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Introduction and history
Until 1982, the main civil telecommunications system in the UK was a state monopoly known as Post Office Telecommunications. Broadcasting, both radio and television, was a duopoly of the BBC and Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA): these two organisations controlled all broadcast services, and directly owned and operated the broadcast transmitter sites. Mobile phone and Internet services did not then exist. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national publicly funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. ...
The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television (ITV and Channel 4 - cable and satellite television were the responsibility of the Cable Authority) and radio broadcasts. ...
The civil telecomms monopoly ended when Mercury Communications arrived in 1982. The Post Office system evolved into British Telecom and was privatised in 1984. BT Group plc (which trades as just BT, and is commonly known as, British Telecom or British Telecommunications) is the privatised former British state telecommunications operator. ...
Broadcast transmitters, which belonged to the BBC and IBA, were privatised during the 1990s and now belong to Crown Castle UK, VT Communications and Arqiva. Crown Castle UK is a company which provides telecommunications infrastructure and broadcast transmission facilities in the UK. Its main customers are broadcasters and mobile phone network operators, and its main asset is a network of over 1,000 radio masts and towers. ...
VT Communications is a part of VT Group plc. ...
Arqiva is the new name for NTLs broadcast division, after it was sold to a consortium led by Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group. ...
Regulation of communications has changed many times during the same period, and most of the bodies have been merged into Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries [1]. The Office of Communications, usually known as Ofcom, is the UKs communications regulator. ...
Infrastructure
Domestic trunk infrastructure All communications trunks are now digital. Most are carried via national optical fibre networks. There are several companies with national fibre networks, including BT, NTL, Easynet and Energis. Microwave links are used up to the 155 Mbit/s level, but are seldom cost-effective at higher bit rates.
International trunks The UK is a focal point for many of the world's submarine communications cables, which are now mostly digital optical fibre cables. There are many satellite links too, but these now provide a relatively small part of the international bandwidth. A submarine communications cable is a cable laid beneath the sea to carry telecommunications between countries. ...
Broadcast transmission Most broadcasting organisations, BBC and commercial, lease transmission facilities from one or more of the transmission companies. The main exception is the smaller local radio stations, some of which find it more cost-effective to provide their own.
Fixed phone lines BT is still the main provider of fixed telephones lines, both POTS and ISDN, and it has a universal service obligation.
NTL is the second biggest player in the residential telephone line market.
Other companies provide fixed telephone lines too, but mainly to large companies in the major cities.
There are many other providers who sell fixed telephone services carried over BT lines. They have no network infrastructure of their own.
Mobile phone networks
First and second generation networks - O2: originally BT Cellnet, this company ran one of the two original ETACS analogue mobile phone networks, which has now closed. It now runs a GSM-900 network.
- Vodafone: this company ran one of the two original ETACS analogue mobile phone networks, which has now closed. It now runs a GSM-900 network.
- Orange: runs a GSM-1800 network
- T-Mobile: originally called One-2-One, this network is also GSM-1800
The O2 plc Logo O2 plc (known until March 2005 as mmO2) is a British telecommunications company specialising in mobile phones, previously part of BT Group plc. ...
This article is about AMPS, the North American mobile phone system standard; AMPS is also an initialism for the All Media and Products Survey published by the South African Advertising Research Foundation. ...
The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. ...
Vodafones corporate logo is the outline of a SIM card Vodafone is a multinational mobile phone operator with headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire, United Kingdom and Düsseldorf, Germany. ...
Orange SA is a major mobile phone operator. ...
T-Mobile logo T-Mobile is a multinational mobile phone operator. ...
Third generation networks The four 2G companies all won 3G licences in a competitive auction, as did a new entrant known as 3. They have now rolled out their networks. An advertisement for 3 in which Leon Lai, a Hong Kong-based Cantopop singer is the pinup. ...
The 3rd generation stems from technological improvements and is in essence an improvement of the available bandwidth, enabling new services to be provided to customers.
Such services include streaming of live radio or video, video calls and live TV.
A new technology was announced and demonstrated at 3GSM in Cannes by Nortel in association with Orange in 2005: HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Acess), potentially enabling bandwidth of up to 8Mbps in the future.
Services
Telephones
Fixed telephones In the United Kingdom there are 35 million (2002) main line telephones 2002 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The telephone service in the United Kingdom was originally provided by private companies and local city councils. But by 1912–13 [2] all except the telephone service of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire and Guernsey had been bought out by the Post Office. Post Office Telephones also operated telephone services in Jersey and the Isle of Man until 1969 when the islands took over responsibility for their own postal and telephone services. 1912 is a leap year starting on Monday. ...
Link title1913 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ...
Hull or Kingston upon Hull is a British city situated on the north bank of the Humber estuary. ...
Yorkshire as a traditional county. ...
Small-town post office and town hall in Lockhart, Alabama A post office is a facility (in most countries, a government one) where the public can purchase postage stamps for mailing correspondence or merchandise, and also drop off or pick up packages or other special-delivery items. ...
1969 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ...
