Openreach (BT) has today responded to pressure from their ISP customers by unveiling a new round of major discounts (aka – “Equinox 2“) to the wholesale price of their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband products, which aims to keep the operator competitive and reduce prices on consumer packages. At present, Openreach are investing up to £15bn […]

Shetland Telecom, which is the arms-length network operator that was originally set up by the Shetland Islands Council (Scotland) to develop local fibre optic infrastructure, is facing a review by the local authority after councillors found that the company lacked a clear strategy and could potentially do more to improve broadband. The operator was originally […]

Mobile operator Three UK has today announced that they’ve started construction of the UK’s first joint mast site in Scotland under the £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project, which is expected to go live in early 2023 and supply 4G (mobile broadband) connectivity to customers on the Isle of Mull. The SRN is an industry-led […]

Apple has announced that their new Emergency SOS via Satellite feature, which enables users to message (SMS) with emergency services while roaming outside of regular cellular (mobile) and Wi-Fi coverage, has finally launched across all iPhone 14 models in the United Kingdom, as well as France, Germany and Ireland. The new feature connects directly to […]

News

EXA Infrastructure announces second route across the Iberian Peninsula.

EXA Infrastructure has announced that it will build a second terrestrial transport route between Spain and Lisbon. This new diverse route will connect to EXA’s Spanish backbone network.

In the 15 months since EXA Infrastructure’s launch, the company has already made strategic investments in Southern Europe by partnering with Islalink on the IONIAN submarine cable. Additionally, EXA announced in October that it would build a new terrestrial route to Lisbon and Sines.

Steve Roberts, Vice President Network Investments at EXA, said: “Resilient connectivity is critical and EXA is absolutely committed to meet the rising demand of digital traffic by strategically expanding our network investment across Spain and Portugal.”

“The digital age is driving internet traffic faster than ever before, changing lives, growing businesses and economies. EXA are committed to meeting this demand by investing and expanding our network for new and existing customers,” added EXA Infrastructure’s Chief Commercial Officer, Nicholas Collins.

News

The University of Surrey has secured a £12 million grant to research the development of greener and more resilient telecommunications networks.

Funded by the UK government, the TUDOR project (*Towards Ubiquitous 3D Open Resilient Network) will be led by the 5/6G Innovation Centre based at the University of Surrey.

Other contributors to the TUDOR consortium will include: Amazon Web Service, AWTG, BAE Systems, BT, Ericsson, ETSI, InterDigital Europe, Mavenir, Nokia, National Physical Laboratory, OneWeb, Satellite Applications Catapult, Tactical Wireless, Toshiba, VIAVI Solutions, Virgin Media O2, Imperial College London, King’s College London, Lancaster University, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Strathclyde, University College London, University of Glasgow, AMD Fujitsu, MTC, NetRail, and Qualcomm. 

The TUDOR project will set out to create a more diverse UK telecom market. In working towards this goal, it will research which technologies could be deployed in a more open and scalable future mobile network. Additionally, the programme will explore how this research could further skills development in the UK as well as contribute to the development of global standards for  telecom networks.

Regius Professor Rahim Tafazolli, Director of the 5G/6G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey, commented: “I am confident that this project will help ensure that the UK’s critical telecommunications infrastructure keeps up with the blistering pace of innovation that is happening across the globe and that the societal benefits of faster and more reliable communications are delivered in the most sustainable way possible.” 

Michelle Donelan, UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, said: “This huge investment will see top universities join forces with industry to build, test and roll out the nuts and bolts underpinning new networks while ensuring our plan for a more diverse and innovative telecoms market is sustained in the future. 

“The funding will also turbocharge our work to strengthen telecoms supply chains, so we are no longer reliant on a handful of companies to develop and maintain our 5G networks.” 

Connected Britain 2023 will bring together 5,000 attendees from across the private and public sector to explore the future of the UK connectivity market. For more information on how to get involved, head to the event website.

PRESS RELEASE

The new state-of-the-art UK Telecoms Lab based in Solihull will be the first of its kind in the UK. With funding of £80 million from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and under NPL’s leadership, it will boost the security, resilience and performance of the UK’s telecommunication networks, on which we are all increasingly dependent.

This world leading national facility, located at the heart of the fast-growing Midlands technology hub will provide a test and evaluation capability at the highest point of reference. This will enhance confidence in the resilience and security of systems that have been – or are about to be – deployed in the UK.

Experts from NPL will provide testing and advice to venders, suppliers, and users, for example on network vulnerabilities to enable them to improve their systems before deployment or use, helping to keep the UK’s networks safe and secure.

Recruitment is currently underway, providing skilled local jobs in Solihull and the surrounding areas with analyst, developer and engineer roles all required to aid the fast deployment of mobile technology and ensure people can continue to have full confidence in the UK’s networks. Ultimately, the UK Telecoms Lab will identify national security risks and vulnerabilities and ensure vital equipment and software are protected against cyberattacks as well as ensure the UK has an infrastructure that can continue to support, encourage, and increase innovation and growth.

