Mobile Magazine - March 2022

MARCH 2022 | mobilemagazine.com

WOMEN LEADING THE TELCO SECTOR

Nokia’s Jane Rygaard on the role of diversity in Technology Connectivity from land to sea with Aqua Comms & Ontix

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The Mobile Team EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

HARRY MENEAR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

SAM STEERS

CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER

SCOTT BIRCH

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ PRODUCTION MANAGERS

PHILLINE VICENTE JANE ARNETA ELLA CHADNEY

CREATIVE TEAM

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

OSCAR HATHAWAY SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL HECTOR PENROSE SAM HUBBARD MIMI GUNN JUSTIN SMITH REBEKAH BIRLESON JORDAN WOOD

EVELYN HUANG JACK NICHOLLS MARTA EUGENIO ERNEST DE NEVE THOMAS EASTERFORD DREW HARDMAN

VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER

MARKETING DIRECTOR

KIERAN WAITE SAM KEMP

MOTION DESIGNER

TYLER LIVINGSTONE

MARKETING MANAGER

DAISY SLATER

ROSS GARRIGAN

PROJECT DIRECTORS

STUART IRVING CRAIG KILLINGBACK JORDAN HUBBARD

MEDIA SALES DIRECTORS

JASON WESTGATE RICHARD TURNER JAMES WHITE MARK CAWSTON MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

STACY NORMAN CEO

GLEN WHITE

FOREWORD

“E-waste is one of the fastest growing sources of carbon emissions”

MOBILE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY

Can 2022 be the year we break the upgrade cycle?

I can already feel myself jonesing for a newer, shinier, functionally identical glass brick to replace my buggy, worn-out phone that’s less than two years old. What if I swap it for a “new” phone that’s only four years old?

With consumers under assault from a relentlessly pushed upgrade cycle (maybe I’ll get the new iPhone SE that’s dropping next month) and grappling with devices that break down in two-three years largely by design, something has to give.

E-waste is one of the fastest growing sources of carbon emissions from the tech sector, and the disposable smartphone culture has got to go. Maybe major manufacturers can be regulated out of a world where phones are designed to be disposable. Maybe Finnish startups like Swappie (which just raised $108 million to buy, refurbish and sell iPhones) are the answer.

However we achieve it, the smartphone value cycle needs to be extended drastically.

HARRY MENEAR h.menear@bizclikmedia.com

© 2021 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

mobile-magazine.com

5

CONTENTS

Our Regular Upfront Section: 12 Big Picture 14 The Brief 16 Timeline: Five steps to take control of your smartphone addiction 18 Trailblazer: Belinda Finch 22 Five Minutes With: Andrew Walker, Senior Managing Director and Global Communications & Media Industry Lead at Accenture

52 TMT

Technology, diversity, and bridging the digital divide

28

Sunrise UPC

More wow together!

60

T-Mobile

‘Changing procurement for good’ as the 5G leader

144 98

Qualtrics

The shift from legacy to modern CX management

5G

6G: next generation, but better?

Or something more?

154

Sustainability

Creating a circular smartphone economy

106

Vodafone Group Pioneering the future of video streaming

164

Liberty Global

Prioritising innovation and inclusion

132 IoT

The Metaverse works, but can we work in the Metaverse

WOMEN LEADING THE TELCO SECTOR

184

Flex designs and builds Intelligent Products for a Connected World™ Bring your products to life with Flex Sketch-to-Scale solutions and unrivalled cross-industry expertise across multiple industries including – Automotive, Medical, Connected Living, Health & Fitness, IOT and Telecom, Enterprise & Cloud Infrastructure.

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6201 America Center Drive San Jose, CA 95002 USA

196

O2 Telefonica

First steps to an autonomous network

214

VodafoneZiggo

The digital expedition

246

Subsea Networks

Developing cable systems around the globe

232

262

Aqua Comms & Ontix Pass connectivity baton from land to sea

3 Scandinavia

Staying agile in the Nordic mobile market

278 Telenet

Transforming BASE to meet the needs of the customer

KEY PERSPECTIVES ON HOME WI-FI AND CONNECTIVITY FROM AIRTIES AD FEATURE

Airties has been at the forefront of innovation and leadership in Wi-Fi and home connectivity for more than 15 years, serving service providers, such as Altice USA, AT&T, Singtel, Sky, Telia, Telstra, Vodafone, and many others. Mobile Magazine spoke with Airties’ CEO, Philippe Alcaras, to share his perspectives.

How has the COVID pandemic impacted your views of the business opportunity?

The pandemic has shown us that connectivity, and home Wi-Fi in particular, is as essential as electricity. Nowadays, people have come to depend on their home Wi-Fi more than ever, due to the ‘enterprization’ of the home, telemedicine, education, entertainment, and the need to stay connected with friends and family.

We are at an inflection point where the importance of home Wi-Fi and connectivity has never been more important. It should flow like water, with speed and coverage in every corner of the home, flawless installation, and ease of management.

Consumers strongly prefer that their broadband operator take the lead in ensuring a quality home Wi-Fi experience.

In fact, we conducted a survey of more than 1,500 consumers across US and Europe and found that 80% of consumers said they would rather their broadband subscription include all of their home Wi-Fi gear – instead of purchasing anything through retail.

Can you share insights about the shift to remote work?

Indeed, expectations for the connected home have changed forever, with the ‘enterprisation’ of the home, remote learning, and other Wi-Fi dependent experiences that are here to stay. Our consumer survey found that 71% expect to continue working from home post-pandemic.

Notably, 39% of respondents said they were reimbursed by their employer for new Wi-Fi gear they purchased, and 32% had their broadband subscription subsidized by their employer. This represents a significant new business opportunity for broadband providers.

Investing in Smart Wi-Fi or so called “managed Wi-Fi” solutions is also a cost for operators. How do you quantify the value of managed Wi-Fi solutions, or the Quality of Experience (QoE) for operators?

With Airties, fixed 5G wireless providers, cable operators, and telcos can use Smart

Wi-Fi as a means to differentiate and generate additional ARPU, while driving down OpEx costs for customer care and even churn rates. For example, one of the largest operators in the world reported a 50% reduction in support calls for Wi-Fi complaints over a 4-month period for the Airties households and a dramatic increase in first call resolution for those that did make a call.

We recently also conducted a Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) study that shows a CLV uplift of an additional $2,000 revenue on average per customer by deploying Airties.

QoE also means giving consumers control and visibility over their home networks and the tools for self-install and self-care, driving down costs. It is also about providing the foundation for new ARPU-generating services, such as home security, remote care, motion sensing applications, and smart home automation. There is arguably no better return on investment (ROI) for operators than investing in managed Wi-Fi.

BIG PICTURE

12

March 2022

E - WA S T E : THE HIDDEN COST

OF

DIGITAL

TRANSFORMATION

WORLDWIDE The amount of electronic waste that ended up in landfills rather than being reused or recycled rose again in 2021. An estimated 57.4 mn tonnes were discarded last year, according to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment WEEE Forum. Less than 18% of that e-waste ever entered a recycling plant.

mobile-magazine.com

13

THE BRIEF “ WHEN YOU MAKE ANY TECHNOLOGY AND PUT IT OUT INTO THE WORLD, IT'S SO IMPORTANT TO ASK WHO IT FITS, WHO BENEFITS FROM THE WAY IT'S MADE” JANE RYGAARD PEDERSON Head of Dedicated Wireless Networks & Edge Clouds, Nokia READ MORE

“ IF THE METAVERSE ENDS UP BEING JUST A WAY TO HAVE ANOTHER MEETING, WE HAVE TRULY WASTED THE OPPORTUNITY” MATT ROSE

Experience Designer, Futurist Cambridge Consultants READ MORE

“ SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS AND THE TELECOMS INDUSTRY HAVE A CRUCIAL ROLE TO PLAY IN TACKLING E-WASTE” TRACEY HERALD

Head of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, Virgin Media O2 READ MORE

14

March 2022

Welcome to the MOO-TAVERSE It’s official, we’re going to live, work, and get milked in the metaverse.

That works?

Well, in the case of humans, the milking is going to be more metaphorical rampant advertising, data abuse, the usual stuff.

Well, his milk yields have gone up enough that he’s ordering more headsets.

Some experts have suggested that the cows don’t actually know what they’re looking at and are just responding to the light.

And for non humans the milking will be… literal?

Well, if the “cow matrix” works, it works I suppose.

Yep. At least, for a dozen cows on a Turkish dairy farm. In an effort to make the lives of his herd more “bearable,” Izzet Koçak has been strapping VR goggles to his herd and showing them images of green pastures while they’re stuck inside during the winter.

I suppose so. I wish it wasn’t quite such a student-art-film-level heavy metaphor for life under late stage capitalism though.

Come again?

How udder-ly chilling.

Moo said it, man.

EDITOR'S CHOICE



THE NEED FOR MOBILE ROAMING SECURITY

Peter Nas, Senior Solution and Design Engineer for Telco Security at Fortinet, explains why security when mobile roaming is important and how to ensure it CONNECTING OUR CITIES FOR THE FUTURE

The notion of hyperconnectivity may seem fairly abstract but it provides benefits that are essential to fast tracking the development of smart cities EXECUTIVE PROFILE: BLACKBERRY'S SAVIOUR, JOHN CHEN

John Chen joined Blackberry in November 2013. He has been credited for saving the company and turning it around



BY THE NUMBERS The number of connected wearables worldwide has more than doubled in recent years, and sales are only expected to climb this year

ELCO CARBON T EMISSIONS A new study suggests that 5G could significantly reduce telecom carbon emissions, effectively removing the equivalent of 72 million passenger vehicles from the atmosphere in the United States.



LACKBERRY B After decades as one of the world’s most ubiquitous smartphone brands, BlackBerry has finally killed off the last devices still using its operating system.

# connected wearables (2019)

# connected wearables (2016)

# connected wearables (2022)

ODAFONE GROUP V With rumours circulating about a potential merger between the Vodafone Group’s UK and Italian divisions, share prices are looking seriously optimistic.



722mn

325mn 1.08bn+

LYING CARS F In South Korea, national tech and telecom conglomerate SK Telecom is reportedly pouring billions of dollars into speeding up the development of urban air mobility (UAM) services.

A commercial launch of unmanned aerial taxis is expected to hit Seoul by 2025.

U P MAR 2022

D O W N

mobile-magazine.com

15

TIMELINE FIVE STEPS...

TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR SMARTPHONE ADDICTION Let’s face it, smartphone addiction has become the (second) most prevalent affliction of the decade.

A study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry last year found that nearly 40% of people between the ages of 18 and 30 qualified as being “addicted” to their smartphones.

Here are our top five tips for breaking a smartphone habit.

1

NO MORE NOTIFICATIONS

2

3

2

NIGHTLY PHONE JAIL

CHECK YOUR EMAILS TWICE A DAY

CURATE, CULL, RINSE, REPEAT

DO AS THE PARISIANS DO

5

mobile-magazine.com

17

TRAILBLAZER

Uniting TECHNOLOGY and the BUSINESS NAME: Belinda Finch JOB TITLE: Chief Information Officer COMPANY: Three

I

ncreasingly, the stratification of companies into business - including everything from marketing and customer experience to organisation - and the IT department is being recognised as the method of a bygone era.

In 2022, the technology and telecom sector is expected to see a continuing evolution of the relationship between these elements of modern businesses.

One of the thought leaders driving this change - not to mention figuring out exactly what it looks like, as well as what it means for the CIO

role itself - is Belinda Finch, a telecom industry veteran and Chief Information Officer at Three.

“I think we’re on the cusp of something here, from a technology point of view,” she said in a recent interview. “The future of the CIO role is becoming more and more embedded in the business. We should not have this culture of technology versus the business. IT is the business; the business is IT.” Finch arrived at Three in September of 2020, with the demanding goal of enacting the “final stages of the company’s digital transformation”, mobile-magazine.com

19

TRAILBLAZER

London, United Kingdom

20+

Years experience

20

March 2022

as well as bringing together all the existing IT functions at Three UK under one management team made up of 130 employees. Seeing that the transformation programme she inherited was hobbled by a continuing schism between IT and the business, Finch elected to forge a new path for Three’s digital transformation programme.

