BT targets education, healthcare, and more with Immersive Spaces


News

The 5G-powered solution offers users over 3,000 interactive simulated experiences, from swimming with whales beneath the sea to driving factory forklift trucks

Today, BT has announced the launch of their Immersive Spaces solution, in partnership with virtual training specialist Immersive Interactive.

The Immersive Spaces use projectors to create interactive walls and floors, which can then display any of over 3,000 interactive experiences that are stored in the cloud. Users can interact directly with the experiences by touching the walls, from answering a multiple-choice questionnaire to navigating through a virtual world.

Additional senses can also be incorporated to make the experiences even more immersive, such as the use of smells and emerging haptic technology. The spaces are also compatible with virtual reality, augmented reality, and extended reality technologies and can be used to live-stream video.

Finally, users will be able to create their own tailor-made experiences using the platform, such as bespoke classroom or training experiences.

Speaking to journalists at a live demonstration at BT headquarters earlier this week, Ian Robertson, Technical Principal 5G Solutions at BT, explained that the Immersive Space could be specifically designed and deployed within a dedicated location, like a classroom, or delivered as a temporary mobile unit. Robertson explained that the mobile space – seen in image above – could be folded down to load on a flat-bed truck, with an effective deployment time of under an hour once it reached its location.

“Immersive Spaces bring together EE’s unrivalled connectivity with the very best immersive tech – combining the real and digital worlds to create new benefits for business and public sector organisations,” said Alex Foster, Director at Division X – BT’s business innovation team.

“This technology has the potential to be a game changer for training and development in any industry. Putting the power of immersive content into the hands of customers allows people to experience learning in a completely new way that is targeted specifically to their needs – which can significantly improve information retention and problem-solving skills. It can also enrich remote sales experiences, add a new layer to gaming and sports, and transport people virtually to any location, anywhere, during any point in history.”

While the potential of this technology is surely enormous – with BT exploring use cases for education, healthcare, retail, transport, tourism, manufacturing, construction, and sport – initial interest seems to be driven largely by training and education applications.

Indeed, BT has already deployed its Immersive Spaces at schools – Borders College in Galashiels, Scotland and Cadoxton Primary School in South Wales – with encouraging results.

“The children absolutely love it,” said Hannah Cogbill, senior leadership at Cadoxton Primary School.  “Their favourite one so far is life under the sea. We can’t wait to explore more of the experiences and collections and then begin to develop our own content. We are looking forward to using it to support our children’s development and progression of imaginative writing. But it will also be a great scaffold to support learners with pre-experiences that they might be nervous about – for example catching a train or going on an aeroplane.”

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Telefonica Tech expands operations in Colombia


Press Release

The new center will have more than 100 highly qualified experts by the end of the year, which will grow to more than 300 in three years. These experts will work in coordination with Telefónica Tech’s global operations team.

Telefónica Tech today inaugurated a new Digital Operations Center (DOC) at its Bogotá headquarters, in addition to the one that it opened last year in Madrid, to complement its global Cyber Security and Cloud operations capabilities.

José Cerdán, CEO of Telefónica Tech; Alfonso Gómez, CEO of Telefónica Hispam; María Jesús Almazor, CEO of Cyber Security and Cloud for Telefónica Tech; and Fabián Hernández, CEO of Telefónica Colombia, were some of the company’s executives who attended the opening ceremony. The presentation was also attended by Mauricio Lizcano Arango, Minister of Information and Communication Technologies of the Government of Colombia, and more than 40 representatives of local institutions and companies.

Telefónica Tech’s Colombia DOC has an area of 500 square metres in size and has global capacities to reinforce the operations services in all the countries in which the company is present, especially in the Hispam region and in the USA, as it shares a time zone with many of the countries in the Americas, and this means that it can also provide extended hours of support to customers in Europe.

Telefónica Tech has reinforced its operations team in Colombia and plans for the country’s DOC to have more than a hundred highly qualified experts by the end of the year, and for this to grow to more than 300 in three years. These experts’ services are marketed in the Hispam region through Movistar Empresas. The Colombia DOC team will work in coordination with the professionals that make up Telefónica Tech’s global operations area and will strengthen the network of 11 Security Operations Centers (SOCs) that the company has around the world.

