VIEWPOINT

Everyone seems to know about 5G, no matter how technology unsavvy they are. It’s clear that 5G is not just another generation of mobile technology – it has captured the public’s imagination because of its potential to change industries, businesses and the very way we interact with digital content.

However, 5G comes with a few strings attached, and they are mostly of the fibre kind.

The 5G experience — whether in the home, office or on the go — can only be achieved through fibre access networks. Fibre and 5G are not competing; they complement each other. Fibre makes 5G faster and cheaper to deploy, while 5G extends fibre coverage and brings mobility, which wired technology cannot offer. Together, they can achieve more than each can alone. So, if you ask operators what the core of their strategy is today, they will say 5G and fibre.

These days, fibre broadband is pretty much everywhere, passing every street and every building in towns and cities, stretching into villages, and across great parts of the countryside. In parallel, fibre technology has evolved to be faster, more agile, more reliable and greener. These two factors – the ubiquitous presence of fibre and the technology advances – have created a shift in the industry. It is no longer about fibre-to-the-home; it is fibre-for-everything. Fibre can now connect consumers, businesses, industry 4.0, smart cities – and yes, also 5G sites.

One of the key considerations for 5G deployments is mobile transport, the part of the network that carries traffic from mobile sites deeper into the network. This is even more important as 5G starts to densify and new cell sites need to be deployed, each of which requires a transport route. Fibre broadband networks already exist in these locations, so leveraging these networks is the most efficient way to provide mobile transport. It reduces costs and power consumption by half.

Similar synergies can be found everywhere. Industry 4.0 has brought a wave of value-add applications that depend on high-speed connectivity. Many new applications are based on a large number of HD images that are sent to the cloud for analysis and real-time feedback, and that requires high-speed and low-latency connectivity. Quality control, packaging and storing, inventory management, video surveillance, security and machine automation are just a few of the examples.

In many scenarios involving fixed machinery and equipment, fibre broadband provides the fastest and greenest connectivity to and within enterprises, making 5G and fibre the perfect mix for Industry 4.0. The same goes for smart cities and consumer broadband.

Fibre is truly an exciting technology. Of all the broadband technologies, it is the fastest, the greenest, and it lasts forever. Today, 25 Gb/s Passive Optical Networks (PON) are already in the field, 50 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s are on the horizon. Fibre PON networks are six to eight times more power efficient than other access technologies, so the more users and services that are connected to fibre, the better it is for energy bills and our carbon footprint.

With sub-millisecond latency, mission critical reliability, intelligence for slicing and zero-touch automation, fibre is the perfect companion to 5G for a better and greener connected world.

This article was written by Ana Pesovic, Marketing Director, Fixed Networks Nokia

The post The two Fs you want on your report card: Fibre and 5G first appeared on Total Telecom.

PRESS RELEASE

Neos Networks, one of the UK’s leading business connectivity providers, is to provide vital communications links between the Viking Energy Wind Farm, being constructed in Mainland Shetland, and the headquarters of SSE Renewables, in Perth in the Scottish mainland, more than 300 miles away.

Starting its construction in 2020, the Viking Energy Wind Farm is one of the largest projects of its type in the UK. When fully operational, it will also be one of the UK’s most productive wind farms, capable of providing energy for nearly half-a-million homes.

Neos have been appointed by SSE Renewables to support the project with the provision and delivery of a machine-to-machine (M2M) network – which will enable the energy provider to control and monitor the performance of the 103 wind turbines remotely – and provide links back from Shetland to SSE’s headquarters in Perth.

“With any new facility of this size, scope and importance, deploying and provisioning first class communications links are critical to its operational performance,” said Andy Ainsley, Head of Energy and Utilities at Neos Networks. “We’re delighted to have been entrusted with this vital element of the project.”

The Viking Energy Wind Farm site in Shetland is wholly owned by SSE Renewables and construction is expected to be complete in 2024. The wind farm will not only provide a reliable, renewable, energy source for the island’s 23,000-strong population, it will also power homes across the UK and is expected to generate £2.2m annually in community benefit revenue for the islands for its expected 25-year operational lifetime.

