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Inverness-based business broadband ISP and IT solutions provider HighNet has this week started to inform their customers of a re-brand, which will see the provider take the name of their parent brand, Focus Group – the same company that acquired the provider all the way back in April 2021. The change, which is due to […]

Fibre optic builder and rural ISP Truespeed, which is deploying a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to homes in the South West of England, has been fined £16,000 by Taunton Magistrates Court after it was found to have breached Section 60 and 65 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991. The operator, […]

We take a quick look back to see how the average UK broadband download and upload speeds have changed across the fastest nationally available fixed line ISPs and mobile operators over the past six months. Suffice to say, the growing coverage of gigabit-capable fixed line and 5G networks continues to push performance. The result below […]

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At a press tour of Analogue Devices (ADI)’s Catalyst facility in Limerick, Ireland, the semiconductor specialist walked visitors through numerous tech demonstrations, from telco innovations to connected cars

Geopolitics and the semiconductor subsidy boom

Last month, semiconductor specialist ADI announced it would be investing €630 million to expand its operations in its European HQ in Limerick, Ireland. The influx of funding is set to triple the site’s fabrication capacity over the coming two years, as well as expanding the site’s workforce by around 600 people.

The funding comes as part of the European Union’s Important Projects of Common European Interest on Microelectronics and Communication Technologies (IPCEI ME/CT) initiative, one of a number of funding schemes designed to help develop Europe’s domestic chip industry. Undoubtedly the most significant of these schemes is the European Chips Act, which pledges to deliver over €43 billion of project-driven investment until 2030, with the ultimate goal of increasing Europe’s semiconductor production capacity to 20% of the global market.

This surge in European investment has led to a boom in European semiconductor projects, drawing interest from major players like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel. Indeed, just earlier this week, Intel announced a $32 billion investment to open two chip fabs in Germany, as well as another $4.6 billion to build a fab in Poland – all of which are being subsidised with EU and government funding.

But for ADI’s head of Systems & Technology, Cloud & Communications, Joe Barry, this geopolitical focus on chip technology and the resulting funding is no reason to change strategy.

“We were one of the first companies to secure some of the funding really targeted at building up wafer fabrication in Europe. This is definitely driven by the desire to have more resilience and control,” explained Barry. “But while the funding is nice, this doesn’t really affect our strategy. We operate on a hybrid manufacturing model, where we have our own manufacturing but outsource certain pieces. We’ll continue to do this as we continue to scale to meet rising demand.”

ADI’s Catalyst Centre shows the scope of cross-industry innovation

Following the announcement of ADI’s new investment in Limerick, journalists were last week invited to take a tour of the adjoining ADI Catalyst Centre – a €100 million ‘collaboration accelerator’ launched last year as a focal point for customers, business partners, and suppliers to co-create new solutions with the semiconductor specialist.

The tour shone light the enormous breadth industries impacted by ADI’s technology, including telecoms solutions, automotive advances, wearables/extended reality consumer devices, and smart factory tech.

In the telecoms space, key demonstrations included an open radio unit (O-RU) reference design platform, including ADI’s fifth generation 8T8R RadioVerse® System on Chip (SoC), which offers customers an end-to-end solution that allows for hardware and software customisation for macro and small cell RUs.

ADI suggests that this comprehensive reference design will help accelerate the development of Open RAN solutions and promote the evolution of Open RAN ecosystem.

The company also had its chip technology on show in the context of 5G Massive MIMO (multiple input multiple output). Working alongside Marvell Technology, the latest MIMO solution demonstrated power savings of 40% versus competing solutions, not only making the solution more sustainable, but also considerably lighter, allowing for faster deployment.

Key to these energy savings was the solution’s microsleep capabilities. According to ADI, 20% of telco base stations carry 80% of network traffic at any one time, meaning large portions of the network are consuming power while unused. By rapidly switching these elements of the RU on and off as needed, as well as optimising scheduling, sites can ultimately reduce their power consumption significantly.

With the RAN consuming between 70% and 80% of the network’s total power usage, its clear to see how widespread adoption of this technology could lead to significant cost savings for operators.