From the Colombia DOC, just as with the Madrid space, Telefónica Tech’s Cyber Security and Cloud operations professionals will monitor and supervise customers’ security and cloud services 24 hours a day, every day of the year, to detect, manage and resolve any incident.

José Cerdán, CEO of Telefónica Tech, said: “This new Digital Operations Center (DOC) reinforces our role as a global technology benchmark for the protection of companies undergoing digital transformation. The experience of our professionals and our comprehensive proposal of Cloud and Cyber Security services allows us to offer customers differential solutions and guarantee high levels of confidentiality, integrity, security and availability of data and assets”.

Extensive global capabilities

The Telefónica Tech team is made up of more than 6,200 professionals of 28 different nationalities and with more than 4,000 certifications in third-party technologies. Of these, 5,500 professionals are from Cyber Security and Cloud operations, who deal with 350,000 security event tickets and around 500,000 alerts per year, of which 13,000 are critical.

Telefónica Tech’s operations professionals supervise the security of more than 15,000 devices and execute around 600 mitigations in industrialised services, such as those aimed at avoiding Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, in which there is a high degree of automation.

In addition, through the digital surveillance service, they manage more than 120,000 notifications that generate more than 6,000 reports and specific investigations, and during the last year they have closed down 8,500 fraudulent sites related to brand abuse and phishing (a type of attack in which someone impersonates an entity or service through an email or instant message to obtain the user’s credentials or information).

Telefónica Tech closed the first quarter of 2023 with revenue growth of 43.5%, reaching 429 million euros, and recording double-digit growth in both the Cyber Security and Cloud division and in the IoT and Big Data division.

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Vodafone launches dedicated healthcare unit


News

Vodafone Health will work with the healthcare sector to facilitate telehealth and co-develop new solutions

The UK’s healthcare sector has something of a reputation for its labyrinthine bureaucracy and its overreliance on outdated technology. In the past few years, however, this is beginning to change, with both the public and private sector proving willing to engage with telecoms and technology companies to help facilitate more streamlined and efficient patient care – especially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, Vodafone is making its commitment to the healthcare sector known with the creation of a new business unit called Vodafone Health, aiming at working alongside the medical sector too “accelerate digital transformation” of the sector and “support the delivery of better patient outcomes”.

The new business unit will be led by industry expert Anne-Marie Vine-Lott.

“I’m really excited to be leading the newly created Vodafone in Health division which will act as a technology advisor and innovation hub for all our healthcare partners and customers,” said Anne-Marie Vine-Lott, Head of Health for Vodafone UK. “Our focus is on supporting health providers to work beyond organisational boundaries. To help them drive better outcomes for patients through better connectivity and the modernisation of technology.”

Vodafone’s growing interested in the healthcare sector has been apparent for many years now. Back in 2020, for example, the operator deployed a 5G private network at the University Hospital Dusseldorf, creating what they said at the time was the first 5G-powered clinic in Europe.

In fact, the formation of the Vodafone Health business unit seems to build on Vodafone’s virtual Centre for Health, which it launched in partnership with Deloitte in 2021. At the time, Vodafone said it would seek to combine its connectivity solutions with Deloitte’s significant experience in the healthcare sector to help develop healthcare solutions and support the sector’s digitalisation.

Vine-Lott was made the Head of the Centre for Health at the end of last year and she will continue to oversee the unit as the Director of the new Health business unit.

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Cisco launches cybersecurity skills programmes in Greater Manchester


Press Release

Launch to mark Cisco joining Greater Manchester Digital Security Hub

Cisco today announced that it is joining the Greater Manchester Digital Security Hub (DiSH) to support the centre’s ambitions to be at the forefront of cybersecurity and innovation, support economic growth and resilience, and to help make the region a trusted and secure place to live, study, and work.

As part of this collaboration, through Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) programme, Cisco is launching a series of targeted initiatives to tackle the widening cybersecurity skills gap. Dedicated programmes will focus on three key areas: the most vulnerable organisations, the widest gap in the industry, and the future generation who will live and work in the region as it realises its digital ambitions.

The Most Vulnerable Organisations

According to Cisco research, half of small businesses (50%) are underprepared when it comes to cybersecurity, leaving them vulnerable to breaches. A core ambition of DiSH is to future-proof Greater Manchester and bring together industry, start-ups, and small and medium-sized enterprises to develop solutions with real-world application that will enhance public and private cyber resilience and digital security.

