NEWS

Accessibility is taking a step forward for Jurassic Fibre users as they announce that deaf customers who use British Sign Language (BSL) are now able to use a video link interpreter when they contact the customer service centre.

The UK home broadband provider is one of the fastest growing companies in the South West appears to be poised for further growth with a fresh injection of £250m in capital investment from Fern Trading, advised by Octopus Investments.

The provision of BSL interpreter services for deaf customers is more common in large organisations, so this is a positive step for Jurassic Fibre to make their customer service more accessible and inclusive.

Sarah Howells, Chief Customer Officer from Jurassic Fibre, said: “People are at the heart of everything we do at Jurassic Fibre. Our business is to connect communities, and we need to make sure we include customers who need or want to communicate with us using any method they choose. So, we’re really excited to be able to offer this service for Deaf people who communicate using BSL.

“Our Deaf customers have already told us that they value the fast, reliable broadband that we install in their homes to connect them to the many online communications platforms they benefit from in day-to-day life. But for those that use BSL, contacting our customer service centre needs to be just as smooth. Major organisations including the NHS offer this service, but it’s fairly unusual with a company our size. We want to go above and beyond to connect all our customers not only to the outside world but to our customer support.”

The plan is being made possible with the help of Sign Solutions, who specialise in solutions to aid communication between deaf and hearing people.

Sophie Kang, Customer Development Manager with Sign Solutions, said: “Sign Solutions are delighted to be providing Jurassic Fibre with our on-demand service InterpretersLive!. InterpretersLive! enables Deaf customers to contact Jurassic Fibre in British Sign Language through a secure link on their website. The link connects Deaf callers to one of Sign Solutions National Register of Communications Professionals working with Deaf/Deaf-Blind People (NRCPD)-registered interpreters, who then makes an onward audio call to the team at Jurassic Fibre. Providing this service to customers will ensure equal access to services and further breaks down the barriers in communication that the Deaf community so often face.”

This will hopefully be good news for customers of the Exeter based ISP, who have been who have been developing a custom-build full fibre broadband network to rural communities in Devon, Somerset, Cornwall and Dorset.

News

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio continue to exchange the 5G rollout lead, leaving Vodafone Idea (Vi) and state-run BSNL trailing far behind

This week, Indian mobile network operator Bharti Airtel has announced that its 5G network has reached its next milestone, now being accessible in 500 cities.

“We have already covered 500 cities and are adding 30 to 40 cities every single day. By September of 2023, we expect to expand our 5G footprint to all of urban India,” said Randeep Sekhon, Bharti Airtel’s CTO.

This news puts the operator’s rollout one step ahead of its largest rival, Reliance Jio, which reported its own 5G network as covering ‘over 400 cities’ according to a company statement earlier this week.

After much delays, India finally concluded its 5G spectrum auction in August last year, with Jio and Airtel both launching their commercial 5G networks at the start of October. Since then, the two operators have been racing to complete their rollout across the country’s major cities, with Airtel now having stolen back the lead after Jio’s early lead.

Jio is aiming to have its nationwide 5G rollout completed by the end of the year, while Airtel says its rollout will be finished in March 2024.

India’s other major operators, Vi and BSNL, however, continue to struggle. Vi’s financial chaos has meant that, despite acquiring 5G spectrum in the national auction, the company has yet to begin its rollout.

The operator has yet to announce a formal timeline for its rollout, though the company was reported to have entered into 5G equipment discussions with Nokia earlier this month.

State-run BSNL, meanwhile, is still rolling out 4G, and having set its sights on launching 5G in 2024.

Nonetheless, despite this very lopsided 5G race, the Indian government remains very positive about the country’s 5G future – so much so that PM Narendra Modi said earlier this week that the country is already taking an early lead in the development of 6G.

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Press Release

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) today announced that eir evo, the largest managed cloud services provider in Ireland, has selected the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform to enhance the cloud services offering for its private cloud platform, Digital Planet. HPE GreenLake will enable Digital Planet to meet increasing demand, accelerate deployment of new services and improve overall customer experience for its private cloud offering.

Eir evo has operations and data centers located in Dublin as well as the UK and US and is one of two HPE Platinum Partners in Ireland. The managed services provider offers an extensive portfolio of services to help customers embrace new technologies across cloud, cybersecurity, networking, infrastructure, connectivity, and more. This portfolio leverages the full range of HPE GreenLake cloud services, making eir evo a leading HPE service provider partner.

