Companies news January 2017
Wednesday, February 1, 2017 - 14:11
- ISP Review reported that Openreach had started the deployment phase for its new G.fast pilot, which by the end of March 2017 should have been rolled out to 138,000 homes and businesses in 17 places across the United Kingdom (more background on G.fast here and here; also see uSwitch).
- ISP Review also reported that BT is testing co-existence of G.fast and VDSL2 in up to 17.6MHz of spectrum, on the impact of full cabinets on FTTC services and that Openreach intends to run a provision trial of their new Dark Fibre Access (DFA) product between August and September 2017 before the launch of the service in October 2017 (more background on this here).
- BT published its results for the third quarter to 31st December 2016. Openreach “achieved our highest ever fibre broadband net connections at 498,000, taking the number of homes and businesses connected to our fibre broadband network to 7.2m, or 27% of those passed. Service providers other than BT added 238,000 or 48% of the total net connections, demonstrating the market-wide demand for fibre…Our plans for deploying ultrafast broadband are on track and we’re now offering to connect FTTP free of charge to developers of 30 or more homes. We continue to extend our G.fast pilot coverage and, combined with FTTP, we’ll be able to offer ultrafast broadband to 500,000 homes and businesses by April 2017.”
- BT also reported that The Yard in North Bristol is the 200th community in the country to sign a jointly funded deal with BT to get faster broadband. The project involves funding from the local community and Openreach, as well as a £6,426 grant from BT’s Community Fibre Partnerships programme.
- Openreach announced the appointment of independent board members “to oversee strategy, investment and service delivery”; this comes in advance of an agreement over the relationship between Openreach and the rest of BT (more on this here and also see commentary from ISP Review).
- BT and Virgin Media agreed a new five year mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement under which EE will provide wholesale mobile network services to Virgin Media.
- Virgin Media announced that 4,500 homes and businesses in Louth, Lincolnshire will be the next to benefit from its Project Lightning network expansion.
- CityFibre announced Stirling and Aberdeen as its latest gigabit cities; ISP Review reported that the first business are now live on CityFibre’s network in Northampton.
- Hyperoptic announced that Bellway at QEII, a development of new homes in Welwyn Garden City, will be the first garden city housing development in the UK to offer its residents symmetrical gigabit speeds.
- Cable reported that Sky has stopped selling broadband services to customers who can’t get speeds above 2Mbit/s because it wants to give its customers “the best experience and service”. It also reported that its Sky Q TV service expected to launch in 2018 will be delivered over broadband without the need for a satellite dish (more here).
- The Telegraph reported that O2 and Vodafone are renegotiating their sharing of mobile masts in a bid to speed up rollouts and keep pace with BT’s coverage expansion plans. Their current deal has been in place since 2012.
- The Telegraph also reported that O2 has asked Ofcom to impose tighter restrictions on the proportion of the mobile airwaves BT can control ahead of its forthcoming auction of spectrum in the 2.3 and 3.4 GHz bands.
- Vodafone announced that the Wortwell Bell Inn, on the outskirts of Harleston in South Norfolk, is the first community hub to receive indoor 3G coverage under Vodafone’s Community Indoor Sure Signal (CISS) programme. The femtocell initiative provides 3G mobile coverage throughout a building when connected to an existing broadband line.
- Finally ISP Review reported that the £700k publicly funded Aylesbury Vale Broadband project has now extended the ducting network for their fibre network to the village of Hoggeston (more background on this here).
