Category Archives: Telecommunications industry

Optus outage: CEO says some services are being restored after millions across Australia lost mobile and internet

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Telecommunications company says engineers investigating a network fault affecting mobile and internet services

Optus is progressively restoring its services about eight hours after a nationwide outage left millions of Australian customers and businesses without mobile and internet services.

The company said services were gradually being restored, after they went down across the country at 4am AEDT. An Optus spokesperson said it “may take a few hours for all services to recover” and urged anyone in need of emergency services to contact triple zero from an alternative device.

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EE to start selling smart TVs, fridges and kettles in move beyond mobile roots

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BT-owned company to take on brands such as Amazon, Currys and Argos with move into e-commerce

The BT-owned EE is to sell smart TVs, fridges, kettles and fitness products as it looks to move beyond its roots in smartphones and enter an e-commerce market dominated by brands such as Amazon, Currys and Argos.

The mobile operator, which has 25 million subscribers, is seeking to use tactics developed selling telecoms products and services to retail products in categories such as smart home security, insurance and games consoles to all UK consumers.

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Vodafone-Three merger could add up to £300 a year to mobile bills, says union

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Tie-up is a ‘terrible deal for Britain’ that also poses risks for national security, Unite claims

Mobile phone bills could rise by as much as £300 a year as a result of the merger of the UK operations of Vodafone and the owner of Three, a trade union has said.

Unite has been a vocal critic of the proposed deal, which would create the UK’s largest mobile operator, and said that it is a “terrible” deal that also poses risks for national security.

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Number of Britons facing significant internet outages doubles in a year

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Two-fifths of UK adults disconnected for three hours or more with one in four left without service for nearly a week

The number of Britons who have experienced their internet connection failing for at least three hours has almost doubled in the last year, with irate consumers now ranking broadband outages as a bigger frustration than roadworks or public transport delays.

In the past year, two-fifths (41%) of all UK adults – 22 million consumers – have had their internet disconnected for three or more hours, a significant increase on the 12 million who reported disruption the previous year, according to a report by the price comparison website Uswitch.

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Ofcom urged to investigate Virgin Media broadband contracts

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Terms and conditions allow firm to raise bills at any time and by an unlimited amount, Which? claims

Virgin Media is facing calls for the telecoms watchdog to urgently investigate the legality of its broadband contracts, under which it can increase bills at any time and by unlimited amounts.

The consumer champion Which? has concluded that Virgin Media’s terms and conditions may amount to unfair contract terms and could be in breach of the Consumer Rights Act. It has written to Ofcom calling on it to intervene.

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Ofcom investigating BT after disruption to 999 emergency call service

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Telecoms firm, which manages 999 phone system, says it will publish findings of own inquiry on Thursday

The communications watchdog has launched an investigation into BT after technical faults hit the 999 emergency call service on Sunday.

Ofcom said it would look into the incident to find out whether the telecoms company failed to comply with its regulatory duties. Police forces, ambulance services and fire and rescue services across the UK asked people not to phone 999 on Sunday morning due to a “technical fault”.

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Optus best mobile network for overall availability and Vodafone leads for 5G, report finds

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In test of Australia’s three networks, Open Signal finds Telstra has most consistent user experience overall

Telstra may be Australia’s largest 5G network but Optus fares better for overall network availability and Vodafone leads for 5G availability, according to Open Signal’s latest review of the country’s three mobile networks.

Analyst firm Open Signal tested the three networks across the country in city and regional locations for three months from January to March this year.

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US firm Liberty Global buys stake in Vodafone after tumultuous year

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‘Cable cowboy’ John Malone rules out takeover bid but says he believes UK telecoms company is undervalued

The US telecoms group chaired by “cable cowboy” John Malone has snapped up a stake in Vodafone in a bet on the UK company’s revival – but has ruled out making a takeover bid.

Liberty Global, which is an investor in ITV and Virgin Media O2, told investors on Monday it had acquired a 4.92% stake in Vodafone, saying it believed the shares were undervalued.

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BT asks ministers to help pay for low-cost broadband for poorest customers

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Critics say telecoms firms such as BT – which made £1.9bn profit last year – can afford to keep customers on benefits connected

BT has warned that the telecoms industry cannot afford an estimated potential loss of up to £2bn annually providing low-cost broadband to millions of the UK’s most financially pressured households, but critics have said they have an obligation to do so.

Marc Allera, the chief executive of BT’s consumer division, which includes the mobile company EE, said the industry needed government support to help cover the ongoing cost of providing cheap tariffs, the same way households have been helped with energy bills.

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Broadband customers face up to 14% hike in bills, warns Which?

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BT customers face £113 rise as providers such as EE and TalkTalk prepare controversial ‘inflation-plus’ mechanism

Broadband bills could surge by as much as £113 next year if a number of the UK’s biggest telecoms firms push ahead with inflation-busting price increases next spring, says consumer watchdog Which?

