Admin, Author at United Networks

Rural Broadband ISP Gigaclear Gets 25m Euro Loan to Expand Network
Gallery
Rural Broadband ISP Gigaclear Gets 25m Euro Loan to Expand Network

General

Rural Broadband ISP Gigaclear Gets 25m Euro Loan to Expand Network

Ultrafast fibre optic ISP Gigaclear, which is rolling out a 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to rural communities across the United Kingdom, has bagged some additional investment in the form of a €25m loan. So far Gigaclear’s network has already become available to roughly 15,000 homes and businesses in rural parts of Oxfordshire, Essex, Kent, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Rutland and Gloucestershire in England. On top of that the ISP, which currently owns and operates 56 rural fibre networks (plus 35 under construction), has also signed a number of Government (state aid) supported Broadband Delivery UKcontracts (e.g. Gloucestershire – here, Essex – here and Berkshire – here etc.) and they hope to reach approximately 40,000 premises by the end of 2016. However beyond that they also have commercial plans to reach another 30-40K premises (around 80,000 total), which is likely to require further investment. Gigaclear has already managed to attract£48.6 million in investment and now they’re about to get another €25m (£19m) via a loan. The FT states that most of this loan will be coming from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and indeed it’s said to be the EIB’s “first targeted support for rural communications in the UK“, as well as also being the maximum available under their InnovFin (EU finance for innovators) mid-cap growth finance scheme. Matthew Hare, CEO of Gigaclear, said: “We’re transforming lives and businesses, giving people access to the fastest internet speeds to be found anywhere in the world and technologically future-proofing these rural communities for years.” One problem with the big spender approach to infrastructure development is that it will still take a long time to recoup the investment, not that this appears to worry Gigaclear or any of the other fibre optic ISPs. Investors often seem able to see the long-term potential of fibre optic connectivity, which has also attracted them to other operators like Cityfibre and Hyperoptic. Assuming Ofcom doesn’t negatively upset [...]

Comments Off

BT Openreach Adds More Cabinet Data to “Fibre Broadband” Checker
Gallery
BT Openreach Adds More Cabinet Data to “Fibre Broadband” Checker

General

BT Openreach Adds More Cabinet Data to “Fibre Broadband” Checker

By Admin|General|

BTOpenreach has recently updated their Superfast Openreach website, specifically its ‘Where and When‘ broadband availability checker map tool, to provide users with an easier to understand tester and a smidgen of additional street cabinet level data. The new beta checker, which until fairly recently was not officially available to the public (it’s been in testing for the past few months), provides users with a simplified and more logical overview to show the status of your local street cabinet based “fibre broadband” availability. The first status option at the top left (‘We are exploring solutions‘) is really just another way of saying that there are currently no concrete plans to upgrade your local street cabinet with FTTC, while all of the indicators beyond that one may point to some degree of progress towards full activation. Essentially the more status indicators that have been lit up in blue the better, progressing as they do towards the far right side and the ultimate goal of ‘Accepting Orders‘ (i.e. you can now get the superfast “fibre” service via FTTC etc.). The beta checker also reports your local street cabinet number, which may come in handy if you need to query its status. It’s a nice improvement, but there’s still scope for adding a bit more information (e.g. estimated line speeds, without needing to use the separate BTWholsale or ISP specific checker).

Comments Off

BT Picks Tech Boss to Become CEO of UK Telecoms Division Openreach
Gallery
BT Picks Tech Boss to Become CEO of UK Telecoms Division Openreach

Uncategorized

BT Picks Tech Boss to Become CEO of UK Telecoms Division Openreach

By Admin|Uncategorized|

The Chief Executive of BT’s Technology, Service and Operations, Clive Selley (54), has today been confirmed as the replacement for outgoing Joe Garner in the role of CEO at the operator’s Openreach division, which is responsible for the national UK broadband and phone network. Readers might recall that Joe Garner, who had only been in the role for around a year, suddenly announced his intention to step down last November 2015. Garner said he was leaving in order to pursue the same position of responsibility at the Nationwide Building Society. However the change came at a pivotal point for the telecoms infrastructure giant, which is currently facing the possibility of a split from the wider BT group (Ofcom’s on-going Strategic Review). Never the less Garner is officially expected to take up his new post at some point during Spring 2016 and that left BT to hunt for a replacement. Thankfully BT appears to have found their man in the shape of Clive Selley, who just so happens to be the operator’s current Group Chief Information Officer (CIO) as well as CEO of BT’s Technology, Service and Operations division. This should make him a good fit for the role. Clive Selley said: “I am honoured to have been asked to lead Openreach at this important point in its history. The huge investment it has made over the past decade has made the UK a broadband leader, and we need to build on those foundations by deploying fibre to further communities and by rolling out ultrafast broadband. Customer service is a top priority of mine and I am committed to delivering further improvements by working closely with all industry partners who rely on our network to serve their customers. Openreach is at the heart of the UK economy with our open access network underpinning a ferociously competitive broadband market. [...]