As part of its role with DiSH, the centre will become a Cisco Networking Academy specifically to support small businesses with their cybersecurity skills. The programme will include a range of learning opportunities starting with a free, self-paced, mobile-friendly ‘Introduction to Cybersecurity’ course. The aim of the course is to equip learners with a basic awareness of cyber vulnerabilities and an understanding of the core principles of cyber resilience. Once users have completed the course, they will have access to additional learning pathways facilitated by Cisco’s partnership with UCEN Manchester.

Jon Lomas, Cybersecurity Partnership Development Manager, DiSH commented: “We greatly value the opportunity to partner with Cisco, a global leader in cybersecurity, to help deliver the critical skills needed to protect businesses of all sizes from potential attacks in an increasingly complicated threat landscape. Becoming a Cisco Networking Academy will help us to deliver free and easily accessible training for our local business population to help them address the security risks they face.”

The Widest Gap in the Industry

As cybersecurity threats continue to rise, the need for a skilled, diverse cyber workforce is more important than ever. Yet, the global cybersecurity workforce was reportedly short of 3.5 million workers in 2021 and constituted less than 25% women.

Cisco’s latest programme, launched today in partnership with the Open University, ‘Cisco Cyber Camps’, will provide free, remote, self-paced training for students in the UK, aged 13-19, who identify as female or non-binary. The courses will allow young women to learn industry-ready cybersecurity skills, while also engaging in forums hosted by Cisco Networking Academy expert women instructors, attending online webinars, and embarking on soft skills training. Upon successful completion of the course, students will receive a certification that will then allow them to go on to complete advanced cybersecurity qualifications and courses.

There will be four enrolment dates each year in January, April, July, and October. To find out more, or sign up for the next cohort, visit here.

Andrew Smith, Senior Lecturer in Networking, Open University Cisco Academy Support Centre, said: “The rapid expansion of the digital economy has created many more cybersecurity challenges that need to be tackled by organisations daily. We urgently need to close the security skills gap, as job vacancies continue to outweigh available expert talent. We look forward to our continued collaboration with Cisco to support the training of talented women to fulfil these critical roles and boost innovation through gender diversity.”

The Future Generation who Will Live and Work in the Digital City-region

Cisco’s partnerships with the Open University and UCEN Manchester have been designed to equip young people with the cybersecurity skills needed to help Greater Manchester succeed in its ambitions to become an internationally recognised digital city-region, attracting industry investment, connecting communities, and driving the local economy. The partnerships focus on providing:

  • Free, self-paced, and online instructor training programmes, led by a consortium of Cisco Networking Academy partners including the Open University and UCEN Manchester, which work around teachers’ busy schedules, as an exciting opportunity to upskill and support their continuing professional development.
  • Industry-accredited materials and resources designed for those delivering cybersecurity training to their students, closely mapped to the T-Level curriculum. Aligning the courses with classroom teaching offers students in Greater Manchester vendor-led training that will enhance their future job applications.
  • Teacher training and skills-to-jobs learning for pupils in the Dean Trust schools and academies across the Greater Manchester region, as well as further schools supported by UCEN Manchester.

David Meads, Chief Executive, Cisco UK & Ireland, commented: “As Greater Manchester realises its digital ambition, it’s crucial that we equip everyone who lives and works in the region with the awareness, tools, and skills to help improve their security resilience. We’re delighted to be working with DiSH, and its founding partners to do just that.”

This announcement builds on Cisco’s role in delivering the Greater Manchester One Network initiative, designed to provide continued trusted access to everything and everyone in the public sector. As part of this initiative, Cisco will deploy a secure, self-monitoring, region-wide digital infrastructure to help underpin public services in the region.

Want to learn more about the digital transformation of Greater Manchester and the North of the UK? Join the telecoms industry in discussion at next year’s Connected North conference

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Ofcom gives controversial Equinox 2 plan the green light


News

The decision will allow Openreach to further reduce wholesale prices, a decision likely to be met with praise from the UK’s ISPs but trepidation from its alternative network providers

Today, following a public consultation, the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has announced that it will allow Openreach’s proposed Equinox 2 fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) discount scheme.

