A first and limited look into the UK rollout of 5G has revealed punters enjoying median speeds up to four times faster than standard 4G, with EE coming out on top and Vodafone managing to be just twice as fast.

The tests were conducted by RootMetrics in Birmingham between August and September 2019, prior to O2 and Three's 5G launch – meaning it only shows the performance from two mobile operators.

The research, however, provides an early indication of speeds and availability of the much-hyped technology - and reveals the disparity with connectivity enjoyed in far flung places, including the

Analysis It’s amazing how a couple of billion dollars focuses the mind.

This week, Congress in the US held a second hearing about an important ongoing issue when it comes to the build-out and adoption of next-generation 5G mobile broadband: namely, where the radio frequencies and bandwidth are going to come from to make it work.

The frequency spectrum is cluttered, and no one wants to give up their portion of this space to 5G. At least not until they get a fat check.

There are two pieces of spectrum that are currently under consideration by telco watchdog FCC for

UK mobile operators will be fined up to 10 per cent of their annual turnover if they fail to meet the coverage obligations of the £1bn Shared Rural Network plans, digital secretary Nicky Morgan has claimed.

Last week the country's major players pledged to stump up half the cash for a £1bn "Shared Rural Network" (SRN) to tackle 4G notspots.

All four – EE, Three, O2 and Vodafone – signed proposals to bring rural coverage to 95 per cent of the UK by 2025 via £530m in industry funding, with the government committing a further £500m of your money.

Each

The first two letters sent that day were 'L' and 'O' – what should the third have been?

It is 50 years today since the first message was sent on the ARPANET, a precursor of the internet as we know it today.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) can trace its roots back to 1962 and MIT computer scientist Joseph Licklider's "Galactic Network" concept . Around the same time, Leonard Kleinrock, also at MIT, published an early paper on packet-switching theory ( PDF ).

Licklider went on to head up the Information Processing

Higher spectrum fees and content costs were blamed by BT for a wobbly bottom line at the half-way stage of its financial year.

Profits before tax for the six months ended 29 September were broadly flat at £1.33bn, compared with the same period last year. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, meanwhile, fell 3 per cent to £3.9bn.

BT said this was due to "increased spectrum fees, content costs and investment to improve competitive positioning partly offset by cost savings from transformation programmes."

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Revenue came in at £11.413bn, down 2 per cent, "mainly reflecting the impact of