Comments Off

Good Broadband Helps Find the Top 69 UK Cities for Starting a Business
Gallery
Good Broadband Helps Find the Top 69 UK Cities for Starting a Business

General

Good Broadband Helps Find the Top 69 UK Cities for Starting a Business

By Admin|General|

A recent study from Quality Formations has ranked 69 of the United Kingdom’s cities by how attractive they are for starting a new company. Overall Derby came top and unsurprisingly the quality of local broadband plays an important part, both in terms of the best and worst cities. The company formation agent produced the table by marking each UK city on eight criteria: commercial property (rent costs, availability etc.), energy, virtual office services, public transport, broadband service (average download speed), workforce demographics, access to finance (e.g. available grants) and quality of life (e.g. home rental prices, crime, affordable childcare). Apparently subcategories, such as broadband download speeds and the current availability of prime office space, were all scored out of ten in order to help create an all-encompassing national league table. The broadband speed data was sourced from Cable.co.uk, although crucially speedtests are not a reliable reflection of the underlying availability of even faster connections (we’ve highlighted availability on some of the below examples). Otherwise it’s important to point out that sometimes cities with a thriving business focused local economy aren’t actually the best for starting a new company. For example, Aberdeen (Scotland) was ranked a lowly 66th despite being the UK’s oil capital and having numerous industrial successes, but this also means that the cost of starting and maintaining a company in the city “has become simply untenable for many small business owners.” The Best Cities Overall Derby (Derbyshire, England) topped the table because it is “by far the most affordable, accessible and supportive city in the UK to launch a new startup” and it’s especially strong in the tech sector (12% of its workforce are employed in hi-tech industry, which is double most other cities). Virtual office services were also found to be extremely cheap in Derby (£55 per month) and typical broadband download speeds tended to [...]

Comments Off

No Flood Delays as Cityfibre Resumes York UK FTTH Broadband Rollout
Gallery
No Flood Delays as Cityfibre Resumes York UK FTTH Broadband Rollout

General

No Flood Delays as Cityfibre Resumes York UK FTTH Broadband Rollout

By Admin|General|

Construction of Cityfibre’s joint roll-out of a new ultrafast 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) network with Sky Broadband and TalkTalk in the UK city of York (England) has officially resumed today after work was paused due to the Christmas break. Happily the recent flood had no impact. BTOpenreach’s own local phone and broadband infrastructure was badly hit when the River Ouse, which enters the city from the west before meandering down to the south, broke its banks last week and left many premises underwater. BT’s York telephone Exchange also suffered a serious power failure, although this was resolved a day or so later. By comparison Cityfibre told ISPreview.co.uk of their delight in being able to report that “all council and customer services running over our metro network in York have remained fully operational, continuing to serve the city despite the terrible flooding in recent weeks.” Similarly the new FTTH network in the city saw no reported outages or from trial customers. John Franklin, Cityfibre’s Engineering Director, told ISPreview.co.uk: “All our pure fibre networks are designed and built to ensure that they are at minimal risk of failure due to flooding. By ensuring no active components are located outside the customer premises and our exchanges, the remaining fibre components are unaffected by water ingress and continue to provide critical services when submerged in flood waters. As we continue to roll-out the UK’s alternative national infrastructure, our networks are not only delivering a new generation of internet speeds but also demonstrate their increased resilience when compared with traditional copper networks.” Admittedly Cityfibre’s network in the city is not yet to the same scale as BT’s local infrastructure; although it’s a good start to see that they didn’t have any problems. Now if they could just get Phase 1 complete and confirm when the rest of the city will be reached.

Comments Off

BT Openreach Confirm UK LLU and Line Rental Price Changes for 2016
Gallery
BT Openreach Confirm UK LLU and Line Rental Price Changes for 2016

General

BT Openreach Confirm UK LLU and Line Rental Price Changes for 2016

By Admin|General|

BTOpenreach, which maintains and manages access to BT’s national UK telecoms network, has announced a series of line rental, local loop unbundling (LLU), electricity and engineering related price changes that will be introduced from 1st April 2016. Thankfully most of the adjustments are reductions. The tweaks will impact Internet and phone providers that buy their services directly from Openreach, which predominantly reflects the charge controls / regulation (Fixed Access Market Review) introduced by Ofcom. The prices are +vat based and don’t include any extras costs or services that ISPs may need to add on top before being sold as part of a consumer product. Broadly speaking most of the tweaks reflect small to modest sized reductions. For example, BT’s WLR Basic Line Rental service will go from costing £89.50 per annum to £86.72 (-3.1%), although the cost of a fully unbundled (MPF) line will remain largely unchanged at £87.65 per annum. A full list of the changes can be found online, although it will only make sense to those familiar with the jargon.

Comments Off

About Admin

Rural Broadband ISP Gigaclear Gets 25m Euro Loan to Expand Network

BT Openreach Adds More Cabinet Data to “Fibre Broadband” Checker

BT Picks Tech Boss to Become CEO of UK Telecoms Division Openreach

Good Broadband Helps Find the Top 69 UK Cities for Starting a Business

No Flood Delays as Cityfibre Resumes York UK FTTH Broadband Rollout

BT Openreach Confirm UK LLU and Line Rental Price Changes for 2016

Our Services

Useful Links

Customer Zone

Address