Introducing new ISPA Chair - Steve Leighton
ISPA is pleased to announce Steve Leighton, CEO of rural fibre broadband provider Voneus, has been appointed the new Chair of ISPA Council, taking over the reins from long-serving council Chair, Andrew Glover.
Steve has been CEO of Voneus for more than a decade and as a serial entrepreneur he has set up and been part of the management team of other ISPs and tech businesses over the past twenty years. Steve is passionate about the industry and its ability to transform the lives of those who benefit from the infrastructure and the services delivered across it. Steve’s energy, enthusiasm and all-around experience make him a natural successor to the former Chair of ISPA, Andrew Glover.
ISPA’s former chair, Andrew Glover, hands over after more than five years as Chair - ISPA would like to thank Andrew for his dedication and leadership to the industry over the past five years. During this period ISPA has continued to be the voice of the UK internet sector as membership has grown by a quarter and the ISPA team doubled in size.
Commenting on his appointment as chair, Steve said:
“It’s an absolute privilege to be appointed Chair of ISPA at a key moment for the sector. ISPA members are transforming the UK’s connectivity, with fibre networks being deployed at speed as customers rely on their broadband for so many aspects of their day-to-day lives. ISPA will continue to support members to set the agenda, engage with policymakers, bring industry together for events and make a difference to members. We will continue to push for the best possible conditions for our sector to continue the roll-out of gigabit services across the UK. I can’t wait to get started!”
Former Chair Andrew Glover added:
“It has been a privilege to have been chair for the last 5 years and represent such a vibrant, competitive, and innovative industry. With the increasing demands on the broadband sector, ISPA’s role is more important than ever. I am delighted to pass the organization on in good health, with an excellent council and support team. I will continue to serve and support Steve.” Andrew Glover, CEO, Air Broadband & Former ISPA Chair.
ISPA Council also welcomed new faces from Swish Fibre and BRSK to the board.
ISPA POLICY UPDATE
ISPA in the news
Former ISPA chairman Andrew Glover represented ISPA on the BBC to discuss the ongoing work members are doing to support their customers throughout the cost of living crisis and the recent Government roundtable.
Data Protection and Digital Information Bill
Government published a Bill seeking to update and simplify the UK’s data protection framework to reduce the burden on organisations while maintaining high data protection standards. The changes mirror some of the reforms proposed by the EU, to ensure the data adequacy agreement between the UK and EU is not undermined.
Conservative Party Leadership Election
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation in July as the Conservative Party leader. Johnson will remain as a Caretaker Prime Minister until a new Conservative Party Leader is selected. Johnson's resignation followed the resignation of over 50 of his Cabinet Ministers, Ministers and Parliamentary Private Secretaries from Government. Resignations included DCMS Ministers Julia Lopez, the Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure, and Chris Philp the Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy. As part of his role as a caretaker Prime Minister, Johnson has reappointed Matt Warman as a Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure Minister and Damian Collins has been appointed the new Minister for Online Safety.The process of selecting a new party leader is in full swing with MPs having selected the final 2 candidates for leadership: Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. The winner will be announced on 5 September. The leadership has so far focused on taxation, the size of the state and identity politics. Telecoms has not been a focus and is unlikely to become one. Although the online safety bill was widely criticised by some of the candidates during the earlier part of the contest and it’s progress in the House of Commons has now been paused until a new leader is elected.
ISPA EVENTS
ISPA Awards 2022
Digital Inclusion Award launched
ISPA and Good Things Foundation are partnering to find and showcase the best digital inclusion initiatives across the UK at the 2022 ISPA Awards.
Access to reliable good quality technology and being equipped with the skills to be able to make the most of our digitally connected world, are no longer luxuries - they are essential for all of us. The COVID pandemic brought home the importance of good connectivity to enable us all to work from home, support educational opportunities, stay in touch with friends and family, and have greater access to news and entertainment. The rising cost of living is adding a new dimension, increasing the risk of digital exclusion.
We want to highlight the good work being done to bridge the digital divide. Whether you’re an individual, organisation or community group, we want to hear about the impact and change you have made. It could be improving digital literacy, helping people get connected or simply using digital to change lives for the better.
The 2022 ISPA Awards will shine a light on this vital cause. Shortlisted nominees will be invited to the ceremony as the guests of ISPA and Good Things Foundation.
To enter, please fill out this written entry form (keep the document size to no more than two pages of A4 - minimum size font: Arial 10) and send to awards@ispa.org.uk by September 24th.
Keep your eyes peeled on the announcement of the shortlist for the ISPA Awards 2022 which is coming this week.
The winners will be crowned on 24th November at a gala awards ceremony at The Landmark London hotel in front of more than 350 of the great and the good of the sector. You can already book your seats or secure a full table with a discount today here. The tickets, as always, include a networking drinks reception, a three course dinner with wine, live entertainment and most importantly, the awards ceremony!
