City Moves for 4 March 2016 | Who’s switching jobs March 4, 2016 LIDA Digital direct marketing agency LIDA has appointed Trefor Thomas, executive creative director of SapientNitro, as its chief creative officer – a newly created role. Trefor’s brief will be to focus on furthering the agency’s direct, digital brand and innovation capabilities, while continuing to gear up LIDA’s loyalty credentials across new platforms. He boasts over two [...]
Britain needs to take a giant leap forward and embrace radical competition to achieve ultrafast broadband February 29, 2016 London is one of the world’s greatest cities, and arguably the pre-eminent global financial centre. The UK has 17 of Europe’s 40 tech unicorns (startups valued at $1bn or more), and all bar three of these are in London. And yet, compared to other European cities, its broadband infrastructure – the vital sensory network of a [...]
IoD: UK broadband ambition needs to be “a thousand times” higher February 29, 2016 The Government stood today accused by business leaders of a “poverty of ambition” when it came to UK broadband speeds. The Institute of Directors (IoD) also called for a new target for households and business to have access to speeds of 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) by 2030, 1,000 times faster than the current official [...]
BT Openreach ruling: Has Ofcom done enough to ensure broadband competition? February 26, 2016 Dana Tobak, managing director of Hyperoptic, says Yes. Yes – for now. Ofcom has rightly focused on the key areas of change required to promote investment in fibre and to support true product competition for consumers. By keeping structural separation as the potential “naughty step”, Ofcom has ensured that Openreach should be compelled to partner in [...]
TalkTalk accuses Ofcom of dodging BT Openreach decision after digital review demands better access for rivals, sending BT’s share price soaring February 25, 2016 TalkTalk boss Dido Harding has slammed Ofcom for “kicking the Openreach can down the road”, after the telecoms regulator decided not to split off the infrastructure arm from BT. Ofcom yesterday released the results of its once-a-decade industry review that stopped short of demanding Openreach be hived off from BT, but said the option was still [...]
At the close: FTSE 100 index surges as banks’ share prices including Lloyds, RBS and Barclays rise February 25, 2016 The FTSE 100 index rocketed on Thursday as banking stocks surged, supported by the news that fourth quarter UK GDP was revised upwards to 0.5 per cent. The index closed 2.48 per cent higher at 6,012 points, led higher by Lloyds Banking Group and RSA Insurance Group. "European banks were the centre of market turmoil two [...]
Ofcom: BT’s share price rises as telecoms giant avoids Openreach spin-off – for now February 25, 2016 BT's share price climbed this morning after it narrowly avoided being forced to spin off Openreach into a separate company by the industry regulator. Ofcom has said BT must open up its network to competitors and reform Openreach "to better serve UK customers and businesses", but it stopped short of insisting it would have to carve up [...]
999 emergency phone number down in parts of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk in south east england February 23, 2016 The emergency 999 number is down for some people in parts of the UK, according to several reports. Cambridgeshire and Suffolk are understood to be affected with people unable to make calls to police, ambulance or fire brigade on the emergency line. Cambridgeshire fire and rescue tweeted that phone lines were down in the south east of the [...]
EU referendum: Asda, HSBC, Vodafone and nearly 200 sign letter saying Brexit would threaten jobs – but Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s are not on the list February 23, 2016 The bosses of HSBC, BT, Vodafone and Asda are among those to have put their name to an open letter backing the remain camp and Prime Minister David Cameron's reforms in Europe. More than a third of the UK's biggest companies were represented in the letter, which was published in The Times this morning, saying they represented [...]
EU referendum: Full text of letter signed by FTSE 100 bosses backing Prime Minister David Cameron’s reform efforts is leaked February 22, 2016 It was first reported over the weekend that up to half of Britain's biggest businesses will voice their support for Prime Minister David Cameron's campaign to keep the UK in the European Union by putting their names to an open letter backing the reforms Cameron secured in Brussels last week. Now it looks like the full text [...]