News

The solar-powered Zephyr drone will serve as a flying base station, delivering mobile connectivity to customers in hard-to-reach areas

Today, aviation giant Airbus has revealed that is seeking external investment as it prepares to scale up, spin-off, and commercially launch its Zephyr drone connectivity business.

Flying around 21km above the surface of the Earth, high above weather and commercial aircraft, Airbus’s Zephyr drone will act as a High-Altitude Platform Station (HAPS), beaming down connectivity to customers too difficult or expensive to reach with terrestrially technology.

The solar-powered drone can remain airborne for months at a time and be piloted directly to in-need locations, whether remote areas lacking in traditional connectivity or areas with high temporary demand, such as those struck by natural disasters.

In addition to Zephyr’s connectivity capabilities, the device’s payload is also modular, allowing it to carry cameras and other sensors for observational purposes.

Airbus has been working alongside Japanese operator NTT and other partners to develop this technology for some years now, with the device having already racked up over 3,000 flight hours by the end of 2021.

By last summer, Zephyr had made significant technical advances, recording a single continuous flight for 26 days, breaking the record for the longest flight by an unmanned aircraft.

When complete, Airbus said it hopes each Zephyr drone will be able to fly continuously for up to six months using the latest solar and battery technologies.

Airbus officially launched its own HAPS Services Business unit last year, aiming to further develop Zephyr technology and target the 3.7 billion people current severely underserved by existing connectivity infrastructure.

Now, however, it seems that Airbus feels the unit will function better as an independent business, with the aviation giant having hired Morgan Stanley to help find and onboard new investors to help rapidly grow the fledging business.

This new unit will be called Aalto.

“Airbus is not a company that offers telecom services,” Samer Halawi, the CEO of Airbus’s HAPS business, told the Financial Times. “The idea of the carve-out is to bring like-minded partners to the equation and to be able to scale this business.”

According to reports, Airbus intends to retain majority control of the business, with talks with various customers and commercial partners already underway.

Halawi says that Zephyr is now “at the final design stage”, with commercial services expected to launch before the end of the year.

As part of the commercialisation process, Aalto expects to set up five or six ‘Aalto ports’ in locations including the US and the Middle East, each of which will serve as a base of operation for Zephyr drones.

How is the rise of non-terrestrial connectivity solutions impacting the traditional telecoms sector? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s Connected America conference

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Samsung and KDDI’s latest 5G trial highlights RIC and network slicing
NTT turns AI capabilities to farming edible crickets

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News

According to the operator, the data of 37 million customers has been compromised

Today, US mobile giant T-Mobile has announced it has been hit by another cyberattack, resulting in the data of 37 million customers being accessed by a malicious actor.

The breach was reportedly identified on January 5, with the operator saying they had removed the attacker’s access to the data within 24 hours.

“Our investigation is still ongoing, but the malicious activity appears to be fully contained at this time, and there is currently no evidence that the bad actor was able to breach or compromise our systems or our network,” said the company in a statement.

T-Mobile was quick to play down the severity of the attack, noting that no sensitive data, such as financial information, was compromised. Instead, the operator said that the information stolen was “basic” and “the type widely available in marketing databases or directories”.

Basic or not, this data does include details such as names, dates of birth, and account numbers.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has initiated an investigation into the breach.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time in recent memory that T-Mobile has been hit with a major cybersecurity scandal.

In 2021, the operator reported a breach that had compromised data relating to 76.6 million customers. One year later, the FCC fined operator $350 million and stipulated they must spend a further $150 million on additional cyberdefense measures.

In somewhat related news, the FCC is currently in the process of updating its data breach reporting rules, aiming to have telcos notify customers earlier when their data has been compromised.

Want to keep up with all of the latest news from the US telecoms sector? Join the experts in discussion at this year’s Connected America conference

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Press Release

The companies combine technology expertise to deliver the first demonstration of network slicing using RIC on a live 5G SA network

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and KDDI announced the successful demonstration of Service Level Agreements (SLA) assurance network slicing in a field trial conducted in Tokyo, Japan. For the first time in the industry, the companies proved their capabilities to generate multiple network slices using a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) on a live commercial 5G Standalone (SA) network. The RIC, provided by Samsung in this field trial, is a software-based component of the Open RAN architecture that optimizes the radio resources of the RAN to improve the overall network quality.