Book your tickets for the awards ceremony here
Thank you to the sponsors of the ISPA Awards 2022
ISPA PARTNERS
Network and Connectivity Partner
Subscriber Experience Partner
Calix customer AcenTek Goes Green - Reducing Energy Usage by 73 % with Calix Intelligent Access EDGE and Home System Energy Usage by 50 % with Revenue EDGE
After 17 years of partnership, Calix continues to be an invaluable guide as we drive to fulfill our green power initiative,” said Ethan Webinger, chief operating officer at AcenTek. “We’ve reduced our core routing power footprint by 73 percent by eliminating routing systems with the Intelligent Access EDGE E9-2 system, increased network capacity, simplified operations, and management as a result of deploying the Network Innovation Platform on all our systems. Calix is the only company that consistently delivers innovative, end-to-end broadband solutions like these to rural communities like ours, who are generally overlooked by the industry giants. Calix green innovations will enable us to continue to grow our value in our communities.
Full Fibre Infrastructure Partner
CityFibre: Proud sponsor of the ISPA Awards
The ISPAs are the longest-running awards in the internet industry and since 1999 have been rewarding and celebrating the best that the UK ISP sector has to offer.Last year, CityFibre picked up the title for ‘Best Infrastructure Provider’ and the team is looking forward to attending the 2022 event on 24th November at The Landmark hotel in London, to celebrate with this year’s winners.
This year, CityFibre is sponsoring the award for ‘Best Consumer ISP <100k’ in recognition of the importance that partners of all sizes are to CityFibre and of the value that these smaller ISPs make to the UK connectivity market.
DDoS Protection Partner
The Top 5 Misconceptions about DDoS Attacks
- Nobody will want to DDoS me.
- We’ve Never Been Attacked.
- Adding more bandwidth will fix the problem.
When talking to organisations about DDoS and best ways to mitigate DDoS attacks we often come across many misconceptions. Some of the ones that we hear more often are:
Learn more about the top 5 misconceptions
Open Disaggregated Solutions Partner
[EPS Global Podcast] What are P4 Programmable Switches?
And how do they solve power, performance and cost challenges for Service Providers?
P4 switching is open networking extended all the way down to the switch ASIC level, and while it will not solve all Service Provider or Data Centre challenges, when properly used will provide increased resource efficiencies to better handle data, greater visibility and monitoring of traffic to screen and block attacks at the network edge, and enhance congestion control. All of this without significantly sacrificing on performance, or increasing the need for power, or adding to costs.
Leading the charge in P4 switching is Edgecore Networks, and we had the opportunity to sit down with Nanda Ravindran, their VP of Product Management to ask what is P4 Switching, and what are the real benefits?
Damage Prevention Partner
ISPs Improve Protection from Third Party Damages
It has been welcome and reassuring to see a sharp upturn in ISPs choosing to proactively provide safe digging plans in order to reduce third party damages and improve connectivity. Providing these plans at the same time as those from the major gas and electricity networks ensures these networks are most visible to those digging holes. ISPA Members who have chosen this approach include Voneus, Gigaclear, Jurassic Fibre, Box Broadband, EXA Infrastructure, Gamma, Nynet and Wildanet.
CPE Partners
Linksys partners with Lifemote on their WiFi mesh hardware
Lifemote, a provider of WiFi Assurance analytics and insights Software-as-a-Service solution for Internet Service Providers, and Linksys, have jointly announced successful integration of Lifemote’s services onto Linksys WiFi 6 mesh hardware.
WiFi Assurance is an emerging concept for leading Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) who have identified in-home connectivity as one of their main problems, and are looking for ways to quantify and focus their efforts into improving customer satisfaction. In this respect, Linksys provides one of the best-in-class mesh WiFi systems with the Linksys Velop AX4200 Tri-Band Mesh WiFi 6 System (MX4200) to provide super-fast fibre to premises, due to its ability to deliver high speed WiFi across the whole home and thereby enabling the user to make use of greater bandwidth.
ISPs across the United Kingdom and Ireland are investing heavily in improving internet access
They’ve already spent billions on enhancing services and are committed to spending billions more to bring high-speed connectivity via a growing fibre-optic network to every city, village, and remote rural area. Aside from being a multi-year process, it will also increase the challenges for ISPs as they onboard new and continue to support existing subscribers.
The good news: There have been significant improvements to service in a very short timeframe. Over the past three years, ISPs in the U.K. and Ireland have seen upstream speeds surge 185%, while downstream speeds increased by 167%. And as fibre-optic networks expand, millions of subscribers will soon be able to access services with gigabyte-per-second speeds—enhanced services that are most definitely needed.
