The agreement (pilot scheme?) will see BT deliver around 23,000 mobile connections over EE’s network, covering easyJet’s operations in 35 countries and more than 150 airports.easyJet operates scheduled services on about 927 routes across more than 34 countries

The rollout will connect devices used across easyJet’s business. The benefit is to enable pilots and cabin crew to access flight information, operational updates and training materials while on the move. BT said the connectivity will play a key role in supporting real-time communications across easyJet’s network of crew, aircraft and ground teams.

 BT will support easyJet with:

• Smart messaging services to keep passengers updated on flight status

• Mobile connectivity for iPads used by pilots and cabin crew for real-time flight information

• Smartphones and aircraft phones to enable seamless communication between colleagues

• Laptops and other connected hardware used by easyJet staff

All devices will be equipped with eSIM technology. This will enable easyJet to manage connectivity remotely, simplify logistics and reduce reliance on physical SIM cards. BT said eSIMs will also enhance security, lower operational costs and support easyJet’s international operations more efficiently, while reducing waste.

Chris Sims (great name … Editor) , Chief Commercial Officer at BT Business, said the partnership reflects the growing importance of resilient and scalable connectivity in aviation.

“This partnership with easyJet is about delivering the smart, seamless connectivity which is crucial when operating at scale. By equipping thousands of devices with eSIMs on EE’s network, we’re enabling easyJet to manage connections remotely, switch networks across borders, and reduce the complexity of traditional SIMs.

BT said the deal underlines its ambition to position EE as the mobile network of choice for international-operating organisations that rely on always-on connectivity to keep complex operations running.

Under licence rules. mobile operators must identify and reduce the risks of anything that compromises their network or service. 

They must also prevent adverse effects arising from down incidents and take measures to remedy or mitigate the problem. They must also report outages to Ofcom above certain thresholds. 

BT has notified Ofcom of a software issue that resulted in national disruption to mobile call services interconnecting to and from the EE network on 24 and 25 July. BT and EE customers being unable to make or receive calls to other networks and emergency services.

 Three has notified Ofcom of an incident that resulted in a natuoinal disruption to call services on 25 June including customers’ ability to contact emergency services. 

Ofcom saays its investigations establish the facts surrounding these incidents and asses whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that BT and Three failed to comply with regulatory obligations. 

The case now moves toward trial. Combined claims could ultimately involve tens of millions of UK mobile customers and run into billions in alleged damages.

The ruling is a mixed outcome for the operators. All pre-2015 claims have been struck out, but the core case covering post-2015 conduct will proceed to a full trial. But it ruled that all pre-2015 claims have lapsed.

The applications, brought by proposed class representative Justin Gutmann, allege that the networks abused dominant positions in their respective retail mobile markets.

The claims focus on customers on combined handset and airtime (CHA) contracts who continued paying the same bundled monthly charge after their minimum term expired, despite having repaid the cost of the device.

Gutmann argues that this continued charging, above the equivalent SIM-only price, amounts to an unlawful “loyalty penalty”.

ispute

The case stems from longstanding concerns raised by consumer groups and Ofcom over bundled mobile contracts. Ofcom has repeatedly criticised operators for failing to reduce prices for out-of-contract customers and has introduced rules requiring providers to notify customers at contract expiry and offer SIM-only alternatives.

Gutmann’s case argues that millions of customers overpaid for years and that operators should have automatically switched them to SIM-only pricing once handsets were fully paid off. The four collective claims were filed two years ago under the Competition Act’s post-2015 class actions regime.

Claims before 1 October 2015 struck out

All four operators jointly applied to strike out claims relating to losses before 1 October 2015. They argued that such claims were time-barred under the Competition Appeal Tribunal Rules 2003, which imposed a two-year limitation period for claims arising before that date but filed later.

Gutmann countered that the 2003 Rules applied only to follow-on cases and that ordinary domestic limitation rules should govern standalone claims.

The Tribunal rejected this argument. It held that the transitional provisions in the 2015 Rules explicitly preserved the effect of rule 31 of the 2003 Rules. As a result, any standalone claims for losses occurring before 1 October 2015 were already out of time when proceedings were issued in November 2023. The Tribunal therefore struck out all pre-2015 claims.