Conquering the energy challenge

Following the demonstrations, Barry explained why reducing energy consumption was such a critical focus for the company.  

“Our customers’ customers are ultimately operators and whatever challenges they face are ones we face – that means energy consumption. In recent years, energy consumption has grown very significantly as an operating cost, so [the operators] are looking for ways to control that,” he said. “5G was a major step forward in terms of picojoules per bit, but when you’re facing an exponential growth curve these things catch up with you very quickly.”

Reducing power consumption is a major challenge for the semiconductor industry itself. Moore’s Law – a long-held tenant of the industry that the number of transistors in integrated circuits will double every two years as they become more complex – remains broadly accurate and these more powerful chips are typically more energy hungry.

This can be combatted in a number of ways, with Barry pointing to two areas of focus: static and dynamic power usage.

The static power consumed by the chips can be somewhat countered architecturally and algorithmically – essentially helping to optimise the power usage of the chip itself. But perhaps more important here is the dynamic savings, throttling energy usage in intelligent ways so that the device only consumes a high amount of energy when it really needs to.

“Both static and dynamic power savings are a technical challenge. Bringing down the static power requires a lot of innovation in terms of the algorithm and linearising power amplifiers to get more efficiency. Meanwhile, saving power dynamically requires turning things on and off very quickly – and high-power circuits don’t like being turned on and off very quickly! – so there’s a challenge here too in terms of efficiency and not degrading components,” he explained.

Looking to the future, these energy challenges are only going to grow as the user demand for connectivity continues to increase and we move forward towards the 6G era.

“In theory, 6G radio will potentially quadruple the number of antennas and the bandwidth used to meet the demand. If we stay on this trajectory, we’ll be looking at two-times or three-times the power consumption, which simply isn’t viable,” said Barry. “We need to innovate even more and that is an industry-wide effort. This is race we can win, but it has to be done through collaboration.”

Is the telecoms industry doing enough when it comes to building sustainable networks? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s Total Telecom Congress live in Amsterdam

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Elon Musk insists that SpaceX’s Starlink satellite services could be a connectivity game changer for India’s rural regions, but the company’s path to commercial services remains clouded by doubt over the government’s spectrum policy

Earlier this week, billionaire Elon Musk met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the latter’s diplomatic visit to the USA. According to reports, the discussion largely centred around Musk’s potential business ventures within India, with Musk outlining plans to potentially build a Tesla manufacturing base in India.

According to Musk, this could be just one of a number of “significant investments in India”, including launching SpaceX’s commercial LEO satellite service, Starlink, in the country.

But bringing Starlink to India is set to be a contentious process, not least because of SpaceX’s current clash over spectrum policy with India’s existing mobile operators.

The Indian government is currently planning to launch an auction for satellite-suitable spectrum in the near future, handling the spectrum in the same manner they would for 4G and 5G suitable bandwidths.

SpaceX, however, is currently lobbying the government to reconsider this strategy, arguing that the spectrum should simply be allocated to suitable companies in an equitable manner. The company said the auction process would drive up costs and impose geographical restrictions, therefore limiting the service’s reach and economic viability.

Reliance Jio disagrees, saying that foreign satellite companies like SpaceX could offer voice and data services to consumers and therefore directly compete with the rest of the telecoms sector. Thus, an auction is necessary to ensure a level playing field for the market.

Musk had previously tried to launch Starlink in India in 2021, with the company beginning to take preorders for the services prior to receiving regulatory approval to offer services. The Indian government ultimately cracked down on this practise, ordering SpaceX to return pre-order deposits and await full regulatory approval.

Starlink is still awaiting clearance from Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) and Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

The communications satellite space race in India is beginning to heat up in recent years, with Jio Platforms forming its own low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite business, Jio Satellite Communications, late last year. Earlier that same year, the company had partnered with satellite specialist SES for a joint venture called Jio Space Technology Limited, aiming to provide broadband services using a combination of geostationary orbit (GEO) satellites and middle Earth orbit (MEO) satellites.

India’s second largest mobile player, Bharti Airtel, meanwhile, already owns a significant stake in the UK government-backed LEO satellite operator, OneWeb.

