ISPA Policy Update

Electronic Communications Code reform continues

ISPA continued ongoing work on raising awareness of the need for Electronic Communications Code reform for the rollout of Gigabit Capable broadband. ISPA submitted a response to the Public Account Committee’s evidence session on broadband rollout with DCMS highlighting the need for ECC reform as well as tackling other barriers to broadband. Elsewhere ISPA attended the initial sessions run by the OTA looking at how to implement the new one touch switch system as well as continuing to attend the Ofcom roundtables on terminology and use cases.

 Telecoms Security Bill approaches Royal Assent 

The Telecoms Security Bill completed its journey through the House of Lords with successful amendments on diversification progress and reviewing relationships with vendors banned by Five Eyes members. The House of Commons will consider these amendments on November 8th with Royal Assent expected before the end of the month. ISPA continued to engage with DCMS on the Bill through monthly forums and also held a subgroup meeting with members to update them on the latest on the Bill and wider cyber policy developments.

 Online Safety debate heats up  

ISPA continued to monitor the Draft Online Safety Bill Committee which this month heard from representatives from social media giants and two Facebook whistle-blowers. The Committee are growing increasingly interested in the role of algorithms and paid for online advertising, as well as strengthened criminal liability options for social media Directors. Online safety was a key area of focus outside of the Committee, with the murder of David Amess MP sparking passionate debates on the issue of online hate and anonymity. ISPA will continue to update members on the Committee which will shortly hear from Ofcom as well as DCMS Secretary of State Nadine Dorries MP.

Ahead of this week's awards ceremony, we are delighted to announce the finalists for the 2021 Internet Hero Awards.

Rory Cellan-Jones - As the BBC’s Technology Correspondent since 2007, Rory has been responsible for keeping the public informed about technology in an accessible and meaningful way. Keeping millions of people aware of highly technical technological issues when their level of understanding about the internet is low is no small ask. The importance of this should not be underestimated, especially given the need for technological literacy in the modern world. Rory has been instrumental in communicating these issues from the age of dial up to the age of gigabit broadband. After 40 years of service to the BBC, he is retiring later this month.

Telecoms Infrastructure Project Team – TIP has been a hugely important group for driving infrastructure solutions to advance global connectivity. The positive signs that 58% of the world are now internet users show how TIP are helping achieve their goal, and while there is a long way to go, their work up until now deserves to be recognised. Special credit should also go to their work in promoting open industry standards and technology diversification, such as OpenRAN.

Helen Milner OBE – The Good Things Foundation has been vital in helping promote digital inclusion at a time when the pandemic has made digital literacy crucial to access health information and keep in contact with loved ones.  The Good Things Foundation has provided practical support to millions of people to achieve social change. The numbers speak for themselves – 3.5 million people supported to gain digital skills shows the progress made. Their work with Government, ISPs and wider industry has been hugely important to champion a digitally included nation. We believe Helen Milner OBE is absolutely due praise for her work as CEO of the Good Things Foundation.

ISPA EVENTS

The 23rd Annual Awards Ceremony is sold out!

We are happy to host our annual ISPA Awards ceremony in person again later this week. The winners of the 23rd annual ISPAs will be announced on 4th November from 7pm at the Sheraton Grand Park Lane hotel on Piccadilly in London.

The ISPA Awards is the longest running and most prestigious awards for the UK’s ISP industry. You can find the list of the finalists here.

We were overwhelmed with tickets purchases and those lucky enough to get their places, will be entertained by top comedian Hal Cruttenden and enjoy a three course meal and wine in a lovely surroundings of art deco ballroom.

Keep your eyes peeled for the winners list late on Thursday night!

Many thanks to all of you who participated in our third 2021 ISP Business Model webinar  dedicated to the future wholesale and retail ISP models.

We hope you took away valuable insights and picked up some useful practices. For those who missed the event, please find below the full recording on our YouTube channel.

Watch the webinar recording here

ISPA PARTNERS

Full Fibre Infrastructure Partner

Last month Andrew Wilson, Head of Wholesale at CityFibre, took part in the ISPA webinar ‘The Future of Wholesale ISP Models’.  Alongside fellow panel members, he discussed what makes a successful wholesale platform and how the different networks might work together in the future.

CityFibre is building the UK’s largest independent Full Fibre platform, and during the discussion, Andrew focussed on CityFibre’s mission to make it easy for ISPs to sell services on its Full Fibre network.  He highlighted the marketing support CityFibre provides to ISPs, which puts them front and centre in the marketplace and the targeted data (detailing who the CityFibre network passes) that CityFibre provides to partner ISPs, enabling them to take a targeted approach.

