News

Various pilots will be conducted by BT Group’s start-up incubator Etc., exploring whether the transition is feasible from a technical and operational standpoint

This week, BT’s start-up and Digital incubation team Etc. has announced that it will oversee a number of pilot programmes to transform decommissioned broadband cabinets into charging points for electric vehicles (EVs).

These cabinets, dotted all over streets of the UK, currently provide copper-based broadband and phone services to local consumers. However, as the UK’s networks rapidly shift to full fibre architecture, these cabinets are becoming obsolete, prompting BT Group to consider repurposing the.

According to BT, the scope of the pilot projects will include a range of technical, operational, and commercial analysis, from upgrade viability based on location to potential joint venture business models to commercialise the would-be EV network.

The first of these pilot projects will reportedly take place in Northern Ireland later this autumn, with more locations added across the UK before the end of the year. The various tests are expected to continue for two years before commercialisation can be considered.

If successful, these conversions could end up as a significant proportion of the UK’s national EV infrastructure. The entire country currently has around 45,000 charging points operational, but the government has plans to invest £1.6 billion to increase this figure to 300,000 by 2030.

“With the ban on sales of internal combustion engine vehicles coming in 2030, and with only around 45,000 public charge points today, the UK needs a massive upgrade to meet the needs of the EV revolution,” says Tom Guy, Managing Director of Etc. “We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to connect for good in a whole new way by innovating around our cabinet infrastructure. The pilots are critical for the team to work through the assessment and establish effective technical, commercial and operational routes to market over the next two years.”

Ultimately, not every cabinet BT owns is likely to be converted, since not all of them will prove cost-effective or be in practical locations. Nonetheless, initial estimates suggest around two-thirds of BT Group’s 90,000 cabinets could be suitable for the upgrade.

BT Group is not alone in considering repurposing this soon-to-be legacy infrastructure for EV purposes. Virgin Media O2, for example, has been working alongside Liberty Global’s joint venture Liberty Charge since 2021 to deploy a small number of charging points leveraging their own cabinet and duct infrastructure.

How far is the future of electric vehicles entwined with the world of telecoms?  Join the ecosystem in discussion at this year’s live Connected Britain conference 

Also in the news: 
Vodafone UK launches second social tariff offering higher speeds
Enhancing and expanding connectivity with EXA Infrastructure
Why the industry must accelerate the adoption of 5.5G 

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Interview

We caught up with Elad Nafshi, EVP and chief network officer at Comcast, to discuss the company’s new 10G network upgrade and the added reliability this brings to customers

Over the past two years, Comcast has made significant advances in 10G network capabilities, building on the latest DOCSIS 4.0 technology. By the end of 2022, in a world-first, the operator was trialling 10G and Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 network technology in a live network, paving the way a commercial rollout of multi-gigabit connectivity over its cable network.

Just a few short months later, in early 2023, the company’s enormous network upgrade had already begun, with around ten million homes targeted to receive the upgrade and become part of Comcast’s Xfinity 10G Network.

At this year’s Connected America conference in Dallas, Texas, we caught up with Comcast’s chief network officer Elad Nafshi to learn more about the impact the company’s Xfinity 10G Network could have for customers.

“Xfinity 10G network is about multi-gigabit symmetrical services with unrivalled reliability, both powered and empowered by real-time telemetry, that offers the lowest latency to all of our subscribers,” explained Nafshi. “Not just the customers on the right side or the left side of the street, but across our entire network. It’s truly transformational and its very, very exciting.”

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You can view our full interview with Elad Nafshi from the link above.

Higher speeds are to be expected from a next-generation network upgrade, but perhaps more interesting here is the network’s improved reliability thanks to the incorporation of emergent technologies.

“For the first time, we’re able to see a down-to-the-second view of what customer experience is,” explained Nafshi. “Taking that data, we can start to self-heal. We can start to run AI and machine learning algorithms on top of the network to pinpoint network failures and event to predict them before they ever happen, allowing us to self-heal a lot of these failures before they impact customers.”

