw the coverage of Openreach’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network reach 9.57 million premises (up by 810k in the quarter vs 805k last quarter) and EE increase their 5G customer based to 8.5 million (up from 8.157m).

Rural UK ISP Truespeed Plans Faster Full Fibre Build for 2023

1st February, 2023 (5 Comments)

Bath-based alternative network UK ISP Truespeed, which is deploying a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of South West England, has today reported that their network now covers 60,000 premises (up from 50k in Sept 2022) and has 13,000 customers (up from 11,500) – 21.67% take-up.

FarrPoint Highlights Broadband Priorities and Challenges for UK Councils

26th January, 2023 (0 Comments)

Technical UK consultancy firm FarrPoint has today published a new report, which surveyed 100 digital leaders at local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales to discover the priorities and challenges they face in upgrading digital infrastructure (e.g. gigabit broadband, 5G mobile etc.).

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Shell Energy Still Attracting Most UK Broadband Gripes in Q3 2022

26th January, 2023 (3 Comments)

The latest Q3 2022 Ofcom survey of UK consumer complaints has, once again, named ISP Shell Energy as attracting the most consumer gripes for both fixed line broadband and landline phone services, while BT and Virgin Mobile did the same for Pay Monthly Mobile services and Virgin Media for Pay TV.

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RootMetrics Benchmark the Top UK Mobile Networks for H2 2022

25th January, 2023 (5 Comments)

Mobile testing firm RootMetrics (Ookla) has today published their latest biannual H2 2022 study of mobile network (4G and 5G) and broadband performance across the United Kingdom, which once again sees EE (BT) come top of every single ranking category. But Three UK is still delivering the goods in terms of 5G speed.

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Telecoms Analyst Firm Expects UK FTTP AltNet Consolidation

23rd January, 2023 (18 Comments)

Telecoms data analysts at global market intelligence firm ThinkCX have published a new update that forecasts how increasing consolidation in the United Kingdom’s overcrowded market for alternative broadband network (altnet) providers could play out during 2023. Needless to say, the new update holds few surprises.

Cityfibre Show Cost Savings of Taking its UK FTTP Broadband Network

19th January, 2023 (36 Comments)

A new study from CityFibre, which is building a 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) network across the UK, has claimed that consumers switching to entry-level broadband plans from ISPs on their network could save as much as £119 in 12 months (rising up to £458 for those requiring 1Gbps speeds). Plus, you can now get an extra £50 discount.

Global Broadband Lines Top 1.34bn as UK Full Fibre Take-up Slows

16th January, 2023 (6 Comments)

New research from Point Topic has revealed that world fixed broadband lines grew by 1.87% (24.59 million) in Q3 2022 to end the quarter on a total of 1.34 billion connections. But the subscriber growth rate of “full fibre” (FTTP/B) networks in the UK appears to have slowed in recent quarters.