Broadband News

News, views and analysis

"Universal" broadband - the devil is in the detail.

29 Jan 2009 | 22.21 Europe/London
Reading and re-reading the interim Digital Britain report it becomes clear that less is promised than some headlines would suggest.

Digital Britain report promises up to 2Mb broadband for all by 2012 and hints at indefinite licences to bring in the mobile operators

29 Jan 2009 | 16.06 Europe/London

Stephen Carter’s interim Digital Britain report was published today as more of a conversation starter than a list of proposed policies some may have wished for.

TalkTalk launches 'Emergency Plan' to avoid disconnections

28 Jan 2009 | 13.25 Europe/London

TalkTalk is launching an 'Emergency Plan' today which gives existing customers six months internet connection and access to their TalkTalk home phone plan for free, leaving them to pay just the line rental each month.

Sky’s warning for ‘09: Fastest growing ISP sets sight on the 83% of its tv subscribers yet to take up Sky’s bundled broadband

28 Jan 2009 | 10.50 Europe/London

Sky unveiled quarterly figures which it suggests makes it the country’s fastest growing broadband provider and warned rivals that it feels there is still much growth yet to come through converting more of its 9.

BA announces transatlantic mobile internet service

26 Jan 2009 | 17.24 Europe/London

BA is due to launch what it claims will be the first transatlantic mobile internet service from a UK airline when it launches its new London City to JFK business class only route this Autumn.

Profile: Notspot campaigner, Lindsey Annison, suspects Digital Britain report will not tackle digital divide

23 Jan 2009 | 10.43 Europe/London

There are many people eagerly anticipating Stephen Carter’s Digital Britain report this week but long-time ‘notspot’ campaigner and author, Lindsey Annison, is fearing the report’s recommendations will not go far enough in bringing broadband to rural communities and those on the wrong side of the existing digital divide.

Consumer Panel surveys fibre activity

23 Jan 2009 | 08.33 Europe/London
The Communications Consumer Panel, the artist formerly known as the Ofcom Consumer Panel, has produced a report on 40 or so fibre based initiatives to provide faster broadband access in various locations across the UK.

Profile: TalkTalk’s Sylvain Thevenot on why line ‘tweaking’ and IPTV are more pressing in ’09 than mobile broadband

22 Jan 2009 | 15.34 Europe/London

Sylvain Thevenot can understand why many people believe his appointment last autumn as TalkTalk’s senior director of products and strategy means the ISP is aiming to launch a mobile broadband service.

Wi-Max carrot should boost fibre roll out, innovation group insists

21 Jan 2009 | 12.20 Europe/London

The National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (Nesta) is calling on the Government to think more creatively about how it could encourage fibre to be rolled out by rewarding companies with digital radio spectrum for Wi-Max use.

Virgin Media launches Setanta Replay as part of continued video on demand drive

19 Jan 2009 | 10.32 Europe/London

Virgin Media is launching Setanta Replay today which gives its top tier customers free video on demand replays of sporting action for up to a week after it is first broadcast.

Be to combat congestion hotspots with network upgrade

16 Jan 2009 | 19.44 Europe/London

Be customers are being promised a multi million pound network improvement scheme which should start easing congestion within a month to six weeks.

Avanti to supply Northern Ireland satellite broadband

16 Jan 2009 | 09.52 Europe/London
Northern Ireland's DETI have funded

CLA go hunting for Notspots

16 Jan 2009 | 09.24 Europe/London
The CLA have drawn attention to rural broadband notspots in a

70% of UK customers would defect for higher speed: Sky users least likely to churn

14 Jan 2009 | 11.30 Europe/London

Sky customers are the least likely to switch their ISP, independent research from Strategy Analytics reveals.

New email rules not an extension of police powers, privacy lawyer argues

13 Jan 2009 | 21.33 Europe/London

Privacy campaigners have ushered in the new year with warnings that new EU rules compelling ISPs to keep a record of email communications for a year are an infringement of civil liberties.

Broadband sale at O2

13 Jan 2009 | 11.54 Europe/London
O2 Broadband are offerring 3 months free service up to the end of January for subscribers to their Premium and Pro "up to 20M" LLU services, costing £9.

Broadband USO - how about satellite ?

13 Jan 2009 | 11.44 Europe/London
BeyonDSL has tweaked its 2-way satellite offerring using

SamKnows: The real state of the UK's Broadband market

08 Jan 2009 | 10.00 Europe/London

  • UK consumers on average receive a maximum speed of 4.3Mbit/s

  • Customers with an ‘up to 8Mbit/s’ package received, on average, a speed of 3.

No imminent Vat reductions from TalkTalk or Sky

06 Jan 2009 | 17.19 Europe/London

The Vat reduction was passed on by most major ISPs at the end of last year with the notable exceptions of TalkTalk and Sky, and it looks likely to stay that way for the time being.

Year of opportunity for O2 and Sky ?

05 Jan 2009 | 12.58 Europe/London
At the end of Q1 2008 OFCOM reported 16.

Job creation via broadband ?

04 Jan 2009 | 15.41 Europe/London
Gordon Brown appears to be contemplating throwing money at the impending unemployment crisis by "creating" 100,000 jobs through investment in a range of infrastructure projects.