Mobile operator 3 says that, due to poor 3G coverage in some areas, some of its customers are unable to even carry out basic web surfing – and it’s revealed how its going to do something about it. Meanwhile, rival firm Virgin Media has unveiled its new “super fast” modem for mobile broadband, featuring a potential top speed that’s double that of its existing offering.

More than 50 free Wi-Fi hotspots are due to be switched on in not-spot areas by a company based around the premise there is more to the technology than fleecing businessmen in airport lounges.
The locations, which include remote Scottish Islands, will be named next week. They won a competition run earlier this year by Freerunner, [...]

Leaked Government documents appear to reveal that the 50p levy on fixed lines intended to fund Britain’s access to super-fast broadband could cost consumers more than previously thought. Accordingly, not only will Value Added Tax (VAT) come in the equation, but we also now appear to have confirmation that households with more than one phone line will be charged separately for each one.

After Swindon unveiled its “Digital City” initiative last week, even Wiltshire residents may be now wistfully looking over to South Yorkshire as the heart of its new Digital Region project goes live. While it may not boast free Internet access, it is promising a “guaranteed” 25Mbit/s service and that its users will “get what they pay for.”

The people of a remote village that they describe as “England’s last wilderness” have started digging the trenches that’ll grant them Next Generation Access (NGA) to broadband, meaning it’ll be far from being the country’s last NGA not-spot. Meanwhile, it’s emerged broadband is increasingly becoming a deal-breaker when it comes to selling homes in rural areas.

How to achieve universal broadband in a country of over 300 million people occupying around 10 million square km?

First Finland, now Spain, will make broadband access at 1 Mbps a legal right.

Free wireless Internet access is being offered everyone living in the Wiltshire town of Swindon. It’s a million pound scheme, with the money coming from a mixture of public funds and private enterprise. However, it’s emerged there’ll be limits on what’s available without charge.

Free home broadband and three months Sky Mobile TV are the baits O2 is to use this Christmas to defend against having to share the iPhone with Orange (and then Vodafone early next year).
The much-loved mobile handheld device has been exclusive to O2 for two years but now the mobile operator finds itself fighting two [...]

BT Group and O2’s parent company Telefónica have both just released their results for the past quarter. With O2 UK now having breached the half-million mark in terms of its broadband subscribers, BT Retail has revealed it now has almost ten times as many people on its books.

The Government’s signed up a UK satellite operator in a bid to help reach the Universal Service Commitment (USC) that was laid out in the Digital Britain report. Avanti Communications is being called on to plug gaps in Britain’s broadband network as Blighty strives for 2Mbit/s access across the board by 2012. Meanwhile, another satellite broadband firm’s just announced its post-tax profits are up by over a third.

100Mbps broadband in Hong Kong costs just US$13/Month.

TalkTalk CEO, Charles Dunstone, is to tell the Government its proposed 50p levy on copper phone lines to fund ‘next generation’ broadband will backfire.
Far from providing a fund which will bring fibre to communities who are likely to miss out on commercial roll outs, Dunstone claims the extra 50p per month will cause more than [...]

The only drawback is the price.

Across the UK almost one in four is a “timid technophobe” – and the percentage is highest in the north east of England. That’s according to new research, put together on behalf of TalkTalk and analysed by a social anthropologist from the University of Kent. It points to their being six “Digital Tribes” and suggests that “your openness to new technology and willingness to embrace it” will soon be more important to your future than your education or economic background.

After BT made the claim that getting tough on Internet piracy would cost around £1 million per day, the body representing the music industry has launched a counter-offensive. BPI boss Geoff Taylor says broadband companies have seen their revenues rising while those of the record business have gone the opposite way because of piracy – and that the ISP’s stance is “just about protecting profits.”

BT has officially announced it’s doubling its so-called “next generation” capabilities – so that it could reach up to seventy-five per cent of UK homes and businesses. But before you get excited with fibre optic dreams, it’s actually talking about ADSL2+.

BT says that clamping down on Internet piracy could cost as much as £1 million per day – and that the consumer is going to have to pick up the bill in the end. John Petter, the firm’s consumer division boss, is warning of a future “arms race” between those who pirate and those who try and police them. Meanwhile, BT is expected to make an announcement about extending its ADSL2+ infrastructure.

O2 has announced it’s going into partnership with BT to set up its first fixed-line service for businesses. Meanwhile, BT itself has finally been shown to the green light to put together its own telecoms bundles that include a fixed-line component.

The UK’s third and fourth biggest mobile phone companies are merging, creating a British telco juggernaut that would become the country’s biggest network. While the Orange and the T-Mobile brands will survive as separate entities until at least 2012 under the terms of the deal, the aim is for £445 million per year to be cut from their combined expenditure by 2014. Meanwhile, the move is another setback for the slow-moving negotiations on the role mobile broadband with play in Digital Britain.