Vodafone Confirm UK 3G Signals Have Been Shut Down, Almost

Mobile operator Vodafone has this morning echoed EE’s recent announcement (here) by confirming that they’ve successfully switched-off their 3G mobile (mobile broadband) network across the UK. The related radio frequencies will now be repurposed to strengthen faster 4G and 5G services, but there’s a small catch. The activity, which is said to have “finished this […]

Full Fibre UK ISP Fibrus to Launch Openreach Broadband Plans

Infracapital-backed network builder and UK ISP Fibrus, which is rolling out a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across Northern Ireland and parts of North England (Cumbria), has revealed that they plan to expand their off-net retail provision and coverage by launching Openreach-based packages. The operator, which recently had to scale back some of their […]

Virgin Media and Nexfibre’s FTTP Covers 12,000 Premises in Blyth

Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK (VMO2), supported by UK network operator nexfibre, have today announced that more than 12,000 extra homes and businesses in the Northumberland (England) town and civil parish of Blyth can now access their new 2Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband services. Blyth is the latest in a long list of VMO2 […]

Telecom Acquisitions Group Tops 100,000 UK ISP Customers

Horsham-based Telecom Acquisitions (TAL Group), which is a holding company for several familiar UK consumer ISP brands (e.g. Home Telecom, Fleur and Eclipse Broadband), has revealed that over the past 15 months they’ve grown to total 100,000 customers and added 22,000 residential broadband users in the last quarter alone. According to data from Fibre Provider, […]

Ex-BT Boss Gavin Patterson Joins Board of UK AltNet Aggregator X3T

Software as a service provider X3T, which recently merged with Strategic Imperatives and also provides an aggregation platform to help UK alternative broadband ISP networks grow, has today appointed BT’s former CEO, Gavin Patterson, to its board. But he’s not the only high profile appointment. In case anybody has forgotten, Gavin Patterson led BT Group […]

Starlink Test Cheaper But Slower LEO Satellite Broadband Plan

Starlink’s (SpaceX) mega constellation of ultrafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has become a popular solution for UK customers in remote rural areas, yet its adoption is often held back by the high price of entry. But the space ISP is now testing the waters with a 50% cheaper plan, albeit one with […]

MWC 2024 | Huawei hosts green development elite club to drive industry collaboration on the transformation to green networks

Press Release

[Barcelona, Spain, February 26, 2024] Huawei hosts the Green Development Elite Club during MWC Barcelona 2024. More than 90 delegates from UNFCCC, ITU-T, and leading network operators such as Turkey Turkcell and Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) gathered together to discuss the latest developments in the building of Green Target Networks to further enable the sustainable development of the industry.

In the intelligent era, global network operators should not only fulfill the social responsibility of reducing their own carbon emissions, but also seek to help wider industry with energy conservation and efficiency improvement. Now, with the advent of enhanced computing power and artificial intelligence, network operators can not only transform their own operations to reduce carbon footprint but also enable many new 2H and 2B services to help wider society also lower its carbon footprint.

Opportunities and Challenges for the Green Development of the ICT Industry

In his opening presentation, Mr. Massamba Thioye, Project Executive of UNFCCC-GIH (UN Climate Change Global Innovation Hub), explained how the GIH organizes global industry partners to actively participate in and disseminate global thought leadership on “systemic innovation to enable green development”. Through multilateral collaboration with standards organizations, network operators, and equipment vendors from the ICT industry they hope to make breakthroughs in green innovation initiatives and green operation methods, and share best practices to support the sustainable development of humankind.

Next, Ms. Qi Shuguang, Vice Chair of ITU-T SG5 (International Telecommunications Union Study Group 5: Environment, climate change and circular economy), Vice Chief Engineer of CTTL-system in CAICT, outlined the standardization work of Sustainable Digital Transformation which is focusing on Double-Edge Nature of ICTs. On the one hand, how to minimize the negative effect of ICT, including published Recommendations on circular economy, digital product sustainable passport, sustainable data centers, smart energy solutions, Climate Actions towards Net Zero, scope3 emissions and ongoing work related to environmental impacts assessment etc. On the other hand, due to huge potential of ICT to slash global GHG emissions , Ms. Qi briefly introduced the content of ITU-L. 1480 which is on assessment of enablement effect of ICT as well as under developing standard titled“Enablement indicator of ICT to other sectors and best practices to achieve Net Zero goal”. Finally, she mentioned the collaboration between ITU and other UN organization such as UNFCCC, UNEP, ETSI on standardization work of Sustainable Digital Transformation.