The scheme, building on the previous Equinox 1 offer, will see Openreach charge cheaper wholesale rates for ISP customers purchasing FTTP products, a move which they say will allow ISPs to become more competitive with alternative network providers.

The regulator said that the decision is “consistent with promoting investment in gigabit-capable networks by Openreach and other operators and promoting network-based competition”. They note that while Equinox 2 will make competition for altnets more intense, the conditional terms in the offer “do not create a potential barrier to using altnets”.

“This is good news for customers as it means lower prices and long-term certainty – encouraging the switch to faster, more reliable broadband connections. It’s also good news for the UK, as it supports our continued multi-billion-pound investment in upgrading the country’s broadband infrastructure,” said Katie Milligan, Openreach’s Chief Commercial Officer. “We take our legal and regulatory obligations extremely seriously and we’ll continue to compete fairly whilst delivering an unrivalled, nationwide service and choice for customers.”

For the UK’s altnet community, however, the decision is much more troubling, with some having previously claimed that Equinox 2 is anticompetitive, serving to lock-in ISP customers with Openreach by offering prices that altnets cannot match and creating a major barrier for entry for new prospective network builders.

Part of the fear here is that Equinox 2 could be merely a stepping-stone to even greater discounts in the future, with Ofcom offering no real resistance; indeed, Openreach’s proposals for Equinox 2 came less than a year after Equinox 1 first came into effect in 2021.

In this regard, however, the altnets are likely to have a level of certainty, with Openreach saying that they will not change the Equinox 2 pricing scheme or introduce further changes (i.e., a potential Equinox 3 scheme) until the end of March 2026.

“We are disappointed Equinox 2 has been approved and will be undertaking a thorough review of Ofcom’s decision. We are, however, pleased to see Ofcom’s pressure has brought about the end of Equinox, with a commitment from Openreach to make no further changes to its wholesale pricing until April 2026,” said Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, the UK’s largest altnet.

“We must not forget that while introducing price discounts to bind its wholesale customers and damage emerging competition, BT is at the same time significantly increasing prices for millions of its retail consumers. Ofcom must ensure that competition is effective and sustainable if consumers are to benefit.”

BT, like many UK telecoms providers, increased their prices above inflation rates earlier in March this year, with BT increasing the prices for consumers by 14.4%.

The potential effects of Equinox 2 on the UK fibre market were one of the major talking points at this year’s Connected North conference in Manchester, with Openreach, Ofcom, and a number of ISPs and altnets sharing their views with the wider community.

At the event, we interviewed Gita Sorensen of GOS Consulting, who explained that much of the criticism levelled against Equinox 2 from the altnet community was not necessarily an attack of Openreach itself, but rather the transparency of Ofcom’s decision making process.

[embedded content]

Indeed, a statement from the Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA) today had similar misgivings over Ofcom’s methodology.

“Whilst we are still reviewing Ofcom’s statement in full, INCA is initially disappointed with Ofcom’s decision. Not only do we believe that this outcome will have a negative impact on competition and investment and ultimately consumers, we also believe that Ofcom’s approach to taking this decision was flawed,” read the statement. “This initially seems to be an illogical decision based on a questionable process. Government policy and regulatory decision making now appear to us to be out of sync when it comes to infrastructure competition. We call on government to clarify its Statement of Strategic Priorities to Ofcom to ensure that the regulator is compelled to put issues of infrastructure competition and investment at the heart of its decision-making process.”

On the other hand, CEO of Zen Internet, Richard Tang, was a vocal defender of the offer’s competitive qualities, tackling the topic on the keynote stage and further explaining his position in an interview with Total Telecom.

[embedded content]

Tang reiterated this opinion today, saying that Zen was pleased that Ofcom had given the offer the green light, saying it was “crucial in making full fibre broadband more accessible and affordable for millions of households across the UK”.

While Equinox 2 is sure to have a significant effect on the UK fibre market, particularly when it comes to accelerating altnet consolidation, the full extent of its impact will not be apparent for many months to come.

How is the UK’s telecoms ecosystem changing in 2023? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s live Connected Britain conference

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Altice bumps stake in BT to just under 25%


News

The international telecoms group owned by French billionaire Patrick Drahi said the increased stake indicated support for BT’s strategy and was not step towards a potential takeover

Today, Altice UK has revealed that it has increased its stake in BT to 24.5%.