Operators fail to strike out 2015 to 2017 claims

A second strike-out application, brought by Vodafone, EE/BT and Three, targeted losses said to have occurred between 1 October 2015 and 8 March 2017. The operators argued that customers could reasonably have discovered any alleged overcharging before November 2017, meaning the six-year limitation period had expired.

The Tribunal refused this Second Period Application. It found that the operators had filed the application without disclosing actual contract terms or customer communications. Without that evidence, the Tribunal could not conclude that customers were sufficiently on notice of a potential competition claim at an earlier date. The issue will therefore need to be tested at trial.

Fnding arrangements

The Tribunal also approved Gutmann’s Collective Proceedings Orders (CPOs), finding that the proposed class definition, which covers customers who continued paying more than the applicable SIM-only price after minimum-term expiry, was sufficiently clear.

Operators challenged Gutmann’s litigation funding arrangements, questioning whether the funder could support the case. The Tribunal dismissed the challenge, finding no evidence that the funder would be unable to meet its obligations and rejecting additional concerns raised after publication of the funder’s financial statements.

The four actions will now move into detailed case management and disclosure.

Transcript of full ruling HERE

The FT reports that BT could launch a new brand or aquitre existing MVNO to add to the EE brand.

The move would not be unusual Vodafone has its own MVNO Voxi, while Three, now part of Vodafone, has offered Smarty.

The move is said to be a reaction to new entrants hitting the UK telecoms market, such as Revolut and Monzo,.

BT stated:

“We regularly review our offerings across all our brands to ensure our customers have access to the best products and services on the best network. At present, we have no plans to change our mobile offering,”

The deal is subject to regulatory approval and iis expected to close in the first half of 2026.

Radianz was launched two decades ago to provide a data backbone for financial data and trading flows between brokers, banks, exchanges, and clearing houses worldwide. TNS specialises in ultra-low latency trading infrastructure and market data services and said the acquisition will strengthen its position as a global partner for financial market participants.

TNS as founded in 1990 and provides global IaaS solutions for finance, communications, and payments. It is a subsidiary of Koch Equity Development.

The  move is part of BT’s strategy to slim down its international operations and focus on becoming a “UK-focused national champion.” BT is divesting non-core businesses while doubling down on connectivity and cloud services for multinational corporates.

The Radianz sale will have little direct impact on BT’s UK-focused channel partners as the business primarily serves global financial institutions. It could translate into more clarity about BT’s future portfolio and potentially more investment in areas such as UK enterprise networking, cloud, and security.

An earlier investigation saw BT fined £2.8 million in 2023. Ofcom found that BT had failed to provide key contract information to some EE and Plusnet customers before they signed up to a new deal. This requirement is to ensure transparency and informed consumer choice.

According to Ofcom, BT did not issue the mandatory contract summary and full contract information documents, and says customers were not bound by the terms of those contracts under UK telecoms rules.

Some customers left BT before the end of their contract period and were wrongly charged early exit fees. Ofcom ruled that these fees should not have been applied in cases where the required documentation had not been supplied.

 BT contacted offered  impacted customers the chance to cancel without penalty and/or request the missing contract information. It also amended its sales processes to bring them into compliance,

Where customers could not be refunded directly, BT was instructed to donate the equivalent amount to charity. A total of £440,000 was distributed to 17 charities as part of that effort.

A BT spokesperson said the company had worked closely with Ofcom to address the issue and ensure all affected customers were treated fairly.

“The enforcement serves as a reminder to all providers of their obligations under Ofcom’s Fairness for Customers commitments, which include clear communication and transparent contract terms”, said Ofcom

The Better Broadband Infill Project is part of th the Swansea Bay City Deal’s Digital Infrastructure Programme, with infrastructure partner Openreach. BT will also contribute additional funding to raise the project’s total value to over £10 million.

Thisi s a £25m investment to improve fixed and mobile connectivity across theSwansea Bay City Region, covering Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea.

The initiative will extend high-speed broadband to 1,533 premises and 256 additional sites across Pembrokeshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, and Carmarthenshire.