Green Development Practices of Global Leading Operators

Mr. Yildiray Ornekli, Access network infrastructure associate director of the Türkiye Turkcell, was the first of two network operators presenting, sharing their green site solution. With simplified site redesign and extensive solar energy utilization, their Green Site Solution is more energy efficient and environmentally friendly, and as a side-effect, its cyber resilience is improved. Even during the major earthquake of 2023, the solution provided stable and reliable communication services to the impacted areas. Turkcell will continue to build 5,000+ green sites and 300 MW solar power plant in the future to rapidly improve wireless network coverage, introduce connectivity to unconnected areas, and help more people bridge the digital divide.

Next, Mr. Derek Chen, Engineering Operations VP at HKT, shared HKT’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2050 and provided details of their green management system. HKT’s equipment room modernization program together with AI-driven power source scheduling has already greatly improved energy efficiency and operational efficiency. Now, 80% of their equipment rooms are equipped with intelligent power-saving meter systems, saving 31.8 GWh of power and reducing carbon emissions by 10% annually. HKT also provides various green services for communities and enterprises, including smart property management, cloud computing, generative AI services, telemedicine, and marine environment monitoring. Together, these are promoting green and sustainable social development.

Beyond ImaginationDigit Create Green Future

In the closing presentation, Zhou Yu, president of Huawei Network Consulting and System Integration, announced the release of two white papers which aim to stimulate and drive increased sustainability in both telecommunications operators, and the wider industry.  The first white paper, “Green Management”, co-authored by China Mobile, Hong Kong Telecom and Huawei, proposes a management and governance framework to help network operators successfully transform to more sustainable operations. The second white paper “Green Network Evolution with Digital-Twins” introduces Huawei’s Green Network Evolution with the Digital Twin Platform (GNED), a transformative tool to helps carriers accelerate green transformation.

Mr. Zhou Yu concluded by emphasizing that with the rapid development of computing and AI capabilities, operators can provide more innovative 2C, 2H, 2B and computing services. However, this leads to faster network expansion and rapid growth of operation costs. The network is gradually going beyond the limits of “Moore’s Law.” and exceed the control of the “man”. Huawei is committed to helping operators integrate green and intelligence into networks through new digital and AI technologies, and enabling the promotion of organizations, talents, and processes, to support the evolution of network architecture from “Pyramid” to “Spindle”, achieving continuous growth of network capabilities without increasing energy consumption – Beyond Imagination.

To enable this transformation, Huawei has built many end-to-end digital capabilities based on its NetLIVE platform, such as Full-service Area Planning, Smooth and Resilience Migration and Continuous Operation. It provides operators with a comprehensive set of scenarios solutions such as Green Site Modernization, Green CO Modernization and Solar Farm etc.Digit Create Green Future.

In the future, Huawei’s Intelligent Connectivity Integration service will build on the concept of “Less for More” – less resource for more end-services – and focus on a holistic network-wide view rather than single sites in isolation.  Huawei’s digital and AI capabilities will continue to build ever more green, efficient, resilient, secure and service-rich networks for operators, and is committed to achieving the strategic goals of green and sustainable development.

Bruce Xun from Huawei: Embracing digital intelligence and accelerating operations transformation with telecom + AI

Press Release

[Barcelona, Spain, February 27, 2024] During MWC24, Huawei, together with global carriers, industry organizations, and academics, held the Digital Operations Transformation Summit 2024 to discuss how carriers accelerate digital operations transformation. Mr. Bruce Xun, President of Huawei’s Global Technical Service Dept, said, “The ’Telecom + AI’, formed with telecom cognition, digital and AI, will bring new operations mode and new service growth to carriers, creating tangible business value.”

Bruce Xun, President of Huawei’s Global Technical Service Dept.

