Weekly Brief — Some updates we didn’t cover

We haven’t written full news articles on these but there are a few bits we wanted to highlight:

B4SH (Broadband for Surrey Hills) has launched a Social Tariff for £20/month delivering a full symmetric 1Gbps service for recipients of Council Tax support (not single person discount/students). Order through their website. Although it is one of the more expensive social tariffs, it’s fully symmetric 1Gbps, far faster than those offered by almost all networks. Only B4RN offers similar speeds. See our dedicated broadband social tariffs guide.

Virgin Media found that broadband traffic levels drop off at 3pm on Fridays suggesting ‘working from home’ days end earlier. They witnessed an 8% drop in traffic 3-5pm on summer Fridays compared to winter and they mark this down to workers clocking off early.

BT, EE and PlusNet have completed refunds of £18m back to customers after last yea’rs Ofcom ruling about contract information not being available. See ISPreview for details.

The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) have awarded EE the “Tried and Tested” accreditation for their app following real-world testing by users. The RNIB have been working with EE for the past 18 months to improve its app.

“We are incredibly proud to receive this recognition from RNIB. This accreditation is the result of a lot of hard work, persistence, and strategic commitment from our EE Consumer Digital Accessibility Team. We built a bridge between designers and engineers, making accessibility an integral part of both disciplines and not just a compliance layer. As digital accessibility professionals, we didn’t just advise from the sidelines: we led and collaborated, working hands-on to find practical, scalable solutions.”

Ronise Nepomuceno, Digital Accessibility Lead, EE

Altnet Gigaclear has appointed two new board members. Stephanie Liston (Chair of the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority with a background in law and telecoms regulation) and Catherine Colloms (formerly of Openreach) have joined as non-executive directors as of 1 August.

“I am delighted to be sharing the news that Stephanie and Catherine are joining the Board as the company continues to expand its customer base. I would like to take the opportunity to welcome them to Gigaclear and I look forward to working closely with them.”

Andy Matthews, Chairman, Gigaclear