Rumours also suggest that Nelco, a local satellite company owned by Tata, and Canada’s Telesat are interested in launching satellite services in India and will seek spectrum licences.

Finally, Amazon’s long-awaited LEO sat project, Project Kuiper, is also expecting to launch its first satellites next year, indicating that India will be a key market for the service’s growth.

How is the emergence of LEO satellite constellations changing the telecoms ecosystem? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s Total Telecom Congress live in Amsterdam

Also in the news:
Hyperoptic announces plans to cut 110 jobs
U.S. Huawei ban: A Pyrrhic victory spurring digital decolonisation
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The UK communications regulator Ofcom and seven of the country’s largest telecoms firms have today jointly committed to better supporting women in the industry to attain senior leadership positions

The gender imbalance in the telecoms industry is well established, with a stark disparity in the number of men and women in senior tech positions. Promoting gender equality has risen up the agenda for telecoms organisations in recent years, with various initiatives being put in place across the country, but progress remains in desperate need of acceleration.

Now, Ofcom and seven of the country’s largest telecoms operators – BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Openreach, Three, Virgin Media O2 (VMO2), Vodafone – have signed a pledge to improve this situation, committing to supporting the career development of more women within the sector.

Here is the pledge in full:

We are committed to increasing the senior representation of women in technology-based roles in the telecoms sector over the next three years; and to increase the overall representation of women in our sector.
We will invest our efforts in attracting and retaining women in our organisations, creating inclusive environments for them to excel and be their best.
As an industry we will come together annually to share good practice and showcase, to the outside world, our talented women in technology in the telecoms sector.
We will publish information on the impact our initiatives have made on our collective ambitions as well as against the diversity and inclusion strategies of our respective organisations. We aim to publish information on our initiatives, so we may inspire others in the sector.

As you can see, these commitments are fairly vague – it would have been nice to see some more concrete targets agreed for the end of the three-year period, for example. Nonetheless, this represents a step in the right direction, encouraging collaboration to solve one of the telecoms industry’s biggest social challenges.

“Having a diverse workforce is crucial to the success of any organisation. It drives creativity, innovation and ensures we as employers attract the skills we need from the widest possible pool. But for too many women, climbing that career ladder in a male-dominated industry can be a real challenge,” said Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom Chief Executive.

“We want the telecoms industry, including us at Ofcom, to lead the way in changing that. So it’s great to see so many companies getting behind this pledge, and committing to helping more women launch long-lasting and rewarding technology careers. We look forward to working together to achieve this.”

As you might imagine, most of the companies signing this pledge took the opportunity to highlight their individual successes and goals in this area. Sky pointed out that they had doubled female representation in their technology team since 2017, TalkTalk noted the creation of the North West Women in Tech awards; VMO2 highlighted its involvement in various projects to encourage women into STEM careers, while Three said it had already committed to a 50/50 gender split in leadership roles by 2030.

Ofcom invites other telecoms companies from across the sector to take the pledge and support the initiative.

How can we improve female representation throughout the UK telecoms sector? Join the telecoms ecosystem in discussion at this year’s Connected Britian conference

Also in the news:
Hyperoptic announces plans to cut 110 jobs
U.S. Huawei ban: A Pyrrhic victory spurring digital decolonisation
New advertising guidelines push for clarity over contract price hikes

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today joined forces with BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Openreach, Three UK, Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone to agree a new pledge that commits them all to help get more women into senior technology positions – across a historically male-dominated sector. Each of the organisations has agreed to take action […]

Hull-based broadband ISP Quickline, which is currently working to deploy their gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) network to 96 rural locations (55,000 premises) across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England, has today announced the opening of a new training centre, stores and test laboratory for the development of innovative technologies. Quickline is currently being supported by an […]

Vodafone has today announced that they’ve become the first mobile operator in the UK to launch a package for customers based off their new 5G Standalone (SA) technology – called ‘5G Ultra‘, which promises faster mobile broadband speeds and better performance in other areas. But there are a few caveats too. Unlike existing Non-Standalone (NSA) […]