The UK Government has today announced that it will run for election to the governing council of the United Nations (UN) telecoms agency – the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) – in order to have more of a say in future standards (broadband technologies etc.) and the allocation of global spectrum (mobile etc.), among other things. […]
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UK Government Seeks Seat at the UN Telecoms Agency’s Council
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EE and BT Celebrate England’s Euro 2020 Final with FREE Data
Customers of mobile operator EE and BT (BTMobile) may be pleased to learn that data usage (mobile broadband) on their network will become free (“zero rated“) from 6pm to midnight on Sunday 11th July 2021, which is of course in celebration of England’s final Euro 2020 football match with Italy. If customers have already used […]
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Virgin Media O2 See UK Internet Traffic Dip for Euro 2020 Final
Cable broadband ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) reported a sharp decrease in internet traffic during England’s Euro 2020 football final against Italy on Sunday, with customers downloading 28% less than at the same time last week. Likewise, mobile operator O2 reported “no significant rise” in data usage. A big part of the reason for this is […]
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Disputes Over Rents Continue to Delay UK Rollout of 5G Mobile
The ongoing UK rollout of ultrafast 5G mobile (mobile broadband) networks by EE (BT), Three UK, Vodafone and O2 (VMO2) is reportedly still being slowed by landowners of existing mast sites, many of which have balked at the significantly reduced annual rents now being proposed by operators. Such disputes are of course nothing new, although […]
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EE and BT Aim to Offer 5G Mobile Anywhere in the UK by 2028
Mobile operator EE and broadband ISP giant BT have today pledged to offer ultrafast 5G mobile solutions “across the entire UK” by 2028 and to “fuse” their mobile, Wi-Fi and fibre broadband infrastructures to realise the potential of the country’s “first fully converged network.” But this isn’t quite universal coverage. At present it’s difficult to […]
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Competition Concerns Raised Over Three UK Mast Sale to Cellnex
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has today raised “competition concerns” over the planned £8.6bn (€10 billion) sale of CK Hutchison Holdings (Three UK) interests in European tower assets (including the UK, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and Sweden) and businesses to Spanish company Cellnex. The deal, which was announced last November 2020 (here) and came […]
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Virgin Media O2 Make Live UK Calls Over New Indoor Mobile Tech
O2 (VMO2) has just become the first UK mobile operator to make live calls from its network using a new Neutral Host In-Building (NHIB) mobile specification, which makes it possible for multiple operators to serve indoor mobile (4G and 5G) coverage to businesses and public venues – somewhat of a complementary approach to OpenRAN. The […]
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M Group Services Acquires UK Infrastructure Firm Waldon Telecom
Infrastructure firm M Group Services, which serves the United Kingdom and Ireland via its various broadband and mobile focused civil engineering brands (e.g. Avonline Networks, magdalene, Morrison etc.), has today announced that they’ve gobbled up Waldon Telecom, a wireless telecom infrastructure service provider. Waldon Telecom works across the wider mobile telecom market and provides Acquisition, […]
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VOXI Offers All UK Customers 5G Mobile At No Extra Cost
Contract-free mobile operator VOXI, which is an MVNO (virtual operator) sibling of Vodafone UK, has today announced that all new and existing customers will be offered the next generation of “superfast” 5G mobile (mobile broadband) technology as standard and “at no extra cost.” The announcement says this “means that every customer will be able to […]
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Virgin Mobile UK Moves to Scrap Pay As You Go Packages UPDATE
Customers of Virgin Mobile’s (Virgin Media) Pay As You Go (PAYG) plans have been informed that the service is “ending” and it will be gradually phased out between October 2021 and January 2022. During this period, customers will find that their SIM “will stop working … if you don’t take any action.” Talk about harsh. […]
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Ofcom Sets Out UK Spectrum Strategy for the Next 10 Years
Ofcom UK has today set out their future spectrum management strategy for the next ten years, which among other things aims to boost support for localised spectrum access (e.g. creating local wireless networks via 5G etc.) and promote greater sharing of existing spectrum in higher frequencies. Radio spectrum is a finite resource and thus the […]
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Virgin Media O2 UK Tests 5G with Satellite Broadband Backup
Mobile operator O2 (VMO2) has begun testing a new “ubiquitous communications” technology in Cornwall (South West England), which has the capability to instantly switch between 5G mobile and satellite broadband if one network becomes unavailable, thus allowing devices to stay connected continuously while on the move. The project, which aims to produce a publicly available […]
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Vodafone and Nokia Build System to Detect Network Problems
Mobile operator Vodafone has announced that they’re rolling out a new machine learning (ML) algorithm across their UK and pan-European mobile network(s), which has been designed with support from Nokia’s Bell Labs R&D division to “detect and correct anomalies [in their network] before they impact customers.” The new Anomaly Detection Service (ADS) autonomously detects if […]
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ASA Ban Three UK TV Ads for Misleading UK’s Fastest 5G Claim
A complaint raised by rival mobile operator Vodafone has today resulted in the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banning two TV adverts for Three UK, one of which “misleadingly” claimed to offer the “UK’s fastest 5G network” (broadband speed) and the other claimed they were the only “real 5G” operator. The only real surprise here, for […]
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O2 UK Claims Strong Mobile Signal Adds GBP10k to House Value
A new YouGov survey of 2,130 UK adults, which was commissioned by O2 (VMO2), has claimed that 70% of house-hunters would be prepared to walk away from a dream home if the local mobile signal wasn’t up to par, while 31% would pay more for a property with a good signal and 20% are prepared […]
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Vodafone UK Reaches 940,000 Fixed Broadband ISP Customers
The latest quarterly results (financial Q1 FY22) from UK ISP and mobile operator Vodafone has today been published, which reveals that their fixed broadband base added another +29,000 customers (vs +35k in the previous quarter) to make for a total base of 940,000. But their mobile base declined again to 16,994,000. As usual, it’s been […]
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Three UK Seek Policy Reform to Connect Rural Areas via 5G WiFi
Mobile operator Three UK, supported by research from CCS Insight, has today called on the Government not to overlook the benefits of “5G WiFi” in their plan to rollout gigabit-capable broadband across the country. Apparently, 5G based Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) could do it “faster and for half the cost of fixed lines.” At present […]
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Virgin Media O2 Continue with Ericsson for Standalone 5G Core
Mobile operator O2 UK (VMO2) has today, perhaps unsurprisingly, announced that their existing relationship with supplier Ericsson will be extended to include deployment of their “cloud native, container-based dual-mode 5G Standalone Core” network. At present, existing 5G mobile (mobile broadband) deployments are actually using Non-Standalone (NSA) hardware and systems, which can still deliver impressive mobile […]
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Telecoms Industry Sees 24 Percent Increase in UK Digging Work
The annual Digging Up Britain 2021 report from LSBUD (Line Search Before You Dig), which provides an online asset search facility to UK civil engineering firms for underground pipes and cables, has reported that there was a 24% increase in the amount of digging work performed by the telecoms industry over the last 12-months. Apparently, […]
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ASA Bans Vodafone Ads for Misleading UK’s Best Network Claim
A complaint by rival mobile operator EE (BT) has prompted the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to ban several of Vodafone’s adverts after they “misleadingly” claimed to be the “UK’s Best Network” or “UK’s best mobile data network” for 4G and 5G services (mobile broadband). As we said last week (here), when Three UK had several […]
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