Each match has produced distinct peaks as supporters streamed games and shared reactions.

Broadband usage tripled between 3am and 4am during the early morning fixture against Mexico on 6 July, Mobile data usage doubled compared with a typical Monday morning as supporters posted celebrations online in the hour following the final whistle, 

The match against DR Congo on 1 July delivered the highest mobile data peak ever recorded on the network. Usage reached 4.6Tbps, This was a third more than average Wednesday evening commute in June. Broadband traffic also climbed to 8.7Tbps, up nine per cent, as customers watched from home, workplaces and pubs.

Broadband traffic peaked on 27 June at 9.30pm for England’s game against Panama. Mobile usage reached 3.8Tbps at 10.30pm. verall traffic was up 19 per cent by 11pm compared with a normal Saturday night.

The Ghana fixture saw mobile usage peak at 4.3Tbps at 9.30pm, with increases of up to 34 per cent later  evening. Broadband traffic peaked earlier at 8.30pm, and by 10pm was 20 per cent higher than a typical Tuesday.

Mobile usage reached 4.1Tbps at 9.30pm during the Croatia match on 17 June,  Traffic exceeded usual levels by more than 31 per cent at 11pm. Broadband peaked just before kick off at 8.30pm, with usage rising 11 per cent during the match.

Dona (below)said the network had been engineered to handle surges at any hour.

“Our network has been providing fast, strong and reliable coverage whatever time of the day the game is shown here in the UK. .”

According to Reuters, the stake is being acquired by Vega, an investment vehicle owned by the Niel family, valuing Vodafone shares at 112.5p each, a 15 per cent premium to the previous closing price. The transaction values the holding at around $5.95 billion. At time of writing there was o official anouncement from Vega.

Reuters says UAE telecoms group e& said the disposal reflects the “natural evolution” of its priorities, allowing it to sharpen its focus on its core businesses while unlocking cash from the investment. The sale is expected to generate a net cash return of around $1.3 billion. 

Niel, founder of French operator Iliad, has long advocated consolidation in the European telecoms market. He previously held a smaller stake in Vodafone and had unsuccessfully attempted to acquire the group’s Italian operations.

Vodafone welcomed Niel as a long-term investor. The transaction follows the operator’s multi-year restructuring under chief executive Margherita Della Valle, which has included the sale of businesses in Spain and Italy, a renewed focus on its core European and African markets, and the completion of its merger with Three UK. 

The acquisition remains subject to regulatory approvals. Pending completion, the shares will be held by three financial institutions.

Source: Reuters

The agreement sees EGE become UK distributor for PORT Designs’ portfolio of business and mobility accessories, giving and partners retailers access to the French manufacturer’s range of laptop bags, backpacks, docking stations, privacy filters, charging solutions and workspace accessories.

PORT Designs develops accessories for business, education and hybrid working environments, with products designed to protect, connect and support mobile devices in the workplace.

The agreement expands EGE’s accessories portfolio and gives its reseller partners access to a broader range of productivity and mobility products as PORT Designs resumes trading in the UK.

Founded in 1992 and headquartered near Paris, PORT Designs sells its products in more than 60 countries and is looking to re-establish its presence in the UK channel through the partnership.

EGE, said: “We’re delighted to welcome PORT Designs to our vendor portfolio. The brand has built a strong reputation for combining quality, functionality and design, and we believe its range will be well received by our partners and their customers.”

The fine was reduced by a third after the network admitted the breaches and agreeing to settle the case.

The network has also been ordered to ensure every affected customer who complained has received any compensation or other remedies due within six months.

Ofcom accused Virgin Media O2 of running a two-tier retention system in which only a second group of agents could process cancellations, forcing more than one million customers to repeat their request before it could be actioned.

The regulator said millions of customer calls between January 2022 and September 2024 were affected by systemic failings that delayed or discouraged cancellations, in breach of its consumer protection rules.

Investigators also uncovered widespread mishandling of calls, including repeated attempts to persuade customers to stay, unnecessary call transfers, excessive periods on hold, dropped calls and failures to process cancellations. Ofcom said Virgin Media O2’s’s commission scheme rewarded agents for retaining customers, while inadequate training and oversight allowed the practices to continue.