Post Office Telephones was reorganised in 1980–81 [3] as British Telecommunications (British Telecom, or BT), and was the first nationalised industry to be privatised by the Conservative government. The Hull Telephone Department was itself sold by Hull City Council as Kingston Communications in the late 1990s and celebrated its centenary in 2004. 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...
1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
BT Group plc (which trades as just BT, and is commonly known by its former name, British Telecom) is the privatised former British state telecommunications operator. ...
Kingston Communications PLC is a telecommunications provider based in Kingston upon Hull serving primarily the East Yorkshire area. ...
// Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ...
Mobile telephones In the UK there are 40 million mobile phones (2002) - over 80% of the population.
Each of the five network operators (see Infrastructure above) sells mobile phone services to the public. In addition, Virgin Mobile sells a service using network capacity bought from T-Mobile. Virgin Mobile plc is a cellular phone service provider operating in the UK, US, Australia, and Canada. ...
Numbering Main article:UK telephone numbering plan The UK telephone numbering plan, also known as the National Numbering Plan, is regulated by the Office of Communications (Ofcom), which replaced the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) in 2003. ...
There is a set numbering plan for phone numbers within the United Kingdom, which is regulated by the Office of Communications (Ofcom), which replaced the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) in 2003. Each number consists of an area code - one for each of the large cities and their surroundings - and a subscriber number - the individual number. The Office of Communications, usually known as Ofcom, is the UKs communications regulator. ...
Oftel has been superseded as the British telecommunications regulator by Ofcom (the Office of Communications). ...
2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Television and radio broadcasting
Radio Main article: Radio in the United Kingdom Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
As of 1998 there are 663 radio broadcast stations: 219 on AM, 431 on FM and 3 on shortwave. There are 84.5 million radio receiver sets (1997). 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...
Am is the present-tense, first-person, singular form of the verb to be, the copula of the English language. ...
The abbreviations FM, Fm, and fm may refer to: Electrical engineering Frequency modulation (FM) and its most common applications: FM radio, used primarily to broadcast music and speech at VHF frequencies FM synthesis, a sound-generation technique popularized by early digital synthesizers Science Femtometre (fm), an SI measure of length...
1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Television Main article: British television British television broadcasting has a range of different broadcasters, broadcasting multiple channels over a variety of distribution media. ...
As of 1997 there are there are 30.5 million television sets.
There are 5 national free-to-air analogue broadcasters - BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel 4 and five. Other networks are the satellite television provider BSkyB, cable television companies NTL and Telewest, and digital terrestrial television company Freeview. BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the world. ...
BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC. // History The channel was scheduled to begin at 7:20 pm on April 20, 1964 and show an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts...
Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITV plc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ...
Channel 4 is a public service television broadcaster in the United Kingdom (see British television). ...
five, formerly known as Channel 5, is the United Kingdoms fifth terrestrial TV Channel. ...
Satellite television is television delivered by way of orbiting communications satellites located 37,000 km (22,300 miles) above the earth’s surface. ...
British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB - formerly two companies, Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting, which merged) is a company that operates the most popular subscription television service in the Ireland. ...
Coaxial cable is often used to transmit cable television into the house Cable television or Community Antenna Television (CATV) (often shortened to cable) is a system of providing television, FM radio programming and other services to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted directly to people’s televisions through fixed optical...
NTL (NASDAQ: NTLI) is a US listed company providing cable services. ...
Telewest Broadband (formerly Telewest) is one of the two major cable companies in the United Kingdom. ...
Digital Terrestrial Television (DTTV or DTT) is an implementation of digital technology to provide a greater number of channels (SDTV) and/or better quality of picture (EDTV, HDTV) and sound (AC3, Dolby Digital) through a conventional aerial instead of a satellite dish or cable connection. ...
Freeview is a free-to-air digital television service in the United Kingdom broadcast from terrestrial transmitters using the DVB-T standard. ...
Internet At the end of 2004, 52% of households (12.6 million) were reported to have access to the internet (Source: Office for National Statistics Omnibus Survey). Around half of these are broadband connections. Public libraries also provide access to the internet, sometimes for a fee. As of 1999 there are 364 Internet Service Providers (ISPs). 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Office for National Statistics is the UK government agency charged with the collection and publication of government statistics. ...
Broadband Internet access, often shortened to broadband Internet or just broadband is a high data-transmission rate internet connection. ...
Librarians and patrons in a typical larger urban public library A public library is a library which is accessible by the public and is often operated by civil servants and funded from public sources. ...
1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
An Internet service provider (ISP) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ...
The country code top-level domain for United Kingdom web pages is .uk. Nominet UK is the .uk Network Information Centre and second-level domains must be used. A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is a top-level domain used and reserved for a country or a dependent territory. ...
Nominet UK is the . ...
A Network Information Centre (NIC), also known as domain registry, is part of the Domain Name System of the Internet. ...
See also Shortcut: UK topics This is a list of topics related to the United Kingdom. ...
The UK postal system runs on a system of alphanumeric codes, or Postcodes. ...
This is a list of the post towns of the United Kingdom sorted in postcode sequence. ...
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