The panel discussed the current hot topic ‘Equinox pricing’, what this means for the industry, and the other factors outside of pricing, that offer differentiation. They also shared their opinions on ‘one-touch switching’, how a common wholesale platform might work and whether the market will see aggregation and acquisition change the current market landscape.

Andrew also illustrated how CityFibre has disrupted the market and continually seeks to drive competition in the industry and provide choice for customers. He also shared his view on the outstanding levels of innovation within the channel and the importance that progress in network build programmes is likely to have in the future.

This week CityFibre are thrilled to be attending the ISPA Awards. As well as being a sponsor of this year’s physical event, CityFibre has been shortlisted for the ‘Best Infrastructure Provider’ award. The CityFibre team are ready to celebrate, with fellow industry colleagues and customers alike, at what’s set to be a fantastic event!

Open Disaggregated Solutions Partner

Delivering a new generation of digital subscriber experiences

A replay from the ISPA UK "The Future Wholesale and Retail ISP Models" webinar with full slide deck and hands-on demo included

The broadband delivery landscape is changing rapidly – we now live in an era where consumers demand faster, safer and flawless connectivity, with access to highly personalised apps and services.

However, increased home network usage, and a growing number of devices, has created more operational headaches at a time when cutting churn, and increasing ARPU remain key priorities.

EPS Global and Plume have partnered to enable over 200 Service Providers to super-serve over 30 million households worldwide through its unique data-driven approach to consumer experience. In this interactive session you’ll learn about:

    • How EPS Global can get hardware into your hands in a global chip shortage
    • The changing market landscape – what’s driving service providers to adapt & lead with smart WiFi services
    • A new and expanding services portfolio that can generate significant upsell opportunities – boosting monthly ARPU
    • A new data-driven model enabling more successful subscriber support that can reduce call-in-rates by up to 51%*, slash truck-rolls by up to 67%*, and cut subscriber churn by up to 30%*
    • Hands-on demo of Plume’s platform featuring front-end consumer services, including adaptive WiFi, and back-end support tools & data dashboards

Play demo

CX & Smart WiFi Partner

ISPA's partners Plume and EPS Global joined forces for a presentation called 'Delivering a new generation of digital subscriber experiences' at ISPA’s webinar on 20 October.

If you missed the session, please click below to view their slides.

Find EPS Global and Plume slides here

Fibre Technologies Partner

FIBRAIN BU-XN - one product – many possibilities!📣

With great pleasure we introduce new product in the Fiber Distribution product portfolio - wall-mounted cabinet BU-xN!

This wall-mounted cabinet BU-xN is specifically designed for FTTH applications, and is characterized by small size, and clever design of large capacity.

The biggest advantage - although it is not easy to choose only one among so many features, is the modular design.

The possibility to connect individual modules and the appropriate choice of the equipment makes the product very useful at a particular connection location during the construction of your telecommunication networks.

We kindly invite you watch the short video https://youtu.be/R7euOVz63gc which shows great possibilities of our FIBRAIN BU-XN cabinet

Naturally, if you have any questions about FIBRAIN products, contact k.moulton@fibrain.com!

TV & Smart WiFi Partner 

Netgem TV’s presentation on ISP valuation at Business Model Webinar

Netgem TV explored the role of TV in ISP valuation during the last ISPA Business Model Webinar. Please find their slides below. If you would like to reach out to get more information, please email contact@netgem.co.ukFind Netgem slides here

Infrastructure Partner

Openreach logo

New long-term price promise aims to push take-up of full fibre faster

Openreach has launched a new special offer on its Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology which provides Communications Providers (CPs) with more certainty on the price for rental and connections for the next 10 years.

Any CP that signs up between now and the end of March 2022 can secure the offer prices in exchange for agreeing to make Ultrafast Full Fibre the default option for new customers or upgrades in areas where FTTP is available.

More than 5.5 million homes and businesses already have access to Ultrafast Full Fibre and Openreach is making the new technology available to another 44,000 premises every week.

Right now, over a million homes and businesses have already switched over to ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband from Openreach. And the aim is to make gigabit-capable technology available to 25 million UK premises by December 2026.

Openreach developed the new offer in consultation with its Communications Provider customers. The pricing gives CPs a simple and straightforward deal, with a set of national monthly prices across the entire Openreach fibre network.

Ofcom has set the pricing on the entry speed tier (40Mbps upstream, 10Mbps downstream). But CPs can also choose to tailor offers across a range of speed tiers, with bigger discounts in place to encourage more take-up of higher bandwidths.

