Vodafone Business and Tata Join Forces to Accelerate UK Digital Transformation

Vodafone Business has announced a strategic partnership with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), bringing together two major technology organisations to help British enterprises modernise, improve customer experiences and unlock new opportunities for growth.

The agreement sees TCS join Vodafone Business’ expanding strategic partner ecosystem. By combining their respective strengths, the companies aim to give customers access to a broad range of connectivity, cloud, artificial intelligence and digital transformation services.

Vodafone Business, the enterprise division of VodafoneThree, contributes considerable expertise in connectivity, cyber security, cloud computing and digital services. TCS brings global experience in technology consulting, systems integration, sovereign cloud solutions, AI and large-scale business transformation.

Together, the companies will support organisations in sectors including healthcare, education, financial services, manufacturing and retail. The partnership will also work with businesses operating within critical national infrastructure, where secure, resilient and scalable digital systems are particularly important.

The collaboration forms part of VodafoneThree’s £11 billion investment programme, which is intended to create what it describes as the UK’s best network for business. This investment should provide organisations with stronger digital foundations from which to modernise their operations, introduce new services and pursue sustainable growth.

TCS also has substantial experience within the British market, having supported UK enterprises for 50 years. According to the company, its activities have helped create approximately 42,000 jobs directly and indirectly across the country.

Nick Gliddon, Business Director at VodafoneThree, said that many British companies possess the ambition to modernise but face challenges when attempting to put their plans into practice.

“The challenge for many organisations is not ambition, it is execution: making the right technology choices, integrating them properly and turning investment into measurable impact,” he explained to That's Business.

The partnership is expected to concentrate on several priority areas. These include cloud migration, AI and automation, cyber security, network modernisation, data analytics, connected business applications, the Internet of Things, managed services and operational transformation.

Vinay Singvi, Head of UK and Ireland at TCS, said the combination of AI, digital transformation, industry knowledge and technological expertise could unlock greater value for Vodafone Business, TCS and their customers.

For UK enterprises, this partnership promises more than simply access to new technology. By offering integrated expertise and practical support, Vodafone Business and TCS hope to reduce complexity, accelerate transformation and help organisations turn their technology investments into measurable commercial improvements.

www.vodafone.co.uk

KeySIM Launches Flexible Pay-As-You-Go IoT SIM Pricing for UK Businesses

KeySIM has unveiled new pay-as-you-go IoT SIM pricing for UK businesses, offering multi-network connectivity, no minimum contracts and flexible data plans for connected devices across the UK and Europe.

UK-based IoT connectivity provider KeySIM has introduced a new pricing structure aimed at businesses deploying more than 100 Internet of Things (IoT) SIM cards, offering a flexible pay-as-you-go alternative to traditional connectivity contracts.

The new tariffs are designed to help organisations reduce unnecessary costs while providing reliable multi-network connectivity for everything from CCTV systems and industrial automation to environmental monitoring and remote networking.

Under the new commercial offering, UK businesses can access multi-network IoT SIM cards for a monthly rental of just £1.50 per SIM. Mobile data is charged at £0.0025 per megabyte on a true pay-as-you-go basis, ensuring customers only pay for the data they actually consume. 

Businesses requiring connectivity across both the UK and Europe can opt for KeySIM's UK and European service, priced at £3.25 per SIM per month, with European data charged at £0.008 per megabyte.

Unlike many traditional IoT connectivity packages, KeySIM imposes no minimum contract terms, allowing customers to cancel SIMs whenever required. UK voice calls and SMS messages are both charged at £0.05 per minute or message.

A key feature of the service is its multi-network capability. KeySIM's IoT SIM cards connect to all four major UK mobile networks, Vodafone, O2, EE and Three, helping businesses maintain connectivity by automatically selecting the strongest available signal.

The company says its unsteered SIM technology provides an important advantage over many conventional IoT SIMs, which often prioritise a preferred network and can experience unnecessary disconnections. For organisations that require greater control, customers also have the option to manually steer SIMs to a preferred network during planned maintenance, local outages or service disruptions.

KeySIM also offers optional fixed IP addresses, enabling secure remote access to CCTV installations, telemetry systems, industrial equipment, routers and other connected devices.

Founder Graham Robinson said the new pricing reflects the company's continued growth and commitment to transparent, technically robust IoT connectivity.