The UK Telecoms Lab will underpin the UK’s ambition to be a world-leader in the development of future communications technology and attract companies to conduct their research and development (R&D) in the UK. The UK Telecoms Lab will provide leadership in accelerating innovation and a path to export led growth, and act as a focus on inward investment. This will ensure that solutions work in the UK context and that operators have the confidence to deploy technology in UK networks.

As a National Laboratory and a Public Sector Research Establishment with cross-sector collaborative R&D experience, NPL has the breadth of scientific expertise required to deliver the UK Telecoms Lab for the UK. With over 120 years of history at NPL, including where Alan Turing worked on the infamous ACE computer, the UK Telecoms Lab joins other NPL-led programmes of national activity to bring measurement science expertise to sectors of national importance, ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of scientific developments on the world-stage and aiding the drive to become a science superpower.

Digital Infrastructure Minister Julia Lopez said, “We are determined to harness the power of ultrafast, seamless 5G connectivity to boost economic productivity and close the digital divide. With 6G on the horizon, our £80 million investment in this state-of-art lab will maximise the innovation, security and resilience of these revolutionary digital networks. It will help turn Solihull into a leading destination for telecoms R&D – unlocking jobs and growth right across the West Midlands.”

Dr Peter Thompson, CEO of NPL said, “I am delighted that NPL will be operating the UK Telecoms Lab on behalf of DCMS. This is the culmination of four years of engagement across government, academia and industry to understand the needs of the UK telecoms sector. Through the UK Telecoms Lab we will place the UK at the forefront of new technologies, injecting innovation, supporting invention and providing the platform for implementation to deliver impact from science for our national security and economic growth.”

 

VIEWPOINT

This article is written by Steve Alexander, Chief Technology Officer, Ciena Corporation

For regional and rural households across America, the digital divide has been a way of life for decades now. Since the dawn of the internet those in rural areas have suffered through lower speeds more so than their urban counterparts.  

A 2019 study from The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies shows how access in rural areas is still severely limited: rural households with school-age kids were least likely to have high-speed internet, especially in the South, where 29 percent of households lacked high-speed internet, compared to 25 percent in the West, 24 percent in the Midwest, and 15 percent in the Northeast. The issue was exacerbated by the pandemic, with a Pew survey finding that a third of low-income households reporting difficulty paying for home internet service. 

The reason for the divide is economics. Rolling out expensive fiber-based infrastructure and equipment to homes in sparsely populated rural areas is unfeasible to do for service providers. Customers are fewer, making a positive Return On Investment (ROI) a much longer-term proposition, with some areas never really breaking even. Furthermore, even if service providers did rollout fiber to the homes of rural areas and tried to recoup that cost through higher subscription packages, the cost alone would prevent many in underserved areas from taking up the package, further limiting the potential to achieve an ROI.  

In some cases, this means the digital divide is leaving rural areas even further behind as metro hubs can now enjoy more flexible working arrangements and benefits such as home schooling and telehealth services due to their access to high-speed broadband.  

It’s now imperative that rural municipalities take it upon themselves to close the divide themselves, which as we’ve detailed is not an easy proposition for sparse areas with relatively few residents.  

However, there are some excellent examples where rural providers are showing success and helping eliminate the digital inclusion gap, offering promise for other rural areas. 

Rural Alabama is a state that leans on cooperatives, and Cullman Electric is one of the first co-ops to be formed in the state, now sporting 45,000 member accounts across about 1,000 square miles of Northern Alabama, primarily in Cullman and Winston counties. In the 1930s it was the first co-op to provide electricity to its members. Cullman Electric recognized that the lack of broadband connectivity was having a negative impact on the residents in its service area. It knew it would need much more capacity to deliver high-speed fiber internet to its residents, particularly after traffic surges driven by the pandemic.  

So, it launched Sprout Fiber Internet, a gigabit broadband service that brings Fiber to the Home (FTTH) of its rural members.  

How did they do it, given everything we have just discussed around ROI and expense?  

As an electricity utility, Cullman Electric already had an Operational Technology (OT) platform in place that had network connectivity in place that they used to operate and monitor the electric power system. By upgrading and augmenting the network with modern fiber-optic technology they created a state-of the art middle mile infrastructure that was readily able to accommodate the addition of broadband traffic. With a stated goal to offer broadband customers 300 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s packages, Cullman Electric needed to build a middle mile solution between its substations with the scalability to meet its customers’ demands.  

A 100G middle mile aggregation solution was the clear choice. To accomplish this, Cullman Electric implemented a scalable 100G-200G middle mile backbone for its mission-critical OT traffic while aggregating its Gigabit Sprout Fiber Internet broadband traffic in a converged solution. It also leveraged a target 10G Passive Optical Network (PON) solution, which leverages fiber splitters to achieve connectivity to a greater number of end users.  

The residents of Dryden in New York State also faced connectivity issues. Its citizens had been making do with slow and spotty internet—or sometimes no internet at all—forced to go libraries or coffee shops for more consistent connections. So, town officials put in motion a municipal broadband project aimed at providing faster, affordable internet access to everyone, with fiber access for every residence and business in the township.  