It specifically targets rural locations currently experiencing broadband speeds under 30Mbps and which fall outside the scope of existing government or commercial fibre rollout plans.

The project will be delivered in six phases starting this month, with the first 220 premises expected to be connected by December. Full completion is scheduled for March 31, 2027.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled in BT’s favor after an eight-week trial of a class action brought by Justin Le Patourel, founder of CALL (Collective Action on Landlines). Le Patourel accused BT of overcharging millions of its landline customers over several years.

Le Patourel worked at Ofcom for 13 years from 2003 to 2016.  He held senior roles, including Head of Market Intelligence, and Consumer Policy and Protection Principal, a role focused on protecting telecoms consumers.

This was the first collective action to be tried under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. The claim alleged that BT leveraged its dominance in the standalone fixed voice market to impose excessive charges. While the Tribunal acknowledged BT’s dominant position and recognized the excessive nature of its pricing, it ruled that these prices were not unfair, citing the value provided to customers.

Background

In 2017, an Ofcom investigation revealed that BT had continued to increase landline prices even as the cost of providing such services had declined since 2009. In response, BT agreed to reduce future bills for certain customers, but no compensation was offered for past overcharging.

Le Patourel launched a £1.3 billion claim, representing approximately three million BT customers, seeking damages of £300 to £400 per customer for historical overcharging.

The claim addressed more than 1.5 million customers who held a BT landline without broadband services. Ofcom estimated these customers were overcharged by up to £84 annually. It also included two million customers who were charged for BT landline and broadband services under separate contracts, paying significantly more than bundled-package customers.

The Tribunal found BT’s pricing to be excessive but did not consider it unfair under the Competition Act 1998. The Act mandates that dominant market players avoid pricing practices that lack a reasonable relation to the value of the services provided.

“This case has set an important precedent for collective proceedings,” said Sarah Houghton, a partner at Mishcon de Reya and adviser to Le Patourel.

“While we are grateful to the Tribunal for its thorough examination of the evidence, we are disappointed that it did not find BT’s excessive pricing to constitute a breach of competition law.”

Next Steps

While BT avoided a potential payout of £1.3 billion in compensation, the decision may not be the final word. Le Patourel said

“We will carefully review the Tribunal’s reasoning and assess the prospects for appealing this decision to the Court of Appeal. While the Tribunal recognized the significant and persistent overcharging, this decision leaves BT’s most loyal customers without the compensation they deserve.”

At the time of writing, BT had not commented.

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BT connects 999 and 112 calls in the UK and provides relay services for deaf and speech-impaired people. Ofcom foound that BT was not properly prepared to handle the incident

On Sunday 25 June 2023, BT experienced a network fault that affected its ability to connect calls to emergency services between 06:24 and 16:56. During the incident, nearly 14,000 call attempts – from 12,392 different callers – were unsuccessful.

BT notified Ofcom of this issue, as required by law, and on 28 June 2023 Ofcom opened an investigation to establish whether the company had failed to comply with its legal duties to take appropriate and proportionate measures to prepare for potential disruption to its network.[1]

How the incident unfolded

Ofcom explained  were three key stages to this incident:

“During the first hour, BT’s emergency call handling system was disrupted by what was later found to be a configuration error in a file on its server. This resulted in call handling agents’ systems restarting as soon as a call was received; agents being logged out of the system; calls being disconnected or dropped upon transfer to the emergency authorities; and calls being put back in the queue. BT was initially unable to determine the cause of the issue and attempted to switch to its disaster recovery platform.

” The first attempt to switch to the disaster recovery platform was unsuccessful due to human error. This was a result of instructions being poorly documented, and the team being unfamiliar with the process. The incident grew from affecting some calls to a total outage of the system.

“The rate of unsuccessful calls decreased once traffic was migrated successfully to the disaster recovery platform. However, usual service was not fully restored initially as the disaster recovery platform struggled with demand.

BT’s inadequate preparedness

“We found that BT did not have sufficient warning systems in place for when this kind of incident occurs, nor did it have adequate procedures for promptly assessing the severity, impact and likely cause of any such incident or for identifying mitigating actions. We also found that BT’s disaster recovery platform had insufficient capacity and functionality to deal with a level of demand that might reasonably be expected.