Altice UK, owned by French billionaire Patrick Drahi, was already the UK operator’s largest stakeholder, having grown its stake to 18% over the past 18 months.

Drahi formed Altice UK back in 2021 with the express purpose taking a 12.1% stake in BT for around £2 billion. At the time, Altice assured BT that it had no intention of presenting the telco with a takeover offer.

Later that year, Altice increased its stake by a further 6% to 18%, a move which set alarm bells ringing at BT and set in motion a number of defensive measures to shore up the company’s operations against a potential takeover. Despite this, Altice remained adamant that stake increase was merely a valuable investment opportunity rather than a precursor to a potential takeover.

Indeed, even with the latest stake increase today, Altice says that it is not considering a takeover, with Drahi noting that he will not seek a seat on BT’s board. In a short statement from Altice, the company said it “continues to hold [BT’s] management in high regard and remains fully supportive of their strategy”.

The timing of this stake increase is interesting, arriving just days after BT announced it would be cutting 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade as part of broader cost-cutting measures. According to the operator, around a quarter of these roles will be subsumed by rapidly advancing technologies like AI and automation, allowing for increased agility and efficiencies.

The news, which was delivered alongside BT’s latest financial results, saw shares fell over 7%, perhaps making them a more attractive prospect for Altice to invest.

It is worth noting that the new stake is just below 25% is no coincidence, with the UK’s National Security and Investment Act (NSIA) automatically requiring an investigation into any foreign company that holds a 25% or greater stake in a business deemed critical to national security, such as BT.

In fact, Altice’s stake in BT already faced a probe via the NSIA last year, though this was later called off by the Secretary of State.

How is the UK’s telecoms ecosystem changing in 2023? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s live Connected Britain conference

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EU fines Meta €1.2bn over transfer of data to US


News

The European Union (EU) said the company’s data transfers to the US violated General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and jeopardised the “fundamental rights and freedoms” of EU citizens

This week, the EU has issued its largest regulatory fine to date, ordering US tech giant Meta to pay €1.2 billion as a result of breaches to GDPR.

The decision was made by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which said that Meta’s transferring of personal data from EU citizens to the US since 2013 had exposed that data to privacy violations by US security services.

The DPC said that Meta’s existing policies towards transferring sensitive EU data to the US “did not address the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms” of EU citizens.

Meta is heavily reliant on delivering EU data to the US in order to facilitate advertising.

In the past, Meta has said transferring this data to the US for advertising purposes was paramount to its continued operations in the EU, even threatening to shut down Facebook and Instagram services in Europe if forced to cease these data transfers.

The EU responded saying it would not be threatened or blackmailed, saying the company’s withdrawal “would be their loss”.

Now, the EU says that Meta has five months to suspend any future transfer of personal data to the US, and six months to stop “the unlawful processing, including storage, in the US” of EU data.

These orders only apply to Meta’s Facebook service and not to its other offerings, such as Instagram and WhatsApp.

Meta, naturally, says it appeal the DPC’s decision, which it called “unfair” and “unjustified”.

“We are appealing these decisions and will immediately seek a stay with the courts who can pause the implementation deadlines, given the harm that these orders would cause, including to the millions of people who use Facebook every day,” wrote Meta’s president for global affairs, Nick Clegg, and the company’s chief legal officer, Jennifer Newstead in a blog post.

The decision should come as little surprise. The EU has been clamping down on major US tech companies in recent years, with numerous fines being passed down to likes of Google, Amazon, and Meta for breaching GDPR.

In fact, in 2020, the European Court of Justice found the existing legislative framework between the EU and the US – known as the Privacy Shield – to be inadequate for protecting EU data from being accessed by US surveillance services. Since then, the EU and the US government have been working on a replacement data transfer pact, which could come into effect as early as this October.

Want to keep up with all of the latest international telecoms news? Click here to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

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Building the internet under the sea: Zeus, an Operations VP’s inside story

Contributed Article

By James Ovel, Operations VP at Zayo

For a VP of Operations, commissioning, installing, and deploying a new subsea cable brings excitement and optimism, but equally offers significant challenges.