The town implemented a network which leveraged an active Ethernet and PON, while allowing for the scalable adoption of future technologies down the road, such as private 5G for smart cities. The openness of the network enabled third-party interoperability capabilities, thus ensuring network diversification would be simpler for Dryden in the future. Dryden Fiber, as the network will be known, is set to launch soon. 

These rural communities are usurping the network providers in favour of their own to close the digital divide. They’re leveraging what they have by way of existing infrastructure along with evolutions in technology – such as PON enabling greater capacity than ever before and a shift towards virtualized infrastructure and thus eschewing the need for expensive hardware– to lower the costs for deployment and for its community to access fast and consistent internet.  

While service providers understandably must deliver ROI or answer to shareholders, the only people municipalities must answer to are those of its community. And while costs are always a factor, they aren’t the barrier to implementation when driven by municipalities or co-ops. As fiber technologies continue to evolve, ultimately the communities themselves may be the key to closing the divide with the big smoke at last. 

For more on rural connectivity in the USA and closing the digital divide, join Total Telecom in Dallas for Connected America

PRESS RELEASE

The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) today confirmed that it has identified at least 955 organisations deploying LTE or 5G private mobile networks in 72 countries around the globe. GSA also announced that its Private Mobile Networks Special Interest Group (SIG), formed in 2021 to define the space and track adoption globally, has continued to expand its membership of industry players with the latest addition of Airspan Networks.

Data from GSA’s new Private Mobile Networks, December 2022 report reveals growth in the market in the third quarter of 2022, recording a net addition of 66 customers deploying these networks, up from a total of 889 in the second quarter. The research shows there is typically a strong, positive correlation between the number of private mobile network references and countries with dedicated spectrum, with roll-outs now in 72 countries and territories globally. Private mobile networks are mainly found in more-developed markets, with USA, Germany, China, UK and Japan holding the most references.

This latest report shows that organisations still favour LTE; 5G represents 40.9% of private mobile network deployments. It also confirms a wide range of participants are actively involved in developing and delivering solutions for the market. The three fastest-growing industry sectors in the quarter were mining, with 15 new customer references, followed by defence and peacekeeping with 13, and manufacturing with nine. Manufacturing, education and mining remain the three largest sectors for customer references, although this does not represent the actual size and scale of deployments, which vary by user type.

Members of the GSA Private Mobile Networks SIG include Ericsson, Huawei, Keysight Technologies, Mavenir, Nokia and PrivateLTEand5G.com. This month, Airspan Networks confirmed it is joining the group, and more members are expected to be announced for the next update. The group tracks customer deployments from other vendors and invites companies to join its effort to promote the ecosystem and market adoption globally.

The new GSA report Private Mobile Networks, December 2022, available to all GSA Members and Associates subscribing to its GAMBoD service, offers insights on identified pilot and commercial deployments. It includes a full list of organisations rolling out private mobile networks based on LTE or 5G and is segmented by industry, country, network type, technology and spectrum band. A free executive summary of the report can be downloaded here https://gsacom.com/paper/private-mobile-networks-december-2022-summary-report/ (registration required).

“We’re witnessing a steady growth in private mobile network deployments on various levels; in terms of technology, with LTE and 5G both gaining traction, as well as in terms of market reach, with countries all over the world actively deploying the technologies,” said Joe Barrett, President of GSA.

“As we see more and more different applications for private mobile networks in various sectors, such as mining, defence and manufacturing, GSA will keep tracking the state of the market and leading the discussion with our Private Mobile Networks SIG. We’re delighted to welcome Airspan as the newest member and look forward to welcoming more names from across the ecosystem as the market develops”, commented Barrett.

Membership and participation in the GSA Private Mobile Networks SIG are open to companies in the telecommunications sector wishing to promote private mobile networks. For more information on becoming a SIG member, please email secretariat@gsacom.com.

About the Data

The data in GSA’s report represents customers of private mobile networks by country; it is not to be interpreted as measuring the number of network deployments. GSA counts customer references as unique organisations or government entities deploying one or more 3GPP-based 4G LTE or 5G networks in a given country that are worth more than €100,000.

About GSA

GSA is the voice of the global mobile ecosystem, representing companies engaged in the supply of infrastructure, semiconductors, test equipment, devices, applications and mobile support services. It plays a central role in promoting 3GPP technology, advocating spectrum policies and stimulating development of the international mobile telecommunications industry. The association is a single source of information for industry reports and market intelligence.

The GSA GAMBoD database is a unique search-and-analysis tool that has been developed to enable searches of LTE and 5G devices and new global data on mobile broadband networks, technologies and spectrum. Results are presented as a list or in charts. Charts may be inserted into documents or presentations, subject to accreditation of GSA as the source.

GAMBoD is a resource dedicated to promoting the success and growth of the mobile broadband industry and ecosystem and is fully available to all employees of GSA Executive and Ordinary Member companies and GSA Associates who subscribe to the service. More information on GAMBoD is available here: gsacom.com/gambod/

 

Users of the NetgemTV service, which usually ships to UK consumers as part of a set-to-box based Pay TV bundle from their broadband ISP, may be pleased to learn that they’ve added 15 additional channels to their platform “at no extra cost“. In addition, they’ve added 10 new games to their recently launched video game […]