“The incident also caused disruption to text relay calls, which meant people with hearing and speech difficulties were unable to make any calls, including to friends, family, businesses and services. This left deaf and speech-impaired users at increased risk of harm.

Financial penalty

“BT is a large, well-resourced and experienced communications provider. Although there have been no confirmed reports by the emergency authorities of serious harm to members of the public as a result of the incident, the potential degree of harm was extremely significant. As a result of BT’s failures, Ofcom has decided to fine the company £17,500,000.

“Being able to contact the emergency services can mean the difference between life and death, so in the event of any disruption to their networks, providers must be ready to respond quickly and effectively.

“In this case, BT fell woefully short of its responsibilities and was ill-prepared to deal with such a large-scale outage, putting its customers at unacceptable risk.

“Today’s fine sends a broader warning to all firms -– if you’re not properly prepared to deal with disruption to your networks, we’ll hold you to strict account on behalf of consumers” saud  Suzanne Cater, Ofcom’s Director of Enforcement

“In considering the level of financial penalty, we took into account seriousness, duration and degree of harm. We also considered steps BT has taken to remedy these issues, including fixing the error that caused the disruption; making improvements to fault monitoring; improving the disaster recovery platform; and documenting a clear process for switching to it. And we recognised that BT self-reported the incident, in line with its obligations, and provided regular updates. BT has also cooperated fully with our investigation and has provided Ofcom with information in a timely manner when requested”

Ofcom said: “The company broke our consumer protection rules designed to ensure telecoms customers get clear, comparable information about the services they are considering buying.”

For two years, phone and broadband companies have been required to give consumers and small businesses the details of a contract, as well as a short summary of its key terms before they sign up, including information such as the price and length of the contract, the speed of the service, and any early exit fees.

Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom’s Enforcement Director, added: “For people to take advantage of the competitive telecoms market here in the UK, they must be able to shop around with confidence.

“When we strengthened our rules to make it easier for consumers to compare deals, we gave providers a strict timeline by which to implement them. It’s unacceptable that BT couldn’t get its act together in time, and the company must now pay a penalty for its failings. We won’t hesitate to step in on behalf of phone and broadband customers when our rules to protect them are broken.”

Ofcom opened an investigation into BT after being told EE and Plusnet may have failed to provide these documents to some customers. An investigation revealed EE and Plusnet made more than 1.3 million sales in two years without providing the required contract summary and information documents. 

“It’s unacceptable that BT couldn’t get its act together in time, and the company must now pay a penalty for its failings”

“The evidence shows there were at least 1.1 million customers affected by this. Ofcom engaged with providers during the period before the new rules came into force in June 2022, to ensure they were on track to meet the deadline. BT told us in February 2022 that it was confident the deadline would be met.

“Evidence we have gathered shows that BT was aware from as early as January 2022 that some of its sales channels would not meet the deadline. In some cases, BT deliberately chose not to comply with the rules on time. Other providers dedicated the resources required to meet the implementation deadline for these new rules, and BT is likely to have saved costs by not doing so,” Ofcom stated.

“In engagement with Ofcom, BT contacted 1.1 million customers between 26 June and 30 September 2023, explaining that it had not provided them with the information to which they were entitled. Those customers have been given the opportunity to request the information and/or cancel their contract without charge.

“However, before these communications were sent, some customers left BT before the end of their contract and may have been charged an early exit fee. Our rules are clear that if the required contract summary and contract information is not given, the contract is not binding on customers. As a result, an early exit fee should not have been payable by these customers.

Also, some sales channels are still non-compliant and BT is still not providing the required information at the right time to some customers. As a result of these failures, Ofcom has decided to fine BT £2,800,000, which reflects the seriousness of this breach.”

Ofcom has also told BT to identify and refund any affected customers who may have been charged for leaving before the end of their contract period, within five months. Within three months, BT must contact the remaining affected customers who are still with BT and have not already been contacted, to offer them their contract information and/or the right to cancel their contract without charge.

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