Virgin Media O2 has announced that it has extended its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network to around 4,200 homes in the Midlothian town of Dalkeith. The work, part of the provider’s ongoing Project Lightning, will deliver gigabit-capable broadband to homes in the Woodburn area of the town.
According to a new study from YouGov, commissioned by streaming supplier Netgem, a lack of gigabit-capable broadband is driving a streaming divide between urban and rural areas across the UK.
The UK government has announced that it will seek election to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the governing council for the UN’s telecoms agency. If elected, the UK would serve a four-year term on the council, which is responsible for allocating global radio wave spectrum, satellite orbits and technical telecoms standards.
Full fibre platform CityFibre has announced that it has struck a wayleave agreement with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP Council) to connect 12,000 council premises to the network.
Around 140,000 more homes and business premises based in the North East are set to benefit from a £56 million broadband investment boost, according to Openreach.
UK households require more than just speed promises, a new survey of 2,500 UK consumers has revealed. The new research, conducted by EY found that more than half of homeowners prioritise the reliability of their broadband service over speed, with 29 per cent stating that they have struggled with connectivity problems during the Covid-19 pandemic due to the shift to homeworking.
East of England-focused ISP Lightspeed Broadband has announced the second phase of its potential £300 million full fibre (FTTP) rollout. Following on from the provider’s first phase, which commenced in ten areas of South Lincolnshire and West Norfolk in April 2021, the second stage will see Lightspeed’s network extended to areas in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.
According to a report from the Gigabit Take-up Advisory Group (GigaTAG), led by Which?, take-up of gigabit-capable broadband within the UK is being hindered by a lack of consumer awareness of the technology and its capabilities.
According to a new study, renters are almost twice as likely as homeowners to report that their home broadband connection is average or unreliable, suggesting that a digital divide is emerging between those who rent and those who own their homes.
CityFibre has announced that it has begun its £25 million FTTP rollout in the city of Bath after breaking ground in the area of Weston. The project is expected to be fully completed by 2023, but services will go live for residents as the rollout proceeds, with the earliest connections likely to be available by the end of the year.
Citizens Advice has called for the introduction of cheaper tariffs after revealing that around 2.5 million people are behind on their broadband bills. The Citizens Advice survey found that, of the 2.5 million, 700,000 had fallen behind on their bills during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Upp, a new ISP that was previously known as FibreMe, has announced that it will invest £1 billion as it aims to connect 1 million premises in the East of England to a new gigabit-capable FTTP network by 2025. The new ISP has financial backing from international investment firm LetterOne, which has “fully committed” the financing for the rollout.
Giganet has announced plans to add an additional 22 cities to its existing FTTP partnership with CityFibre. According to the company, it plans to serve more than 1.8 million homes in the South of England. Locations include Bath, Bournemouth, Ipswich, Peterborough and Worcester.
Oneweb and BT have signed and agreement to use satellites to boost broadband capacity and resilience in the most remote rural areas in the UK.
Following BT Group’s decision to raise its FTTP rollout target, Openreach has said that its rural FTTP broadband project has been expanded by a further three million premises. Originally, Openreach was aiming to roll out its gigabit-capable FTTP network to 3.2 million premises across rural UK towns and villages by the end of 2026, but this has now been raised to around 6 million premises.
Openreach has announced that around 400,000 more Scottish homes and businesses will benefit from full fibre broadband thanks to an increase in funding of around £160 million. The leading broadband network provider has also revealed that it will use the additional funding to rollout full fibre to dozens more urban locations, as well as 160 new rural areas.
Wessex Internet has broken ground on its project to deliver FTTP broadband to thousands of premises across South Somerset. Work began with the laying of the first fibre cable in the village of Woolston near North Cadbury.
In the FTTH Council Europe's latest ranking of full fibre penetration across the 39 European nations, the UK has remained third bottom, despite continuing to show strong growth in its full fibre rollout. The study utilised data harvested in September 2020.
Ofcom has released its latest report rating the customer service quality of the UK’s mobile and broadband providers. The survey utilised consumer surveys, complaints to providers and statistics from providers themselves to rate aspects of service including complaint response and call waiting times.
CityFibre has officially started work to deliver its full-fibre network across the town of Cheltenham. The operator says that the £30 million rollout will make full-fibre connectivity available to “almost every” premises in the town.
Community Fibre has announced that it has struck a deal with social housing association EastendHomes to deliver its full-fibre (FTTP) network to 4,000 homes in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
BT has revealed that it will launch a new tariff called Home Essentials, an affordable package aimed at people in the UK who receive benefits such as Universal Credit. The package will offer full fibre broadband at less than half its usual price with more than 4.5 million UK households potentially eligible.
New research from telecoms regulator Ofcom has shown that the UK’s digital divide has narrowed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but a significant minority still lack a proper broadband connection.
The Scottish Conservatives have made delivering full fibre broadband to every premises in Scotland by the end of 2027 one of its five core election pledges and said it would prioritise connecting rural and remote areas in the Highlands.
Work has begun to rollout full fibre broadband to every home and business across the Lancashire town of Preston as part of a £30 million project. CityFibre, the UK's largest independent full fibre platform, has launched its latest city-wide infrastructure rollout in a bid to future proof the digital requirements of the town, beginning in the Frenchwood and Fishwick areas.