Telecom + AI: Accelerating Transformation from Telco to Digital Intelligent Service Provider

AI has become a technology hotspot sweeping the globe. When it comes to unleashing the full potential value of AI, carriers have unique advantages based on ubiquitous connections, over 100 billion data records per day, billions of entries of telecom knowledge, decades of telecom operations experience. “Digital twin + AI” can create new operations mode, and “Converged data + AI” can drive new service growth. The in-depth collaboration of telecom and AI will accelerate carriers’ transformation to digital intelligent service providers.

 Digital Twin + AI: Creating New Operations Mode Along the Customer and Employee Journey

Along the customer journey, each operation activity focuses on customer experiences, which drives the evolution of the operations mode from network- oriented to customer- and service-oriented. Every customer can perceive the value brought by the new mode. Huawei has developed the innovative SOC + NOC intelligent O&M solution with a carrier in Asia Pacific, where O&M activities were planned, prioritized, and executed according to the actual impact on the customer. This has reduced traffic loss by 15% on average.

Along the employee journey, the new operations mode will empower every

employee by providing each of them Copilot to help them improve both efficiency and effectiveness. Mr. Xun shared many Copilot best practices for different employee roles. For example, broadband on-site and cross-selling engineers can use Copilot to accurately locate faults and solve 85% of the issues within 30 minutes. This improves the success rate of cross-selling by 10%. With assistance of Copilot, agents in the Contact Center can gain an in-depth understanding of customer requirements and satisfy customers with one-stop solution. This improves the FCR (first call resolution rate) by 30%.

Converged Data + AI: Driving New Service Growth from Connectivity as well as Beyond Connectivity

Connectivity services are the core business of carriers. Utilizing AI to analysis massive operation data, carriers can provide personalized, precise, and convenient services, maximize network monetization through multi-dimensional product design and on-demand marketing. In addition, new growth ecosystems can be built through new products, platforms, and devices. For example, intelligent payment and micro-finance solution can improve the performance of carriers’ mobile finance services. In 2023, Huawei supported a carrier in Ethiopia doubled the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of Mobile Money and increased the total revenue by seven times.

Mr. Xun emphasized that “Telecom + AI” will accelerate carriers’ digital operations transformation. Telecom cognition is the core which includes telecom knowledge, decades of experience, and best practices. Digital is the cornerstone which includes high-quality data with suitable platforms and sufficient digital talent. AI is the accelerator which contains discriminative AI and GenAI. Combination of the three key factors will accelerate digital operations transformation and achieve breakthrough to create enormous business value.

Over the past year, Huawei has released best practices of digital operations transformation for various scenarios by working with global carriers. These practices have supported carriers achieve operations excellence, deliver ultimate user experiences, and increase the revenue from new services. Currently Huawei Services has over 20,000 experts, including more than 200 AI and data scientists. In the transformation projects, we supported global carriers implemented data governance from single-domain data to converged data to digital twin, as well as knowledge governance from documents to knowledge to high-quality corpus and vector data base. Huawei continues to make long-term investments in digital operations transformation in which we will explore, innovate and build best practices in hundreds of transformation projects.

MWC Barcelona 2024 will be held from February 26 to February 29 in Barcelona, Spain. During the event, Huawei will showcase its latest products and solutions at stand 1H50 in Fira Gran Via Hall 1. With the 2024 commercial launch of 5.5G, Huawei is collaborating with operators and partners around the world to pursue exciting new innovation in networks, cloud, and intelligence. Together, we will drive 5G business and foster a thriving industry ecosystem, creating a new era for intelligent digital transformation. For more information, please visit: https://carrier.huawei.com/en/events/mwc2024.

 

 

AT&T tries to reconcile with customers following massive network outage

News

AT&T has offered account credits for customers most impacted by their Feb. 22 outage, which left three quarters of AT&T customers unable to access services on Thursday morning of last week

An initial review of AT&T’s massive outage on Feb. 22 has revealed the apparent cause, according to AT&T CEO John Stankey, who addressed the outage in a letter to employees over the weekend.

Stankey wrote that the outage “was due to the application and execution of an incorrect process used while working to expand our network.”