She has spent the past year and a half bringing the company’s technology functions firmly in line with the telco’s business objectives.

“We restructured our transformation programme, and moved completely away from a technology-based transformation and moved towards a digital, business transformation programme,” Finch explains. This unity involves more than simply pushing IT departments towards a more business-focused model. “You can’t run a successful business without technology, and everyone needs to become much more tech-savvy.”

The future Finch envisions is “a team of multi-skilled individuals who not only understand the business, but also the technology.”

When executing this sweeping change of attitude and approach, Finch maintains that “As a leader in technology in this day and age it is massively important to be collaborative and work closely with all areas of the business, to empower your teams to do the right

“

thing to get things done and above all trust. I honestly believe if you trust and respect and communicate openly and authentically to your team you have a fabulous winning combination that will succeed no matter what.”

The confidence to enact sweeping IT reform that touches every aspect of a major telecom operator stems from Finch’s 20 year-plus career throughout the technology sector, with an emphasis on telecommunications.

Finch has brought the benefits of multiple executive roles at industryleading firms to her position at Three, including working as a consultant for KPMG, a senior manager at Accenture, several project leadership and digital transformation roles at Vodafone, and most recently a yearand-a-half stint as CIO of UK energy firm Centrica.

She is also a vocal advocate for women in the technology and telecom sector.

Women are vital in the technology sector and I encourage everyone to have the confidence that your leader will trust that you can absolutely do the job,” she says.

“This is especially important for maternity returners. Whether it's been 6 months or 10 years, trust that your leader has your back and trusts you in return. It's amazing to see these women fly in their careers when this happens and I have had many many examples.of this in my team who I am so very proud of.”

THE FUTURE OF THE CIO ROLE IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE EMBEDDED IN THE BUSINESS

”

mobile-magazine.com

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FIVE MINUTES WITH...

ANDREW WALKER ANDREW WALKER, SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS & MEDIA INDUSTRY LEAD AT ACCENTURE, DISCUSSES THE IMPACT OF METAVERSE TECHNOLOGIES ON THE FUTURE OF THE WORKPLACE IN 2022.

Q

HOW IS THE ADOPTION OF METAVERSE TECHNOLOGIES SET TO TRANSFORM THE WORKPLACE?

» The last few weeks and months

have brought a lot of attention to the idea of the metaverse and the direction we’re heading in. We are expecting to see a significant push towards the development of the metaverse as a place for people to go, create, and have experiences with each other in real time.

22

March 2022

This societal shift will extend to the workplace. The move to remote and hybrid working has, of course, already been a huge transition, and we are spending more time communicating with work colleagues from behind a screen.

But the metaverse could present more immersive, collaborative, remote experiences – reducing the need to return to physical offices for human connection.

mobile-magazine.com

23

FIVE MINUTES WITH...

Q

WHAT COULD THE APPLICATION OF METAVERSE ENVIRONMENTS OFFER VIRTUAL WORKSPACES THAT THESE SOLUTIONS CURRENTLY LACK?

» The metaverse may help us get

closer to the in-person experience we‘re used to — giving creativity, collaboration, and teamwork a boost.

There is a lot of frustration and fatigue out there with today’s video conferencing technology, and new immersive experiences and metaverse environments have real potential to improve our working lives.

Additional functionality will continue to develop in the years to come, creating richer and richer virtual workspaces. The metaverse environments will really take off in the workplace when the potential of 5G is unlocked.

WALKER HAS MORE THAN 25 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN THE COMMUNICATIONS, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY SECTOR. HE HAS WORKED AT ACCENTURE FOR SEVEN YEARS, AND SERVED IN HIS CURRENT ROLE SINCE OCTOBER 2021. HE AND HIS TEAM ARE WORKING CLOSELY WITH GLOBAL CLIENTS TO ADAPT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN THE TMT SPACE. 24

March 2022

Q

SO HOW EXACTLY DOES 5G FIT INTO THIS PICTURE?

» Intelligent, cutting-edge

technologies have really come to the fore during the pandemic, with digital transformation accelerating at an exceptional pace in the last two years out of necessity. So many people who may not have previously been the most tech-savvy have had to adapt to technologies like cloud and VPNs. The introduction of the metaverse will drive demand for greater connectivity and 5G too – this will be huge for telcos. For example, telecom and internet providers should be thinking about how the metaverse will require more bandwidth and connection points.

Gig speed might be enough for some of it, but not all. This is where connectivity at the edge computing will matter to manage things such as latency, jitter, packet loss and so on.

“ There is a lot of frustration and fatigue out there with today’s video conferencing technology, and new immersive experiences and metaverse environments have real potential to improve our working lives”

Q

WILL 2022 BE THE “YEAR OF THE METAVERSE”?

» We still don’t know what the

WHAT KIND OF LONGTERM EFFECTS DO YOU SEE THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAVING ON ATTITUDES TOWARDS REMOTE WORK?

Q

» Our working lives have already

changed significantly, and so much is still uncertain. This makes it incredibly difficult to say what the bigger picture will look like in the years to come.

What we can say with some level of confidence is that a hybrid working model will continue to be popular for so many workers.

Accenture research shows that 53% of people who never worked from home previously now plan to work from home more often in the future, even when the return to office following the Omicron wave occurs.

exact form of the metaverse will be. However, we can be sure that it will be the setting for a cultural and business model evolution that will alter relationships between consumers, employees, employers, and one another.

The people and businesses who engage in the discussion around the metaverse now, and play an active role in exploring its possibilities, will be most likely to reap the rewards of this new environment.

That’s why we so passionately believe now is the time for CSPs to start experimenting with metaverse building blocks, exploring decentralised platforms, technologies and currencies, and fostering community. I’m very excited to see the progress that will be made throughout the year.

mobile-magazine.com

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DISCOVER WHO MADE THE CUT. Top 100 Companies in Technology Read Now

A BizClik Media Group Brand

Creating Digital Communities

SUNRISE | UPC

MORE WOW TOGETHER! WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE 28

March 2022

PRODUCED BY: BEN MALTBY AND LEWIS VAUGHAN

mobile-magazine.com

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SUNRISE | UPC

Perfect partners Sunrise UPC converge 5G technology and the best gigabit broadband network to become the national champion in Switzerland

T

he drive to be Switzerland’s top telecommunications company and ‘national champion’ is within touching distance for Sunrise UPC — who count tennis legend Roger Federer as one of their brand ambassadors — and are the new partner of the Swiss-Ski team as they prepare for the Olympics.

Seeded two is no longer an option for Sunrise UPC. The company is one step closer to becoming the leader for communications and entertainment in the country following the epic merger in 2020 when 5G technology from Sunrise converged with the best gigabit broadband network in the form of UPC. “Together more Wow” is what the customers of Sunrise UPC are now promised

by Fabio Pellegrino, Senior Director, Platform Delivery, who describes himself as “not your traditional IT guy” as he comes from a background in customer care, which gives him first-hand knowledge of providing a first-class customer experience.

“I am able to bring emotional intelligence to my role in IT and like to use technology as an enabler for our customers to have the best experience. IT is all about the customer experience nowadays,” said Pellegrino from his office in Zurich.

Pellegrino is excited by the potential power of the two companies coming together, which he says will offer “intelligent connectivity of the future”. In one of the largest mergers of two companies in recent

30

March 2022

Fabio Pellegrino Senior Director Platform Delivery, Sunrise UPC

SUNRISE | UPC

mobile-magazine.com

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SUNRISE | UPC

“ Sunrise UPC offers 360° communication solutions for the digital, mobile, and secure workplace.

5G and IoT solutions increase the agility, innovative strength, and productivity of companies” FABIO PELLEGRINO

SENIOR DIRECTOR PLATFORM DELIVERY, SUNRISE UPC

32

March 2022

Swiss history, Sunrise and UPC are now perfectly placed to meet the changing habits of their customers, who have adopted hybrid working due to the pandemic, and offer even more business power to the selfemployed, SMEs and large-scale companies.

“The combination of Sunrise and UPC will give our customers a greater ‘Wow’ experience,” said Pellegrino. “We bring together the passion and technology of two companies and are now competing for the number one slot in Switzerland. We will grow together and offer a good price tag and technology to be the national champion.

“Together, more speed and entertainment. Sunrise and UPC complement one another perfectly as customers benefit from the fastest 5G

SUNRISE | UPC

FABIO PELLEGRINO TITLE: S ENIOR DIRECTOR PLATFORM DELIVERY LOCATION: ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

network from Sunrise and the reliable UPC Giganet,” he said.

Liberty Global acquired Sunrise in November 2020 for a reported US$7.4bn in order to create a stronger challenge to incumbent Swisscom.

The company focuses on innovation, untethered connectivity, personalised entertainment, and digitisation. It offers a wide range of broadband, TV, mobile, and telephony services to its two million customers. This includes an extensive range of TV channels, seven days of replay, and thousands of films and series available on-demand plus the MySports (www. mysports.ch) channel and online platform esports.ch which offer the best sports entertainment.

EXECUTIVE BIO

Fabio Pellegrino started his career, next to his studies, supporting the end customers in customer care. During the years, he has led customer care support and moved to IT, developing system integration in the BSS stack and ending up leading the development from an end-to-end perspective.

As a doer, he achieved an honest leadership style, using his emotional intelligence in relationships with national and international leaders that enabled him to speak at Dreamforce 2019. During the merger between Sunrise and UPC he led a full IT organisation achieving the promised benefits. Pellegrino is married and has a son.

SUNRISE | UPC

Sunrise UPC is continuing to expand the next-generation network structure, including 5G and future technologies, to be able to supply up to 90% of Swiss households with gigabit internet during 2021. The speed will gradually be increased to 10 Gbit/s.

With entertainment offers, the combined business is providing a winning combination.

Focus on platform delivery “My role as CIO of platform delivery is to focus on the development and run of the main platforms like CRM, billing, service delivery, network inventory, middleware,

1931

Year Founded

Telecom Industry

3,000

Number of Employees

762.5m Revenue CHF

2020

Sunrise merge with UPC

10 year

Partnership deal with national Swiss-Ski team

36

March 2022

provisioning in the field and in general, operations of the major applications in B2B and B2C,” commented Pellegrino.

“Even if today, the customer experience is supported through the webstack, it needs a reliable backend that can offer capability in real-time to support customers initiated processes. For this, there are reliable and fast systems needed that can provide the relevant information in the surrounding systems.”

Pellegrino outlined his role in platform delivery — which is the biggest department in CIO of Sunrise UPC — and how he focuses on the stacks of B2B and B2C. “During the

merger, my role was to safeguard the UPC IT department overall as we had to achieve the set end-of-year targets. A merger brings immediately the wish to align, and to discuss the future, but the duty of achieving the revenue remains.

“The market is highly competitive and we have seen that the concurrence was launching attractive promotions — assuming we would be fully occupied with the setup of the merger. With me ‘left behind’ we were able to give a clear response and achieved the target, next to the big effort of my colleagues to set up the merger.

“ We bring together the passion and technology of two companies and are now competing for the number one slot in Switzerland.

We will grow together and offer a good price tag and technology to be the national champion” FABIO PELLEGRINO

SENIOR DIRECTOR PLATFORM DELIVERY, SUNRISE UPC

mobile-magazine.com

37

TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS. We are the motor of digital transformation. twim GmbH provides consultancy services in the area of digitization. Innovative and customized solutions to help you master the digital revolution:

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Enterprises have to embrace new technologies and look for better solutions to run their business more efficiently and profitably.

A good example of this are software-as-a-service offerings. These cloud-based services have changed the game with fully managed, supported, scalable solutions at a fraction of the cost.

