Weekly Roundup · Week of 15–21 June 2026
The week in business IT & comms
If you only read one thing this week, make it this. We pull the week's business IT and comms news into the handful of things that actually affect how you run your business, and tell you plainly whether you need to do anything about them.
- 01The Switch-Off
The phone switch-off is now a cost question, not just a date
With the old network off by January 2027 and roughly 2.8 million lines still to move, staying on legacy phone services increasingly means paying more for less. The businesses moving now are doing it calmly and picking up better features along the way.
Read the full story - 02Cyber Security
Cyber Essentials 2026: the bar moved up
April's update added auto-fail rules, including a 14-day window to patch critical vulnerabilities and tighter checks on multi-factor authentication. If you certify, or your clients ask you to, the groundwork now matters more.
Read the full story - 03AI for Business
AI crossed the halfway line in UK business
More than half of UK firms now use AI in some form, up sharply on last year. The shift this year is from one-off tools to AI that does multi-step work, which raises the same old question with new stakes: is your data tidy enough to let it loose?
Read the full story - 04Microsoft & Cloud
Microsoft 365 pricing changes on 1 July
Copilot becomes a permanent part of the Business Standard and Premium plans rather than an add-on. Sensible to review your licences before the change lands rather than after.
Read the full story - 05Connectivity & Broadband
Full fibre is nearly everywhere, copper is on the way out
Ofcom's full-fibre rules took effect in April and Openreach is closing in on 25 million premises. For most businesses, a properly fast, reliable connection is now available where it wasn't a couple of years ago.
Read the full story
What we’re watching
Next week we're watching the run-up to the 1 July Microsoft 365 price change, and any further Openreach detail on which exchanges move next in the switch-off. If you want a straight answer on what affects you, that's a phone call away.
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Got a question this raises?
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