ISPA POLICY WORK
ISPA holds roundtable with IWF
This month ISPA met with stakeholders and members to discuss online safety. This included holding a joint roundtable with the IWF to discuss online safety and the upcoming Online Harms Bill. The roundtable provided an opportunity for members to learn more about the work of the IWF, the current barriers to blocking harmful content, and to hear case studies from fellow members.
ISPA also met with a number of Ofcom representatives to discuss the Bill ahead of Ofcom’s new role as Online Safety Regulator. Ofcom provided an insight into some of their main areas of focus as well as some of the challenges in preparing to take on new responsibilities around online safety. ISPA will continue to work together with members ahead of the publication of the draft Bill later this year.
Way cleared for next stage of broadband rollout
DCMS published their ‘Project Gigabit: Phase One Delivery Plan’ which sets out their broadband funding to 2024. The Plan focuses on connecting some of the hardest to reach areas including public buildings in rural areas and announces a revamped voucher scheme for those with the worst internet speeds. Meanwhile Ofcom’s plans to regulate fixed networks through their Wholesale Fixed Telecoms Market Review provided clarity to the sector on the next steps towards working to connect the nation.
ISPA EVENTS
Technical testing underway, time to submit your written entries
The annual 23rd ISPAs launched in February. The registration for 12 categories - including the Best Ultrafast ISP, Best Consumer ISP, Best Customer Service, Best Hosted Service, Best Infrastructure Provider, Best Business ISP and Best Cyber Security closed on 31st March.
ISP and Hosted Service entrants are required to undergo a period of technical testing from 1st April 2021 to 31st May 2021. The technical testing (facilitated by thinkbroadband) involves entrants’ customers performing a number of tests using the thinkbroadband testing tool (accessible on any browser and many devices). The best performing entrants will form a finalist shortlist.
Entrants must submit their written entry forms for all categories by 4th June.
For the full list of categories and written entry forms please visit https://www.ispa.org.uk/ispa-awards/
The winners will be announced in London on 4th November and tickets will go on sale in summer.
ISPA Awards sponsors
There are many sponsorship opportunities to partner with one of the categories and reap benefits throughout the whole year. Please contact awards@ispa.org.uk for more information.
Find more about the awards here
ISP Customer Experience
Many thanks to all of you who participated in our first 2021 ISP Business Model webinar dedicated to the ISP Customer Experience last Thursday. For those who missed the event, you can watch it here.
Once again, special thanks to all the speakers for sharing their thoughts and experiences, and to our annual partners including Netgem TV & WiFi, Plume, CityFibre, EPS Global, Fibrain and Openreach.
Please fill in this short survey to help us continually improve our events.
Stay tuned for the next webinar on 17th June on networks! More information is coming soon but you can register now by clicking the button below.
ISPA PARTNERS
Full Fibre Infrastructure Partner
CityFibre to extend its world-class infrastructure to 216 additional towns and villages across Britain
CityFibre has identified 216 additional towns and villages that are to benefit from a Full Fibre rollout, completing the list of locations in its £4 billion nationwide investment programme. The locations selected will see CityFibre extend its networks to much smaller conurbations, bringing the benefits of Full Fibre to communities outside the UK’s major towns and cities.
The nationwide build programme is expected to be substantially completed by 2025 and will address approximately a third of the UK market including up to 8 million homes, 800,000 businesses, 400,000 public sector sites and 250,000 5G access points. This will make it the largest independent Full Fibre platform in the country. CityFibre has published an interactive map on its website providing full transparency of its build plans: www.cityfibre.com/rollout.
Open Disaggregated Solutions Partner
Ground-breaking ISP Deployment in Africa - A Case Study from EPS Global
Virtual Technologies & Solutions provides fast, resilient and affordable broadband access to residential, enterprise and wholesale clients in Burkina Faso. Their core network is comprised of POPs in Ghana, the UK, France, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and the US, where they have multiple transit and peering connections with a variety of global networks. They continue to invest heavily in their infrastructure to ensure it is future-proofed to meet demand, and to maintain their status as the leading ISP in the country and region.
EPS Global is VTS’s distributor of choice, providing the hardware, software and tech support for the deployment referenced in this case study.
The Challenge:
To extend the network capacity within Burkina Faso, connecting the cities of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, with Dakola, almost 200km away.
The Solution:
- 'Cassini', the Telecom Infra Project’s disaggregated coherent switch and open packet transponder built by Edgecore Networks, was used to interconnect the two cities through 200km of 200Gbps fiber allowing VTS to extend its capacity from West Africa Cable System (WACS), ACE and MainOne.
- The networking stack of OcNOS, the industry’s full-featured network OS for white box disaggregated network solutions by IP Infusion provided the transition from traditional to open networking.
- It is the first commercial deployment of the Cassini solution in Africa and leveraging this solution allowed VTS to dramatically increase bandwidth while reducing the total cost of ownership.
- VTS was able to easily add high-capacity fiber links which improved the network operation.
- The 200Gbps link is the first of its kind in Burkina Faso and will deliver faster, more reliable connectivity for all of VTS's customers.
The Products Deployed:
- Edgecore Networks’ Cassini solution
- 5912-54x whitebox switches
- OCNOS from IP Infusion
- 10G - 100G optical modules
- Combination of copper cabling and active optical cables for interconnect
- SuperMicro’s SuperServers
- ufiSpace’s Disaggregated Cell Site Gateway (DCSG)
You can read the full Case Study here.
Fibre Technologies Partner
Will new EU decisions provoke real "earthquake" on the fiber optic cable market? Anti-dumping measures concerning imports of fiber optic cables from China are coming closer than ever before.
