Companies news September 2016
Thursday, September 29, 2016 - 10:35
- The Telegraph, Cable and Computer Weekly all reported that the full separation of Openreach from the rest of BT could still be a possibility, according to remarks by new Culture Secretary Karen Bradley in the House of Commons. Computer Weekly also reported claims by TalkTalk that Openreach is continuing to neglect broadband connectivity for SMEs.
- ISP Review, BroadbandChoices, Cable and Computer Weekly all reported on future plans announced by Openreach this month: these include improvements to its fibre to the premise (FTTP) roll-out for new build homes, a list of trial locations for Long Reach VDSL technology and an extension of their G.fast pilot to 17 locations encompassing 138,000 UK premises.
- Openreach announced that it had selected Huawei and Nokia to provide a range of equipment in support of its G.fast roll out across the UK.
- ISP Review reported that BT and Virgin Media are to commence a joint advertising campaign to oppose any split between BT and Openreach.
- Virgin Media announced it is to acquire Arqiva WiFi, which includes more than 31,000 WiFi access points across 6,500 locations in the UK, to provide out-of-home connectivity for consumers and businesses.
- BBC News and ISP Review reported on Three’s appeal to Ofcom to limit the amount of spectrum that any one company can own. This follows on from the decision by the European Commission earlier this year to block a merger between Three and O2.
- Vodafone announced it had signed up to Ofcom’s voluntary Code of Practice on broadband speeds; ISP Review reported that the company could launch its pay TV service in October.
- CityFibre announced Reading as the UK’s next gigabit city with the launch of ultrafast internet services via its partner BtL and also that it had completed the acquisition of all metropolitan local access duct and fibre network assets of IT managed services provider Redcentric. This adds Cambridge, Portsmouth and Southampton to CityFibre’s footprint.
- ThinkBroadband and ISP Review reported on CityFibre’s results for the first half of 2016: the company now has presence in 37 cities and has completed its fibre to the home (FTTH) broadband trial with Sky Broadband and TalkTalk in York. ISP Review also reported that CityFibre has added Northampton to its footprint.
- uSwitch reported on CityFibre’s criticism of Ofcom for concentrating too heavily on BT and failing to provide a level playing field for other companies.
- The Telegraph reported that Australian business ISP Exetel is to enter the British broadband market.
- Computer Weekly reported that rural fibre network provider Gigaclear is to work with Affinity Water Distribution to explore the feasibility of using disused water mains to provision FTTP networks. A pilot scheme will run in two Hertfordshire villages.
- The Financial Times and ISP Review reported that Network Rail has dropped plans to sell off its fibre optic infrastructure (more background on this here).
