This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Edwin Bentley, Technical Expert and Product Manager, Titania

The telecoms industry is not immune to cyber security breaches. It is more susceptible than ever. A dependence on telecommunications products and services due to remote working during the pandemic, and more has produced an increasingly connected world that significantly relies … [visit site to read more]

Press Release

Joining the initiative offers the TIM Group the opportunity to play a decisive role within a coalition supported by the EU Commission and Parliament that aims to harness the potential of digital solutions in green transformation

The TIM Group has become part of the European Green Digital Coalition, a project launched by leading European companies in the ICT sector and supported by the European Commission and Parliament, with the aim of harnessing the potential of digital solutions to enable the green transformation.

TIM has signed the Declaration to support ‘The Green and Digital Transformation of the EU’ which establishes the commitment to bring forward achievement of the ‘net zero’ objective to 2040, set as 2050 by the ‘European Law on Climate’, to underline the commitment to reduce the emissions of its production chain and the selection of ever more sustainable suppliers.

Entry into the European Green Digital Coalition is further confirmation of the centrality of ESG objectives in the TIM Group’s Industrial Plan, strengthening the commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2040. Climate strategy, circular economy, digital growth and the valorisation of human capital are the main pillars on which the Group focuses to offer people and businesses the opportunities of a sustainability-based digital transformation.

The Coalition, established in 2021, aims to demonstrate the telecommunications industry’s enabling role in the achievement of climate targets, contributing to the reduction of CO2 emissions both directly and indirectly, through the development and distribution of green and efficient digital solutions also in other sectors such as energy, transport, agriculture and construction. The Coalition will also collaborate with some European organisations to define standards that can scientifically demonstrate emission reduction by implementing digital solutions. The Coalition, whose Secretariat is managed by GESI, ETNO, GSMA and the SME Alliance, will work in close collaboration with the European Commission.

The recent validation of the decarbonisation objectives by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) also moves in the same direction: with respect to 2019, by 2030 TIM will reduce by 75% emissions from the company’s production (Scope 1) and the purchase of electricity (Scope 2), also thanks to the commitment to purchase 100% renewable energy by 2025, and by 47% emissions from its value chain (Scope 3) relating to the purchase of goods and services, the acquisition of capital goods and the use of products sold to customers.

Lumen has added in a major chunk of new transatlantic capacity to its portfolio. The global network operator has invested in an entire fiber pair on the Grace Hopper cable, and says it is now taking orders on the system and will be delivering on those orders sometime in October. … [visit site to read more]

CONTRIBUTED NEWS

CEA, a technology-research organization, and Astrocast, a leading global satellite Internet of Things network operator, have announced their successful collaboration on a low-cost, bidirectional communication module that enables corporations to communicate with their remote assets in areas not covered by terrestrial networks.

The module’s L-band chip, based on a new architecture developed by CEA-Leti, is a key hardware component that enables Astrocast customers to cost-efficiently communicate with their assets in the field via its network. It was completed earlier this year in an expedited project between the research institute and Astrocast, and is embedded in Astrocast’s RF module, called Astronode S.

The chip’s architecture is split over the RF core and digital processing and control units. It is fully optimized to support Astrocast’s dedicated bidirectional ground-to-satellite protocol and provides an optimal trade-off between link budget and low-power and low-cost constraints. The chip also embeds all low-earth orbit (LEO), satellite-specific features such as satellite detection and robustness to Doppler shift.

The miniaturized, surface-mount module communicates with terrestrial devices via Astrocast’s constellation of LEO satellites. Using the L-band spectrum, the network primarily targets maritime, oil & gas, agriculture, land transport and environmental applications in which ubiquitous coverage is required.

“Terrestrial IoT networks cover only about 15 percent of the planet, which leaves vast remote and rural areas where our global satellite network provides coverage that is crucial for our target markets,” said Laurent Vieira de Mello, Astrocast’s COO. “Leveraging its expertise embedded in a preliminary version of the RF chip, CEA-Leti developed its chip and delivered the final prototype to meet our requirements and time-to-market goals. They managed the chip technology transfer to our industrialization, qualification and production partner.”

The project’s critical time-to-market window was managed through a flexible collaboration model covering both prototype and industrialization phases.

“An accelerated time-to-market goal drove this project from the outset,” said Michel Durr, business development manager at CEA-Leti. “We pioneered this RF technology in 2019, and our team customized it for Astrocast up to production in only three years.”

CEA-Leti’s industrial tester used for characterization was key to accelerating from prototype to production, which enabled prototype characterization in parallel on the tester and in the lab, Durr explained.

“This process provided a short-loop debug capability with all skills available at CEA-Leti, and enabled us to deliver fully validated inputs to Astrocast’s industrialization partner for an easier industrial test-program development,” he said.

The low-energy, compact, surface-mount Astronode S module for highly integrated, battery-powered IoT systems offers a total cost of ownership up to three times lower than traditional satellite IoT alternatives.