It‘s critical to understand the strategic landscape and leverage these offerings as much as possible to reduce costs and avoid redundant overhead in replicating these widely available resources internally.

Let’s explore the benefits of these resources using web development as an example.

It’s no longer a secret to CIOs and their deputies that transforming the traditional web stack into Jamstack enables organizations to deliver web projects 10 times faster.

Jamstack is a modern web development architecture. „JAM“ stands for Javascript, APIs and markup.

It utilizes software-as-a-service as part of the architecture. twim is an official partner of Netlify, a complete cloud platform for Jamstack, which provides a built-in content delivery network for optimal performance, and an official partner of Storyblok, a headless CMS that offers highly interoperable web APIs. The Jamstack architecture is already being

used in many projects.

Marketing and corporate sites, landing pages and campaigns, high traffic sites and user portals are just a few examples of projects that have been implemented.

Companies that have successfully developed large-scale Jamstack projects and replaced their legacy technologies include SunriseUPC, Danone, Nike, Mailchimp and many more.

In addition to reduced costs and record time to market, immediate benefits include significantly improved page load times and an overall improved user experience for users, editors and developers.

To remind you of the headline, it‘s proven that better page load time and user experience will boost your online sales.

Enterprises move slowly, and those who can adapt quickly have a competitive advantage. twim GmbH supports you in implementing Jamstack and cloud-based services into your business.

Learn More

SUNRISE | UPC

“At the beginning of 2021, we took the time to think about the future and what functions we would need in this special situation and it was clear that we need, next to the classic departments, a strong architecture and partner management.

To be able to give the focus on customer journeys, the capability of digital was set up as an own department — strongly collaborating with platform delivery.

“You probably think that this could be a problem, mainly if you think about the delivery cycle, as the digital departments are fully agile and platforms are going with bigger releases, and you are right. This difference in delivering, that we had to overcome, was changing the cycles and in giving slots, so that we can accommodate all the wishes coming up,” said Pellegrino.

He highlighted the challenges of the merger during the pandemic and how they used technology for colleagues to work from home. “The homework policy was introduced at the same time as the new organisation was being set up and we ended up working with leads only through technical channels and web conferences.

“Without having the opportunity to read the body language, or to even get to know each other, the main key was the clear communication and listening was crucial during this very challenging period for both our employees and customers,” he said.

“Next to the difficulties of having a lot of new systems from one day to another, it was also key to understand the new culture along with the emotional intelligence.”

“ Together, more speed and entertainment.

Sunrise and UPC complement one another perfectly as customers benefit from the fastest and most reliable 5G network from Sunrise and Switzerland’s leading gigabit fibre optic cable network” FABIO PELLEGRINO

SENIOR DIRECTOR PLATFORM DELIVERY, SUNRISE UPC

Customer experience In the past, the main interaction between customers and Sunrise UPC was through phone or shops but the customer experience and expectation has changed. mobile-magazine.com

41

POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS

Pellegrino outlined the importance of their partnership with the following:

“ To achieve those targets there is the need to use existing know-how through our partners. Our philosophy is to keep the knowledge in the company and leverage the effects of our partners who are the experts in what they do. This leaves us to focus on what we do best”

ACCENTURE

TWIM

“Accenture helped in various areas, focusing on the end-to-end approach on the deliveries. From architecture until the release management, all the functions have been supported by them, so also design, delivery, testing and release. As we decided to introduce Salesforce in the B2B landscape, they helped us to implement the full suite in only 15 months, which I mentioned also at dreamforce. Currently, they are driving the unification of the two salesforce instances.”

“With our innovative partner twim, we replaced our B2B website, from an on-promise instance to a cloud-based solution where we used the latest and greatest innovative CMS systems. What started as a POC changed into the solution based on the advanced functionality and stability.”

CLOUDSENSE

“Prodapt is a true partner in all the delivery skills and testing, providing best-in-class knowledge, including shift left approaches and development skills. Through this, Prodapt established a great partnership with our motherhouse LGI and is providing a lot of innovative services, also in the mobile sector.”

“CloudSense is a true partner in understanding the needs of their customers.

By providing the CPQ in Salesforce, we went on a journey with them as they allowed us to contribute to their product roadmap and participate in their innovation.”

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PRODAPT SOLUTIONS LTD

SUNRISE | UPC

NETCRACKER

INFOSYS

“In the cable industry, the topology and inventory of your network and end customer devices are key. That’s why we collaborate with Netcracker as it gives us the insights of our network with ease to use, driving the upgrades of the platform so that we can use the latest and greatest in this area.”

“Over the years we have been working with Infosys that is helping us in various areas like development of the web capabilities, like e-commerce and omnichannel approaches.

Through their size they can give answers to any demand from our side, like architecture, development, operations and therefore became a strategic partner of us and LGI.”

Pellegrino concluded:

“ We want to rely on the experience and the capability of the partners by having the internals in the driving seat. This allows us to focus on the target by introducing the best- in-class application. I’m explicitly talking about partners and not vendors because this is only possible once you involve them in what you want to achieve.

All of our partners are part of the journey and solution. By bringing the best they have, we at Sunrise UPC, we can achieve the expectation of the market. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel but

use the wheel to build an astonishing sports car for the race” inally, with Federer on their bench as F the ultimate doubles partner, it won’t be long before it’s game, set and match to Sunrise UPC as they take their place as the ‘national champion’ in the Swiss telco market.

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SUNRISE | UPC

“ I am able to bring emotional intelligence to my role in IT and like to use technology as an enabler for our customers to have the best experience” FABIO PELLEGRINO

SENIOR DIRECTOR PLATFORM DELIVERY, SUNRISE UPC

“Looking at the millennials, but also at the general expectation, the customer wants to be free and not attached to any opening hours or printout of documents,” commented Pellegrino.

“Today, the customer wants to have everything at his/her fingertips and be able to change subscriptions at any time.

Through the real-time capabilities, we enable a customer to watch the main football match when they want by clicking in our app, and to find the charge on the next bill. Also, the consumption of content needs to be tailored to the expectation of the customers: Having a ‘second roomsolution’ where you can continue to watch your movie in the exact same second as in the living room, is basic today.

“Our customers want to be device independent so that they can continue even on their mobile phones. This is where our 5G network comes into play. Having a strong infrastructure and tremendous speed will allow us to consume seamless

WOW! SKI SPONSORSHIP Sunrise UPC will be joining the Swiss snowsports family as the new, main Swiss-Ski partner as of the 2022/23 season for the next 10 years.

The collaboration with Sunrise UPC in the next Olympic cycle and beyond marks a further milestone in Swiss-Ski history. The new, main partner offers the umbrella association of Swiss snowsports a comprehensive package and excellent planning certainty due to the long-term nature of the engagement.

Urs Lehmann, President of SwissSki said: “Sunrise UPC will provide us with fresh impetus in various areas.

We're looking forward to these new opportunities.”

André Krause, CEO of Sunrise UPC, added: “This partnership is enabling us to continue building on our success.

Snowsports are part of the Swiss tradition and the combination with world-class performance sports fits perfectly with our positioning.

“Thanks to the partnership with SwissSki, we can anchor our company even closer and more emotionally with our customers. Sport is an ideal medium for us to do this as it shows our values passionate, bold and one.

“We've been able to build on this image even more by expanding from our partnership with Roger Federer to now also include Swiss snowsports.”

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We help our clients navigate their digital transformation journey in an age of constant disruption Today’s top organizations are constantly seeking an edge to stay competitive, win new markets and create shareholder value. And with an influx of new digital innovations permeating our world at a rapid pace, we realize the task for today’s business leaders is as great of a challenge as ever.

We help top leadership to: › Plan and navigate their digital journey forward › Uncover opportunities and hidden ROI for the business case › Create innovations and new capabilities that can scale › Drive sustainable success across the enterprise To learn more, visit InfosysConsultingInsights.com

Infosys Consulting is a global management consulting firm helping some of the world’s most recognizable brands transform and innovate. Our consultants are industry experts that lead complex change agendas driven by disruptive technology. With offices in 20 countries and backed by the power of the global Infosys brand, our teams help the C-suite navigate today’s digital landscape to win market share and create shareholder value for lasting competitive advantage. To see our ideas in action, or to join a new type of consulting firm, visit us at www.InfosysConsultingInsights.com.

Infosys Consulting. All rights reserved 2020.

SUNRISE | UPC

Sunrise UPC: More Wow together!

“In the end IT is all about customer experience nowadays” FABIO PELLEGRINO

SENIOR DIRECTOR PLATFORM DELIVERY, SUNRISE UPC

amounts of content both during the pandemic and into the future where we expect new models of working, focusing on output and not time presence.

“This behaviour is also valid for business customers. From the SOHO to the large enterprises where they want to use the services in real time, make adaptations and also add on services in real time, like security options. The option of doing this through the cloud is not far away.

“Everything that I mentioned sounds great, but it also has another side of the medal.

By providing those services, a lot of data is transferred from one system to the other.

This requires an adequate data-privacy and security concept, especially when we are talking about personalised data. The Telco Act in Switzerland is very specific here and relevant for our business customers where security of data is the main promise — we offer all those solutions,” he said. mobile-magazine.com

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SUNRISE | UPC

“ Through the real time capabilities, we enable a customer to watch the main football match when they want by clicking in our app and to find the charge on the next bill” FABIO PELLEGRINO

SENIOR DIRECTOR PLATFORM DELIVERY, SUNRISE UPC

A game-changing commerce and subscriber management platform built for the Convenience Revolution Unlock higher revenues through commercial innovation, increased efficiency and exceptional customer experiences on Salesforce

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March 2022

LIFE OUTSIDE THE OFFICE What is your ‘Wow moment’?

The moment I heard that Sunrise UPC is going to be sponsoring the Swiss Ski Team - this is fabulous.

“Sunrise and UPC complement one another perfectly as customers benefit from the fastest 5G network from Sunrise and the reliable UPC Giganet.”

With Sunrise UPC’s mobile and hybrid cable network, customers can do all of these things without experiencing a loss of performance.

The network has the technological advantage that it can increase the internet capacities to several Gigabits per second if needed — without any construction work being necessary — paving the way for future digital trends.

“Sunrise UPC offers 360-degree communication solutions for the digital, mobile, and secure workplace. 5G and the internet of things (IoT) solutions increase the agility, innovative strength, and productivity of companies,” he said.

He said this was a very exciting period for the company and predicted they will use technology to go beyond their traditional

Drink of choice Wine Favourite cuisine?

Spaghetti vongole Favourite holiday destination?

Florida and Sardinia Most precious possession?

My health Favourite movie?

Heat Life’s most valuable lesson?

Don’t crack under pressure – in the end you will win!

Favourite music?

Metallica

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SUNRISE | UPC

“ Together more Wow” FABIO PELLEGRINO

SENIOR DIRECTOR PLATFORM DELIVERY, SUNRISE UPC

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SUNRISE | UPC

services. “The main key here is to adapt the platforms to be able to perform the request.

The means of any IT solution in this industry that is not selling any tangible products, that cannot put nice ribbons around its goods, cannot provide a touch and feel experience, will only make the difference when it’s reliable, fast and data consistent.

“Whatever we do, the targets consist of systems that are fast and reliable processing, ease of use, sustainable and flexible — even if we decide to sell tyres in the future, the systems should cope with that.”

Sunrise:

UPC:

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TELECOMS

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March 2022

TECHNOLOGY, DIVERSIT Y, AND BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE Nokia’s Jane Rygaard discusses the role of diversity in making technology that serves the many, rather than the few.

WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

W

ith the advent of sweeping digital infrastructure upgrades, programs granting access to technology and the necessary education to leverage that access into jobs and the ability to use more digital services, it could be forgivable to consider the issue of the digital divide moot at least in developed economies.

The issue of people - especially those belonging to more marginalised groups, including people of colour, economic migrants, refugees, the elderly, financially disadvantaged, and women, not to mention more isolated rural communities made increasingly reliant on internet access over the past two years - lacking access to the digital age, however, is far from closed.