Derek Hastings, SSE Renewables’ Head of Onshore Projects, said; “We’re pleased to be working with Neos to deliver the communications links we will need to ensure the efficient operation of Viking Energy Wind Farm. The solution Neos is providing will allow us to share and monitor local wind farm performance data in real time with SSE’s world-class Renewable Operations Centre in Perth, once the wind farm enters commercial operation. This will be crucial in helping ensure that Viking, as the UK’s most productive onshore wind farm, operates at maximum efficiency to deliver homegrown renewable energy to consumers in Shetland and the wider UK.”

The provision of connectivity infrastructure, in tandem, of an undersea 600-megawatt high voltage power cable is vital to delivering the project, enabling the islands to generate wind power for the rest of the United Kingdom. As well as creating around 300 jobs during its construction, the completed project will also diversify the local economy and introduce around 35 permanent employment positions and apprenticeships in the islands.

The communications links are vital for the efficient running of the wind turbines. Performance data can be monitored locally and back at SSE Renewables headquarters to ensure the farm is operating at maximum efficiency, with the M2M comms across the entire site also highlighting any potential issues and enabling preventative maintenance.

Neos Networks are a Gold Sponsor of the Connected North event, organised by Total Telecom. Find out how you can join them in Manchester on the 17-18 April 2023 HERE

The post Neos Networks connects Viking Energy Wind Farm to SSE Renewables HQ first appeared on Total Telecom.

SpaceX’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based mega constellation of Starlink ultrafast broadband satellites has made a small but significant improvement to its coverage of the UK, which for the first time has now started to encompass the southern part of the remote Shetland Islands in Scotland. Back in late July 2022 we reported that Starlink’s […]

The Net Neutrality debate (i.e. protecting the open internet from abuse by UK broadband ISPs and mobile operators) reared its head again today after BT and Vodafone both put their names to a new statement by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ENTO), which was signed by 16 telcos’ CEOs. In case anybody has forgotten, […]

Broadband ISP Ogi, which is rolling out a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across South Wales, has today begun offering its services free for the first six months of service to new customers. The move is being promoted as a “bid to help ease pressures on household bills this winter“, but it’ll also help with take-up. […]

A new report from the UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), which examined the appetite for investment in alternative broadband networks (AltNets) by interviewing leading investors, has warned that the market has now “reached saturation point” and providers looking for further rounds of investment are likely to find new challenges. At present around 70% of […]

PRESS RELEASE

Almost half of customer service calls are abandoned due to contact centre background noise, with 42% hanging up immediately when they detect the noise.

That’s according to the team behind IRIS Clarity, the AI-powered voice isolation app, which surveyed 1,000 consumers across the UK and US around their interactions with contact centres. The results are compounded by the fact that while all respondents indicated they use voice channels in some way for their customer service inquiries, more than half (54%) said they only use it for critical issues — making voice a premium that is demonstrably failing to deliver.

The research identified repetition as a key frustration for consumers, with ‘how to spell my name’ (45%), address and postcode (43%), and banking information (36%) as the most frustrating information to repeat on the phone.

Noise around the agent isn’t the only problem — the caller’s location also has an impact on the call’s success. The majority (59%) of consumers have hung up a call because they felt they were in an inconvenient location due to background noise. The most inconvenient places that respondents have made an important call include public transport (39%), the street (36%), when out socialising (34%), and at a place of work (31%).

“In an ideal world, consumers would phone a call centre agent and there wouldn’t be any background noise on either side,” said Jacobi Anstruther, Founder and CEO of IRIS Audio Technologies. “But this simply isn’t the case. We know the power of voice and the survey results clearly show that ignoring its potential has significant ramifications on the customer and contact centre experience. The immediate abandonment of half of contact centre calls due to noise should raise red flags with contact centres everywhere, if only because it’s a huge operating expense. With its real-time and bi-directional capabilities, voice isolation software like IRIS Clarity can ensure both customers and agents can hear each other clearly, in order to get the outcomes they each need.”

These findings come fresh off the heels of IRIS Clarity’s newest whitepaper, The Role of Audio in an Increasingly Digital World, which investigates the impact of poor audio across call centres globally, as well as enterprises, healthcare, and education.

The post Almost half of customer service calls fail due to contact centre background noise first appeared on Total Telecom.

PRESS RELEASE

Speedcast, a leading communications and IT services provider, announced today that its Brazilian entity, SC Caprock, has completed the deployment of a mission-critical private LTE network at four natural gas plants and associated wells for an energy integrator in Brazil, providing high-quality, critical voice and video connectivity for workers on site. This marks the first energy company with onshore production to implement the technology in Brazil.

