Ofcom has published its Communications Market Report.
Revenue from telecoms contributed £32 billion to the UK economy in 2019. Retail fixed and mobile generated £13.4 billion and the remainder was from wholesale revenues. Ofcom also reported that 80% of households have a fixed broadband connection and 98% have a mobile phone. (more…)
A new taskforce, the Telecoms Diversification Task Force, has been set up to support the development and implementation of the government’s forthcoming strategy on the UK’s telecoms supply chain – aimed at reducing the reliance on high-risk vendors and bring more players into the market. Lord Livingston will lead the taskforce as Chair, with members from industry (Vodafone, Openreach, Copper Horse, BSI) and academic experts from Universities of Surrey and Bristol. Technical Director of NCSC and Ofcom’s Director of Emerging Technology will provide technical advice. (more…)
The announcement today builds on the earlier government update, setting out that a further 250,000 English homes and businesses are now eligible for boosted funding from 17 English councils for the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme.
More than £22 million of additional funding has been provided by local councils to top-up the values of the vouchers in their areas. The Scheme targets areas where the cost of building new gigabit broadband infrastructure is likely to be too high for commercial operators to cover alone. Since May 2019, vouchers worth up to £3,500 for small and medium sized businesses and up to £1,500 for residential premises have been available to cover these costs in rural areas across the UK. (more…)
Ofcom has published its interim report which states that full fibre broadband is now available to over 4.2 million UK homes (14%), an increase of 670,000 (2%) since January. This is a result of increased rollout from the expansion of existing broadband networks as well as companies building entirely new fibre networks.
The UK Government recently announced that almost 500,000 premises across the UK have been connected to gigabit-capable broadband since summer 2018 as a result of a £1 billion government funding commitment that runs until the end of 2021, with a further £5 billion earmarked for the hardest-to-reach areas. Government has also launched a new taskforce – GigaTAG – to encourage further take-up of gigabit broadband services. (more…)
Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden announced Government’s National Data Strategy to drive growth, boost innovation, create new jobs and improve public services. Government will develop a clear policy framework to determine what interventions are needed to unlock the value of data across the economy and help drive the recovery from Covid-19. It proposes an overhaul in the use of data across the public sector and a programme of work will be launched that will transform the way data is managed, used, shared internally within government, and with wider public sectors organisations. (more…)
One of Government’s major infrastructure projects – the clearance of 700 MHz spectrum airwaves – has been delivered, allowing it to be used for 5G services and 4G rural mobile coverage.
On 20 August Ofcom announced that it had completed the work which began in 2017. This involved moving Freeview TV channels out of the 700 MHz spectrum band and re-tuning TV equipment in millions of homes, 99% of which was done by viewers themselves. Arqiva carried out the engineering necessary to change the frequencies on which transmitters were operating. TV broadcasters, Digital UK and Freeview, and Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited (DMSL) were all heavily involved. (more…)