The Xfinity 10G Network has already passed ten million homes, with vast majority of Comcast’s network set to be upgraded by 2025.

How is the US broadband market changing in 2023? Join the operators in discussion at the Connected America conference live in Dallas, Texas

Also in the news:
Vodafone warns of investment cuts if Three merger is blocked
Vodafone and Three UK closing in on merger
Dish and EchoStar consider merger

News

Connected devices include smart metres, smart bikes, asset tracking sensors, and vehicle telematics

This week, Indian mobile operator Bharti Airtel has announced that it has connected over 20 million devices to its IoT platform.

Launched by the company’s B2B division Airtel Business back in 2021, Airtel IoT has quickly accrued more than 8000 enterprise customers in the past two years, according to the company website. This includes companies in numerous major industries, including automobile, energy, utilities, logistics, financial services, and manufacturing.

The IoT platform supports a range of connectivity technologies, such as 5G, 4G, NB-IoT, 2G and satellite, and allows enterprises a centralised portal to manage their IoT device portfolios. This Airtel IoT Hub can provide real time analytics, including data usage and sensor activity.

According to Airtel, the company has been helped to reach the new device milestone by a number of major deals, including a contract with Secure Meters to help power 1.3 million smart metres in the state of Bihar, another with government-backed joint venture TP Western Odisha Distribution for 200,000 smart metres in Odisha, and a deal with Matter Motor Works for 300,000 smart bikes.

“IoT is a key pillar in India’s digital growth journey and, as a brand powering this journey with our future-ready technology solutions for connected devices, we are delighted to achieve this significant milestone of 20 million connected devices on our platform,” said Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, CEO, Airtel Business (India) said. “With efficient and cost-effective automated IoT solutions, we are at the forefront of empowering enterprises to extend their reach to the remotest parts of the country on our secure platform as they scale their businesses.”

The global IoT market is growing rapidly worldwide, with some sources suggesting the total number of connected devices will reach 16.7 billion this year.

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Also in the news:
Vodafone warns of investment cuts if Three merger is blocked
Vodafone and Three UK closing in on merger
Dish and EchoStar consider merger

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Subscribe to our FREE weekly email newsletters for the latest telecom info in developing and emerging markets globally.

One subsea cable, one DAS deployment, one SASE expansion, and one IoT M&A: … [visit site to read more]

Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, one of the world’s largest integrated energy and chemicals companies, and OQ Technology, described as the world’s first satellite 5G IoT operator that provides global cellular Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) communication solutions through satellites, have announced the signing of a new MoU.

The MoU, the partners say, further strengthens their existing collaboration and focuses on automation and satellite IoT connectivity for Aramco’s remote site infrastructures. Specifically, OQ Technology aims to expand satellite IoT services and solutions for connecting Aramco’s Intelligent Integrated Node (IIN) technology.

IIN is an innovative automation infrastructure technology invented by Aramco and developed by MOXA Inc, a provider of industrial networking, computing, and automation solutions. It combines instrumentation control, monitoring, and edge computing capabilities into a single fault-tolerant device.

While IIN technology is focused on the energy companies, it is seen as applicable to other sectors, such as smart cities, power and utilities, agriculture and transportation. 

The significance of this collaboration lies in the synergy between Aramco’s automation edge technology and OQ’s low Earth orbit (LEO) 5G NB-IoT infrastructure. It will, the partners say, accelerate the development of IoT applications, personal products, safety, security & surveillance, fire protection, automotive, healthcare and other industries in Saudi Arabia and globally.

There’s also a sustainability angle. Omar Qaise, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at OQ, says: “Integrating 5G IoT and IIN technologies will increase operational efficiencies downstream, reduce raw material consumption, and minimize personnel travel to remote sites, contributing to a more efficient green economy.”