Liberty Global and Telefónica have reached an agreement to combine British operations O2 and Virgin Media. This is under a new, £31.4bn agreement that could have a huge impact on the UK market.
UK cable operator Virgin Media has published the steps it is taking to help keep employees and customers safe during the current pandemic, whilst also safeguarding its network.
How has the strength of the Electronic Communications Code been tested by the dispute between Virgin Media and Durham County Council? Brian Wake offers his view*
Virgin Media and Durham County Council have reached an amicable agreement on land access terms, allowing work to resume on the network expansion in the county.
The agreement was reached prior to the case being heard by the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber), meaning that the UK provider will have to pay only £1 for land access to the areas which were under dispute.
More than 7,000 homes and businesses in Sunderland, the UK, will be next to access Virgin Media’s ultrafast broadband as the provider expands its network under the ‘Project Lightning’ programme, which aims to provide speeds up to 362Mb/s in the region.
Virgin Media is taking legal action against Durham County Council, for what the provider calls a ‘blockade’ on its delivery of ultrafast broadband by asking for increased payments to access the land upon which it hoped to increase its network by laying new fibre optic cable.
The partnership with Durham, which was announced at the end of last year, had been put in place with the aim of extending the provider’s high-speed network to around 16,000 properties in Durham by the end of 2019. Virgin Media said that this would benefit the area by increasing speeds to 350Mb/s.
The plans for an economic recovery will undoubtedly need vast levels of public and private investment.
Leading industry lights talk to Keely Portway about the challenges and opportunities faced by the optical communications supply chain in the last 12 months, and predict what could lie ahead
Mark Lutkowitz on future 400ZR pricing, its impact on certain key vendors and the outlook for 400ZR+ and 800ZR
While the Covid-19 crisis clearly impacted infrastructure deployment in Europe in 2020, it also undoubtedly reinforced operators’ mid-term FTTH ambitions
The all-important multi-vendor interoperability can only be achieved via industry collaboration, finds Keely Portway
2020 has shown standards are key to building the networks of tomorrow, and that’s something to be excited about, argues Bernd Hesse
Keely Portway counts down some of the most-viewed and industry-shaping news stories of 2020
Large webscale internet content providers have undoubtedly been the wielders of power in recent years. The only thing greater for them, has been their hunger for data.