Virgin Media O2 pointed out Ofcom’s investigation was between January 2022 and September 2024 and related to historic failings saying

“The issues which Ofcom identified, including the two-tier system, agent incentivisation, training and agent resourcing have been addressed through improvements made during and after their investigation”

 A Virgin Media spokesperson added: “We’re committed to giving all our customers great service and apologise to the small proportion who experienced an issue when contacting us to agree a new deal or cancel their service in the past.

 “We have completely redesigned our customer services in recent years, addressing the historic shortfalls identified by Ofcom through a number of improvements, and have resolved all formal customer complaints from this period providing redress where appropriate.

 “Our customer service turnaround strategy, underpinned by significant investment, has been transformational. Ofcom’s latest data shows that Virgin Media is now the least-complained-about broadband provider with complaints at record lows, and complaints specifically relating to ‘difficulties leaving’ were 89% lower last year than in 2023.

 “With One Touch Switch now in operation across the industry, and a wide range of competitive deals and services available, it’s never been easier for customers to choose the right package for them.”

Natalie Black, Group Director for Infrastructure and Connectivity at Ofcom, said: 

“Virgin Media made it harder for customers to cancel their contracts and then did not fully cooperate with our investigation. As a result, we are levelling our largest ever fine under our consumer protection rules for direct harm to consumers. Today, we are sending a clear message that any provider who wilfully acts against the interests of their customers will pay a heavy price.”

According to Ofcom, the failings caused customers “unreasonable effort, hassle and undue difficulty” when trying to leave, with some forced to make repeated calls while others cancelled direct debits in frustration, leading in some cases to missed payments affecting their credit records.

The £28 million penalty is the largest it has issued under its consumer protection powers. The level reflected the scale of consumer harm, the financial benefit Virgin Media O2 was likely to have gained, the company’s failure to prevent the misconduct, its lack of full cooperation during the investigation and a previous breach of the same rules in 2018.

The UK’s One Touch Switch process has now come into force, allowing broadband customers to change provider by contacting only their new supplier rather than their existing one.

The decision serves as a warning to telcos that customer retention strategies must not create unnecessary barriers to switching, with Ofcom prepared to impose substantial financial penalties where firms breach consumer protection rules.

The move designed to reach more ‘digitally excluded’ consumers.

The £10-per-month tariff was previously only available through an online sign-up process. It offers eligible customers unlimited data, calls and texts for six months with no contract and the option to pause or cancel at any time.

The rollout will include distribution through community hubs operated by the Good Things Foundation as part of an initial pilot.

Many people are unaware that lower-cost mobile social tariffs exist, despite an estimated five million people being eligible, found research I among people receiving government support .

Around t third of respondents said their smartphone is their primary tool for finding work. More than a third said they had missed (or nearly missed) a job opportunity after running out of mobile data or credit, while 19 per cent had avoided applying for jobs altogether because they were concerned about staying connected.

More than half of respondents relied on mobile data as their main method of accessing the internet, with 26 per cent running out of data or credit before the end of the month.

]]> https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/voxi-expands-10-social-tariff-distribution-to-councils-and-charities/feed/ 0 https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/vodafonethree-blocks-two-million-bank-scam-texts-in-anti-fraud-trial/ https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/vodafonethree-blocks-two-million-bank-scam-texts-in-anti-fraud-trial/#respond Mon, 06 Jul 2026 12:11:03 +0000 https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/?p=180438 VodafoneThree says it has blocked more than two million fraudulent text messages targeting bank customers as part of a cross-industry trial designed to tackle SMS fraud.

The proof-of-concept, launched a year ago  was developed with Barclays and supported by the Mobile Ecosystem Forum and Cyber Defence Alliance. The initiative has since expanded to include The Co-operative Bank and TSB.

The Mobile Ecosystem Forum is a global trade association. Our members are companies whose products power mobile services such as messaging, content, advertising and IoT. The CDA brings Telecommunication, Law Enforcement and Tech partners together to problem solve on cross-sector problems.