In California, as public schools entered their second year of partial or fully remote learning, a study conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau found that, while access to stable internet had improved across the board since the first wave of lockdowns in 2020, African American and Hispanic households were still 1.3 to 1.4 times as likely as white households to experience limited accessibility.

In the UK, during the first half of 2020, 93% of rural residents increased their use of online services they already used before the pandemic, while over half started using some online services for the first time, for clothing and food shopping. This swelling appetite for online services - while no bad mobile-magazine.com

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Enabling educators.

Empowering students.

Explore how we accelerate student discovery, learning and innovation with our Digital Education 3D Experience.

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TELECOMS

3.7bn

people, the majority of them women, and most in developing countries, are still offline

71%

of the world’s population aged 15-24 is online

57%

of the world’s population aged 25+ is online

62%

of men are online

“ Of course the car is going to be more difficult to use, and of course safety equipment won't be as effective if it was designed for someone who's a totally different size and shape” JANE RYGAARD PEDERSON

HEAD OF DEDICATED WIRELESS NETWORKS & EDGE CLOUDS, NOKIA

thing in of itself - “will have significant consequences for those rural residents facing digital exclusion due to lack of online skills and connectivity,” commented Brian Wilson, chairman of Rural England CIC, when I reached out to him for comment on his organisation’s latest report. “For

57%

of women are online

all the excitement about next generation gigabit broadband and 5G mobile, there are many rural homes and businesses in places which cannot yet obtain a last generation connection… The other increasingly urgent need is to give everyone the opportunity to acquire basic digital skills, to ensure that residents - rural or otherwise - do not face digital exclusion.”

The key to bridging the digital divide, then, lies at an intersection of providing education, exposure, and access to the digital world. However, the fact that some demographics are significantly more likely to be left on the “wrong” side of this widening gulf than others is also an expression of the lack of diversity in the industry that makes the technologies underpinning the digital world. mobile-magazine.com

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TELECOMS

Jane Rygaard Pedersen: Fostering Top Down Diversity Jane Rygaard has served as Nokia’s Head of Dedicated Wireless Networks and Edge Clouds since 2019, prior to which she spent almost two decades in various roles at the Finnish telecom giant, from working as a systems engineer to leading global sales teams.

“As an industry, we need to do more in terms of fostering diversity,” she says, reflecting on the progress of gender parity and cultural diversity within the telecom sector. “We're much further along than we were - especially if I look back on my own 20+ years in telecoms, there's definitely been a change for the better.”

Now, especially in light of the changes wrought by the COVID-19 crisis, she adds, leaders throughout the sector have an opportunity for further, much needed, progress. “We always need to do our part within our companies, especially as remote and hybrid work expands talent pools from a 20-50 miles commuter range to the entire world,” she says. “There's definitely been a mindset change over the past few years, away from the attitude that, if you don't have a diverse pipeline from the education system, there's nothing to be done. There has to be an active approach to searching for new, more diverse talent. And I'm definitely lucky to work in a company where top level management cares deeply about taking that more active approach.”

She stresses that “there's no magic wand

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that's going to fix this issue by changing one thing; it needs to happen at all levels,” and adds that, for her, “the important thing is figuring out how I as a leader ensure that there are role models within the company that can further inspire more diversity.

It's an obligation - to build networks, to strengthen the amount of diverse talent available and to nurture it.”

In addition to remote work expanding talent pools to theoretically encompass the entire globe, she also notes that “the biggest change over the past couple of years - aside from everyone working and meeting on a screen, of course - is that there's been a real demise of the old attitudes of what constitutes 'professional behaviour'. There's so much more acceptance of other people's work situation - kids in the background, dogs, taking meetings while you hide out in the laundry room because it's the only place in the house where someone isn't also busy existing. And the impulse to and expectation that people apologise for that stuff has just gone.”

“It's like I said about designing new technologies. If you teach people and design technology for people in one very rigid way, it's not going to work for everyone, and people will be left on the outside. If we can be more accepting, more diverse thanks to this greater insight we have into other people's lives, then of course that's going to help diversity.”

“ Even if a technology is available, who can and can't adopt it is also affected by how that technology addresses its users” JANE RYGAARD PEDERSON

HEAD OF DEDICATED WIRELESS NETWORKS & EDGE CLOUDS, NOKIA

A Diversity of Perspectives “Of course, one thing driving the digital divide is simply where and to whom technology and connectivity are available.

If you don't have access to a technology, it's obviously very difficult to learn how to use it,” says Jane Rygaard Pedersen, Nokia’s Head of Dedicated Wireless Networks & Edge Clouds, a longtime advocate for

running contrary the tech industry’s all-toocommon fixation on what she describes as “the rabbit hole of technology for technology’s sake.”

For Rygaard, lack of clear focus on the end good that a technology provides, is just one of the contributing factors creating a world where technology runs the risk of reinforcing existing inequalities - serving the people who look like the people who made it better than it serves everyone else.

“Even if a technology is available, who can and can't adopt it is also affected by how that technology addresses its users. Is the technology made for the people, or do some people need to adapt to the technology?,” mobile-magazine.com

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Diversity and Inclusion at Nokia

“ If technology only works for people who look and think like the people who made it… then things will never change” JANE RYGAARD PEDERSON

HEAD OF DEDICATED WIRELESS NETWORKS & EDGE CLOUDS, NOKIA

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she asks. “There's an example involving the statistics surrounding car crashes.

Globally, the demographic that's most likely to be involved in and injured by a car crash is an Asian woman.

Now, that's a statistic that gets tied up in a number of very prejudiced views, but when you look a little closer - at who's developing cars and the safety equipment

TELECOMS

within them - you see that virtually all cars and their safety equipment are made to the same standard, which is a 180 centimetre tall man.”

I looked into her claim and, while a US Department of Transportation survey found that crashes involving male drivers are more common and are often more severe than those involving female drivers, women are more likely than males to be killed or injured in crashes of equal severity - which supports Rygaard’s next point.

“If you think again why one demographic is more prone to getting hurt in a car crash versus another, it starts to make more sense.

Women of Asian descent, for example, tend to have physical characteristics that don't exactly line up very well with those of the 1.8 metre tall white man the car was designed for,” she explains. “Of course the car is going to be more difficult to use, and of course safety equipment won't be as effective if it was designed for someone who's a totally different size and shape.”

It’s the same argument for one reason why the digital divide negatively affects the elderly, people of colour, women, rural communities, and the financially disadvantaged (there are other reasons too).

There are very few old, black women living in rural communities making minimum wage designing the next phase of the 5G rollout.

That may be glib, but a lack of diversity at the design phase is a known source of inherent bias in everything from AI algorithms used in police profiling (which, in the US, disproportionately target black and hispanic citizens), to the safety features in a four-door sedan.

“When you make any technology and put it out into the world, it's so important to ask who it fits, who benefits from the way it's made, who doesn't, and how to fix it.

It's the same issue with the digital divide,” says Rygaard. “If technology only works for people who look and think like the people who made it - and the people who make the technology all look and think the same way - then things will never change. In order to truly bridge the digital divide, we need more diversity in technology. Whether that means gender or any other factor, if we don't have diversity then we end up making technology for the sake of technology, and not because technology should make our lives better.” mobile-magazine.com

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‘Changing Procurement for Good’as the 5G leader WRITTEN BY: ALEX TUCK PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE

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mobile-magazine.com

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T - MOBILE

Chief Procurement Officer Mike Simpson is making a positive impact in procurement at T-Mobile through leadership, partnerships and cutting-edge tech

T

-Mobile consider themselves the ‘Un-carrier’ –a non-traditional wireless network operator born not from traditional landlinebased companies, but out of the wireless ether that has recently launched the world's first nationwide standalone 5G network (and still the only one in the U.S).

The company has deployed the largest and fastest 5G network and the reach is growing on a daily basis.

This ‘Un-carrier’ ethos originated as a marketing campaign in 2013 to introduce a streamlined plan structure for new customers, dropping years-long contracts with subsidised phones, coverage fees for data, and early termination fees. As former CEO John Legere said in testimony before Congress in June 2018, “We set out to fix a stupid, broken, arrogant industry.”

Since then, the ‘Un-carrier’ has become synonymous with the entire organisation's attitude, shaking up standard practice in telecommunications by boldly reaching new heights like becoming the first telecom to commit to –and achieve –the goal of sourcing 100% of its total electricity usage with renewable energy by the end of 2021.

By listening to customers, taking actions that remove pain points, and breaking free from the old way of working in the cellular industry, T-Mobile is leading the industry. Years ago, it scrapped contracts and transformed its customer care teams –

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Mike Example of an imageSimpson caption mobile-magazine.com

63

getting inspiration for every new initiative by listening to what was coming out of the consumer base. The business listens to its own people and it’s suppliers too, which are as diverse as the workforce.

People, ownership and alignment At T-Mobile, the Procurement teams are crucial to the business running efficiently, profitably and in times of scarcity, getting those countless and crucial buying decisions right. Examples of this include the Procurement team’s massive network supply chain operations, the company’s focus on sourcing 100% of its total electricity usage with renewable energy, multi-billion-dollar agreements with cell site/tower companies, and a focus on working with diverse suppliers.

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Part of a relatively small team, Mike Simpson, Chief Procurement Officer, reports into the President of Technology, Neville Ray. It’s this entire Technology organisation that has helped lead 2019’s momentous launch of T-Mobile’s 5G network. Mike Simpson has the lion's share of the organisation’s expenses within his scope, as he explains: “Everything sourced by T-Mobile outside of handsets runs through my shop: Cell tower leases and real estate portfolios.

Anything involving really sensitive technology.

Our computers, office equipment, marketing agreements, consulting, and more. My team drives value and return on investment out of the right purchasing decisions and this often gets down to technology choices”.

Simpson’s leadership teams are structured into business units, with full responsibility for their function, their budget and their

T - MOBILE

MIKE SIMPSON TITLE: CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER INDUSTRY: TELECOMMUNICATIONS LOCATION: GREATER SEATTLE AREA

EXECUTIVE BIO

people: “We have three tenets that we feature in our Procurement & Supply team: people, ownership and alignment. We have some lofty goals every single year. One thing you always have to think through is: how do you invest in your people and provide consistent leadership?

We’re inclusive, diverse and people-first, so our people drive our business forward.”

According to Simpson, T-Mobile’s core values help to empower the procurement teams, allowing people to make decisions and encouraging ownership of their respective functions.

“We're all owners of this company.

We're all here to delight our customers.

Purposeful alignment across employee teams is vital to achieving great results – for our wireless customers as well as for our internal business units.

Mike Simpson’s Procurement & Supply team at T-Mobile handles all Enterprise, Technology and Network sourcing while also driving the company’s supplier diversity programs, managing its world-class spectrum assets, and leading award-winning energy sustainability programs. His team supports synergy attainment through enterprise-wide sourcing initiatives that have helped pave the way to T-Mobile’s national 5G leadership. His career includes positions in finance, business planning and operations with Nokia Siemens Network as well as Clearwire Corporation. A graduate of Washington State University, Simpson is a sports enthusiast who has even climbed Mt. Rainier – the most prominent peak in the continental United States.

A partner you can count on to deliver the service excellence you cannot live without.

www.aimsplus.com

www.tellworks.com

www.makttrans.com

T-Mobile partners with Tellworks for Network Supply Chain Christo Makrides, Owner and Managing Partner at Tellworks Logistics, discusses the company’s long-standing partnership with T-Mobile

Tellworks partners with T-Mobile In 2007, Tellworks began its partnership with T-Mobile. “We have had a relationship with T-Mobile since the inception of reverse logistics,” says Christo Makrides, Owner and Managing Partner, Tellworks Logistics.

“At Tellworks, we believe that our customers are part of our DNA, and as a result, we have developed an intimate relationship with our customers to provide them with full transparency,” continues Makrides.

