Weekly brief - 27/03/2026. Starlink offer reduces pricing in some areas to £25/month. Its friends over at ISPreview have found that Starlink have cut the price of its satellite broadband service to £25/month in some areas. This is a discount of £10/month for the first six months, but it is only available to new customers ordering before the end of April 2026. The discount appears to be available on a range of Starlink products. CityFibre looks to reduce the impact of roadworks. CityFibre is trialling traffic management technology from BUKO, which is designed to reduce congestion on adjacent routes when roads are closed. The technology is said to intercept satnavs to divert users more evenly across alternative routes. It also publishes data using Meta's platforms like Facebook to update users about upcoming diversions. Currently, the firm is testing this in Worthing, West Sussex. "We're excited to be trialling this impressive technology to benefit road users around the Worthing area. Improved communications with drivers will help us to deliver these essential works quickly and safely whilst also ensuring that drivers and residents are impacted as little as possible. It's a win-win." Adrian Smith, Partnership Manager, CityFibre EE confirms first XGS-PON trial customer live on 8Gbps service. The first customer to be connected to an 8Gbps full fibre XGS-PON service over Openreach is now live, according to news reported by ISPreview. This marks the first real-world deployment of XGS-PON on Openreach's network with the trial taking place in parts of West Surrey, including Guildford, Woking and nearby villages. To apply to sign up for the trial, you can visit the BT TrialCentre. VodafoneThree to deploy COWs (Cells on Wheels) at events this year. VodafoneThree has confirmed it will deploy temporary masts known as Cells on Wheels (COWs) at events this year. Cheltenham Race Festival saw these in use earlier this month, and other major sporting events, music festivals and shows, such as the London Marathon, Wimbledon, and the Scottish Open Golf Tournament, will see the herd of COWs deployed.

CityFibre trial new tech to manage road traffic during UK broadband builds. Thursday, Mar 26th, 2026 (10:11 am) - Score 0 Network operator CityFibre, which has so far deployed their 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 4.7 million UK premises (4.5m RFS), has partnered up with BUKO Digital to trial a new traffic (road) management technology to support the delivery of their publicly subsidised Project Gigabit works in West Sussex. The operator currently holds the Government's £108m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit contract for the West & East Sussex (Lot 16 & 1) area of England, which will see them extend their 10Gbps capable FTTP network to an additional 57,000 premises in hard-to-reach rural areas (here and here). NOTE: CityFibre is owned by Antin Infrastructure Partners, Goldman Sachs, Mubadala Investment Company, Interogo Holding etc. The network is supported by UK ISPs such as Vodafone, TalkTalk, Zen Internet, Sky Broadband and more (local ISP availability does vary). As part of this deployment the operator will, from 13th April 2026, need to close Long Furlong road in Worthing for approximately 10 days to complete the network build. Such closures can be highly disruptive for road users - especially on busy roads like this - and so CityFibre are looking to trial a new technology with BUKO Digital to "help keep drivers moving ahead of a road closure". The new Traffic Management technology is designed to improve communication with drivers, support smarter diversions and reduce any congestion on adjacent routes that can occur with road closures. "BUKO's technology intercepts satellite navigation tools such as SatNavs and Google Maps to divert road users more evenly across alternative routes. It also utilises Meta messaging platforms like Facebook to update regular users of affected routes on upcoming diversions," said the announcement. In theory this should enhance communication with drivers and reduce congestion in neighbouring towns, villages and roads etc. The result should be a smoother flow of traffic and better efficiency of works, although it's never going to completely remove disruption for everybody. Adrian Smith, Partnership Manager for CityFibre, said: "We're excited to be trialling this impressive technology to benefit road users around the Worthing area. Improved communications with drivers will help us to deliver these essential works quickly and safely whilst also ensuring that drivers and residents are impacted as little as possible. It's a win-win." The BUKO trial is connected to West Sussex Council's Lane Rental Scheme, which works by attempting to incentivise delivery partners to complete works with minimal disruption.

All Points Fibre Networks now offering 1.7 Gbps and 2.3 Gbps CityFibre full fibre. The wholesale aquila platform has had CityFibre services available over it for some time, but a new platform release means that APFN (All Points Fibre Networks) is now able to offer 1.7 Gbps and 2.3 Gbps through the system. This means partners can now offer XGS-PON speeds matching other platforms that sell the CityFibre services. The 5 Gbps XGS-PON speed remains an exclusive via Sky for now. "Choice and performance are becoming critical for service providers as the demand for higher bandwidth grows. Its latest release, built on its partnership with CityFibre, gives aquila partners instant access to Multi-Gig FTTP speeds with no additional integrations or operational overhead. It's exactly what aquila is designed to do, bringing together the best networks in the market and making them simple to consume. Partners get more choice, faster speeds and a clear way to grow their services without adding complexity to their operations." Nisreen El-Kaloush, Chief Commercial Officer, AllPoints Fibre Networks "CityFibre's 10Gb XGS-PON full fibre network gives our partners the ability to deliver gigabit capable speeds, with market-leading service performance. Our digital infrastructure is unlocking growth and innovation for small and medium sized business and, by partnering with APFN, we're bringing more choice and value to partners and businesses across the UK." George Wareing, Chief Commercial Officer, CityFibre "The addition of multi-gig services into aquila is yet another proposition enhancement Thinkbroadband has launched this year through its work with CityFibre. Thinkbroadband has recently opened up access to 80,000 more premises across Hull and East Riding that previously weren't reachable through the platform, and Thinkbroadband is doing it in a way that means those new opportunities are super simple to sell, manage and support. It's not just the rapidly expanding footprint and faster speeds; it's the type of connectivity now available to Partners and their target market. Partners can deliver true business-grade services to companies that rely on resilient, high-capacity connectivity, while also reaching residential based business users and indeed consumers wanting multi-gig speeds in the home." Sonia Hanson, Head of Product & Propositions, AllPoints Fibre Networks The 80,000 premises in the Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire area will be the Connexin network that is now part of the CityFibre footprint. The aquila platform boasts of 'Openreach, BT Wholesale, CityFibre, and APFN's own high quality fibre network into a single, frictionless experience', though the old Swish Fibre, Jurassic Fibre and Gigabit FTTP footprints are don't appear in even when trying to order online via Cuckoo who APFN own. Thinkbroadband has asked for a date on when these three old altnet networks will surface on the aquila platform for consumers. Multi Gigabit full fibre services are more about positioning a premium product and price point rather than millions of people actually needing Gigabit at this point in time. With the race to the bottom for full fibre pricing where Gigabit speeds can be found on offer for under £20 a month offering a faster tier that will appeal to those who want to pay a bit more to feel like they have a premium service is becoming ever more important.