Mobile operator Vodafone UK has this morning announced that their ultrafast 5G (mobile broadband) network is now being deployed to cover a further five airports, such as the George Best Airport in Belfast and Newcastle International Airport. All were installed by Exchange Communications.

The two deployments mentioned above have already been completed, but Vodafone and Exchange Communications have already started work to deliver 5G across an additional three locations – the Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow Airports – in the very near future.

Andrea Dona, Vodafone’s UK Network and Development Director, said: “Millions of passengers use these airports every year, so we’re delighted to be able to give them fast data speeds, however busy it gets. Meanwhile, each of these airports have an important role to play in their region and their local economy. So it’s great to be able to supply the connectivity they need to continue to grow and succeed.”

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Rural UK ISP Gigaclear has announced that their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network is being extended to cover 3,500 homes and businesses in two neighbouring communities – the village of Aspley Guise and town of Woburn Sands – on the border between Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire.

The provider’s network, which has already covered 360,000 premises (up from 300,000 in May 2022) across rural parts of England, already passes near to both locations and so the expansion makes plenty of sense. The only catch is that Openreach has already deployed FTTP across a large part of Woburn Sands, which in such a small area may make it harder for Gigaclear to make a positive impact.

Despite the competition, local councillor John Baker welcomed the work and expressed his “hope” that Swallowfield Primary, Aspley Guise Village School and Fulbrook Secondary “will soon be connected and children will be able to access all their favourite educational applications more quickly!”

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Network builder and rural ISP County Broadband has today announced 9 new villages, this time in Essex (England), where local homes and businesses will now be able to access their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which is also being deployed across parts of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.

The areas being announced today have already started to go live and form part of the operator’s current plan to cover 500,000 premises across the rural East of England with their full fibre network by the end of 2027, which is being backed by an investment of £146 million from Aviva Investors (here).

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The Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) project in England has received a further £250,000 of funding in order to extend their Mobile Boost Scheme, which works to improve rural 4G mobile (mobile broadband and voice) availability by offering vouchers (up to £1,200) to help deploy indoor mobile signal boosters.

The programme, which is being funded through the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership’s (HotSWLEP) Growth Deal, is targeted at those premises which have no adequate access to indoor 4G coverage from any operator or only one operator. So far, more than 1,200 homes and businesses across have already benefited from this scheme (up from 900 in August 2022).

NOTE: Last year, data from Ofcom suggested that over 20,000 premises across the Devon and Somerset area may exist in 4G “not-spots“.

Businesses and residents that make use of this scheme, including those in Somerset, Devon, Torbay and Plymouth (South West England), are also required to make a modest contribution which, depending on the option chosen, will range from £250 for installation to a monthly fee for a SIM card (averaging c. £30 per month). This is because the main cost, as covered by the voucher, is largely related to the expensive hardware itself.

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Independent rural broadband ISP GoFibre (BorderLink) has announced the appointment of Neil Conaghan as their new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The move is part of the provider’s effort to expand their full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 500,000 premises (here) in the North of England and Scottish Borders by around the end of 2025.

Changes in senior management like this often follow after a major funding announcement, which in this case reflects the operator’s announcement in January, when they successfully secured funding of £164m from Gresham House (BSIF) to help build their new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network.

Since then, GoFibre has also secured two key rollout contracts under the UK Government’s new £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme, including one for 3,750 premises in North Northumberland (here) and another to help connect 4,000 premises in Teesdale.

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Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark (TUD) have done something quite remarkable by demonstrating a record data transmission speed of 1.84 Pbps (Petabits per second) – or 1,840Tbps (Terabits per second) if you prefer – over a single 37-core and 7.9km long fibre optic cable. Oh.. and they could go a lot faster.

Just to put this achievement into some context, BT’s entire national UK broadband network tends to “peak” at a transfer rate of around 26Tbps, which is just a fraction of what the TUD team achieved. In fact, the “average” (not peak) internet bandwidth being used across the population of the whole world is currently estimated to be around 1Pbps (1000Tbps) today.

The key achievement here, other than the speed itself, is that this was all achieved using a single infrared laser and a single optical chip, which also has the potential to dramatically reduce the energy costs of such a system. In short, a single laser could be used to replace the job of more than 1,000 lasers, which makes this much more practical and economical to deploy in the real-world.

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Network operator Giganet has today joined forces with its recent consumer ISP acquisition of Cuckoo to announce that the newly merged pair plan to create 250 new jobs to support future growth, as well as the ongoing rollout of their own gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across England.

Giganet, which gobbled rival ISP Cuckoo last month for an undisclosed sum (here), is currently investing £250m via Fern Trading to deploy their own full fibre network to 300,000 premises across poorly served parts of Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and West Sussex (here). On top of that, both providers are also continuing to expand the availability of FTTP via the Openreach and CityFibre platforms in other parts of the country.

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Ofcom’s autumn 2022 report into fixed broadband and mobile coverage has found that “full fibre” (FTTP) now reaches 37% of the UK, while 20.2 million homes (68%) are within reach of a gigabit-capable network and 48-64% of premises can now get outdoor 5G coverage by at least one operator.

The regulator’s latest report is based on coverage and service availability information that has been received from both fixed line UK ISPs and mobile network operators as of May 2022, which is thus several months more recent than the January 2022 data in their last spring 2022 update (here).

NOTE: The Government’s original definition of “superfast broadband” is 24Mbps+, which is close to 97-98% coverage.

Since January 2022, the UK coverage of fixed “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) networks has remained largely unchanged on 96%, while some 11 million homes (37%) can now order a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service via various networks (up from 9.6 million or 33% at the last update).

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Network operator Cityfibre has today revealed that they’ll invest £50m to deploy their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across “almost every home and business” in Kent’s (England) largest town of Maidstone. The first construction work is set to begin during January 2023.

Little is known about the operator’s rollout plan or their choice of contractor for the build, but it’s worth noting that they won’t be the only gigabit-capable network in town. Virgin Media already has strong coverage of the area, while both Openreach and Netomnia (YouFibre) are busy deploying their own full fibre in the same location. Smaller builds also exist from Hyperoptic and OFNL, while Trooli’s rollout in Loose is edging into the southern parts.

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Network operator Cityfibre has announced that they’ve started to deploy their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network across the Cambridgeshire (England) market town and civil parish of Whittlesey, which is expected to cost the operator around £3m to complete.

The overall project in Whittlesey, which is being delivered by civil engineering partner Granemore Group, is expected to reach completion sometime during 2023. But the first services will go live for people to take advantage of much sooner.

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