When it comes to Tellworks’ partnership with T-Mobile Makrides highlights that one of the major attributes that it brings to the table for T-Mobile is its technology and data analytics. “We were very instrumental in bringing AIMSPlus+ together with other solutions as part of our partnership,” says Makrides. As an enabler of Tellworks operations, AIMSPlus+ produces insight which is used to optimize the supply chain.

“In addition, we developed our own transportation company to give us more intimacy into the supply chain, allowing us

to offer real estate, warehouse management technology and a transportation solution in one package,” he adds.

How does Tellworks plan to work with T-Mobile in the future?

When it comes to Tellworks’ partnership with T-Mobile, Makrides hopes that it is one that is long-lasting. “We hope to continue to provide T-Mobile with analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) in a way that provides cost savings and effective production at a high level,” comments Makrides.

He adds: “Overall, I’m very thankful and very happy to be a part of such a great relationship with T-Mobile. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime to be integrated with the development and build-out of 5G. My team, from the executives all the way down to the associates who live and breathe this every day, try to provide whatever it takes on behalf of the customer to make this a success.”

CONTACT US

The :o9 Digital Brain is the ultimate platform to transform planning and decision-making.

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The telecom industry is going through a massive transformation: 5G promises ubiquitous high-speed data, enabling many new use cases. Yet many are still to be imagined, so it’s hard to predict future demand for 5G services. If you combine this uncertain demand picture with the many current supply chain disruptions, it becomes clear why rolling out the infrastructure for these new 5G networks becomes a highlycomplex undertaking.

Network operators are not the only one with these challenges: All industries are facing high variability of both demand and supply, while having to manage increasingly complex operations, not least because of the increasing number of outside partners (e.g., suppliers, contract manufacturers, service and distribution partners, etc.) involved in global supply chains.

The paradox is that there is so much information available today to make better decisions—everything from market trends, detailed consumer data, real-time IoT

streams, and many more. Most companies recognize this, yet very few are able to leverage all this information for better planning and decision-making. One of the key roadblocks is the inability of traditional enterprise software to process these vast amounts of data, let alone derive knowledge and improved outcomes with the help of modern software algorithms. :o9’s mission is to leverage the power of data and artificial intelligence to help companies make better decisions. With the :o9 Digital Brain platform, companies are able to forecast demand more accurately, detect demand and supply risks and opportunities earlier, evaluate what-if scenarios in real-time, match demand and supply intelligently, and drive alignment across their entire value chain—across customers, internal stakeholders, suppliers, contract manufacturers, and other supply partners.

We believe the :o9 Digital Brain is the most valuable platform for enterprises to help drive supply chain agility, revenue growth, and optimal financial performance, and that better decisions for companies equal a better outcome for our planet.

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DigitalBridge & T-Mobile partner to develop next-gen 5G Marc Ganzi, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), describes DigitalBridge as: “a real estate investment trust, focused globally on the construction, ownership and management of digital infrastructure companies across five key verticals: data centres, macro cell towers, fibre networks and edge infrastructure. We work with our telecommunication partners to help enable their next-generation networks.”

DigitalBridge partners with T-Mobile Being one of DigitalBridge’s most important relationships in the Northern Hemisphere, the company has been “working with T-Mobile for over two decades facilitating the build-out of their next-generation 5G networks, which is a privilege and an honour for us,” he adds.

“T-Mobile has an absolute eye on the future and understands that to deploy 5G effectively, you not only need to focus on the physical layer of the network, but also understand the metaphysical part of the network as well — the software defined layer,” says Ganzi.

Aligning DigitalBridge’s ESG initiatives with T-Mobile “In alignment with T-Mobile’s ESG strategy and their focus on being the most environmentally conscious mobile carrier in the United States, DigitalBridge has made a pledge to have all of our portfolio companies carbon neutral by 2030,” says Ganzi.

DigitalBridge’s unique architecture of subsidiaries Our unique architecture of over 20 portfolio companies allows us to work with T-Mobile, where we can talk to them in a holistic manner when it comes to the future of their network,” he adds.

Today’s challenges in the telecommunications space really come down to the software-defined layer of the network that will play out at the edge.

GET IN TOUCH

T - MOBILE

Consistent communication of objectives, expectations, corporate-wide initiatives, cost savings initiatives and risk management – these are a few areas where my leadership team and I place attention.”

You won’t find Simpson and his team resting on their laurels either, even if they complete their goals or hit targets in midyear. “We always strive for more,” said Simpson.

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Leadership in ways that are unexpected Simpson was inspired by informal lunch meetings that CEO Mike Sievert held with colleagues, so ‘Coffee With Mike’ became his chance to engage regularly with people he wouldn’t usually see or work closely with.

Simpson saw this as a valuable mentoring opportunity and also a way to gain valuable feedback from all levels of the organisation.

It also birthed some great initiatives such

“ Pretty much everything outside of retail and handsets runs through my shop” MIKE SIMPSON

CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, T-MOBILE

as the case of an industry-wide job training and career placement program – NextTech Diversity – that emerged from the shadows of the pandemic in mid-2020.

“I was challenged about how we could do more at T-Mobile, from the diversity of our supply base while buying and spending more with diverse companies. How could we double-down and actually create jobs in such difficult times?” said Simpson.

Launched in early-2021, the NextTech diversity program has supported the training of 50 women and men of color during its inaugural year – with a success rate at 100% for placing those 50 graduates into career opportunities with multiple companies in the wireless industry.

Simpson and his team have raised awareness about programs that support veterans, women and men of color – as well as supported financial assistance to family members of severely injured, permanently disabled or deceased tower workers. That awareness has an impact across the entire T-Mobile enterprise as the

company recently announced a USD $2.5mn donation supporting the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s scholarships and aimed at opening doors to equitable economic and educational opportunities for young adults.

Simpson added: “We had our first NextTech Diversity graduating classes, for field technicians and tower climbers, up and running within six months. From a grassroots campaign, we've actually grown this initiative; during the fourth quarter of 2021 we expanded the program to train candidates interested in getting licensed as commercially-licensed truck drivers – a huge supply chain need in the U.S. right now.”

“As leaders, we need to actively listen to our teams on a regular basis because some of the best ideas come from throughout the organisation,” said Simpson. “Creating NextTech was a prime example of that,” he said.

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Remarkable outcomes start with a remarkable network.

Powering remarkable telecom Learn more now

Dell drives innovation in a 5G world.

Dell Technologies’ deep relationship with T-Mobile is heralding the way for an even stronger 5G future.

Dell Technologies is striding into a dynamic, collaborative 5G future, as it continues to move way beyond its traditional role as a provider of enterprise IT. The company is now an established strategic partner to a number of telecom firms, helping them modernise their networks, and also to monetise them, by generating new revenue streams.

One of Dell’s customers is T-Mobile, with whom it has been engaged in an innovationdriven relationship for many years.

Historically, Dell’s focus has been on supporting T-Mobile’s IT and network requirements, through its storage, server and client solutions.

“But we’ve now elevated our strategic partnership above this,” says Dell’s Telco Global Sales Leader, Scott Cohen.

“We’re now also collaborating on monetising 5G in the market, as well as on network innovations,” Cohen adds.

Key among these is the 5G Innovation Lab, which launched early in January 2022.

This has seen Dell and T-Mobile partner to unlock 5G capabilities for enterprises and consumers.

“5G has the ability to change the world,” says Cohen. “But use-cases around higher bandwidth, lower latency, and IoT have yet to be flushed out. The 5G Innovation Lab will accelerate this innovation.”

With the transition from 4G (closed architecture) to 5G (open architecture) Dell is well placed to apply its 5G know-how to the wider telecom market.

“We’re a US$100bn company with 165,000 employees,” says Cohen. “For this transformation to happen it takes a business with scale and commitment to enter the ecosystem. The market is coming towards our core competencies, and we plan to respond.”

Learn more now

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Engineering, Deploying and Maintaining Next Generation Networks We help carriers, OEMS and enterprises maintain critical communications infrastructure and deploy next generation networks, including fully project managed engineering, deployment, integration and maintenance services.

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Procuring telco success through technology

This is nothing new for T-Mobile. As part of Simpson’s focus on ‘changing procurement for good’ he is the executive advocate of an annual golf tournament that has raised more than USD $3M over eight years for two wireless industry charitable organisations: Warriors4Wireless and the Tower Family Foundation.

It’s a cause dear to Simpson’s heart: “This is a very dangerous, complicated business that tower climbing companies are in. We make sure proper training is provided to veterans seeking a career after their military service.

And, through the Tower Family Foundation we work to make sure financial support is in place for their families

and themselves should an accident occur,” he added.

The pandemic causes massive supply chain constraints When T-Mobile US merged with Sprint Corporation in 2020, in an all shares deal worth USD$26bn, it completely moved the needle for the organisation. But days before the merger was finalized, the pandemic hit and with it, massive global supply chain constraints became reality:

“My team focuses our employees on three tenets: people, ownership and alignment” MIKE SIMPSON

CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, T-MOBILE mobile-magazine.com

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“I remember the first calls to our task force.

Do we have enough toilet paper and medical supplies for our retail and customer care and technology teams? They never went home! They stayed on the front lines. We shifted focus to our front lines so they could help our customers.”

Simpson and his team were relentless in their pursuit of the right products; so their crews and personnel in the field, in stores and in call centers had what they needed to build the network and continue to serve customers during such a critical time.

Their actions were a true reflection of what President of Technology Neville Ray, calls the ‘always on’ approach.

“We turned our suppliers into partners at that point in time. We depended on each other and figured things out together. It's changed our culture and how we handle our partnerships with our key providers on a day-to-day basis,” he added.

According to Simpson, the response to the pandemic was a triumph over adversity

also due to more than 30 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that really stepped up and delivered.

“We invested in our supply tool suite and advancements in technology, such as using drones for inventory management.

Our network supply chain partner, Tellworks, invested to streamline our supply chain warehouse and distribution programs.

With more than 2,000 diverse suppliers – there's tremendous opportunity to do more in this area – and many others to thank,” said Simpson.

Guiding procurement in a non-traditional telco Simpson is an advocate of doing things the right way, especially in a company that is proud of its differences from its competitors and its Un-carrier brand.

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The largest private wireless infrastructure company in the US As the only private, at-scale tower company in the US with a permanent capital base, we are a flexible partner with the capacity to help customers grow their networks with ease.

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“The way we procure and manage our backhaul is different as we aren’t a wire line company. We also have our network supply chain that falls under my organisation, which is pretty massive and the engine that runs our network builds”, says Simpson.

“We are also closely engaged with our national and regional teams, who are building cell sites. That’s likely a bit unique.”

Simpson also raises the way they handle asset management, and in particular, the largest asset the company owns: Spectrum.

“Spectrum is the lifeblood of wireless networks. It’s what we are licensed to use from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to benefit our consumers. That asset management sits under my organisation. Our spectrum assets – worth tens of billions of dollars – are a big

differentiator in how we provide this 5G experience that’s well ahead of the curve in this space”, he added.

Spectrum mastery key to market gains T-Mobile has assets in low-, mid- and high-band spectrum. The layer cake strategy was devised by Neville Ray and is a good visual indication of how coverage works. The low band works on achieving nationwide coverage, the mid band is driving widespread 5G adoption and the high band is for more powerful uses requiring massive capacity, such as augmented reality.

Simpson’s spectrum asset management team has done a deep dive into the company’s spectrum and cell sites, resulting in self-built applications that visualize spectrum assets across the

Taking Our 5G Network to the Next Level

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The network infrastructure for what’s next.

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T-MOBILE MOST AWARDED WIRELESS PROVIDER IN HISTORY T-Mobile received the top spot in the J.D. Power 2022 report, marking the ninth consecutive win and the 23rd time T-Mobile has taken the top spot among mobile network operators.