The project uses intelligence shared between VodafoneThree and participating banks to create bespoke filtering rules within the operator’s SMS firewall, enabling fraudulent messages to be identified and blocked while allowing genuine banking communications to reach customers.

VodafoneThree said the trial has increased the number of scam texts blocked on its network by around 25 per cent

The operator blocked more than 139 million fraudulent SMS messages across its network during 2025, with the latest initiative focusing specifically on banking scams, where fraudsters impersonate banks and attempt to steal personal or financial information through fake links or phone numbers.

According to industry figures cited by VodafoneThree, UK banks lose around £1.17 billion a year to fraud, while reports of authorised push payment (APP) scams originating via SMS increased by around 40 per cent last year

The companies involved say they plan to expand the approach to protect more banking customers through wider collaboration between the telecoms and financial services sectors.

Throughput has become the defining constraint in the pre-owned phone business, and automated testing is moving from novelty to necessity. A recent integration between diagnostics software M360 and the MATT testing robot shows how far the shift now reaches.

A market growing faster than its workforce

The secondary smartphone market has quietly become one of the largest channels in consumer electronics. While new-device sales have wrestled with tariffs, macro uncertainty and lengthening replacement cycles, the pre-owned and refurbished market has kept growing – with growth strongest in emerging regions such as Africa, India and Southeast Asia. The appeal is straightforward: refurbished devices typically sell well below the price of new, and retailers are broadening their refurbished portfolios both in physical stores and online – a structural shift reinforced by OEM and carrier trade-in programmes and, particularly in Europe, by tightening circular-economy regulation.

Every one of those devices, however, has to be tested before it can be certified and sold. Cameras, buttons, screens, sensors, charging ports – each check has historically required a pair of human hands, and however capable the diagnostic software, a facility’s throughput has been capped by how many devices its operators can physically handle per shift. The response taking shape across the industry is consistent: automated diagnostic tooling is increasingly seen as the way to scale quality certification without scaling headcount, even as it raises the capital intensity of the business.

Software meets robot

It is into this gap that M360, the diagnostic software platform for used iOS and Android devices, has moved. The independent capabilities of M360’s diagnostics and certification software and MATT by ADAPTA Robotics – a testing robot that physically operates smartphones the way a human user would, tapping touchscreens, pressing buttons and running hardware checks autonomously – are now combined to offer a complete testing ecosystem that automates both software diagnostics and physical device testing.

The headline figure is speed. Where other diagnostic software solutions typically take five to six minutes per device when paired with a testing robot like MATT, the combined M360-MATT setup cuts that time in half – directly increasing the number of devices an operator can process per shift.

MATT is not a new product. ADAPTA Robotics, a deep-tech and robotics company headquartered in Bucharest, has more than 100 of the robots deployed, with the platform in use among recommerce and consumer electronics companies. The robot is deliberately agnostic to diagnostics software, which is what made the integration possible.

“Throughout the years, at Adapta Robotics, we have been developing advanced robotic systems that automate real-world interactions with precision and consistency. MATT™ brings that capability to device testing, providing a flexible, software-agnostic platform now trusted by device refurbishers worldwide. Our partnership with M360 is a natural fit, aligned with our commitment to accelerating the industry’s transition towards automation.”

– Mihai Craciunescu, Co-Founder of Adapta Robotics

The throughput economics

For M360, the integration is an entry into robotic diagnostics rather than a change of product. Its software continues to be sold and deployed independently; on MATT, it becomes the diagnostic layer of an automated testing cell. The MATT Extended configuration handles up to five devices simultaneously, and a single operator can supervise up to nine robots at once. That multiplication of one person overseeing dozens of concurrent device tests instead of working through them one at a time  is where the economics begin to matter for mid- and high-volume refurbishment operations.

“M360’s integration with MATT™ is a significant step in our expansion into robotic diagnostics. Operating together within the ecosystem, we reach a speed improvement that is a clear expression of what the solution delivers; we are now making that available to operations that are ready to run diagnostics at a higher level.”