With a background and passion for project management, my team and I pride ourselves on detailed planning with thoughtful analysis of a broad range of risks. We are the kind of people who rely on good data, facts, and solid analysis to make informed decisions. We avoid making decisions based on assumptions.

Once we commit to getting a project done, it gets done, no matter how hard it gets.

When a programme wraps up, everyone’s celebrating – there’s press and champagne, and it all looks rosy. You don’t see the additional grey hair that got us there! If you want to know what it’s really like, I’ll tell you.

The Exhilarating Adventures of Zeus

Zeus, our subsea cable connecting the UK to Europe, was a major part of my life for several years. From the early initiation days in 2019 through to its final splice and test in mid-2022, I was constantly worried because it was so unpredictable.

For example, consultants advised in planning that we had a five percent chance of finding an unexploded WW2 bomb along the route. We didn’t find just one, we found four! Three bombs were within British waters adding months of delay and substantial additional costs to move them out of the way of the route. The other one in Dutch waters. This was far less problematic as the Dutch navy, for national security purposes, stepped in and took care of it within days – much to my relief.

Seabed X-rays suggested we would need to examine 140 hidden objects.We actually ended up having to examine over 350 objects before we could even start laying the cable.

One thing our great oceans never are is predictable. Throw in rough weather, an international pandemic, changing permitting laws, and you start to understand just how far out of my comfort zone I was!

The Customer Need for a New Subsea Hero

One thing we could predict accurately was the demand for a new subsea cable. This was clear from the market trajectory and customer feedback. Customers wanted a super secure route across the North Sea and they wanted it as quickly as humanly possible.

Our existing North Sea cable, called Circe North, was nearing capacity and is also over 20 years old. It was entering the unknown when it came to stability and future workable life.  Zayo has always invested heavily in quality network infrastructure to be ready for future demand, so Zeus just had to be done.

Subsea Connectivity Built to Last

One thing we knew from maintaining Circe North for over 20 years is that these waters are heavily fished. Circe North had been impacted multiple times, mostly by illegal fishing. Our fiber is affected when fishermen trawl the bottom of the seabed and inadvertently pull up our cable then cut it to free up their nets and escape before the authorities can track their vessel’s movements.

This meant our main objective in planning wasn’t speed, despite the demand – we wanted to do it right. Quality, security, and sustainability were the priorities. This is why we made sure, at a significant cost, to secure an installation vessel capable of three metres burial depth.

By doing this, we uniquely achieved burying Zeus over two metres where sand waves occur and in many areas achieving two and a half to three metres in depth.

This burial depth is vitally important as the sand on the seabed changes in depth typically by up to two metres in constant tides, this is known as sand waves. This means that only a cable buried over two metres remains covered and safe from the dreaded fishing nets.

We know from our experience in maintaining our Circe North route that anything buried at a depth of less than two metres will become exposed at times.

Even at a burial depth of over three metres, we were still thinking about all of the potential threats. For example, what if an anchor landed on Zeus, potentially causing strike damage? This is why we opted for a double-armoured cable with increased crush resiliency, meaning an anchor bounces off Zeus without impact.

Burying over two metres also has a positive environmental impact, allowing the seabed to reform naturally over the top comprehensively.

An Optimal User Experience Begins Below Sea Level

Most people don’t think about the Internet being under the sea – but they’ll certainly notice if their service is down or the user experience is not what it usually is. If a subsea cable is cut, then everything needs re-routing across longer routes, meaning higher latency and a slower, interrupted and sub-optimal user experience.

Zeus is monitored 24/7 from our UK-based NOC, meaning we see issues or degradation immediately. However, we don’t expect this to ever be an issue for this new cable. In addition, technology is advancing so fast and Zeus is currently being considered by several partners for a super cool advancement using vibrations to monitor illegal fishing and people trafficking.

This type of tech is used on other subsea cables to help predict natural disasters like tsunamis, giving response teams more time to act and prevent a catastrophe. It can also be used by marine biologists to listen to whale songs which they use to ascertain their gender and species.

Problem-solving skills are essential to my team and we pride ourselves on getting the job done.

I had a team of 20 people working on Zeus, plus expert industry consultants. Zeus came in significantly over budget and stretched us in many ways, but we’re all thrilled with the achievement. In my opinion, Zeus is the most secure subsea cable in the world.

