Category: Broadband

A group of men were found guilty following cable theft and today sentenced to prison terms of three years each at Birmingham Crown Court. The trio had stolen £50,000 of cables which affected around 5,000 customers in the centre of Birmingham. The cost of replacing the cables was considerably more and resulted in extended outages […]

Freedom Truespeed Group formed through completed merger Truespeed and Freedom Fibre have confirmed that the merger of the two businesses has been completed, following regulatory approval, and the companies have now formed Freedom Truespeed Group. The companies say they now have 412,000 premises ready for service and 70,000 customers across the combined entity. There is […]

A quick summary of broadband-related pieces we haven’t covered otherwise this week. Orkney Internet access restored BT have confirmed that the subsea fibre between Evie and Westray has been repaired and service has been restored to customers in the North Isles. The fibre was damaged due to abrasion with the seabed, and a cable repair […]

BDUK has released its monthly tracking from April 2026, which monitors the progress for the contract-level data for Project Gigabit builds. The latest data shows that across all areas, 23.8% of properties have had fibre built to them, totalling 250,000 premises. The snapshot of data provided is dated 22nd April 2026, but BDUK notes there […]

Our weekly update on broadband news. North Isles, Orkney subsea cable repair underway Following the arrival of the cable-laying/repair ship Pierre de Fermat, around 8km of cable has been replaced, with the damage reportedly due to abrasion on the seabed, which is laid across a rocky route. Part of the repair work has seen this […]

The jump from 83% FTTP coverage to 84% has been pretty quick compared to other point increases in the last 12 months, taking just 40 days. The biggest driver has been the Openreach FTTP rollouts and while lots of this is overlapping with altnets and the nexfibre XGS-PON rollout they are arriving as the first […]

Amazon announced this week that it is paying $11bn to acquire satellite company Globalstar in an effort to close the gap with Starlink. Globalstar runs it owns low earth orbit (LEO) network of around 24 second-generation satellites and also has mobile-satellite spectrum which can be used for direct-to-device networks, such as those offered by Starlink […]

BDUK has announced that Openreach will take on two Project Gigabit contracts after the altnets originally building decided to pull out of the contracts. 8,500 premises were descoped from the Freedom Fibre build for North Shropshire in June 2025 after the company pulled out of the contract after building 3,500 of the promised coverage. The […]

The 31 days between 12th March and 12th April 2026 have seen the Openreach full fibre footprint increase by a new record of 19,624 premises per day, totalling 608,354 premises over the course of the month. The over 600,000 premises sets a new record for the amount of Openreach FTTP we’ve mapped in a single […]

In February 2026, the Chancellor and Technology Minister launched the Telecoms Consumer Charter which was backed by the major operators. “Broadband and mobile customers deserve to be treated fairly and not face sudden jumps in their bills.  Following action by this government, telecom companies have now agreed to end unexpected mid‑contract price rises“ Technology Secretary […]