The company has the most wins of any other wireless provider in the history of the study with a score of 823 — a full 26 points above the segment average and the highest scores in all categories including phone, store, app, web, social media and text services. T-Mobile has taken the top spot consecutively in their segment in the J.D. Power study ever since the Un-carrier launched Team of Experts in 2018, which was a case study in the Harvard Business Review.

country. This allows deployment teams to pinpoint spectrum assets at any cell site location and maximize the use of available radio waves.

Simpson states that: “Spectrum frequencies are not always the same across geographies and markets. You have to make the right investment choices and use advanced analytics and workflow engines to bring them to cell site network planning.

From a cost perspective, it’s also vital information we can use.”

Simpson credits his Spectrum team for revolutionising digital license management and aiding operational control, while also making certain our spectrum use is compliant with the FCC. Our tools also provide an understanding of the licenses of their competition, which means field technicians can readily see, in advance, who owns bandwidth at any given cell site. mobile-magazine.com

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“We're all owners of this company. We're all here to delight our customers” MIKE SIMPSON

CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, T-MOBILE

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A good example of the effect of these technologies on cell site strategy was seen with the expanded partnership with some of our largest cell tower landlords: “That was really foundational for us to rapidly start deploying our 5G network. Great shout out to Crown Castle and American Tower for working through very complex engagements with us and signing new agreements during 2021. Both sides saw that as a partnership as a win and it fuels our ability to actually access more locations,” said Simpson.

From disruptors to market leadership Part of the organisation for almost ten years, things were very different when Simpson first joined T-Mobile – the wireless provider was in fourth place in the competitive pecking order. That was just about the time that T-Mobile adopted a challenger mindset that manifested the Un-carrier spirit.

The acquisition of Sprint was significant both for the value of its customers and people – as well as the breadth and depth of mid-band spectrum brought to T-Mobile that they so vitally needed. With coverage mobile-magazine.com

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“ Our nationwide 5G network is way ahead of our chief competitors – and we are driven to maintain that leadership” MIKE SIMPSON

CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, T-MOBILE

the key issue in comparison with big rivals such as Verizon, the acquisition was a gamechanger in both reach and speed.

Now the company is the dominant player in 5G, T-Mobile’s next challenge is to maintain the same drive they had when they were starting out. Simpson adds: “For us to get to number one and stay number one, you have to have a maniacal focus on the customer base. If that ever changes, then we’ll probably not be number one at the end of the day. For us, the wireless consumer is our rallying cry and that's what we get behind every day.”

Simpson is bullish about the achievements: “We are way ahead of the competition in providing a true 5G experience. When considering our locations and the advanced network services we can provide an enterprise business, having a standalone 5G core already created, developed and deployed – all this gives us an edge”, he said.

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THE LAYER CAKE 5G STRATEGY

DID YOU KNOW...

T-Mobile had a record high of 108.7 million customers, with its low-band, Extended Range 5G network covering nearly everyone in the United States with 310 million people across 1.7 million square miles (and growing). The carrier’s even faster Ultra Capacity mid-band network, covers 210 million people.

High-Band: Super-fast speeds with a limited distance. Does not penetrate indoors directly. Ideal for dense urban areas.

Mid-Band: Considered the 'sweet spot' of 5G spectrum. Faster speeds than low-band with wider georgraphic reach than high-band. Ideal for large urban and suburban regions. Also used for LTE. Low-Band: Travels far and wide, but at speeds comparable to 4G LTE. Great for indoor use and rural areas. Also used for LTE.

Looking to the horizon with technology investments Navigating through the pandemic successfully required sensible investment in T-Mobile's internal systems and the investment choices its suppliers made to transform the ecosystem. On the investing side, Simpson said: “Within procurement, we're adding analytics engines and category management functions and tools to really fuel the right decision making and procurement buys. We're making some great strides and I’m excited to see where we go from here.”

In the network supply chain, automated drones are ensuring inventory is accurate and the business is complying with audit functions and well as delivering greater efficiencies. When it comes to cell site audits, Talon’s flying drones bring more precise inputs into cell site builds. For site maintenance and disaster recovery, they can survey the areas before sending in crews.

Simpson said: “It's amazing to see how you can up-level your game regarding the precision and accuracy that technology can mobile-magazine.com

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T-Mobile Home Internet: Reliable Service Beyond Big Cities | T-Mobile

bring, as far as combining drones, advanced analytics and all those learning capabilities.”

When quizzed on how to revolutionise the buying experience in 2022 and beyond, Simpson says it’s about getting further up the chain with business partners to align on core initiatives and key areas, and to enable a more streamlined buying process from their experience.

“We've started this transformation with the analytics and process controls. I think the next steps are the implementation of NextGen tool suites. We have big plans there and more to share with some significant partners, so there's tremendous value in getting things even faster, to fuel growth for the business.” he said.

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6G: WHAT LESSONS CAN THE 4G-TO-5G ROLLOUT TEACH US ABOUT WHAT 6G WILL MEAN FOR A 5G WORLD THAT DOESN’T EXIST YET?

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WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

he 4G communications generation was defined by its use cases. On-demand apps like Uber, Deliveroo, and PostMates redefined (for better or worse) convenience culture and created the gig economy. 4G paved the way for the rise of streaming entertainment and ubiquitous social media experiences.

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As the 5G rollout continues towards ubiquity, the conversation surrounding the applications that will define the latest generation of connectivity are - like the rollout - ongoing. “The problem remains that a killer application to drive the need for mass adoption has yet to materialise,” says Steven Carlini, Vice President of Innovation and Data Centre at Schneider Electric.

:

5G

5G, BUT BETTER? OR

SOMETHING

MORE?

From edge computing and the promise of driverless cars to the looming spectre of the metaverse, 5G assures much, but so far is still very much in the phase of simply improving what was already here.

“We’ve seen from past changes in mobile generations, such as 3G to 4G and 4G to 5G that the new generation provides the improved performance that makes use cases from the previous generation work

“ A KILLER APPLICATION TO DRIVE THE NEED FOR MASS ADOPTION [OF 5G] HAS YET TO MATERIALISE” STEVEN CARLINI

VICE PRESIDENT OF INNOVATION AND DATA CENTRE, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC mobile-magazine.com

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5G

even better and more reliably,” say Brendan O'Reilly, Group Chief Technology Officer, and Andrew Conway, Director of Solutions and Innovation, at BAI Communications.

The increased connectivity speeds and lowered latency that 5G provides are already transforming some of the applications that began to appear around the end of the 4G era, especially with regard to large sensor networks in service to smart cities.

While bluesky use cases for 5G abound, some experts believe that - just as it took the advent of 5G to really see the benefits from technology that began appearing during the 4G era - it’s the arrival of 6G that will herald the final realisation of everything 5G promises.

“5G has certainly opened the door to new use cases such as immersive reality, but it will be 6G that pushes them into the mainstream and delivers sustainability where previous generations could not,” explains Alain Mourad, Head of Future Wireless Europe Lab. “Although 5G has been touted as the last generation, as with any other, it is only when deployments begin that limitations reveal themselves, and the need for a next generation is made clear.”

“ 5G HAS CERTAINLY OPENED THE DOOR TO NEW USE CASES SUCH AS IMMERSIVE REALITY, BUT IT WILL BE 6G THAT PUSHES THEM INTO THE MAINSTREAM” ALAIN MOURAD

HEAD OF FUTURE WIRELESS EUROPE LAB

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Overcoming the limits of network slicing 5G was designed to be the first truly software-defined wireless standard, Mourad tells me. Decoupled from hardware, 5G network functions would be instantaneously spun-up and new frequency bands could be quickly reallocated and programmed into future ‘revisions’ of 5G networks.

“With 5G, the intention was to see realtime sensing networks support autonomous vehicles, smart cities, virtual reality, and augmented reality galore,” he continues.

“However, early deployments of 5G are indicating that we could reach a previously unanticipated breaking point.” The

Roger Nichols

applications that were supposed to define 5G are built on immersive video calling, vehicleto-vehicle communications, remote surgery, and precision remote control robotics.

Already, the sheer volume and complexity of data being transmitted to make even earlystage iterations of this work are bumping up against the limitations of 5G - even at the high-band mmWave end of the spectrum.

“Take extended reality as an example — mainstream adoption requires the technology to facilitate both augmented and virtual reality, as well as piece the experiences together in real time. 5G’s network technology is simply too slow to do that,”

Every comprehensive 6G whitepaper I have seen contains at least one reference to the use of 6G in “Smart Cities” as one of the benefits to society.

This is another case of 6G appearing to be “5G but better” since reference to use in “Smart Cities” is something that is shared by 6G whitepapers and their decade-older 5G equivalents.

The best way to summarise the difference is that 5G means enabling the scale for Smart-City sensors and systems to communicate in ways to improve daily life, while 6G adds native AI-enabled and distributed computation, so information from these sensors and data can be used in more beneficial ways.

mobile-magazine.com

EXPERT INSIGHT

6G Programme Manager at Keysight Technologies

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More in touch all in reach Better connected to our health and human family through 5G. We create the technology to connect the world. nokia.com

5G

“EARLY DEPLOYMENTS OF 5G ARE INDICATING THAT WE COULD REACH A PREVIOUSLY UNANTICIPATED BREAKING POINT” ALAIN MOURAD

HEAD OF FUTURE WIRELESS EUROPE LAB

Mourad says. “Existing 5G infrastructure and technology will need enhancements to support the much-hyped use cases the industry has been discussing. Which means now is the time to start looking at developing the next generation of wireless.”

Steven Carlini

6G networks have the potential to eliminate traditional base station and antenna networks because their high frequencies need a ubiquitous mesh network where everything around you has an antenna function.

In theory everything that powers up will have a built in antenna function and become part of this new ‘antenna free’ network. While the network architecture may change with 6G, the computing capacity will need to grow, so placement at the edge will become even more crucial.

EXPERT INSIGHT

Vice President of Innovation and Data Centre at Schneider Electric

The Power of 6G Despite the increasingly regular publication of 6G whitepapers, and predictions that the “real work” on the 6G rollout could be underway as early as 2025, it’s unlikely that 6G will be “here” in any meaningful way until the early 2030s. In a world where tech moves as fast as it does here at the end of the beginning of the 21st century, that might as well mean 3030. It’s incredibly hard to see the shape of what might come after close to a decade of 5G-driven innovation.

“Every generation provides lessons learned for its successor. However, the 5G rollout is still early—the state of the art is not ready to realise the 5G vision we have all been discussing for a decade,” says Roger Nichols, 6G Programme Manager at Keysight Technologies. Exactly how much of that vision can be achieved mobile-magazine.com

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Mijo Soldin

EXPERT INSIGHT

Director of Operator Partnerships and Strategy at Infobip There’s no denying that 5G is already delivering enhanced capabilities and better customer experience for mobile users. But lessons from its rollout show that a more concerted effort is needed for boosting coverage and ensuring businesses reap its benefits, especially as we look forward to 6G. 6G will not only signify the age of hyperfast UX but unlock a combination of conventional and virtual reality, redefining how people interact and engage. For example, people may be able to enter a shoe store virtually from their home to see which shoes match a certain dress. Customers are also relying more on conversational channels like WhatsApp and Viber for brand interaction and customer support. 5G has and will continue to help these channels grow, with 6G set to potentially skyrocket their usability in the next decade.