Good Things Foundation closes the digital gap with the help of TP-Link
TP-Link is delighted to announce a new initiative with the social change charity The Good Things Foundation. In order to bridge the digital gap, TP-Link has supplied state-of-the-art MiFi M7200 devices for use within the community Digital Inclusion Hubs across the UK. This device supports the latest generation 4G FDD/TDD-LTE network and can easily share 4G connectivity with up to 10 wireless devices.
The Good Things Foundation has supported more than 4 million people globally since 2010. A staggering 10 million people are digitally excluded, disproportionately affecting those with lower household income or educational attainment. Sadly, 37% of those simply don’t have the right equipment. One in five people struggle to search for health information or access government services online. This gap widened during COVID-19 with greater reliance on good-quality connectivity for work, keeping in touch with loved ones and for education.
Get in contact with the ISP team to know more about our services: Kalam Meah, ISP Director, TP-Link UK & Ireland, Mobile: +44 7802 466 121, Email: kalam.meah@tp-link.com
TV & Smart WiFi Partner
Netgem TV is adding new features maintaining high value and low cost for ISPs customers
Netgem TV’s Team have been working hard to add cool new features to their TV service for the Summer. Now, ISPs customers can listen to the latest clips with their headphones or blast through their bluetooth speakers for the ultimate summer party vibe with the Bluetooth out feature. Netgem continues its efforts to preserve the planet as part of its sustainability initiative with Green Stream. Viewers can now reduce their carbon footprint bandwidth usage and improve battery life by switching to a low-bitrate streaming when using our Mobile TV App. Finally, Netgem launches its Accessible TV Guide to make television truly enjoyed by all. This new feature allows Netgem TV users to activate Text-to-Speech and easily find audio descriptions, subtitled and sign language shows.🎉 To celebrate these new features, one lucky winner will have the chance to get their hands on BEATS Solo 3 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones. Simply answer this survey to enter the giveaway. Results at the end of August. Good luck!Answer the survey here
Infrastructure Partner
Openreach network now reaches eight million homes
On 20 July 2022, Openreach announced it had now built ultra-fast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband to 8m homes and businesses across the UK – including 2.5m in the hardest to reach ‘final third’ of the country. That’s almost a third of our commitment to reach 25 million with Full Fibre by December 2026.
Openreach rolls out ADVA’s next-gen edge devices as part of its Ethernet services
We’re continuing our relationship with ADVA as we roll out the next generation of our Ethernet services. Over the past 10 years, using ADVA’s technology, we’ve enabled service providers across the country to bring new offerings to the market while helping us establish the finest reputation for quality and reliability. Read more at Openreach rolls out ADVA’s next-gen edge devices as part of its Ethernet services
The Digital Upgrade to All IP
Migrating Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) assets in the trial areas of Salisbury and Mildenhall
CX & Smart WiFi Partner
Unveiling the IoT brand champions
This month, we continue our odyssey into brand popularity in Plume-powered smart homes, stripping computers, smartphones and tablets from the mix to focus on only Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.We can reveal that globally, Amazon is the brand leader with 1 or more IoT devices present in 41.35% of Plume households, followed by Apple with 30.47%, and Google with 29.51%. When comparing these results with data from last month’s Plume IQ which included computers, smartphones and tablets, it’s apparent that IoT device choice is less concentrated among the top brands.
Interestingly, smartphones—the most popular device category in Plume-powered households—are very influential on IoT device choice. For example, in homes where there's a high penetration of Apple smartphones, Apple represents 23% of the IoT devices present. However, in homes where Samsung smartphones are dominant, Apple IoT devices represent only 4% of the IoT devices. Similarly, in homes where Google smartphones are dominant, only 4% of IoT devices are Apple.
Test & Measurement Partner
ISPA IN THE PRESS
Our press release announcement of our new Chair, Steve Leighton, was picked by ISPReview, Total Telecom and Land Mobile.
BBC News featured our comments in their article on Ofcom who has been urged to do more to help broadband and mobile customers who pay a "loyalty penalty" for staying with their provider.
The announcement of launching our Digital Inclusion award featured in Telecom Paper.
PARTNER EVENTS
ISPA offers its members a variety of discounts for events that we partner with:
ISPA is partnering with Connected Britain which will take place on 21st and 22nd September at the Business Design Centre in London. ISPA members get 15% discount, to find the discount code and more information, please click here.
Our other media partner is Working From Home event, which is part of the The Business Show on 16th and 17th November, tickets are free and you can book them here.
TechEx Global Conference & Exhibition is taking place on 1st and 2nd December at Olympia in London. ISPA members can claim 20% discount, using the code ISPA20
If you would like to advertise your events here and on our website, please contact Michaela@ispa.org.uk