He told That's Business: "The launch of these new tariffs comes at an exciting time for KeySIM," he said. "The business now supports more than 500 customers and, during June 2026 alone, transited more than 10 million megabytes of data across our platform. These milestones reinforce our commitment to delivering transparent, flexible and technically robust IoT SIM connectivity for businesses throughout the UK and Europe."

The financial benefits of the model are already being realised by customers. Irish security specialist CSC Security Consultants switched from a pooled data arrangement to KeySIM in 2022 after discovering that around 27 per cent of the mobile data it had been purchasing was never actually used.

Managing Director Declan Cassin said the move had significantly reduced unnecessary expenditure while also delivering excellent technical support. He added that KeySIM successfully integrated the firm's CCTV connectivity into its RE Monitoring Centre, providing secure monitoring capabilities for its camera systems.

As businesses continue to expand their use of connected devices across multiple sectors, demand for flexible, usage-based connectivity is increasing rapidly. KeySIM's latest pricing is aimed squarely at organisations looking to scale their IoT deployments without being tied into long-term contracts or paying for unused data.

https://www.keysim.co.uk

The first comprehensive performance test of UK mobile operators and their MVNOs

The UK’s four mobile operators, Three, O2, Vodafone and EE, offer a slightly better service than the cheaper third party operators using their networks but most customers are unlikely to notice the difference. 

This is the key finding of the first large-scale performance test to compare the performance of the UK's mobile network operators (MNOs) against the mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) using their infrastructure.

40,000 tests were carried out using the SignalTracker mobile app across the UK in a range of urban, suburban and rural locations.

SignalTracker, a partner service from spectrum policy experts PolicyTracker, compared Vodafone to Lebara Mobile, EE to LycaMobile, Three to iD Mobile and O2 to giffgaff to find out just how download speed (Mbps) differs between these providers. 

All the tested MVNOs use the existing networks of the mobile network operators (MNOs) and are generally cheaper.

Their tests focused on Central London as an urban case study; south London and south Birmingham as suburban tests and the Isle of Skye, Lincolnshire and Cumbria for their rural tests. 

They found that in the urban and suburban tests, all networks are consistently achieving more than the 20 Mbps download speed needed for everyday usage.

In simple terms, it's unlikely consumers would notice the difference between network operators and MVNOs, as download speeds are often separated by less than 10 Mbps.

However, Three and O2 were considerably faster than their partner MVNOs. In their suburban tests Three averaged 105 Mbps download speed against just 26 Mbps from iD Mobile. Similarly, giffgaff fell consistently short of the service provided by O2.

In their suburban tests, O2 averaged 56 Mbps download speed against just 41 Mbps on giffgaff: the MVNO was also beaten for speed in the urban tests by O2. Overall, their fastest speeds were on Three and our slowest were on iD.

Regarding reliability, they found that MVNOs were more likely to suffer failed tests than MNOs. When this metric is taken into account, MNOs offer a better service even though their download speeds are very similar.

In the case of Vodafone, they experienced test failure in 1% of cases across their urban and rural test areas. On its MVNO Lebara, this rose to 24% and 19%. More noticeable was the difference between O2 and giffgaff, with only 4% average test failure across all O2 tests versus 43% average test failure on giffgaff - close to half.

The performance gap between network operators and MVNOs is inconsistent – in South London O2 and giffgaff had similar speeds but O2 massively outpaced giffgaff in their Birmingham tests.

SignalTracker also analysed the mobile bands being used by network operators and their MVNOs to see if this explained differences in performance. iD has slower speeds than Three because it lacks access to the best performing mobile bands but in other pairings, this doesn’t seem to affect overall performance.

For consumers, what matters the most is value – their report highlights several MVNOs who offer a very similar service to MNOs at much cheaper prices.

While they do believe MVNOs offer generally better value, they also factored in the existence of 5G standalone (5G SA), the ultra-fast service offered by EE, Vodafone and O2.

No MVNO currently has access to 5G SA and when they add those results into their comparison, it makes a big difference and can even see average download speeds topping 100 Mbps.

For customers streaming, using VR and AR technology, looking to game on the go or download large files frequently, 5G standalone provides an advantage for these tasks over any MVNO.

https://signal-tracker.net