According to new data released by UK broadband ISP TalkTalk, the latest weekly broadband figures for the provider’s network show a 13 per cent fall in internet usage in the week of April 12 compared to the previous week.
CityFibre has announced that it will add an additional 7,000 homes to its Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) rollout in Milton Keynes. The provider’s initial build in Milton Keynes, which began in 2018 and was among its first in the UK, had been largely completed by the end of 2020.
Openreach has announced that it will invest over £100 million in Northern Ireland over the next year. The investment will help to improve the country’s full-fibre network and will contribute to Openreach’s aim of connecting 20 million UK premises to full-fibre by the mid to late-2020s.
Community Fibre has announced that it has entered a partnership with Kelly Group, which will see the civil engineering company support the further rollout of Community Fibre’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in London.
UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has confirmed slight inflation-related increases in the amounts to be paid out for poor broadband coverage under its automatic compensation payments system.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden met with leading figures from the UK broadband industry on April 1 to praise the sector for its creation of over 22,000 jobs within the last year.
According to a new report by WIK-Consult, commissioned by CityFibre, a new labelling system with clear information for broadband products in the UK could result in a 40 per cent increase in the take-up of full-fibre broadband services.
CityFibre has announced that it will partner with social housing provider Citizen to extend its full fibre network to more than 18,000 customers in Coventry.
Quickline Communications has begun a rollout which will see it deliver its new 100 Mbps+ capable network to 1,500 premises in rural North Lincolnshire. The project, which follows a £1.8 million investment to improve connectivity in the area, will target premises that are currently unable to access downloads speeds of 30 Mbps or faster.
The UK government has announced the first stages of “Project Gigabit”, its £5 billion plan to deliver gigabit broadband to 85 per cent of the UK by the end of 2025. The first areas to benefit from the project will be over 500,000 premises in Northumberland, Cornwall, Durham, South Tyneside, Tees Valley, Cumbria, Essex, Dorset and Cambridgeshire.
Following telecoms regulator Ofcom’s unveiling of a new plan to stimulate rapid growth in the UK’s broadband infrastructure, BT has said that it will embark on an effort to expand Openreach’s FTTP network to 20 million UK premises by the mid to late 2020s.
The Scottish government has announced that it will begin work this spring on delivering fibre broadband to some of the country’s remote islands through LOT 1 of its Reaching 100% (R100) project. LOT 1, or the North Lot, will connect 15 islands via new subsea cables.
Full fibre broadband ISP CityFibre has announced that it has identified an additional 216 towns and villages across the UK for its network rollout. The additional locations will represent the completion of CityFibre’s planned £4 billion investment.
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee has criticised the government over its plans for the rollout of gigabit broadband and 5G. Prior to its 2019 general election win, the Conservative Party promised that it would make full-fibre broadband available to all premises in the UK by 2025.
Full-fibre broadband ISP Toob has announced that it has begun its rollout in the Surrey towns of Camberley and Frimley. The work is the first step in Toob’s plan to expand its network across 11 towns in Surrey and Hampshire.
UK ISP CityFibre has today launched work to extend its full-fibre network to the borough of North Tyneside. The £50 million private investment will see CityFibre roll out its FTTP network to “almost every” premises in the borough.
Fibre broadband ISP Hyperoptic has announced a partnership with house builder Avant Homes Group, through which the provider will help deliver gigabit capable broadband to around 2,000 households across 22 Avant Homes development sites.
Rural broadband provider Gigaclear has announced plans to extend its FTTP network to over 18,500 premises in the South West of England in 2021. After connecting 12,000 premises across the South West last year, the provider says it plans to accelerate its rollout “through more efficient delivery times and a significant reinvestment in the area.”
New ISP Lightspeed Broadband has announced plans to invest £300 million in rolling out gigabit-capable full fibre broadband to 1 million UK homes by the end of 2025. The rollout will initially begin in the East of England, starting with eight towns in South Lincolnshire and one in Norfolk.
According to a new survey of 2,000 parents from full fibre ISP Truespeed, just 36 per cent of parents say they have a highly reliable broadband connection at home.
Truespeed, which deploys broadband to rural areas across the South West of England, has announced that its next FTTP rollout will be in the city of Bath in Somerset. The provider will also expand its network to surrounding areas, including South Widcombe, Saltford and Keynsham.
CityFibre will this week begin a £110 million project to roll out its new 1 Gbps FTTP network across the city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. The project is scheduled to take five years to complete. Currently, CityFibre has an existing Dark Fibre network in the city, followings its acquisition of KCOM’s UK network assets in 2015.
Telecoms regulator Ofcom has published its proposal for a simplified broadband switching process. The proposals, which will come in from December 2022, are aimed at making it easier for consumers to switch between internet providers on separate networks, following Ofcom research that found around 40 per cent of people were put off from switching because they thought it would be too complex.
Hyperoptic has agreed a deal to expand its full fibre broadband service to 8,000 homes in East London’s Poplar HARCA housing association. The roll out is due to begin immediately.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has launched a consultation featuring several proposed changes to the Electronic Communications Code (ECC), some of which are targeted at improving the rollout of faster broadband, as well as mobile 4G and 5G.
