Companies news April 2016

BT announced that Openreach’s fibre network now passes 25 million UK premises. ISP Review reported that Openreach’s has confirmed a trial of long reach VDSL broadband, which could potentially double the length of copper line over which 10Mbit/s broadband speeds can be delivered. This technology could thus assist in delivering the government’s proposed 10Mbit/s broadband universal service obligation (USO), more on this here. Cable reported that BT has built the longest continuous stretch of fibre in the UK around the River Ouse as part of its deployment in East Riding of Yorkshire.

The Financial Times reported that Openreach will this autumn trial the uncoupling of traditional voice services from fibre broadband to offer a broadband only service. Sky News reported that BT Chief Executive Gavin Patterson wrote to Culture Secretary John Whittingdale to argue that the government had not taken account of BT’s plans for investment in improvements to its broadband network in its response to Ofcom’s recent Strategic Review and Business Connectivity Market Review statements.

Virgin Media announced that it will provide fibre to the premise (FTTP) connections to at least a quarter of the 4 million additional homes and businesses being added to the Virgin Media network as part of its Project Lightning expansion plans.

CityFibre announced two commercial agreements, with Exa Networks and Diva Telecom adding 350 new sites to its new networks in Leeds and Bradford, followed by a further announcement later in the month that gigabit speed internet services are now available in the region. The Telegraph reported that CityFibre has returned to profit; the company also announced that SSE Enterprise Telecoms has become the UK’s first national service provider to buy dark fibre capacity over CityFibre’s newly acquired long distance network (LDN).

Gigaclear announced a £24m new equity investment; the company builds and operates fibre networks offering gigiabit speeds in 60 rural areas with a further 25 in construction. See commentary from the Telegraph; the Financial Times also reported on Gigaclear’s and CityFibre’s growth.

Hyperoptic announced the launch of gigabit services in Brighton, alongside the services it offers in Greater London, Cardiff, Bristol, Reading, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Birmingham, Glasgow, Newcastle and Nottingham.

Also this month:

• The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) wrote a letter to the European Commission setting out its concerns about the proposed merger between Hutchison 3G UK and Telefonica UK; more background on this here and also see coverage from Out-Law, BBC News and Cable.
• CommsBusiness reported that Kcom is seeing a surge in demand for its ultrafast broadband services.
• Computer Weekly reported on the trials of York’s Ultra Fibre Optic (UFO) broadband, a joint venture between CityFibre, Sky and TalkTalk (more background on this here and here). Results have been encouraging and TalkTalk is exploring the possibility of rolling the network out on a wider basis.