Between 2021 and 2026, the FFTH Council Europe estimates that fibre homes passed will grow from 7 million in 2021 to 25 million by 2026. This places a major onus on the whole industry, from operators to suppliers.
By 2021, France already had 21 million homes passed with FTTH. Omelcom has been a key stakeholder in France’s FTTH rollout strategy, selling several hundreds of thousand Aerial subscriber nodes, several million FTTH outlets,& …

Between 2021 and 2026, the FFTH Council Europe estimates that fibre homes passed will grow from 7 million in 2021 to 25 million by 2026. This places a major onus on the whole industry, from operators to suppliers.

By 2021, France already had 21 million homes passed with FTTH. Omelcom has been a key stakeholder in France’s FTTH rollout strategy, selling several hundreds of thousand Aerial subscriber nodes, several million FTTH outlets,  Fiber optic connections and multimedia in home distribution cabinets.

The lessons from the French market are simple: when the rollout accelerates, the stakes in terms of cost optimization, speed of installation and installation quality become paramount.

This phase is a true “Industrialization” of FTTH deployments. The challenge here is to continue the rollout in an « industrial » way, allowing to perform fast and massive FTTH building connections at the optimum costs while using the best-in-class products. Rollout methods must evolve to take into account these new constraints. Equipment that is used for the connections is a critical element in the overall performance: not only in terms of the cost, but ease of installation and speed are also major elements.

The cost of connecting a new building can be reduced by shortening average installation time as well as rationalizing the number of boxes within the dwelling. At the same time, the connection quality has to be ensured and guaranteed through well-devised products that are comprehensive and intuitive in terms of fiber management.

Omelcom has now brought this expertise to Germany with great success, the other major growth market in Europe alongside the UK, and already made significant inroads there. In Germany, the development of the optical fiber is mainly done underground, using micro-conduit cables, high tech IP68 underground boxes, compact multi dewelling boxes and OTO’s (Optical termination Outlets) that Omelcom produces and in the end will facilitate the use and deployment.

This experience of the French and German markets is now being brought to the UK. In the UK, the existence of Openreach’s PIA (Physical Infrastructure Access) data means that operators will utilise the existing infrastructure in terms of poles and ducts to minimise costs where feasible.

A number of operators including Openreach are using micro-ducts to speed up the roll-out of their new Gigabit capable FTTP technology. This can cause problems for the industry, with particular emphasis on the need to provide effective sealing. Our experience of micro-ducts in Germany has enabled us to ensure that we often provide the sealing as an integrated element in the connectivity box. This has led to developing larger boxes for the German market than we have traditionally supplied in France and we are therefore very well placed to meet the needs of the UK market.

With its strong focus on innovation, supporting the customers in their quest for excellence, Omelcom has already systems adapted to the UK market and is always seeking to develop new ones for its customers and in general for the UK market.
 

Tell us about your start up RunFibre is an internet service provider in the West of UK that is rolling out fibre infrastructure and partnering with other fibre operators to reduce the digital divide. What is your USP?
We work collaboratively with communities…

Tell us about your start up
RunFibre is an internet service provider in the West of UK that is rolling out fibre infrastructure and partnering with other fibre operators to reduce the digital divide.

What is your USP?
We work collaboratively with communities, other ISPs, and carriers to serve the hardest to reach areas.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
RunFibre have a good relationship within the industry and because of this we are able to bring partners together to work more collaboratively.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
RunFibre’s leadership team represents a unique combination that could be a first for an ISP of our nature. The CEO of our company is a highly driven individual with years of experience in the industry. Together with our CTO’s vast experience in software and programming, we have been able to accelerate growth while keeping costs extremely low.

Why did you establish the business?
We launched RunFibre to help bridge the digital divide in our region. We have a passion for connecting the people and properties that have been left out by other providers.

What does the future hold for your business?
We will be expanding our rural rollout in rural South Gloucestershire & Wiltshire, where we will help more rural hamlets access help from DCMS’s Rural Voucher Scheme.

HEADQUARTERS: South Gloucestershire
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 8
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Privately funded
WEBSITE: www.runfibre.co.uk
FOUNDERS:
David Swanston – Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer 
Curtis Barnett – Chief technology Officer 
Michael Swanston

You can meet RunFibre in the Startup Village at Connected Britain – Book Here

Widespread power outages have been commonplace in South Africa for over a decade, with the national energy supplier Eksom having struggled to meet the national demand for electricity during peak times since 2007. 
 
Now, however, this energy crisis is deepening further still due to strike action from Eksom workers, forcing one of the country’s largest mobile networks operators, MTN, to turn to the public for help in keeping their network up and running.
 
This week, MTN has announced that it is seeking new partnerships from businesses throughout the country…

Widespread power outages have been commonplace in South Africa for over a decade, with the national energy supplier Eksom having struggled to meet the national demand for electricity during peak times since 2007. 

Now, however, this energy crisis is deepening further still due to strike action from Eksom workers, forcing one of the country’s largest mobile networks operators, MTN, to turn to the public for help in keeping their network up and running.

This week, MTN has announced that it is seeking new partnerships from businesses throughout the country, aiming to use their private generators to help power the company’s mobile network.

“There is no doubt the country is facing a power crisis but at MTN, we want to turn this crisis into an opportunity for small businesses by ‘crowd sourcing’ generators to further support our network,” said MTN South Africa’s CEO Charles Molapisi.

MTN has reportedly already deployed around 2,000 additional generators at sites around the country to help meet the energy demand in recent months, consuming roughly 400,000 litres of additional fuel per month.

The company has also been aggressively rolling out additional and more advanced batteries at these mobile sites, but the inconsistency of the energy supply from the national grid makes charging these units a challenge. 

“MTN has upgraded its battery back-up solutions on over 80% of the sites already this year and is currently deploying more additional batteries. However, MTN is still faced with the challenge that the current outage schedule does not allow enough time for batteries to charge,” said MTN’s chief technology and information officer, Michele Gamberini. “We want to assure our customers that we are doing all we can to maintain connectivity during this challenging time.”

South Africa’s power crisis dates to 2007, when, despite many years of anticipation from analysts, Eskom failed to produce enough electricity to meet the rising demand within South Africa, with corruption and mismanagement being blamed for the company’s ineffectiveness.

Since then, to avoid a catastrophic failure of the national grid at peak times, Eksom has utilised ‘load shedding’, essentially rationing power to various suburbs and rotating blackouts between these areas at prearranged times. The organisation has even outlined eight stages of load shedding severity, with each stage increasing the amount of power that must be cut from the national grid. 

In Stage 1, just 1,000 MW of the national load is shut down, typically resulting in three outages for residents over a four-day period, each lasting two hours at a time. But as the stages are increased, the effects become much more dramatic. Earlier this week, Eksom announced Stage 6 load shedding for just the second time ever, requiring the shedding of 6,000 MW and resulting in cuts over a four-day period for four hours at a time.

But with Eksom workers now striking over pay causing huge disruption to the grid, analysts fear that Stage 8 could soon be introduced, plunging residents into darkness for 48 hours over a four-day period or 96 hours over eight days.

If such severe measures are implemented, it will not just be mobile networks like MTN’s that struggle to remain operational, but other critical infrastructure and services, like, emergency services, hospitals, and schools. 

With the prolonged Stage 6 power cuts wreaking havoc with South Africa’s already low growth economy this week, the calls for Eskom CEO André de Ruyter’s resignation are already beginning to ring out in the media. Drastic measures will need to be taken to avoid a national catastrophe the likes of which even the country’s mobile operators – which had proved so resilient throughout the pandemic – will find difficult to navigate. 

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