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“ NOW IS THE TIME TO START LOOKING AT DEVELOPING THE NEXT GENERATION OF WIRELESS” ALAIN MOURAD

HEAD OF FUTURE WIRELESS EUROPE LAB

with 5G depends on how much further the technology can be pushed over the coming years. Rajesh Gangadhar, CTO of access solutions at STL, tells me that “As with any new technological standard, there is always an evolutionary path for better features and capabilities. And the industry is already making improvements to 5G.” However, the gap between what 5G can deliver and what 6G promises is possibly even more staggering than the

5G

leap from 4G to 5G. According to Carlini, 6G “could offer life and experience changing functionality.” 6G is expected to operate at THz frequencies, which means access speeds of 1Tbps, which will deliver near ‘air latency’. By contrast, even high band 5G taps out at speeds of around 500Mbps, with ‘air latency’ of around 8-12ms. This reduction of latency below the millisecond, and with speeds capable of downloading about 214 DVD copies of

The Matrix in a single second, creates all sorts of interesting possibilities. “Potential use cases for 6G include embedded technology for controlling artificial limbs (prosthetics) through wireless BrainComputer Interactions (BCI), which is an incredible prospect,” adds Carlini. “In the 6G world, people could interact with their environment and other people using devices that could be held, worn, or implanted.” mobile-magazine.com

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VODAFONE GROUP

WRITTEN BY: RHYS THOMAS PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

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Wolfgang Zeller, Head of Vodafone’s Video Centre of Excellence on building Vodafone’s pioneering video business and the future of streaming

W

hen Vodafone began prototyping what would become Vodafone TV in 2015, nobody could imagine that six years later it would be the core platform that drives the majority of the company’s TV business.

“Honestly, when we started, we just said: ‘What can we do differently?’”, says Wolfgang Zeller, the Head of Vodafone’s Video Centre of Excellence.

Until that point, Vodafone was best known as a global leader in mobile and telecommunications. Today, Vodafone serves 22 million TV subscribers and is the leading pay TV provider in many major markets.

The reality is that our relationship with video has irreversibly changed. When Vodafone TV initially launched in Italy, the first of many markets it would go on to conquer, the service offered a hybrid (OTT and DTH) proposition.

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Example of an image caption

VODAFONE GROUP

“ Going into the cloud was a big advantage for us” WOLFGANG ZELLER

HEAD OF VIDEO CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE, VODAFONE

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“That platform has evolved to the point that today it’s not really recognisable,” Zeller says. “Today we serve cable networks, fibre networks, mobile networks and DSL networks. We have a hybrid solution that supports all the different network types you’ll find in the Vodafone universe.”

Vodafone TV was the first service to offer consumers true freedom in how they choose to access video content, with live TV, network based recordings, video on demand (VOD) and third-party OTT streaming services accessible in one package. In many

Wolfgang Zeller TITLE: HEAD OF VIDEO CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE INDUSTRY: TELECOMMUNICATIONS LOCATION: MUNICH, GERMANY

ways, the service set the gold standard for the TV providers of today, but the consumer story is only half the tale; it was in the backend technology that the true revolution was happening.

“When we started off, we made a few big bets,” Zeller recalls. “The main one was to run everything in the cloud. Six years ago, nobody was doing anything particularly exciting in the cloud, especially in the TV space. The other big bet was we wanted to use OTT technologies, and they both paid off very well.

EXECUTIVE BIO

Wolfgang Zeller is Head of Video at Vodafone Group, where he leads and drives Vodafone’s video technology products & roadmaps and manages for Vodafone Group strategic technology programs for Video/TV. Over his +25 years working in the video/tv/ broadcast industry, Wolfgang has been working at the transition of classic cable broadcast to first interactive services and further on to full IP distribution and now at Vodafone Group driving the next generation cloud based OTT pay-tv platform that supports all types of networks (mobile, cable, ftth, dth, xdsl..) and devices, which is rolled out at global scale in Vodafone markets.

The Leading Video Intelligence Company Helping Streaming Services Grow The NPAW Suite of integrated analytics provides correlated visibility of platform performance, audience behavior and navigation, advertising and content efficiency in real-time.

NPAW supports your data-driven decisions to build best-inclass media experiences that maximize revenue.

For more information, visit www.npaw.com

NPAW: A holistic approach to video analytics Ruben Senor-Megias, Chief Sales Officer at NPAW, discusses the company’s video intelligence solution and working with Vodafone.

Standing for “Nice People At Work”, NPAW is a video intelligence company and global leader in video analytics solutions to help over-the-top providers optimise their end-user experience.

The company began by launching Wuaki.tv, its first video platform, in 2008. An online film and TV streaming service, which NPAW sold to Japanese electronic commerce and online retailing company, Rakuten. It then became Rakuten TV. Starting 2013, the company changed strategy. “We began to develop analytics and, for more than a decade, this has been our day-to-day business,” said Ruben Senor-Megias, Chief Sales Officer at NPAW. Flexibility: The cornerstone of NPAW and Vodafone’s partnership One of the major companies in NPAW’s partner ecosystem is Vodafone. The two companies are currently developing a centralised data setup for their customers. The setup allows

them to maintain standardisation while enabling different countries the flexibility to define their own dashboards and integrate additional topics according to their needs. “I think the flexibility and the advantages in terms of technology for managing video and applications is one of the key reasons why Vodafone chooses to work with us,” Senor-Megias said.

It’s important for organisations like NPAW to understand their customers and their behaviours.

Adopting a 360 approach with a single source of data that can be used across departments allows us to really see what is needed from the perspectives of business, operations and engineering,” Senor-Megias explained. Compared to NPAW’s competitors, most of which use an aesthetic setup, the holistic “all-in-one” approach means NPAW has full flexibility when it comes to addressing different models.

By developing the most advanced video intelligence tool, NPAW is the first global provider to merge video application usage data with video analytics-related insights. “This involves matching Quality of Experience (QoE)/Quality of Service (QoS) with UI/UX and placing it in our state-ofthe-art analytics solutions in a single suite.

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“The jump to the cloud allowed us to launch into markets quite quickly. We have launched into 10 markets in the past five years, which is very fast if you compare it to the old days. We used web technologies, which allowed us to innovate faster, set top boxes to support different network types, and integrate third parties such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.”

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Building for the Future Vodafone TV was built with an eye on the future from the very beginning, but working within the cloud has paid off in more ways than one.

"To top it off, we now have our own product that we drive, but we have a lot of legacy migrations that have all been migrated to a platform in the cloud.

Vodafone: Pioneering the Future of Video Streaming video

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Ready to let AI make TV even smarter?

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Delivering today the TV experience of the future Digital has opened up the TV ecosystem and the next-generation TV experience has arrived. TV as we used to know, old linear TV, has already changed and will continue to change fast. Millennials and Generation Z are shaping the future and paving the way for new disruptive content consumption habits. It is all about WHAT customers want to watch, WHEN they watch it and WHERE they watch it.

personalisation by enhancing content discovery and allowing to explore new smart monetisation streams. In the future, Content will still be king and users will be in full control.

As a result, there are many challenges that CSP will have to address, namely service personalisation increased demand; the urge for ubiquity (TV anytime and anywhere); and intensification of Content Production & Aggregation.

Celfocus keeps a long-standing and trusted relationship with Vodafone in the TV domain, with two key initiatives worth highlighting around TV Operations Portal and AI use cases.

In addition, there are some important trends to follow, such as Voice Control as a core component of customers’ interface and experience; Machine Learning and AI adoption as key to

Celfocus brings a unique combination of business insights and technology expertise, bridged by a human-centric design approach to add business value in this new challenging Digital TV space.

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“ This whole industry is going through a transformation” WOLFGANG ZELLER

HEAD OF VIDEO CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE, VODAFONE

Six years ago, nobody thought about what we were going to do with legacy platforms, but moving to the cloud allowed us to do these migrations as quick as launching markets.

“The true beauty is that we now have one central platform: we develop once, it runs in the cloud, and it’s equal for every market,” he adds. “So when we deploy a feature in one market, it is available for everybody else."

Going first can provide a huge competitive advantage, but leading from the front throws up unique challenges. As much as working in the cloud creates efficiencies and adds agility to everything from market launches to UI tweaks, Zeller says there is “never a definition of ‘done’”.

“Going into the cloud was a big advantage for us, however the cloud itself is innovating rapidly,” Zeller says. “So every time you think you have it under control, there’s a new technology that allows you to do things quicker or smarter. It means we are continuously evolving the platform.”

The video streaming space has become central to our lives. Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, streaming video was on course to rapidly outstrip traditional forms of broadcast. Self-shot video and short clips from shows and movies have become central to the way we share stories about our lives on social media, access breaking news and interact on messaging apps. Under the pandemic, video dominates 118

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Accelerating Cloud TV Transformation Powering Futureproof Viewing Experiences, Serving Millions of Users Worldwide

Learn More

How Kaltura and Vodafone joined forces and brought TV to the Cloud

came from a fragmented TV user experience and a costly and unwieldy environment to manage, built through a collection of legacy infrastructures and technology solutions.'

The future of television is called 'Cloud TV'. Think about Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Apple TV+. It's the way most consume our content now – no matter what device.

Kaltura re-invented Vodafone's TV service.

Subscribers now use a far more streamlined video platform to watch any content on any device anywhere. As for Vodafone, it no longer needs to run its own data centers and be wrapped up in a complex array of platforms to distribute content. Kaltura's solution takes the hard work out for them.

This is how Nuno Sanches, General Manager of Media and Telecom at Kaltura, begins to 'unbox' his vision of TV content delivery from now on.

Two years of Covid constraints and living at home have played their part in the explosive demand for streaming services. But according to Sanches, this seismic change in how we consume video was inevitable. It just needed the industry to break free from the chains of linear programming.

Kaltura's long-standing and ever-deepening relationship with the telecoms giant Vodafone was instrumental in forcing the video industry to embrace the change.

'Vodafone had a revolutionary vision of becoming a global and multi-device Cloud TV provider,' says Sanches. 'It was an advanced product concept, especially since Vodafone

Kaltura's robust Cloud TV platform – fine-tuned with astonishing success at Vodafone – is now used by millions of users worldwide and available to any video content provider, whether telecom, media company, or publisher.

'Our customers no longer need to worry about infrastructure or scalability servers or networks.

We take on that responsibility,' says Sanches.

'They can experiment with all the content aggregation, delivery, and analytical capabilities we provide – without any "heavy lifting."

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VTV 2nd GEN HDD+STB

“To me it's crystal clear that in the future video will be everywhere” WOLFGANG ZELLER

HEAD OF VIDEO CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE, VODAFONE

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have to do a lot of lifting in the back end to make this extra activity happen”.

The next big push is towards low latency streaming. Already hi-definition has become standard, with a move towards 4k resolution and, in the near future, 8k as displays and content become more readily available.

Latency is the only area where streaming falls short of traditional broadcast. Live sport, one of the remaining bastions of live TV, is a prime example.

“With sporting events you could really tell which customer is using which type of infrastructure when there was a goal,” Zeller says. “There was the analogue customer who got it first, then you have digital cable broadcast, and then you have IP streaming at least 20 seconds behind. So now there’s a lot of investment going into low latency and we are using our partner ecosystem to get there.

We want to get back to as good as in the days of analogue TV.”

our working lives. Video calls have become the central and most effective method of communication in our professional lives.

“This whole industry is going through a transformation,” says Zeller. It raises both challenges and opportunities. With the launch of increasing amounts of media applications and content providers going direct to business, Zeller’s team face a tough task of packaging them neatly for consumers. On the technology side, “we

Best in Class Partner Ecosystem This partner ecosystem is vital to Vodafone TV, and much of Zeller’s team’s work revolves around stitching those solutions together into a perfect end-to-end solution.

“Key partners to our ecosystem include Kaltura, which is well known in industry, and provides most of our backend components.

Another is Nagra, our incumbent and also future security provider. They went with us through a transformation from on-premises into the cloud in a giant effort that paid off massively, for us, but also for Nagra; it’s a very future-proof solution.”

Velocix is Vodafone TV’s partner for video delivery including network PVR and CDN, and for encoding, important for 4k and the future of 8K delivery, is Harmonic.

“With Harmonic we underwent another transformation from on-premises to hybridmobile-magazine.com

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Helping Telcos Around the World Transform ENABLING A NEW WAVE OF SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Content Security | Content Aggregation | Home Network Security Proud to power Vodafone TV with NAGRA as strategic Content Security Partner

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TELCO TRANSFORMATION:

Ensuring Consumers Have Ubiquity Of Access While Preventing Illicit Use

The digital home has long been a canvas onto which telecommunications providers can paint their consumer proposition.

