Once the agreement is implemented around 32,000 employees will transfer to the new Openreach Limited following TUPE consultation, and once pension arrangements are in place.

Openreach Limited will have its own branding, which will not feature the BT logo.

The Openreach CEO will report to the Openreach Chairman with accountability to the BT Group Chief Executive with regards to certain legal and fiduciary duties that are consistent with BT’s responsibilities as a listed company.

Gavin Patterson, BT Chief Executive, said: “I believe this agreement will serve the long-term interests of millions of UK households, businesses and service providers that rely on our infrastructure. It will also end a period of uncertainty for our people and support further investment in the UK’s digital infrastructure.

“This has been a long and challenging review where we have been balancing a number of competing interests. We have listened to criticism of our business and as a result are willing to make fundamental changes to the way Openreach will work in the future.”

The transfer of around 32,000 employees, under TUPE regulations, will be one of the largest such transfers in UK corporate history. It will take place once the agreement has been implemented and pension arrangements are in place for these employees. Under the agreement, Openreach will manage and operate its assets and trading but ownership of those assets and trading will remain with BT.

The agreement builds on changes that BT has already made to the governance of Openreach in recent months. These include the creation of an Openreach Board with a majority of independent members.

This Board will set Openreach’s medium term and annual operating plans and determine which technologies are deployed, within a strategic and financial framework defined by BT. Openreach will be free to explore alternative co-investment models in private with third parties.

The post BT and Ofcom agree deal to legally separate Openreach appeared first on United Networks.

The devices are fitted with small mobile sites that include a base station and an antenna.

They could also be used to connect remote parts of the UK where coverage is thin.

EE said it planned to deploy such a network in a UK rural area this year.

The drones can stay airborne for up to an hour at a time and the “helikite” balloons for several weeks as they have a tethered power source.

The drone was designed to give short-term targeted coverage to aid search and rescue situations, EE said.

“Innovation is essential for us to go further than we’ve ever gone, and deliver a network that’s more reliable than ever before,” said EE chief executive Marc Allera.

“Rural parts of the UK provide more challenges to mobile coverage than anywhere else, so we have to work harder there – developing these technologies will ultimately help our customers, even in the most hard to reach areas.”

It was the first time this had been tried out in the UK, said Kester Mann, analyst at CCS Insight.

“Everyone immediately thinks of disruptive players like Facebook and Google when it come to things like balloon-based networks. The traditional networks need to step up so they don’t get left behind,” he told the BBC.

Google is developing a network of huge balloons to provide connectivity to rural areas around the world, known as Project Loon.

Last month the tech giant confirmed it had closed its internet drone project, Titan, which was designed to bring the internet to remote rural areas.

Facebook’s Project Aquila involves building solar-powered aircraft which will fly for months at a time above remote places, beaming down an internet connection.

The post EE shows off helium balloon mobile masts appeared first on United Networks.

According to a status update from AAISP, “BT have a major problem at the moment and lines which log off are unable to log back in again. Our TalkTalkservices are unaffected, and lines which stay online are unaffected. This looks to be a country wide problem affecting many ISPs.” A large number of UK ISPs that use BT’s services (e.g. BTWholesale) appear to be affected by the issue, which began at around 2 – 3pm.

Sorry if your are experiencing network problems. Engineers are on site now. We will keep you updated.

— BT (@BTCare) February 2, 2016

The hashtag #BTDown on Twitter is starting to trend and the advice right now is that if you’re connected then don’t reboot your router as you may struggle to reconnect.

UPDATE 3:52pm

Apparently the problems are also extending to the systems that ISPs use to interface with BT via Openreach / Wholesale, such as diagnostic services. We also note that BT.com is working (partly), but their Service Status page for consumer broadband is not. It’s a very unusual problem.

UPDATE 4:03pm

Anybody expecting an Openreach engineer to visit today may see delays (more so than usual) because even BT’s engineers are being affected by some of the system outages.

UPDATE 4:06pm

Services that make use of Vodafone’s unbundled broadband lines are also unaffected by this problem, much like Sky and TT.

UPDATE 4:16pm

Some consumers who managed to reach BT’s customer support have been told that the ETA for a fix is around 4 hours, which suggests that they know what’s wrong. Otherwise we have so far had no reply from BT itself and our main source of information has been third-party ISPs, which are much more helpful.

UPDATE 4:29pm

Openreach are informing ISPs, such as Aquiss, that the target time for a fix is now 7pm.

