Enhanced Mobile Broadband

• China’s ‘big three’ mobile operators report 20 million 5G net adds in July
• Fixed broadband growth not so impressive
• Cloud-based services boost operators’ H1 2024 results

The number of 5G subscribers in China continues to make vaulting monthly leaps, equivalent to

CityFibre has announced a long-term partnership with Sky to expand its network reach.

As a result, Sky’s Full Fibre Broadband is expected to launch on CityFibre’s network starting next year.

The UK Government will make an investment of up to £800 million to upgrade broadband infrastructure for 312,000 rural homes and businesses across England, Scotland and Wales.

The injection aims to close the digital divide that has left many remote areas with slow internet speeds.

The UK has taken third place in new global rankings of broadband reliability by Opensignal, the independent and reliable analytics company specialising in “quantifying the mobile-network experience”. 

Hello, I am George Gibson, a co-founder at Streetwave. Our two-year-old start-up is a product of the Welsh Government’s charity incubator, The Alacrity Foundation. The organisation researches the biggest challenges facing UK society, and mobile connectivity has been identified as a fundamental part of that.

Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone have brokered a new network sharing deal that will also see the former acquire spectrum from a merged Vodafone/Three, should that tie-up come to fruition.

Virgin Media O2 says it has completed the first phase of its Shared Rural Network (SRN) rollout, with the final ‘partial not-spot site’ installed at Glencoe Mountain Resort.

• A new independent report by FarrPoint, commissioned using data from four EE mast deployments, shows 4G mobile connectivity can generate more than £6 million for a rural community.
• From farming and fishi

More women in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are using mobile internet than ever before, 1.5 billion (66%) in total. In 2023, an additional 120 million women connected to the internet via mobile. Mobile remains the primary – and often only – way people in LMICs access the internet, accounting for 84% of broadband connections in 2023.

All Elizabeth line stations now have 4G mobile coverage as the Mayor and TfL’s programme to improve connectivity for those travelling underground continues.

The mobile industry association has launched a new interactive index to track the rollout of 5G.

China Mobile is currently the most advanced operator in terms of shifting from telco to techco, according to a new report from research house Omdia. 

Thousands of remote homes and businesses to benefit from lightning-fast broadband as new figures show a record £714 million invested in the broadband rollout so far this year.
 

A new study from Juniper Research, the foremost experts in telecommunications markets, found that the global number of travel eSIM users will grow from 40 million in 2024 to over 215 million by 2028.

Ofcom has today kicked off its review of the regulations that will apply to the UK wholesale telecoms markets from April 2026

Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) has announced a regulatory sandbox designed to support trials for direct to device satellite connectivity.

Anatel’s board of directors have implemented the sandbox in light of Brazilian mobile providers Claro and TIM’s plans to conduct trials with AST Space Mobile.

More data used than ever before, as the UK’s most comprehensive broadband data shows an 9% jump compared to 2022

Broadband use across the UK increased by 9 per cent last year, according to Openreach.

Building on the UK’s regional and national strengths, UKTIN’s Clusters Group exists to provide an open forum for inter-regional collaboration, sharing of best practices, insights and dissemination of learnings.

A record 17 million UK homes have access to full-fibre broadband, with 4.6 million now taking it up, according to Ofcom’s latest Connected Nations report. 

Global monthly smartphone sell-through volumes grew 5% YoY in October 2023, the first month to record YoY growth since June 2021 and break the streak of 27 consecutive months of YoY declines, according to preliminary numbers from Counterpoint Research’s Smartphone