He called it a “challenging day” for AT&T.

“Moments like these are a test of resilience,” Stankey wrote. “This is not our first network outage, and it won’t be our last – unfortunately, it’s the reality of our business. What matters most is how we react, adapt, and improve to deliver the service our customers need and expect.”

As a result of the outage, Stankey announced that AT&T would automatically apply account credits to consumers and small businesses most impacted by the outage and said AT&T’s prepaid customers “will have options available to them if they were impacted.”

Additionally, Stankey said AT&T is in discussions with the company’s mid-market and enterprise customers. He committed to addressing their concerns “as those discussions take place.”

Stankey’s letter, dated Feb. 25, stated that the outage began in the early morning hours of Thursday, Feb. 22, with about 75 percent of the company’s customers unable to access services in the hours that followed.

“We prioritized FirstNet service restoration, in line with our commitment to our nation’s first responders,” Stankey’s letter stated.”The remaining customers were reconnected throughout the morning.”

Stankey said AT&T was able to successfully stabilize the network by around noon time on Thursday. He thanked the company’s employees for working to resolve the issue.

“Whenever a challenging or unexpected event impacts this company, I can always count on everyone to rise to the occasion and the last few days have been no exception,” Stankey wrote. “Our frontline employees demonstrated expertise under pressure as our network teams took immediate action to restore service for our customers.”

In total, AT&T provides services to more than 100 million families across the United States and over 2.5 million businesses, according to a summary of the company’s operations provided by AT&T.

This story was originally published on Total Telecom’s sister site, Broadband Communities

Join the US telecoms community in discussion around the sector’s hottest topics at Connected America

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Huawei Join Forces for AI-Driven Innovation and Talent Empowerment

Press Release

[Barcelona, February 26, 2024] — Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Huawei signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on digital development with the aim to provide support towards AI development, industry applications, ecosystem building, and talent cultivation during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 in Barcelona. The MoU was signed by Vikram Sinha, President and CEO, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Jacqueline Shi, President of Huawei Cloud Global Marketing and Sales Service.

The signing ceremony was also attended by Halim Alamsyah, President Commissioner of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison; Rudiantara, Independent Commissioner of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison; and Daniel Wu, Huawei Indonesia IOH Account Director.

Agreed upon both parties, AI is the driving force of the current global technological progress and industrial transformation wave, which has a profound impact on human society and will reshape the industry.

AI and informatization have brought about the rapid development of Internet applications and the rapid growth of Indonesia’s digital economy. Towards the vision of Golden Indonesia 2045, the digital economy will become an important pillar, while cloud and AI construction will become a key path for digital development.

Vikram Sinha, President Director and Chief Executive Officer of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, said, “Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison is committed to democratize digitalization in Indonesia. It is part of Indosat’s larger purpose of connecting and empowering every Indonesian by accelerating nation’s digital transformation. This partnership enables us to maximize service offering using AI and cloud ecosystem. We believe this will lead us to the forefront of bringing the vision of Golden Indonesia 2045 to life.”

By collaborating with Indosat, Huawei aims to make breakthrough in public cloud and AI applications and provide more diversified services for local users and enterprises, basing on its technical and commercial experience in the public cloud and AI fields. Both Indosat and Huawei eagerly work on a joint cultivate cloud, develop AI ecosystem partners and AI talents to empower various industries and promote the development of digital economy.

“We are proud of the partnership forged with Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, recognizing that Indonesia is towarding a digitally transformative future. At Huawei, we view this collaboration as a commitment to pioneering innovation and fostering sustainable development. Our joint effort signifies a shared vision to harness the power of AI and cloud computing, driving unprecedented growth and opportunity across industries. This partnership underscores our unwavering commitment to empowering industries and propelling the digital economy forward. Together, we embark on a transformative journey, fueled by collaboration, innovation, and a shared vision for a brighter tomorrow,” according to Jacqueline Shi, President of Huawei Cloud Global Marketing and Sales Service.

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter

Also in the news:
DOCOMO partners with SAPEON to explore new AI chip
AT&T tries to reconcile with customers following massive network outage
Kyivstar looks to Rakuten’s Open RAN tech to rebuild its network