The new offer, in exchange for a commitment from CPs to stop selling old copper-based connections in full fibre areas, is all about encouraging the move to fibre.

Katie Milligan, Managing Director of Customer, Commercials and Propositions at Openreach said: “Nobody’s building full fibre broadband faster, further, or at a higher quality than Openreach, and we’re well on track to reach 25 million premises by December 2026.

“At the same time, we’re determined to make full fibre the default option for customers throughout the UK, so we’ve been working closely with Communications Providers to offer simple and competitive pricing which gives them the long-term certainty and flexibility they need.

“We believe this offer makes full fibre a must-have for every home and business, and it means more people could start benefitting from our most revolutionary and reliable broadband sooner.”

The offer remains open for participation from 1 October 2021 to 30 March 2022, with discounts then available until 30 September 2031 for CPs participating in the offer.

ISPA Awards Sponsors

Enxoo, a sponsor of the 2021 ISPA Awards, helps new FTTH operator Upp to bring next-level broadband to underserved towns and communities across the East of England.

If you want to learn about the challenges Upp was facing and find out why Enxoo was selected by Upp to deploy its BSS cloud solution, sign up to get access to the full success story.

https://www2.enxoo.com/UppSuccessStory

Full Fibre are fast becoming one of the UK's leading network builders, with over 50 towns, across 11 counties in build. Our consumer facing brand Fibre Heroes, launched this year, is designed to show residents living in underserved towns the real benefit of a Fibre optic broadband. As a wholesale alnet, we’re active in our communities, giving them a choice of independent ISP's that are as passionate about the customer journey & experience as us.

Magrathea offers a wide range of services to meet the needs of your business, whether based on VoIP or traditional TDM network technology. Because of our strengths in integrating these two technologies, our use of modern equipment and our expertise, we are perfectly placed to help you drive your vision forward.

We aim to help businesses and service providers around the world deliver first class solutions by providing a full range of managed voice and data services.

Managed Call Termination, Voice over IP, Voice Peering, Geographic Numbering, Premium Rate Services, Secure Voice and Managed Colocation are just some of the services we offer.

Whatever your requirements, talk to us about your voice and data needs and let us work together to deploy solutions that will make your business stand out!

Congratulations to all the nominees in this year's ISPA Awards. 2020 created unprecedented demand for high speed connectivity and the industry rose to this challenge. Now we are in a position to deliver a Gigabit future.

For nearly quarter of a Centaury TP-Link, has been leading the industry in R&D to manufacture networking devices for telecom carriers, enterprises and consumers. With a wide range of carrier-grade products for high-speed broadband connectivity and Whole Home Wi-Fi solutions we provide Best Cost solutions to 170+ countries.

Enhance your network with our FTTx solutions

As the sponsor of this year’s ISPA Best Partnership award, we recognise that collaborative working is key for a successful telecoms network. Our partnerships have enabled us to become a global leader in providing critical telecom network hardware and services.

We understand that flexibility and efficiency is incredibly important to ISPs and broadband providers. That’s why we’re here to support you with our range of high-quality and cost-effective FTTx solutions:

  • Street cabinets
  • GPON infrastructure - OLTs, ONUs & more
  •  Optical transceivers
  • Optical cables
  • Network design & build

We’d love to hear all about your requirements, discover more about our FTTx solutions,
fill out our easy-to-use contact form or drop us an email at hello@txo.com to chat things through.

Best wishes,

From all at TXO

How do you efficiently build out and maintain your fiber network with quality while overcoming the challenges of increased customer demand and a developing workforce? You get smart with your testing. This means easy-to-use tools, simplified test processes, and automated report management. Learn how VIAVI can help you save time, reduce errors and give your customers the service they deserve – visit https://www.viavisolutions.co.uk/smartertesting

ISPA MEMBERSHIP

Itility and Stem Connect joined ISPA

Itility Limited is an independent Manchester based UK data centre, hosting and connectivity specialist providing colocation, network and disaster recovery solutions.


We offer a unique approach to delivering connectivity to our clients. Our top priority is to offer affordable and sensible solutions backed by a highly skilled and professional support team. Stem Connect is well known in the enterprise space for managed connectivity solutions and fail proof service level agreements.

Find membership benefits and form to join here

PARTNER EVENTS

ISPA offers its members a variety of discounts for events that we partner with.

Working From Home Live - 24th and 25th November, register for your free tickets!
Delivering 5G in the UK – progress and lessons so far, market development, supply chain diversification, innovation, partnerships, infrastructure, and coverage - 10th December

For more information and discounts please visit our website. If you would like to advertise your events our website, please contact Michaela@ispa.org.uk