BROWSING: UK

UK government commits £21m to deploy AI in the NHS – by winter

The UK government has committed £21 million to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) based technologies across the National Health Service (NHS) to help diagnose conditions such as cancers, strokes and heart conditions. NHS Trusts, geographically organised healthcare units within the NHS, will be able to...

UK selects LEO satellite company for rural broadband trials

OneWeb currently has a constellation of 618 LEO satellites Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications company OneWeb has been selected for two broadband trials in the U.K. as part of the government’s Very Hard to Reach Premises connectivity program, which aims to deliver connectivity to...

BT taps AWS for ‘multi-million’ 5G MEC network for high-end IoT

BT has said it is to make a “multi-million-pound investment” in mobile edge computing (MEC), rooted in its LTE (4G) and 5G network infrastructure. Its mission is to bring enterprise services and applications closer to customers. It is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS)...

Private 5G specialist Celona goes global – chases Nokia’s lead, junks ‘Frankenstein’ systems

Private networking specialist Celona has it in for Nokia. Some way through a pre-brief about its MWC news – about expanding beyond LTE to support 5G in the US, and beyond the US to support a range of 5G bands in global markets –...

BT makes an Industry 4.0 sandwich – from a fortified private 5G loaf

As promised and previewed last week, here is a full transcript of the interview with Marc Overton, managing director of BT’s industrial go-to-market business Division X – from a conversation a couple of months back, at the UK operator’s annual Robotics Festival at its...

UK secures support from key allies for its 5G supply chain vision

The UK government previously announced efforts to increase the share of open and interoperable equipment in domestic networks The governments of Australia, Canada and the United States have backed guidelines for telecoms companies, developed by the U.K., designed to build a more competitive and secure...

Celona on CBRS-bashing by old telco crowd – plus global expansion, growth verticals

Last month, the CBRS community in the US made a swift counter-strike, in the form of a joint letter to the FCC and NTIA, against a report by telecoms lobby group CTIA that said private and shared cellular is bad for the US economy...

Keg tracking with Konvoy – how the beer industry got buzzed on IoT

Australian outfit Konvoy Group started three years ago, in the summer of 2019, as a keg rental business, offering logistics support to craft brewers in its home country. It has, in the meantime, expanded its services portfolio, launched in international markets, and signed with...

Private network spectrum strategy, Part 1: Ofcom in the U.K.

Around the world, regulators are exploring various strategies to spectrum management that makes room for private network allocations. At the recent Private Networks European Forum virtual event, representatives from regulatory agencies in the U.K. (Ofcom), Sweden (PTS) and Germany (Federal Network Agency, or BNetzA)...

Spectrum, systems, slicing – five key challenges to bring private 5G to the masses

A session at Private Networks European Forum (PNEF) last month considered the challenges, and broader cultural shift, to bring ‘private 5G to the masses’. Koen Mioulet, secretary at the European Users Wireless Enterprise Network Association (EUWENA), and Maria Cuevas, networks research director at UK-based...

Rakuten plans Open RAN lab in UK

Funded by the Japanese government, Rakuten’s new lab should be open in March 2023 Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony UK announced Monday plans to open what they’re calling an Open RAN Customer Experience Center in the U.K. It’s coming to Rakuten Symphony’s offices by March 2023, and...

‘All eyes were on Germany; now they’re now on the US’ – a picture of private 5G at large

Note, this is a revised version of the intro/outro statements at Private Networks European Forum earlier this month, presented then as a way to invite conversation about the state of ‘things’ in Europe, and re-presented now as a think-piece for the same. It considers...

‘Human glue’ and ‘humility to learn’ – 10 lessons in private 5G (#1-3, on people)

This is a fairly straight writeup of a summary report / blog from UK5G, the government-backed innovation network dedicated to industrial 5G in the UK, from a couple of weeks back, about findings from the UK’s grand £200 million trials and testbeds (5GTT) scheme...

Operators upended by hard graft of private 5G – a classic IoT tale, stuck on repeat

A new summary report / blog from UK5G, the government-backed innovation network dedicated to industrial 5G in the UK, makes for good reading. It concludes, ultimately, that industrial 5G is the same as industrial IoT – that it is a discipline that is massive...

Cellnex bolsters vertical and horizontal reach with acquisition of UK DAS firm HiBW

The UK division of Spain-based tower company Cellnex has acquired indoor cellular connectivity provider Herbert In-Building Wireless (HiBW) for an undisclosed fee. The deal will see the creation of a new Cellnex business unit, called Cellnex UK In-Building Solutions (CUKIS), which will be led...

Europe on fire – an €8.5bn problem with a €900k solution (the case for IoT in wildfires)

Some of the most interesting IoT use cases on the conference circuit in the past months have been about wildfire monitoring. Through the heat of summer, as parts of Europe burned, smart people from clever companies took to the stage at various events to...

BT trials 5G private network at 2022 Commonwealth Games

The 2022 Commonwealth Games, an international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, was held in Birmingham, England. This year’s event featured more than 5,000 athletes from 72 nations, 19 different sports and a private network provided by BT. Partnering with the...

The trouble with private 5G for Industry 4.0 | Part 3 – the spectrum

This is article is taken from a recent editorial report on Industrial 5G Innovation – From Setting Standard to Becoming Standard; the previous instalment in this serialised version of the report is available here. Subsequent instalments are listed below (linking either to the original...

Vodafone UK, Virgin Media O2 enable 4G coverage in London Underground

In 2021, BAI Communications won a contract to deploy a 4G network in the London Underground by the end of 2024 Vodafone UK and Virgin Media O2 will use a neutral host mobile network on the London Underground rail system to provide 4G coverage to...

Between the lines, Vodafone study asks how to sell to SMEs just trying to “stay afloat”

Whatever Vodafone’s intention when polling 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, and whatever its conclusion from their responses, one thing is also clear: business is hard in this economic climate. What also seems apparent, reading between the lines of Vodafone’s enterprise...

BT to invest £100m to put UK enterprises in ‘digital fast lane’ and ‘soup-up security’

UK telecoms group BT has revealed a ‘charter’ to invest almost £100 million over the next three years in its new Division X digital change unit, which is at the heart of its broader strategy to establish itself as a ‘tech-co’ (“not a telco”),...

‘Out with the old, in with the new:’ Three UK’s 5G overtakes 3G for first time

Three says that usage of its 5G network has surged by an astonishing 385% since 2020 According to a new report released by UK operator Three, more users in the region are using its 5G services than its 3G services for the first time. The...

Telefónica Tech buys UK analytics firm and Microsoft favourite Incremental for £175m

Telefónica Tech, the digital change unit of Spain-based operator Telefónica, has acquired UK-based digital transformation and data analytics company Incremental for £175 million. Incremental, a major Microsoft partner in the UK, will be integrated into Telefónica Tech business in the UK and Ireland. In the...

BAM Nuttal switches on first private 5G network for UK construction industry

UK-based civil engineering company BAM Nuttal has switched on a private 5G network to provide connectivity for construction services at a 55,00 square-metre site in the Shetland Islands in the UK, where it has been contracted by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) as...