News
Government ramps up 5G and 6G research
Government ramps up 5G and 6G research but what will it mean for your business? In today’s connected age, telecoms networks keep the UK’s engine running. So the recent announcement that the government is to plough £110 million into accelerating UK research and development of 6G and 5G networks can only be good news, as Paul Hagan explains. The bulk of the UK government’s investment (£80 million) is going towards a Telecoms Lab being built in Solihull in t
Copper lines are getting their redundancy notice
What you can do when the BT Copper lines switch to Fibre Ever since 1891, an ever-expanding spider’s web of copper cables that form the UK’s Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) has allowed users to connect to anyone anywhere in the world. It has served us well, but in four years’ time, most of these lines will go silent. Right now, teams of Openreach engineers are working to replace our copper telephone network with fibre optic light-transmitting cables and fini
Remote working - the new reality is staying
2020 was the year of the big remote work shift. Many organisations that didn’t believe in the power of telecommuting had no choice but to re-adjust to a completely new reality in a very short period of time. And for most of them it has ended up being the best possible response to incredibly difficult times, proving that we can work from home and do it effectively—without losing productivity. Looking ahead to 2021-22, it seems likely that remote working will become a st
The Great Digital Divide
All digital users are equal. But some are less equal than others. The internet is supposed to be the great equaliser, giving everyone access to information and creating opportunities for all. But millions of adults in the UK don’t have the basic digital skills to use the internet without help. How much are they missing out on? And what urgent actions can be taken to tackle the UK’s growing digital divide? We live in an increasingly digital age and those who cannot engage effective
Let’s get more Fibre in our broadband diet
Once a desirable option, the simple fact is that high quality broadband is now an absolute necessity for modern businesses. Unfortunately, the UK’s old, creaking copper-based telecommunications infrastructure is impeding our ability to keep pace with modern working trends and putting us at risk of falling behind our global rivals. Fortunately, our reliance on copper is about to change. In December 2025, Openreach – the infrastructure division of BT – will retire
FTTP - Fibre to the Premises
In its March 2021 statement on the Wholesale Fixed Telecoms Market Review, Ofcom set out how it will regulate telecom fixed access services for the five years from April 2021. A major focus of its plan will be to stimulate investment in next generation Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) broadband across the UK – premises meaning ‘homes and businesses’. This gives the green light to the major providers to start rolling out their investment programmes. BT, for example, plans t
Broadband versus Leased Line
Businesses often ask us to clarify the difference between broadband and leased line connections. After all, don’t they both do the same thing at the end of the day – deliver internet connectivity to your premises? The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’, because while they share the same connectivity aim, the way in which they do so and the commercial and practical benefits they bring to your operations are substantially different. First let’s begin b
Internet of Behaviour
Your online behaviour is a now a commodity You are probably familiar with the Internet of Things (IoT) - the technology that connects electronic devices to the Internet and has created a vast variety of new data sources. If so, then let me welcome you to the next digital paradigm, and one of the top tech trends of 2021 - the Internet of Behaviour (IoB). The IoB comprises an entire ecosystem of analytic processes that monitor, collate and decipher the vast swathes of data we generate th
Slow Internet affecting your business
In business, good connections matter Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must have high-speed internet connectivity to compete in today’s business world. The UK’s average internet speeds have steadily improved over the years, and having a fast, reliable internet connection puts a business at an advantage but there remain numerous parts of rural UK – especially in Northern Ireland – where internet connections are poor and SMEs are suffering as a result. A sl
Firewalls
Good cyber security practices to keep your business safe At a time when businesses are becoming ever more concerned about the risk of a cyber-attack, one of the questions every business owner needs to ask is, ‘How secure is my broadband?’ According to research by Symantec, 82% of business data that has been lost or stolen could have been prevented if business followed a simple internet security plan. So even if you don’t have an IT department, you can still install the right s