“As a HPE Platinum Partner we have a deep understanding of deploying a technology and business platform, therefore it was clear that HPE GreenLake would be the optimal fit to futureproof our Digital Planet solution,” said Martin Wells, managing director, eir evo. “In recent years sustainability has come into sharp focus for us and our customers. A key advantage is the modern cloud experience of HPE GreenLake that delivers service flexibility and choice, and the pay-per-use as-a-service model. These features help us manage costs and carbon footprint as they prevent overprovisioning and provide insights into energy consumption, which, in times of soaring energy costs and the global climate crisis, is critical.”

As a leader in the provision of cloud services, eir evo constantly strives to provide the highest levels of service quality while continuing to innovate. Its Digital Planet platform offers secure and compliant enterprise-class cloud hosting and IT managed services, and as more and more customers join the platform eir evo must modernize the infrastructure and software it is built upon. The system upgrade to HPE GreenLake facilitates the anticipated increase in workloads and data as well as performance growth, while allowing the team to implement changes more quickly to satisfy customer needs.

Providing a wide range of security solutions and complying with strict data privacy regulations, that are important in the European Union like GDPR, requires eir evo to prioritize developing its services on systems with the highest standards of security. HPE GreenLake is a zero-trust enabled architecture that delivers embedded security technologies and verifies the integrity of data infrastructures, more easily ensuring security and compliance. To guarantee minimum data loss and downtime for the platform, eir evo combines these capabilities with HPE Zerto, a solution for journal-based continuous data protection and recovery, delivering high-end security orchestration for all its cloud services.

“It is terrific to see one of our leading HPE partners include HPE GreenLake and deploy it in their own private cloud environment at the same time,” said Ray McGann, Ireland managing director, HPE. “With this modernization eir evo will have a highly flexible cloud platform that enables them to scale as they grow. This, together with a fixed pricing model, will allow the Digital Planet team to match their costs to revenue, providing improved predictability, visibility, and control, while investing more in the continued development of new solutions and services for their customers.”

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Startup Stories

Tell us about your start up

Mapsd is an innovative Fibre Design and Planning firm that provides cutting-edge solutions for FTTx, enterprise, rural community, and multi-dwelling unit (MDU) planning to suit the ever-increasing demands of Internet service providers. We offer technical consulting services to help with ITTs, procedures, and standards related to the construction and deployment of fibre optic networks.

What is your USP?

We have a firm grasp of the telecoms business due to our team’s years of experience in every facet of fibre, from construction to design. The development of solid working connections with our partners and the capacity to efficiently absorb architecture needs are key to our efforts, as are the delivery of timely, distinctive, and dependable results to our partners.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?

Because of the strong relationships we’ve established within the telecoms industry, our staff is able to provide expert advice on which products will best meet the requirements of each individual client. From our inception, we’ve collaborated with some forward-thinking alternative networks to bring first-rate services to people all around Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

Why did you establish the business?

Mapsd was established to compete with industry heavyweights, which were having trouble meeting customer demand due to long delivery timeframes, and to spur creative solutions that would yield high-quality, easily digestible final products. Our research shows that many alternative networks, particularly the smaller ones, are not given sufficient design priority by industry frontrunners when they attempt to make the leap from the fixed wireless access to full fibre ISP model.

What does the future hold for your business?

Mapsd has a bright future ahead of it as plans are underway to leverage decades of experience in building fibre networks by assembling a specialised team of surveyors, cablers, fibre jointers, and civils engineers. This will allow us to expand into a full-turnkey partner and provide our full capabilities to clients all over Scotland and the United Kingdom. To further assure our clients receive reduced prices and faster outputs, we plan to invest heavily in the automation of our planning and design processes. By forming strategic alliances with multiple ISPs and ensuring that our values and commitments are congruent with theirs, Mapsd plans to play a significant role in the next year in the rollout of fibre to those who need it most and in reducing the digital divide in rural communities in the United Kingdom.

Comany CV

Headquarters: Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

Number of employees: 4

Last funding type: Self-funded

Website URL: https://www.mapsd.co.uk/

LinkedIn URL: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mapsd-ltd/

Founders: Callum McNair, Carl Puno, George Smith, and Ryan Dickson

You can join the Mapsd team at this year’s Connected North conference live in Manchester on 17-18 April

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Fibre overtakes cable in the Netherlands
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Spring Equinox? It seems Ofcom aren’t certain of the balance