UPDATE 4:36pm

Some ISPs are reporting that their API/XML Interfaces may be improving because the connectivity to Openreach/Wholesale is slowly starting to return. The official line from Openreach to ISPs is currently as follows: “We are aware of an issue impacting connectivity to Broadband services and are currently investigating with technical support teams. At the moment, we are unable to inform you of your specific affected circuits and services. Once root cause is established we will issue this detail promptly.”

Unconfirmed rumours are also bouncing around the ISP sphere that a DDoS attack may have been to blame, with everything ending up being routed to the Collindale PoP as all others were suffering problems. We can’t speak to the DDoS attack, but some of BT’s PoPs certainly hit troubled times.

UPDATE 4:49pm

We’re seeing some consumers report that their broadband is now reconnecting, but issues remain for other parts of the UK. Likewise BT’s websites appear to have come back to life after 2-3 hours of turmoil.

UPDATE 4:58pm

The official line from BT is in.

A BT Spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:

“Large numbers of customers have been experiencing temporary issues with their broadband services this afternoon. Customers can still receive and make calls as normal.

We’ve been working hard to fix the issue and are glad to report that nearly every customer affected is now reconnected, approximately two hours after the problem started.

We apologise to any affected customers for the inconvenience.

There is no evidence at this stage to suggest that we were subject to a malicious attack.”

The post BT’s National UK Network Suffers Serious Broadband Outage appeared first on United Networks.

At present the Government’s Broadband Delivery UKprogramme is already working to push superfast broadband (24Mbps+) capable connectivity out to 95% of the United Kingdom by 2017/18 and BT expects that 96% may actually be delivered. But that still leaves 3-4% of premises left to wait for better connectivity, mostly in remote rural areas and a few urban pockets.

The Government have already conducted a number of Market Test Pilots (MTP) in order to trial several alternative network approaches (e.g. fixed wireless access, fibre optic based and satellite etc.) and their £60m USC (2Mbps for all) subsidy for Satellite connections has also been expanded for use by at least one wireless provider (here).

Never the less a coherent plan for closing the gap is still somewhat absent, but now might be the best time to debate this problem given. The Government are already consulting on a new approach to EU State Aid approval for future broadband contracts (here) and will shortly consult on proposals for a new 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO).

Matt Warman, MP for Boston and Skegness, said:

“I am pleased that the Government is listening to concerns from MP and other groups about the variations in broadband coverage in both urban and rural areas, and is hosting the ‘not-spot’ summit to look at ways to improve coverage for families and businesses across the country.

I have no doubt that the range of internet providers and interested groups will provide for an interesting and productive discussion on what we can all do to ensure better coverage going forward.”

Warman originally called for the debate during a related session in the House of Commons last October 2015 (here), although it wouldn’t be the first time that such a debate has been held and we expect many of the usual issues to raise their heads again. Similarly representatives from BDUK, EEand BT will also be speaking at the event.

The debate also claims to be open to “interest groups,” although some sources indicate that this won’t include campaign groups, which is a bit disappointing.

The post UK Government to Debate Broadband Not-spots on Wednesday appeared first on United Networks.

So far Gigaclear’s network has already become available to roughly 15,000 homes and businesses in rural parts of Oxfordshire, Essex, Kent, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Rutland and Gloucestershire in England.

On top of that the ISP, which currently owns and operates 56 rural fibre networks (plus 35 under construction), has also signed a number of Government (state aid) supported Broadband Delivery UKcontracts (e.g. Gloucestershire – here, Essex – here and Berkshire – here etc.) and they hope to reach approximately 40,000 premises by the end of 2016.

However beyond that they also have commercial plans to reach another 30-40K premises (around 80,000 total), which is likely to require further investment. Gigaclear has already managed to attract£48.6 million in investment and now they’re about to get another €25m (£19m) via a loan.

The FT states that most of this loan will be coming from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and indeed it’s said to be the EIB’s “first targeted support for rural communications in the UK“, as well as also being the maximum available under their InnovFin (EU finance for innovators) mid-cap growth finance scheme.

Matthew Hare, CEO of Gigaclear, said:

“We’re transforming lives and businesses, giving people access to the fastest internet speeds to be found anywhere in the world and technologically future-proofing these rural communities for years.”

One problem with the big spender approach to infrastructure development is that it will still take a long time to recoup the investment, not that this appears to worry Gigaclear or any of the other fibre optic ISPs.