Network slicing enables multiple virtual networks to be created within a single physical network infrastructure, where each slice is dedicated for a specific application or service—serving different purposes. For instance, operators can create a low latency slice for automated vehicles, an IoT slice for smart factories and a high bandwidth slice for live video streaming—all within the same network. This means that a single network can support a broad mix of use cases simultaneously, accelerating the delivery of new services and meeting the tailored demands of various enterprises and consumers.

“Network slicing will help us activate a wide range of services that require high performance and low latency, benefitting both consumers and businesses,” said Toshikazu Yokai, Managing Executive Officer, General Manager of Mobile Network Technical Development Division at KDDI. “Working with Samsung, we continue to deliver the most innovative technologies to enhance customer experiences.”

Through this field trial conducted in Q4 of 2022, KDDI and Samsung proved their capabilities of SLA assurance to generate multiple network slices that meet SLA requirements, guaranteeing specific performance parameters—such as low latency and high throughput—for each application. Samsung also proved the technical feasibility of multiple user equipment (UE)-based network slices with quality assurance using the RIC, which performs advanced control of RAN as defined by the O-RAN Alliance.

“Network slicing will open up countless opportunities, by allowing KDDI to offer tailor-made, high-performance connectivity, along with new capabilities and services, to its customers,” Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “This demonstration is another meaningful step forward in our efforts to advance technological innovation and enrich network services. We’re excited to have accomplished this together with KDDI, and look forward to continued collaboration.”

For more than a decade, the two companies have been working together, hitting major 5G networks milestones that include: KDDI’s selection of Samsung as a 5G network solutions provider, end-to-end 5G network slicing demonstration in the lab, 5G network rollout on 700MHz and the deployment of 5G vRAN on KDDI’s commercial network.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios, and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

Want to keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news from around the world? Sign up here to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

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News

The operator will work with Japanese start-up Gryllus to help automate the cricket production cycle

To many of us, the concept of eating insects strange and, it must be said, unappetising. However, with the global population set to reach almost 10 billion by 2050 and the food poverty already a major issue worldwide, many experts believed that this attitude towards edible insects must change – if not by choice, then by necessity.

In fact, there are many benefits to farming insects for human consumption compared to traditional livestock: they require far less land, water, and food; they reproduce quickly; they produce very low greenhouse gas emissions; and, perhaps best of all, they are highly nutritious.

The biggest challenge, however, remains making them appealing for human consumption. Despite insects being a stable food source for centuries in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, for Western audiences remain unconvinced, with edible insect companies trying various marketing tactics over the past few yeas to varying degrees of success.

Nonetheless, according to a report by Barclays, the edible insect market is set to see healthy growth over the coming decade, climbing to to $6.3 billion by 2030.

Perhaps this is why the topic of edible insects has drawn the attention of Japanese operator giant NTT, with NTT East this week announcing a new partnership with a local start-up called Gryllus, helping them to more effectively breed and harvest edible crickets.

According to the Japanese operator, over the next the next month, the operator will work with Gryllus to deploy various technological solutions to help accelerate and optimise the cricket production process. This will include sensors measuring temperature and humidity to help ensure the ideal growing conditions, as well as an AI-powered cameras to monitor the insects and alert workers to health anomalies.

As the scale of operations increases, NTT will leverage its IT expertise to provide additional support.

While this initial partnership appears little more than a trial, NTT’s commitment to the edible insect market here should not be underestimated.

According to the company, NTT is considering renting unused office space in some of the more inexpensive parts of the country and converting them into cricket breeding facilities. If successful, NTT intends to sell these insect farming businesses for profit, estimating that the business could be worth tens of millions of dollars over the next five years.

Telecoms operators are becoming increasingly involved with smart farming operations around the world, arguing that the connectivity and IT expertise they provide is the gateway to a wide range technologies to boost operational efficiencies.

What does the term smart agriculture or smart farming really mean and what can we expect from this space in the coming years? Join the experts in discussion of this and other fascinating topics at the upcoming Connected America conference

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