Using the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) solution, SC Caprock has deployed LTE access points covering the facilities using Band 28 at 700 MHz. Smartphones offer push-to-talk and push-to-video communications that enable instant connectivity and the ability to share video streams with colleagues to enhance collaboration and facilitate rapid problem-solving. The integration includes the installation of private LTE base stations, and the Nokia MX Industrial Edge (MXIE), an edge computing-based platform which runs the private wireless core functions and application processing, including the Push-to-X communications applications. In addition to systems integration, SC Caprock manages regulatory approval and provides 24×7 customer support.

“The unique value of the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) is the combination of industrial-grade private wireless connectivity, running an on-premise edge that brings the ability to add high-value applications to the network with only minor hardware changes,” said André Gustavo Sant’Anna, Brazil Country Manager at Speedcast. “In addition to voice and video, we are looking at carrying telemetry data from wells, providing a video-based AI application to detect unauthorized access to wells in remote locations, worker tracking and health and safety wearables. Wherever technology can add value to operations, integrating it is straightforward and cost-effective.”

Marcelo Entreconti, Head of Enterprise for Nokia Latin America, said: “Nokia industrial-grade private wireless networks are the backbone and best starting point for the energy sector’s digital transformation journey. We thank SC Caprock and their customer for their confidence in our company and technology, and we are looking forward to new projects with both companies in the years to come.”

Nokia has deployed mission-critical networks to more than 2,200 leading enterprise customers in the transport, energy, large enterprise, manufacturing, webscale and public sector segments around the globe. It has also extended its expertise to more than 485 large, private wireless customers worldwide across an array of sectors, and has been cited by numerous industry analysts as the leading provider of private wireless networking worldwide.

Speedcast has implemented private LTE solutions leveraging Nokia Digital Automation Cloud in the energy and mining markets since its first deployment in 2020. To learn more on Speedcast’s solutions, visit http://www.speedcast.com.

The post Speedcast deploys private LTE network for Brazilian energy integrator first appeared on Total Telecom.

NEWS

Small and inexpensive low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite are quickly becoming almost mainstream but as constellations spring up, so do the problems and dangers of space junk.

OneWeb, SpaceX, Starlink, Telesat are rarely out of the press at the moment, but flying slightly below the radar is the sticky problem of what happens to redundant hardware and who polices space traffic.

“With 1,700 satellites launched last year alone, the need to safeguard the space environment for the benefit of everyone on Earth has never been more pressing” points out Dr Paul Bate, CEO of the UK Space Agency and indeed with an estimated 130 million plus pieces of space debris orbiting Earth, ranging from tiny flecks of paint through to old satellites and even tools dropped by astronauts, you can see the problem.

Now the UK Space Agency has committed £102 million, over the next three years to tracking and reduce debris, including granting £4 million to two UK-based companies to design missions to remove existing pieces of space debris. The companies ClearSpace and Astroscale are currently designing the programmes with a consortium of industry partners and may be granted more funding once designs are complete with a view to launching the UK’s first national space debris removal mission in 2026. The projects could create upwards of 70 new jobs.

Rory Holmes, ClearSpace UK Managing Director said “Space is getting more and more congested with defunct satellites, rocket bodies and other fragments – we have to act now to ensure this precious environment remains usable for future generations.”

Nick Shave, Managing Director, Astroscale Ltd, said: “We rely on space in so many areas of our lives, yet without the rapid development of the in-orbit servicing market we cannot start removing the hazardous debris that threatens our societal dependence on satellites.”

According to Paul Kostek, IEEE senior member and advisory systems engineer with Base2 solutions there’s going to be a big shake-up going forward and discussion around deployment and management of satellites needs to be taking place now.

Related story:
FCC proposes ‘five-year rule’ to clean up dead satellites

The post How do you solve the problem of space debris? first appeared on Total Telecom.

The mobile division of supermarket chain ASDA has launched somewhat of an early “Black Friday exclusive” promotion by discounting the price of their Pay Monthly (1-month term) “unlimited data” (mobile broadband) bundles for new customers, which now start at just £15 per month. Under the deal, which will be available to order until 30th November […]