[embedded content]

If you want to learn more about Zayo and chat with the team, you can join them at this year’s Submarine Networks EMEA event taking place at the end of this month! Get your ticket today

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Aerial fibre deployment and making the hard-to-reach easy with ACOME


Interviews

At this year’s Connected North conference, we caught up with Willy Pelhate, ACOME Group’s UK marketing manager, to discuss how the company is helping the UK fulfil its full fibre and Net Zero ambitions

The UK is pursuing two very big challenges with an extremely tight deadline: one is digital; the other is environmental.

The first is to bring gigabit-enabled broadband to 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025, and to all by 2030. The second is to produce Net Zero greenhouse emissions by 2050.

To reach these goals, the deployment of fibre networks will be essential. However, in rural areas it can be hard to rely existing and or reusable underground civil engineering. Thus, with three-times less CAPEX and a 75% faster execution speed, deploying in the air can become the most viable solution. But this also comes with requirements related to the Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) and legal constraints.

In this context, bringing gigabit to rural areas and connecting the hard-to-reach is like squaring the circle, explained Pelhate.

In this interview, you will hear how and why ACOME and its breakthrough technology, Nanomodule® (already PIA approved in the United Kingdom) can become your best allies to build viable and sustainable fibre-to-the-premise networks.

Benefits from ACOME Nanomodule®-based ultra-lightweight cables includes among others:

  • Total Cost of Ownership reduced by more than a third
  • Increased long-term reliability
  • Savings on greenhosue gas emissions of up to one ton of CO2 equivalent every two miles

Click here to learn more about how ACOME’s Nanomodule technology is fighting back against fibre deployment costs.

You can watch the full interview from the link below

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Want to learn more about ACOME and the creation of full fibre Britain? Join ACOME and the UK’s telecoms ecosystem at Connected Britain, the UK’s largest digital economy event 

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The impact of the 2Africa subsea cable project on economic growth and intercontinental communication


Contributed Article 

by center3

Connecting continents: The 2Africa subsea cable

The world is becoming more interconnected than ever before. And this is being made possible through the deployment of subsea cables networks, which provide reliable connectivity and internet services across continents. One such project that is set to make a huge impact is the 2Africa submarine cable.

Breaking records: The world’s longest subsea cable

With over 45,000 km of length, the 2Africa subsea cable is the longest ever deployed in the world. It is expected to connect 33 countries by the completion of the project in 2024, spanning across three continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe. The 2Africa cable will deliver more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables serving Africa today with a design capacity of up to 180Tbps.

Beyond connectivity: The potential impact of the 2Africa subsea cable

The 2Africa subsea cable is not just about providing faster internet speeds or improving connectivity. It has the potential to bring about a surge in information exchange, digital business development and overall economic growth for all the countries in connects to.

Promoting economic growth: The impact of the 2Africa subsea cable in Saudi Arabia

The cable is expected to make a total of four landings in Saudi Arabia, including Jeddah, Yanbu, Duba, and Al Khobar. The 2Africa submarine cable has already completed landings in Jeddah and Yanbu, with Duba set to follow later this year. The 2Africa cable is expected to act as a catalyst for change in the broadband market and benefiting individuals and businesses alike.

Expanding horizons: The 2Africa Pearls cable extensions

The 2Africa cable is also being extended into the Arabian Gulf region through “2Africa Pearls” cable extensions. These extensions will add landings in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, Oman, the UAE, Pakistan, and India, along with the East Coast of Saudi Arabia. Thus, it will further enhance the future of connectivity in the Middle-East region.

The role of subsea cables in driving economic growth: The case of the 2Africa subsea cable

As the world becomes more interconnected, the deployment of subsea cables like the 2Africa subsea cable will result in a huge development in the region. With its record-breaking length and ability to connect multiple continents, the 2Africa subsea cable is set to be a game-changer in the world of connectivity and information exchange.

Innovating for the future: The success of the 2Africa subsea cable project

In conclusion, the 2Africa subsea cable project is a testament to what can be achieved through collaboration and innovation. Its success will not only benefit the economies it connects but will also have a positive impact on the lives of individuals and businesses. The future of connectivity looks bright, and the 2Africa subsea cable is leading the way.

Want to keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news from the submarine cable industry? Join the cable operators in discussion at this year’s live Submarine Networks EMEA event!

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