Category: Regulation

Liz Kendall replaced Peter Kyle as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in the September 2025 re-shuffle. She has hit the ground running and has written to Ofcom’s CEO expressing concern at the price increases consumers are facing from Internet providers. Background — From mid-2025, new rules came in which restricted any […]

The news last week that O2 was changing its annual price rise from £1.80 each April to £2.50 each April continues to create headlines. This is because it comes at a time when people are suffering price shock each week when shopping for food and therefore are more sensitive to other fixed costs going up […]

The Financial Times has reported that Virgin Media O2 is in talks to potentially acquire Netomnia in what it suggests could be a deal worth £2 billion. The talks are described as non-exclusive and another potential suitor for Netomnia is CityFibre. In the Virgin Media O2 financial results today, they described themselves in the quarterly […]

Broadband altnet Zzoomm posted a circular through the letter boxes of residents, which the ASA took issue with. The item was a ‘window’ envelope with the address, and the envelope contained the statement: “Important notice. Disruption in your area.” The letter clarifies this “Not the disruption you were expecting…But it’s the best kind. Homes across […]

A recent judgment has been issued by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in relation to a Dyfed Powys Police raid at an incorrect address due to ‘crossed wires’ in the telephone network that led them to the wrong property. This was reported by ISPreview and originally TheRegister. The IPT is the legal mechanism by which […]

Complaints about new broadband poles being installed in residential streets have been common over the last couple of years as alt-nets try to build new networks to compete with Openreach in an efficient and cost-effective manner. This has led to new telegraph poles being used to help deliver this, and in some cases, the alt-nets […]

Regulator Ofcom has this morning provided an update of its enforcement activity under the controversial Online Safety Act. In total it has begun 21 investigations (into 69 web sites and apps) and 5 enforcement programmes. The update covers 11 of these investigations. File-sharing services Ofcom launched an enforcement programme in March 2025 against file-sharing services […]

We’ve written about the Age Checks in the Online Safety Act and how VPN sign-ups boomed after the introduction of age checks on websites with content which shouldn’t be accessible to children. We even suggested that privacy-aware users over 18 may wish to consider using a VPN to avoid risking their personal identity data being […]

The Advertising Standard Authority (ASA UK) has published a ruling which upholds a complaint against altnet Community Fibre. The adjudication addresses whether claims about being the number one ISP or best ratings is correct. The ruling is against Community Fibre but it sounds like a pretty good advert for its service. Rather than putting you […]

Vonage have been fined £700,000 by Ofcom for failing to ensure customers could make calls to the emergency services. Vonage self-reported to Ofcom to advise them of an issue affecting business customers between 23rd October 2023 and the 3rd November. Ofcom announced an investigation into Vonage back in March 2024. The issue appeared to affect […]