In the fiber optic cable industry, this is one of the most important decisions for investors who are implementing their projects. New information concerning anti-dumping duty proceedings, which aim at supporting and protecting the interests of European producers, has been officially confirmed https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021R0548&from=EN
The European Commission has just decided to take another step towards imposing an anti-dumping duty on fiber optic cables imported from China. Pursuant to the latest EC regulation, the registration of potential deliveries was introduced from March 31, so those duties can, if necessary conditions are fulfilled, be levied retroactively on the registered imports in accordance with the applicable legal provisions. The allegations in the complaint requesting the initiation of an anti-dumping investigation estimate an average injury elimination level of 43 % for the product concerned.
Imposing duty will naturally translate into higher final price for the customers. Additionally, it can be assumed that the regulation may also extend to other non-european manufacturers in the future.
At the same time, we want to reassure our customers that all FIBRAIN cables are produced in our manufacturing center in Poland, so there is no need to worry or be afraid that the new regulation will affect our customers. If you are interested in diversifying FO cable supply sources, please feel free to contact Kevin Moulton (k.moulton@fibrain.com).
TV & Smart WiFi Partner
World-Class TV focused streaming service Acorn TV launches on Netgem TV platform for UK ultrafast ISPs
Netgem has just announced the launch of Acorn TV, another “UK first” addition to Netgem TV, the end-to-end TV service powering the UK’s growing community of “Altnets” and challenger ISPs.
The service brings the very best from the past, present and future of programming from Britain, Australia, Ireland, Canada and more, all in one place for £4.99 per month after a 30-day free trial. Users who sign up via Netgem will also be able to access the service via the Acorn TV app on their laptop, mobile phones, and other streaming devices with the same login. As a special Bank Holiday Easter launch offer and only for Netgem’s ISP partners, all sign-ups between the 2nd and the 9th April will be boosted to a special “3 month free” deal worth up to £14.97.
Acorn TV leverages Netgem’s expertise in metadata aggregation and the promotion of premium services through a myriad of touch points within the User Interface and customer journey. Content assets are curated as well as automated within an immersive UI experience, designed for maximum engagement and discoverability.
Shan Eisenberg, CCO at Netgem TV & WiFi says “Netgem TV is about bringing choice to our viewers, so we are delighted to welcome Acorn TV to our service, and give our viewers the chance to discover or re-discover their range of quality British classics to discover and binge on. We’re also about bringing better value than traditional Pay TV, so we’re thrilled that our viewers can get a special 3-month free deal on Acorn TV during the Easter break. The response from our ISP partners has been fantastic especially those who are targeting traditional audiences - they are absolutely thrilled to be able to present Acorn TV before all other Pay TV platforms.”
Stuart Shaw, Managing Director, Acorn Media International adds: “Acorn TV is thrilled to join the Netgem TV family. We’re excited for its viewers to discover the wonders of Acorn TV from its newly commissioned Acorn TV Originals including Queens of Mystery and multiple series of Agatha Raisin, to long-standing favourites such as Foyle’s War and George Gently, as well as several more brand new outstanding series coming later this year. Our goal remains to commission and license the very best in international dramas and mysteries, so that subscribers can watch the latest British shows as well as high quality series from Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and more.
Infrastructure Partner
Channel Live Virtual Conference Programme - Upgrading the UK’s Digital Infrastructure
Earlier this month, James Lilley, our Director of Managed Customer Migrations, gave a keynote presentation on our Digital Upgrade plans for Channel Live Virtual – an online conference and networking event for the Channel or reseller business audience, hosted by flagship channel title Comms Business.
James talked about how Openreach is significantly investing in upgrading the UK’s digital infrastructure from copper to fibre and how we’re working with industry to meet the challenge of migrating over 15m customers and closing legacy copper services. The talk was well received and a summary write-up of the event, including James’ presentation – will also appear in the April edition of Comms Business.
To replay James’ presentation or watch any of the sessions from the conference, you can access via the event website, or a more specific link to James’ session is below, but visitors will need to login to view the session.
CX & Smart WiFi Partner
Plume has announced a major category expansion with the launch of WorkPass – a first-of-its-kind suite of intelligent services and management tools purpose-built for the needs of Small Business Owners (SBOs) and Communications Service Providers (CSPs) who serve them. This new solution builds on Plume's HomePass Smart Home Services suite deployed by more than 180 CSPs across more than 23 million homes globally.
Read the announcement
Read the blog post
ISPA MEMBERSHIP
ISPA is happy to announce CityFibre and Origin Solutions and Country Connect as new members
As the UK’s third national digital infrastructure platform and the builder of Gigabit Cities, CityFibre designs, builds, owns and operates full fibre networks. CityFibre has network rollouts underway in 60+ towns and cities, with plans to bring full fibre broadband to up to 8m homes through a £4bn Gigabit City Investment Programme.
Hybrid Engineering from Cable to the Cloud, bespoke business network infrastructure & internet connectivity wired & wireless.
Country Connect provides an array of communications technologies including our native FTTP broadband and fixed wireless services. We deliver high speed broadband services, IT support and VoIP to both business and residential customers across South Wales, even to the most rural and remote parts. Nothing is impossible.
Find membership benefits and form to join here
PRESS COVERAGE
Our views on UK Telecoms Security Bill were shared on The Register and ISPreview.
PARTNER EVENTS
ISPA offers its members a variety of discounts for events that we partner with.
White Label World Expo - 9th - 10th June 2021
For more information and discounts please visit our website. If you would like to advertise your events here and on our website, please contact Michaela@ispa.org.uk