Investors often seem able to see the long-term potential of fibre optic connectivity, which has also attracted them to other operators like Cityfibre and Hyperoptic. Assuming Ofcom doesn’t negatively upset that market too much with their Strategic Review then there’s no reason why this shouldn’t continue.

At this point it’s worth reminding our readers of Gigaclear’s “medium-term” target from their 2014 AIM float: “The Company’s target, assuming capital of £180 million (including the proceeds of the Placing) is deployed over the medium-term, is to make ultrafast fibre broadband available to 200,000 rural properties.”

The post Rural Broadband ISP Gigaclear Gets 25m Euro Loan to Expand Network appeared first on United Networks.

The company formation agent produced the table by marking each UK city on eight criteria: commercial property (rent costs, availability etc.), energy, virtual office services, public transport, broadband service (average download speed), workforce demographics, access to finance (e.g. available grants) and quality of life (e.g. home rental prices, crime, affordable childcare).

Apparently subcategories, such as broadband download speeds and the current availability of prime office space, were all scored out of ten in order to help create an all-encompassing national league table. The broadband speed data was sourced from Cable.co.uk, although crucially speedtests are not a reliable reflection of the underlying availability of even faster connections (we’ve highlighted availability on some of the below examples).

Otherwise it’s important to point out that sometimes cities with a thriving business focused local economy aren’t actually the best for starting a new company. For example, Aberdeen (Scotland) was ranked a lowly 66th despite being the UK’s oil capital and having numerous industrial successes, but this also means that the cost of starting and maintaining a company in the city “has become simply untenable for many small business owners.”

The Best Cities

Overall Derby (Derbyshire, England) topped the table because it is “by far the most affordable, accessible and supportive city in the UK to launch a new startup” and it’s especially strong in the tech sector (12% of its workforce are employed in hi-tech industry, which is double most other cities).

Virtual office services were also found to be extremely cheap in Derby (£55 per month) and typical broadband download speeds tended to hover around 24Mbps (Megabits per second). In fairness the general availability of superfast broadband networks in Derby are also nearly universal.

Elsewhere the best city in Scotland was found to be Stirling (ranked 8th overall), although it only delivered typical download speeds of around 14Mbps and we note that the local availability of superfast broadband is only just pushing above the 70% mark (clearly broadband wasn’t a prime factor here).

However spare a thought for poor Wales and its “top” city of Newport, which ranks 28th overall and thus sits roughly middle. The city did reasonably well thanks to its affordable commercial property and typical average download speeds of around 20Mbps, but it still sits mid-table due to problems in other categories. We also note that local superfast broadband availability tends to sit at around the 90%+ mark.

The Worst City

Obviously somebody has to come last in this table and that gong goes to Hereford in England, which was due to its “complete lack of business infrastructure“, lack of office space, expensive virtual office prices, limit access to grants for start-ups and the fact that broadband speeds in the city are also slow at 9Mbps. The availability of superfast connections also tends to sit at around the low 70% mark. Other small UK cathedral cities also struggled for a good ranking.

The Top UK Cities for Starting a Company
Derby 1
Stoke-on-Trent 2
Belfast 3
Wolverhampton 4
Sunderland 5
Lincoln 6
Coventry 7
Stirling 8
Liverpool 9
Durham 10
Armagh 11
St Albans 12
Lichfield 13
Wakefield 14
Newcastle-upon-Tyne 15
Glasgow 16
Bradford 17
Sheffield 18
Preston 19
Salford 20
Manchester 21
Winchester 22
Nottingham 23
London 24
Leeds 25
Worcester 26
Southampton 27
Newport 28
Londonderry 29
Edinburgh 30
Cambridge 31
Lisburn 32
Westminster 33
Norwich 34
Gloucester 35
Birmingham 36
Bristol 34
Lancaster 38
Peterborough 39
Cardiff 40
Leicester 41
Chester 42
Salisbury 43
Kingston-upon-Hull 44
Swansea 45
Exeter 46
Oxford 47
Ely 48
Perth 49
Chelmsford 50
York 51
St David’s 52
Dundee 53
Truro 54
Plymouth 55
Brighton & Hove 56
Bangor 57
Bath 58
Portsmouth 59
Chichester 60
Newry 61
St Asaph 62
Canterbury 63
Ripon 64
Carlisle 65
Aberdeen 66
Inverness 67
Wells 68
Hereford 69

The post Good Broadband Helps Find the Top 69 UK Cities for Starting a Business appeared first on United Networks.