The UK Government is in the process of publishing the King’s New Year Honours List for 2023, which sees Brendan Dick, the former Director of BT in Scotland (2006-18) and former Chair of Openreach’s Scotland Board (2018-21), picking up an OBE for services to telecommunications in Scotland. But he’s not alone.

The King’s New Year Honours list is said to recognise the achievements and public service of people across the UK, from all walks of life. Anyone can nominate someone for an honour, and nominees are then “checked by various government departments to make sure they’re suitable for an honour” (this may include checks by HMRC) and an honour’s committee will also review the nominations.

As well as the OBE award for BT’s Brendan Dick, TalkTalk’s former Early Careers Manager (until October 2022), Sam Davys, has been awarded an MBE for services to Young People and to Inclusion in Digital Industries. She’s now in a different role at the ISP, but the award recognises her work under the provider’s Kickstart program during the pandemic, whereby the DWP provided funding to employers to create jobs for 16- to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit.

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Broadband and mobile operators EE (BT) and Vodafone have announced that they’ve extended their 4G network on the London Underground to include six more stations, covering parts of the Central and Northern lines, which reflects a partnership with BAI Communications. This builds on their already live coverage on the eastern half of the Jubilee Line.

At present, BAI holds a 20-year concession deal with Transport for London (TfL), which was signed in June 2021 (here) and allows them to build the new 4G mobile infrastructure itself and to then make it available via wholesale for Mobile Network Operators (MNO) to harness. The goal of this is to cover the entire London Underground with the new network by late 2024 (ticket halls, platforms and tunnels).

NOTE: O2 (VMO2), Three UK, EE and Vodafone have all signed deals to harness the new infrastructure. The new network is classed as “5G-ready“.

The neutral host distributed antenna system (DAS) network, which will end up being supported by hundreds of kilometres of fibre optic cable laid in tunnels for data capacity (fitted outside operational hours), was first trialled on the Jubilee Line (eastern half of the line). The first new sections beyond that are now starting to go live.

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