– Péter Mártai, Product Director at M360

Certification as the currency of trust

Speed alone does not sell a used phone; trust does. Standardised grading, warranties and transparent quality certification are widely credited with moving refurbished devices from grey-market purchase to mainstream retail. Automated workflows are built around that requirement, covering the full span of hardware and software checks, from cameras, Face ID and audio through to charging ports, display condition and sensors, with each device that completes the protocol receiving a standardised, verifiable certification report recording what was tested and what passed or failed. That kind of documented, repeatable evidence is increasingly what resale channels and enterprise buyers demand.

Whether robotic testing becomes standard across the refurbishment industry will come down to throughput economics at each site. But with the pre-owned market now a durable fixture of the smartphone business rather than a fringe channel, the question facing high-volume operations is less whether to automate testing than when.

The deployment with Boldyn Networks, replaces the temporary infrastructure used for race events, There is now permanent distributed antenna system (DAS) spanning Silverstone’s 570-acre site, including its 3.66-mile Grand Prix circuit.

The upgraded network will provide faster speeds and greater capacity. More than half a million spectators are expected to attend the Formula 1 weekend. O2 customers will be able to access race information, upload photos and videos, stream content and stay connected across the venue.

The Silverstone rollout forms part of Virgin Media O2’s £700 million Mobile Transformation Plan investment in network upgrades on locations with the highest demand for mobile connectivity.

]]> https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/o2-switches-on-silverstones-new-5g-network-ahead-of-british-grand-prix/feed/ 0 https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/cma-fast-tracks-nexfibre-probe-putting-uk-fibre-consolidation-on-the-line/ https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/cma-fast-tracks-nexfibre-probe-putting-uk-fibre-consolidation-on-the-line/#respond Thu, 02 Jul 2026 10:56:27 +0000 https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/?p=180429 The Competition and Markets Authority has ordered a full Phase 2 probe into nexfibre’s acquisition of Substantial Topco, the owner of Netomnia, Brsk (YouFibre), after accepting the parties’ request for a fast track referral. The outcome could have major implications for UK fibre consolidation.

Liberty Global and Telefónica are the joint owners of Virgin Media O2 and, with private equity firm  InfraVia, joint owners of nexfibre.

The fast track move signals that regulators see significant structural questions in the fibre market. In its decision, the CMA said it was “appropriate to accept the fast track reference request and proceed to a phase 2 investigation”. 

The deal would place one of the UK’s largest altnet footprints under Liberty Global and Telefónica, the joint owners of VMO2, alongside InfraVia.

The investigation will test how far converged operators can expand their fibre reach. A tougher stance could slow future tie ups involving VMO2, Vodafone–Three or BT/EE, pushing altnets towards “safe” regional roll ups rather than national mergers. A lighter approach could accelerate consolidation, with CityFibre emerging as the next major target.

]]> https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/cma-fast-tracks-nexfibre-probe-putting-uk-fibre-consolidation-on-the-line/feed/ 0 https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/uncategorised/article/ericsson-mobility-report-architect-patrik-cerwall-is-next-gsa-president/ https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/uncategorised/article/ericsson-mobility-report-architect-patrik-cerwall-is-next-gsa-president/#respond Wed, 01 Jul 2026 10:39:42 +0000 https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/?p=180425 The Global mobile Suppliers Association has elected Ericsson Head of Strategic Marketing Patrik Cerwall as its next president from January 1.

Cerwall has more than 30 years’ experience in the mobile industry. He has been a member of the on GSA’s executive committee for 14 years. Ericsson Mobility Report, one of the sector’s most widely-used market intelligence publications.

The GSA represents suppliers across the global mobile industry, including infrastructure vendors, semiconductor companies, device manufacturers and technology providers, and is widely recognised for its market intelligence, spectrum analysis and industry research.

Cerwall succeeds Joe Barrett, (below) who is retiring after 12 years leading the industry body.

Cerwall will work to strengthen the association’s research and market intelligence, expand collaboration around technologies including 5G RedCap, private networks, FWA, NTN, 5G Advanced and 6G, and deepen engagement with operators, enterprises and policymakers.

Cerwall said the industry was entering a period of rapid change as 5G continues to evolve and preparations for 6G gather pace. He said his focus would be on delivering trusted research, practical industry programmes and closer collaboration across the mobile ecosystem.

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