Companies news July 2017

BT/Openreach developments:

• The Government announced that BT had made a detailed voluntary proposal for delivering a universal broadband obligation (USO) of at least 10Mbit/s to premises across the UK. At the same time the Government issued a new consultation on options for a regulatory approach to delivering the USO. The Government will explore both BT’s offer and whether a regulatory approach would work better for UK homes and businesses (more background on the broadband USO here). Earlier in the month Openreach announced a new consultation on options for the large scale rollout of fibre to the premise (FTTP) services.
• Ofcom published a statement  setting out how Openreach will be held to account, as it becomes legally separate from BT, to ensure it delivers for phone and broadband users. Ofcom expects the reformed Openreach to “engage with industry to deliver widespread fibre networks, offering fast, reliable broadband. The new company should provide a good service to meet the needs of all the people and businesses who rely on its network, together with a step change in quality of service.” ISP Review reported on Openreach’s launch of new non-BT branding to demonstrate its independence from the rest of BT.
• The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) found in favour of BT over Ofcom, in relation to Ofcom’s proposals requiring BT to make dark fibre available, following the regulator’s most recent Business Connectivity Market Review (BCMR). The CAT found that Ofcom had made mistakes in its definitions of the business broadband markets in which dark fibre access should be implemented, meaning that new proposals may now have to be prepared. See coverage from uSwitch, ISP Review, Out-Law and Ars Technica.
• BT published its results for Q1 2017: Openreach achieved 437,000 fibre broadband net connections over this period, with providers other than BT accounting for 60% of these. The number of homes and businesses connected is now 8.1m, 30% of those passed. More than 100,000 customers are now connected to BT’s ultrafast broadband, using FTTP and G.fast, with ultrafast services now available to around 550,000 homes.
• Openreach is to provide fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP)  ultrafast broadband connections to more than 9,000 new-build  homes in a dozen developments across Scotland.
• ISP Review reported that Openreach’s trial of Single Order Generic Ethernet Access (SOGEA), which allows consumers to buy a standalone FTTC broadband service, is to be extended until 29th September 2017.
• Lightwave reported that Huawei has conducted a test with Openreach of a symmetrical 25G/100G PON prototype that can deliver an aggregate of 100Gbit/s based on four 25-Gbps wavelengths.

Other news:

• Arqiva and Samsung launched the UK’s first 5G fixed wireless access trial in central London. The primary aim of the trial is to demonstrate the stability of the FWA service, and its potential as a fast-to-market and cost-effective alternative to fibre for connectivity to homes and businesses. Earlier in the month Arqiva announced the purchase  of an additional 28GHz spectrum licence covering Central and Greater London from Luminet.
• Virgin Media announced that 53,000 homes and businesses in Lancashire and up to 5,000 homes in Great Yarmouth will be next to benefit from its Project Lightning network expansion.  A BBC Watchdog investigation found Virgin Media customers across the UK are receiving only a fraction of the broadband speed they were promised.
• Sky published its latest results for the twelve months ended 30 June 2017: the company continued to grow its volume of broadband customers and fibre penetration grew to more than one in four of Sky’s broadband customers.
• Hyperoptic announced that it had secured an additional £100 million in funding to accelerate the build of its full fibre network, which now passes 350,000 UK homes and businesses in 28 towns and cities across the UK. The company’s ambition is to pass two million homes and businesses by 2022 and five million by 2025.
• CityFibre announced new fundraising plans to support the expansion of its fibre metro networks from 42 UK towns and cities today to not less than 50 towns and cities by 2020. It also intends to commence construction of fibre to the home (FTTH) residential services  in five to ten UK towns and cities during 2018. The company also announced that its network in Southend had gone live and a partnership with Wakefield-based NGC Networks to deliver ultrafast full-fibre connectivity to local businesses.
• Gigaclear announced that over 6,000 homes and businesses in rural East Berkshire will be given access to Gigaclear’s ultrafast, full fibre broadband network as part of the latest phase of the Superfast Berkshire project. Connecting Devon & Somerset  signed a £10.3 million investment deal with Gigaclear to connect  6,500 rural homes and businesses. ISP Review reported that Gigaclear has abandoned their remaining commercial deployment plans in rural Worcestershire due to problems with economic viability and permits.
• Three described Ofcom’s new spectrum auction proposals as a “kick in the teeth for all consumers” in that they increase the dominance of the largest operators, thereby damaging competition. Also see coverage from ISP Review, BBC News, Out-Law and the Telegraph.
• ISP Review reported that EE had demonstrated downloads of up to 765Mbit/s (110Mbps upload) at Wembley Stadium.
• RootMetrics published its latest assessment of mobile performance in the UK for the first half of 2017: no one provider dominated, with EE coming out best in England, Vodafone the overall winner in Northern Ireland and Three in Scotland and Wales. Also see coverage from BBC News, Cable and ISP Review.
• ThinkBroadband reported that Community Fibre has secured an £11m investment to extend its fibre to the home (FTTH) network in London.
• TrueSpeed announced a £75m investment to support the roll out of its ultrafast full fibre broadband network across South West England.
• First Utility announced its entrance to the UK residential broadband marketplace; see commentaries from the Telegraph and ISP Review.
• ADTRAN announced that Call Flow has chosen its XGS-PON solution to “power the UK’s first generation of symmetric multi-gigabit Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) services.”