Telecom news

• BT taps up Nokia for AI network monitoring software

  14-12-2022 16:46
  UK telco group BT has brought in Finnish kit vendor Nokia to provide it with AVA Analytics software, which it will use to monitor its fixed networks with AI tools.
  The two firms have signed a five year deal which is supposed to improve customer experience through AI and machine learning tools. AVA Analytics apparently gives call centre agents a real-time view of the operator’s network, from individual subscribers to devices, in order to more quickly deal with whatever seems to going wrong.
  
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• UK government listens to REASON by giving £12m to 6G project

  14-12-2022 14:39
  One of the more intriguing recipients of this week’s UK government telecoms spending spree was Bristol University’s REASON initiative.
  It stands for Realising Enabling Architectures and Solutions for Open Networks, which isn’t bad as far as forced acronyms go. Its aim is to bring together a broad ecosystem of stakeholders in the entire telecoms R&D supply chain to develop a roadmap for open 6G networks. On one level this seems to be an attempt to take the Open RAN concepts
  
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• Ofcom needs to make a strong call on new Openreach pricing

  14-12-2022 14:38
  Openreach was never going to please everyone in the UK telecoms industry with its new pricing scheme for wholesale access to its fibre network, which presents a challenge for regulator Ofcom.
  The incumbent on Wednesday submitted the widely-expected Equinox 2 pricing plan to Ofcom for review. In a nutshell, it means a cut in prices for retail ISPs wanting access to Openreach’s fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network, provided they are willing to sign up to long-term agreements, that is. It&rsq
  
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• Elizabeth line staff vote for strike action

  14-12-2022 14:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Maintenance and safety staff working on the Elizabeth line have voted for strike action after they rejected a pay offer.
  Elizabeth line train at the Old Oak Common maintenance depot
  Staff who work for TfL’s wholly owned subsidiary, Rail for London Infrastructure (RfLI) and are members of the Prospect Union rejected an offer of a 4% pay rise from RfLI. The Prospect union noted that London Underground workers have received 8.4% as did MTR who operate the trains on the Elizabeth line.
  In a st
  
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• The telecoms industry is facing a data crossroads

  14-12-2022 14:22
  Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Will Cage, Industry Principal of Telecommunications at Snowflake, recommends some data best practice for telcos.
  Quite rightly, telecoms companies guard their customer information very carefully. Strict data privacy rules, such as GDPR, have reinforced the requirement to have tight controls over how information is stored, governed and used.
  Often, data is kept n
  
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• US lawmakers look to ban ‘digital fentanyl’ TikTok with new bill

  14-12-2022 13:52
  A group of politicians in the US have put together a bill that would ban social media app TikTok, over fears its parent company ByteDance could make its data available to the Chinese Communist Party.
  Senator Marco Rubio introduced the bipartisan legislation to ban TikTok from operating in the US, called ‘Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act’ – and whoever was in ch
  
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• Nokia and Rohde & Schwarz collaborate on network monitoring drones

  14-12-2022 13:07
  Finnish kit vendor Nokia is working with German testing and measurement firm Rohde & Schwarz to figure out whether it can add software-based network measurement tools into its drones platform.
  Specifically, the equipment maker said it is planning to embed Rohde & Schwarz’s QualiPoc 4.9G/LTE and 5G network measurement capabilities into the Nokia Drone Networks platform, thereby expanding the use cases for drones to provide telecoms operators, private wireless partners and enterprise
  
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• Christmas trips through the Islington canal tunnel

  14-12-2022 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Although usually only a summer event, for one day over Christmas, there will be trips through the long canal tunnel that runs underneath Islington.The long straight canal tunnel was dug just over 200 years ago to help the Regent’s Canal avoid a long series of canal locks to get over the hill that Islington is built on. Only open to boats as there’s no canal path, the nearby Canal Museum runs rather enjoyable trips in a narrowboat along the canal tunnel to the far end and back again.T
  
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• Vodafone drafts in Hazy to trial ‘synthetic data for telecoms’

  14-12-2022 12:18
  UK operator Vodafone has been tinkering away with a firm called Hazy to test the use of ‘synthetic data’ in its operations.
  Vodafone brought in Hazy to run a proof of concept project looking at how synthetic data might be used for training and testing machine learning models, and the operator is now mulling how it could adopt said synthetic data capabilities into its operations.
  What is synthetic data, you might ask? Broadly the term means data points that are not drawn from the real
  
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• Mayor of London to raise council tax to fund public transport services

  14-12-2022 12:14 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A previously announced plan to raise council tax bills in London to help fund Transport for London (TfL) as it recovers from the pandemic has received government approval.As part of the negotiations with the government over TfL funding, last December, the Mayor proposed plans to increase council tax in London by £20 a year over the next three years.
  TfL is required to both cut costs at a time of high inflation and also raise revenues at a time of reduced passenger numbers, and has been tas
  
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• BT’s Openreach reveals plan to cut broadband rates for providers

  14-12-2022 11:31
  Move sparks backlash from alternative fibre networks
  
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• The 800-year old church of St Martin-in-the-Fields

  14-12-2022 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The grand church on the corner of Trafalgar Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields is 800 years old this year. Sort of.
  When you’re dealing with something that old, the dates get a bit hazy, but the earliest known reference to a church in this spot is, unsurprisingly, an argument between priests. In the year 1222, the Abbot of Westminster and the Bishop of London were in dispute as to who had control over it.
  Being “in the fields” between the City of London and the City of Westminster
  
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