Many of the country’s main internet providers – including the largest player BT, along with TalkTalk, EE, Plusnet and Vodafone – use a mechanism to increase the cost of bills annually by the rate of inflation as measured by the consumer prices index (CPI) in January, plus 3.9%.

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Select group of Optus customers should cancel licences and passports immediately, minister says

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Clare O’Neil says Optus has emailed 10,200 customers who had their records posted online after 10 million people affected in larger cyber hack

The 10,200 Optus customers who had their personal records posted online last week in the wake of the telco’s massive data breach should immediately cancel their driver’s licences and passports, the federal government says.

Optus has written to the 10,200 customers exposed last Monday after 10 million Australians had their records stolen from the telco a week earlier.

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Attorney general flags urgent privacy law changes after Optus data breach

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Mark Dreyfus indicates potential reforms to laws regarding data breaches including higher penalties, mandatory precautions and customer notifications

Privacy law changes, including tougher penalties for data breaches, could be legislated as early as this year, the attorney general has said in the wake of the Optus breach.

Mark Dreyfus revealed on Thursday that in addition to completing a review of Australia’s privacy laws the Albanese government will look to legislate “even more urgent reforms” late this year or in early 2023.

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Optus cyber-attack: company opposed changes to privacy laws to give customers more rights over their data

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In its submission to Privacy Act review telco said giving people right to erase personal data would involve ‘significant’ hurdles and costs

Optus has repeatedly opposed a proposed change to privacy laws that would give customers the right to request their data be destroyed, with the telco arguing there were “significant hurdles” to implementing such a system and it would come at “significant cost”.

On Thursday, the company revealed it had suffered a massive cyber-attack in which the personal information of customers was stolen, including names, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, addresses, and passport and driver’s licence numbers.

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Customers’ personal data stolen as Optus suffers massive cyber-attack

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Personal information of potentially millions of customers exposed, including names, dates of birth, addresses, and contact details

Optus has suffered a massive cyber-attack, with the personal information of customers stolen, including names, dates of birth, addresses, and contact details.

The telco suffered the data breach when hackers, believed to be working for a criminal or state-sponsored organisation, accessed the sensitive information by breaking through the company’s firewall.

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Huawei founder sparks alarm in China with warning of ‘painful’ next decade

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Ren Zhengfei writes in leaked memo that ‘chill will be felt by everyone’ and company must focus on survival

The founder of Huawei has delivered a stark warning for the tech company’s future, sparking alarm with the frankness of his assessment and what it signals for smaller businesses amid China’s economic troubles and a global downturn.

In a leaked internal memo, Ren Zhengfei told Huawei staff “the chill will be felt by everyone” and the company must focus on profit over cashflow and expansion if it is to survive the next three years, indicating further job cuts and divestments.

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Almost 6m UK households ‘struggling to pay telecoms bills’

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Which? says people are cutting food and clothes spending to pay for mobile, broadband and landline

Almost 6 million UK households are struggling to pay their mobile, landline and broadband bills, with the cost of living squeeze forcing many to cut back on essentials such as food and clothes, cancel or change a service, or miss payments to stay connected.

A report from the consumer group Which? estimates that 5.7 million households have experienced at least one “affordability issue” in April, as cash-strapped homes struggle to cope with soaring bills and other costs.

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CMA investigates sport broadcasters over ‘cartel-like behaviour’

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Watchdog says it suspects possible breaches of competition law around purchase of freelance services

The competition watchdog is investigating possible cartel-like behaviour by sport broadcasters including BT Group, ITV, Sky and IMG Media, which includes Premier League Productions, around the purchase of freelance services.

The Competition and Markets Authority said it believes there are “reasonable grounds to suspect one or more breaches of competition law”.

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Number of scam calls to Australian phones cut by half while text message crypto scams soar

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Communications industry peak body and watchdog sees telcos block more than 549m scam calls since inception of code

Phone scam calls have halved since this time last year, data from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch shows, but other investment frauds – including on social media and via text messages – have soared over the same time period.

The Reducing Scam Calls code was introduced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) in December 2020. It has seen telcos block over 549m scam calls since its inception.

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Canada to ban Huawei and ZTE from 5G network, risking China tensions

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Move brings Ottawa into line with intelligence allies that have excluded Chinese tech firms from cutting-edge phone networks

Canada says it will ban Huawei and ZTE from the country’s 5G network, a move that puts it in line with intelligence-sharing allies, but risks further chilling relations with China.

The federal government made the announcement on Thursday afternoon after signalling for months it intended to block China’s flagship telecommunications companies from accessing 5G networks in Canada.

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BT unveil plans to make EE its consumer-facing brand

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British telecommunications giant says company will now take back seat as it makes EE its flagship

It’s still good to talk but increasingly BT customers are doing it wherever they like via connected mobile devices, rather than fixed line broadband and old-fashioned telephones.

In recognition of this generational shift, BT quietly announced in a blog post on Wednesday that after more than 30 years and some of the UK’s highest-profile ad campaigns, its flagship consumer brand is to take a back seat to upstart EE in its marketing strategy.

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