In its first 30-year strategy, the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland (ICS) has set out plans for the country to have full fibre broadband available for all premises as well as for direct international 5G connections extending further than London.
BT Chief Executive Philip Jansen is reported to have told Prime Minister Boris Johnson that cooperation between rival broadband providers will be required if Johnson is to fulfil his pledge to deliver access to full-fibre broadband nationwide by 2025.
Openreach (BT) has extended its scheme offering free Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) installation for new housing developments of 20 or more properties. Lowering the threshold to 20 from its previous level of 30 or more, Openreach says the scheme will benefit in excess of 13,000 new homes in around 600 housing developments per year.
Worldwide spending on cloud computing infrastructure was up by 37 per cent in 2019, reaching a record-breaking total of $107 billion.
With Microsoft set to end security support for Windows 7 on Tuesday, UK national intelligence and security agency GCHQ has warned people not to conduct internet banking or use emails on devices still using the operating system.
The Scottish government has revealed that work on its R100 plan to extend superfast broadband to every premises in Scotland will now continue past 2023, missing the initial target of 2021. Those who will not be connected on the plan’s original schedule will now be offered a voucher scheme to allow them to access superfast connectivity from commercial providers.
UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has launched its Wholesale Fixed Telecoms Market Review 2021-2026 (FTMR), in which it lays out major proposals to “supercharge” investment in the UK’s fibre broadband networks and ethernet services.
Research from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has highlighted some of the challenges facing small firms in the online marketplace, including poor broadband speeds and fake online reviews.
Herefordshire County Council (HCC) has pledged an investment of up to £500,000 in grants to provide faster broadband to isolated rural communities in the region. The investment will build on the council’s joint rollout with Gloucestershire County Council (GCC): Fastershire. The grants will seek to connect isolated areas not targeted under the current rollout to superfast broadband.
On the eve of the UK’s exit from the European Union, the UK government has issued a warning that free mobile roaming for UK citizens across the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway will cease from the end of the 11-month Brexit transition period, on January 1st 2021.
New UK full fibre internet service provider (ISP) Swish Fibre has announced the first 11 locations for its eventual £250 million 10 Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises network, all of which are in Buckinghamshire.
Telecoms regulator Ofcom has announced proposals to make switching between broadband providers easier and also to ban the sale of locked mobile phones (handsets that require “unlocking” in order to switch mobile networks).
The first customers in Cambridge have been connected to CityFibre’s Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network. The network will eventually reach 60,000 premises in the city, and represents a major expansion on CityFibre’s existing Dark Fibre network.
Fibre optic operator CityFibre has signed the Armed Forces Covenant (AFC), adding that it will provide job and apprenticeship opportunities for armed forces personnel.
UK internet service provider TalkTalk has begun trials of its new ultrafast broadband packages, which will see it utilise Openreach’s (BT) gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises network for the first time.
CityFibre has confirmed that it has begun its rollout of a new 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across the city of Newcastle.
An annual survey by price comparison site uSwitch.com claims to show the UK’s ten fastest and ten slowest streets for broadband download speeds.
Milton Keynes council has issued CityFibre with a “Red Warning” over the service provider’s handling of its £40 million FTTH rollout. The council revealed that it has received four enquiries or complaints per week over CityFibre’s works, which relate to the setting up of a new 1 Gbps capable Fibre to the Home (FTTH) broadband network in the town, supported by ISP Vodafone.
A new analysis of government figures has revealed that UK firms from the finance and insurance sectors invested the most in cybersecurity in 2018-2019.
Mobile operator EE (BT) has announced that it is expanding its new 5G ultrafast mobile broadband network to 14 more towns and cities across the UK. Among the major hubs to benefit from this latest expansion of the network are Liverpool, Glasgow, Maidstone, Wolverhampton and Watford.
Some Plusnet broadband customers who use the Hub One router have been suffering from patchy internet connectivity when connecting to devices using the 5GHz WiFi band.
The UK Labour Party says it has been targeted with a second cyber-attack in the space of two days. Both attacks are said to have taken the form of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, in which networks of compromised computers (known as “botnets”) flood a server with requests in an attempt to overwhelm and take it offline.
A study from UK consumer broadband advice site ThinkBroadband.com has revealed that just over 10 per cent of UK homes now have access to full-fibre broadband. Full-fibre, “gigabit capable”, broadband runs at speeds of 1,000Mbps+.
The UK Government has formally adopted a Statement of Strategic Priorities (SSP), which has seen Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Secretary Nicky Morgan detail a series of priorities for UK telecoms regulator Ofcom.
UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has begun a consultation process on a proposed bulk upgrade project which would require technical changes to Openreach’s (BT) quality of service regulation. However, Ofcom says that the changes would make it more efficient for them to upgrade slower lines to superfast FTTC-based broadband ISP connections.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have revealed that the telecoms industry was the UK’s most rapidly growing sector for research and development (R&D) spending in 2018.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced a £10 million investment to improve London’s fibre infrastructure, using the city’s Tube tunnels and public buildings to create a “fibre-backbone” for the capital.
North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) has announced that the build phase of a £15.1 million full fibre network project has begun. The project will see the rollout of high-speed broadband to 370 public sector sites across the county over the next 18 months. These premises will include council buildings, schools, hospitals and other buildings in the health and education sectors.
Government plans to deliver full-fibre broadband to the whole of the UK by 2025 have been updated as part of the Queen's Speech, which stated that Boris Johnson's target would not be pursued.
A recent survey has revealed that Scottish companies are the least happy with their broadband speeds and connectivity in comparison to the rest of the UK.
A new survey of 1,136 small businesses around the UK has found that 30 per cent failed to achieve download speeds of more than the standard 10Mbps, with the figure further rising to 39 per cent in rural areas.
The Labour Party has pledged that a Labour government would deliver free full-fibre broadband for every home and business across the UK by 2030.
In response to the Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review (FTIR), the UK government has announced a solution to address the issue of allowing gigabit-capable ISPs to access big buildings – multi-dwelling units (MDU) – when landlords fail to respond.
New research from telecommunications giant Openreach, conducted by the Centre for Economics & Business Research, has suggested that giving Scotland access to full-fibre broadband by 2025 will boost its economy by £4.6 billion.
The European ISP Association (EuroISPA) has called for major social media companies like Facebook to delay or cease altogether the weakening of end-to-end encryption across its online messaging platforms.
Cornwall has been described as being the “poster boy” for the development and roll-out of full-fibre superfast broadband, inspiring 50,000 more homes and businesses across the country to upgrade their internet networks as a result.
Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) has announced that UK internet service provider (ISP) Airband and network operator Openreach (BT) have been awarded contracts to assist in the rollout of ultrafast broadband across the county.
Research from uSwitch.com, a price comparison website for thousands of services across the UK, has warned that the roll-out of 5G internet will only benefit one in four people, and will not solve many prominent connectivity issues that plague Britons around the country.
In spite of the growing number of threats to data security across the UK, British CTOs, CIOs and CISOs have pledged their confidence and faith in their organisational security capabilities.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid is expected to announce the first phase of the government’s infrastructure delivery plan worth £25 billion at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester this week.
The Government’s Culture Secretary, Nicky Morgan MP, has made a statement on the Shared Rural Network (SRN), plans announced last week to increase mobile phone coverage across the UK.
Paul Wheelhouse, Scotland’s Minister for Energy, Connectivity and the Islands, has unveiled the 5,000th green cabinet providing fibre broadband across Scotland - a landmark event that has resulted in almost one million Scottish homes being reached by broadband.
A new study has revealed that students moving into student housing in the UK found broadband connectivity to be a top priority. The research, conducted by OnePoll for Hyperoptic full-fibre internet service provider, polled 1,000 students across the country. Its results showed that 88 per cent stated that a strong and reliable broadband connection was most important to them.
BT Group is believed to be in talks with the government about a proposed timetable for switching off copper broadband by 2027. While other broadband infrastructure rivals are thought to be part of the talks, BT is reportedly spearheading the initiative, which has been discussed for a number of weeks.
Broadband providers across the UK are contesting new technology that boosts the security of internet connections, designed to supplement their own outdated content filtering systems.
Facebook has been involved in a new security and data breach wherein 419 million users’ phone numbers have been leaked and discovered online. Sanyam Jain, a security researcher, first reported the hack and noted that he found the information on an unsecured server that did not need a password to gain access.
The Party of Wales - Plaid Cymru - has set out a three-part plan in which it aims to “eradicate Wales of broadband not-spots by 2025.”
An additional £5 million has been awarded to support the Superfast Dorset (SFD) project and the extension of its existing Phase 3 contract. Presently, £7.4 million has been put towards Phase 3, which has seen SFD work alongside Openreach (BT) to bring superfast fibre-to-the-premises broadband speeds of 24Mbps+ to 97 per cent of the county.
In a bid to speed up the roll-out of 5G networks across the UK, and in particular in the countryside, the government has proposed an overhaul of planning rules in England to install bigger and taller mobile phone masts without the need for councils’ permission.
A new report from EY has revealed that 67 per cent of British firms are refraining from adopting new technologies in the fear that they would bring in greater cybersecurity risks to the company.