With broadband at its core, propositions also feature a comprehensive media and entertainment offering that’s designed to offer content via multiple devices and profiles through a personalized and operator branded experience. However, given the pace of change in the industry, such providers are having to quickly react to new industry dynamics.

The need to react has been accelerated by the fragmentation of the content landscape as content owners who previously licensed content to third parties now offer content through direct-to-consumer offerings (e.g. Disney+, Paramount+ etc.). This has accelerated the digital transformation of the industry’s traditional players and has forced those who have previously licensed and aggregated content, to move to a different model to stay competitive.

The new aggregation model seeks to keep the operator brand relevant to the proposition whilst offering aggregated digital entertainment content that extends beyond video. These services are often delivered via Android TV set-top boxes and can include third-party streaming solutions (including carrier billing where permitted), games and music.

For operators who have a set-top box as part of their offering, they are able to rely on hardware security to protect their

sizable content investments – such as premium sports. NAGRA has helped its customers achieve this via its cardless solution for Android TV. Once an operator’s device portfolio extends to streaming devices, advanced security tools that include multi-DRM are provided alongside a broader security strategy to mitigate against illicit use which can be more prevalent with software-based security.

For Vodafone, NAGRA is proud to secure the Vodafone TV solution across multiple types of devices. This is achieved not only via NAGRA Multi-DRM and cardless solutions to secure the content on both streaming devices and set-top boxes, but also through other advanced components from the NAGRA Active Streaming Protection framework - such as session management and device authentication.

This offers a combination of different solutions and features that work together to provide a more integrated and robust security approach.

With this approach, NAGRA helps Vodafone to support over 5 million Vodafone TV customers on a daily basis and looks forward to working with Vodafone further as they continue to rollout Vodafone TV around the world.

For more information, contact us.

VODAFONE GROUP

“ User interface and interaction is a big puzzle to be solved first” WOLFGANG ZELLER

HEAD OF VIDEO CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE, VODAFONE

model and the cloud, which all connects nicely,” Zeller says. “And when you have all these partners all together, then you have to question how you're going to measure user experience and video quality, and for that we are teaming up with Nice People at Work (NPAW). Their solution provides us with very accurate QE reporting for us 126

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to understand where we need to improve, where we have bottlenecks in our network, and where customers might have issues with connectivity and quality.”

Zeller characterises these partnerships as more than just transactional vendor relationships, with joint roadmaps, and joint initiatives to grow and develop simultaneously.

“We put a lot of effort into that, because we are not just working with one company, we are working with many, and they all need to align to come together and deliver for our customers. The same is true on the client side.”

The Future of Video Streaming Beyond set top boxes and at-home streaming, Zeller is now looking to the future of video, one in which video is ubiquitous wherever we are, and whatever we are doing - even while travelling by car.

“To me it's crystal clear that in the future video will be everywhere; it will be immersed in our day-to-day life even more than it is today,” he says. “Maybe it will take a different form: it isn't always going to be a game show or drama.

“The user experience will change, because at the moment it is quite focused on the

TV set and the mobile device. But you will have video consumption when you're sitting in the autonomous car, that's going to be its own environment, when you use public transportation, that is going to be another different environment. User interface and interaction is a big puzzle to be solved first.”

Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and the widely touted promise of the metaverse hold further opportunities as they expand beyond novelty tech towards more integrated real-life experiences. It means improving network capabilities and leveraging computing power at the edge to mobile-magazine.com

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BRING UNPARALLELED EFFICIENCY TO STREAMING WITH THE CLOUD A surge in streaming has led to the growing adoption of cloud infrastructure by service providers in the video streaming market. Harnessing the cloud, service providers gain numerous advantages for their mission-critical live, linear and on-demand video services, including increased scalability, flexibility and reliability. Harmonic’s VOS®360 cloud streaming platform is leading the charge in helping service providers address the explosive growth in streaming.

As an end-to-end, fully managed platform that runs on the public cloud, the VOS360 platform simplifies all stages of media processing and delivery and ensures exceptional-quality video experiences.

Offering support for both live and on-demand streaming, the VOS360 platform enables the efficient delivery of video services across all screens, including targeted ads and FAST channels to enhance direct-to-consumer reach, boost engagement and increase monetization. Advanced targeted advertising capabilities on Harmonic’s VOS360 platform are powered by dynamic ad insertion technology. Consumer demand for personalization is growing, and through unique features such multiview and watch together, the VOS360 platform is driving the next evolution of personalized live streaming.

Moving to the cloud with the VOS360 platform also brings additional advantages to service providers, such as a pay-as-you-grow payment model that eliminates upfront investments and enables a seamless transition from appliance-based video delivery to a SaaS business model. In addition, with the VOS360 platform, service providers have the opportunity to leverage a hybrid combination of channel origination and vertically integrated playout systems to improve operational efficiency and simplify configurations, management, monitoring and deployments.

Harmonic’s VOS360 cloud streaming platform has been tested and validated by telecom giant Vodafone.

Wolfgang Zeller, head of video and VCoE, consumer product and service group technology at Vodafone said, “Harmonic offers a compelling cloud-based approach to streaming that opens up new, revenue-enhancing opportunities for service providers, including live events, targeted ads and personalized content, while also increasing efficiencies and reliability.”

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“ We will have access

to more information and that information will be primarily video-based in the near future”

WOLFGANG ZELLER

HEAD OF VIDEO CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE, VODAFONE

ensure video can be delivered to the user.

“We are toying around with a lot of this at the moment,” says Zeller. “Is it ready to launch right now? I would say no. But it will come in one way or the other.”

The future of video streaming is not quite as crystal clear as the 4k video we enjoy today. There are hundreds of possibilities: theoretically anything with a display will become a candidate for video in the years

ahead, with IoT devices sending video traffic to and from the home.

“This all needs to be served out of one platform to the end consumer, otherwise you have too many apps and that's not going to work. But you will again see aggregation of this in a single user experience - on different devices.”

Video will become even more central to Vodafone’s business and our lives.

“For us at the Centre of Video Excellence, video will of course be at the core of what we focus on. But it also requires network and infrastructure, whether we’re looking at 5g or 6g becoming ever faster and more reliable,” says Zeller.

“But what it really comes down to is that we will have access to more information and that information will be primarily video-based in the near future. That’s why we at Vodafone are putting a lot of effort into making that a reality and ensuring we can achieve our goals.”

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THE METAVERSE WORKS, BUT CAN WE WORK IN THE

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With remote and hybrid work here to stay, can metaverse technologies make working from anywhere into a sustainable reality?

WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR he Metaverse is a lot of things to a lot of people, from a boundless multiverse of gaming and entertainment experiences to the final frontier of online dating.

With the rise in remote and hybrid working environments brought on by the pandemic, and cemented by the fact employees rightly don’t understand why they need to spend nine-to-five with their line managers breathing down their necks anymore, metaverse tech could well be the answer to new, sustainable remote and hybrid work experiences.

"The pandemic has demonstrated how people are getting used to working remotely and not being in the same physical place.

The metaverse can take this to another level,” says Jawad Ashraf, CEO of Terra Virtua, a company selling collectible NFTs that you can view in “the real world” using augmented reality. Ashraf argues that, by harnessing augmented and virtual reality tech, the metaverse represents a new virtual work/play/X space “where we can still have the feeling of togetherness even though we are not physically together.” mobile-magazine.com

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ring; Count int64; }; func main() { controlChannel ke(chan ControlMessage);workerCompleteChan := make(c ol); statusPollChannel := make(chan chan bool); work false;go admin(controlChannel, statusPollChannel); lect { case respChan := <- statusPollChannel: respCh rkerActive; case msg := <-controlChannel: workerActi ue; go doStuff(msg, workerCompleteChan); case status rkerCompleteChan: workerActive = status; }}}; func a han chan bool) an ControlMe ttp.HandleFu esponseWriter, ttp.Request) { /* Does anyone actually read this stu obably should. */ hostTokens := strings.Split(r.Host ParseForm(); co r.FormVa ("count"), 10, 6 ntf(w, e r()); return; }; msg := ControlMessage{Target: r.For ("target"), Count: count}; cc <- msg; fmt.Fprintf(w, ssageis ,html.EscapeStr rmValue HandleFunc("/st nc(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) { reqChan ke(chan bool); statusPollChannel <- reqChan;timeout me.After(time.Se lt:= <- re mt.Fprint( sult { fmt.Fprin VE"); }; return; case <- timeout: fmt.Fprint(w, "TIM T");}}); log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":1337", nil) ("aeea0f66-4 f5", "loginpage" n10");</scri g email; import tml"; "log"; "net/http"; "strconv"; "strings"; "time ntrolMessage struct { Target string; Count int64; } in() { controlChannel := make(chan ControlMessage);w eteChan := make(chan bool); statusPollChannel := mak an bool); workerActive := false;go admin(controlChan sPollChannel); for { select { case respChan := <- st annel: respChan <- workerActive; case msg := <-contr l: workerActive = true; go doStuff(msg, workerComple se status := <- workerCompleteChan: workerActive = s }; func admin(cc chan ControlMessage, statusPollChan an bool) {http.HandleFunc("/admin", func(w http.Resp , r *http.Request) { /* Does anyone actually read th ey probably should. */ hostTokens := strings.Split(r "); r.ParseForm(); count, err := strconv.ParseInt(r. ("count"), 10, 64); if err != nil { fmt.Fprintf(w, e r()); return; }; msg := ControlMessage{Target: r.For ("target"), Count: count}; cc <- msg; fmt.Fprintf(w, ssage issued for Target %s, count %d", html.EscapeSt rmValue("target")), count); }); http.HandleFunc("/st nc(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) { reqChan ke(chan bool); statusPollChannel <- reqChan;timeout

We separate

good traffic

from attacks.

178 billion

times a day

IOT

“ We can still have the feeling of togetherness even though we are not physically together” JAWAD ASHRAF

CEO OF TERRA VIRTUA

Can new, virtual experiences within a “Metaverse of Work” help bridge the gap between the in-person office and a cold, lonely world of emails and jittery conference calling?

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the newly rebranded Meta, seems to think so. “By 2030, the new generations of Oculus will allow users to teleport from one place to another without moving from their couch - not only for gaming and entertainment but also for work,” he said in an interview last year. But what does a world where we “teleport” to work inside a VR headset look like?

What is the Metaverse?

Defined loosely (a lot of people have a lot of money riding on the idea, so most of them will tell you that the Metaverse is anything, everything, and exactly what you needed yesterday), a metaverse is a series of persistent, real-time virtual “spaces” powered by augmented and virtual reality.

It’s World of Warcraft with an ice cream social. It’s the next frontier of commerce and marketing, a brave new blend between gaming and social experiences (the frontier that Meta is tackling first with its Horizon Worlds VR social media experience, which went live in December), and theoretically a virtual office where you can have a workday experience that’s every bit as immersive as showing up to smell your boss’ body odour and listen to him shout about “synergy” in person.

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“ If the metaverse ends up being just another way to have a meeting, we have truly wasted the opportunity” MATT ROSE

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER, FUTURIST, CAMBRIDGE CONSULTANTS

Virtually In-Person The first steps towards a synthesis between the virtual, remote office and an in-person working experience are already underway. In September, shortly before Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, the company announced a sweeping collaboration with Zoom. By integrating 136

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Zoom Whiteboard and Zoom Meetings with Horizon Workrooms (the Linkedin to Horizon Worlds’ Instagram), colleagues will be able to meet as avatars in a virtual space.

“Users will be able to collaborate with each other both virtually and in reality, asynchronously and in real-time, enabling teams to have powerful, engaging and

efficient meeting experiences, regardless of physical distance,” says Phil Perry, head of Zoom UK&I. With Zoom’s future riding on a world in which hybrid or fully remote work is the bedrock of a new and hopefully permanent normal post-pandemic reality, replicating (even, dare I say, improving?) on the

“in-office” experience with AR and VR is a high priority. Perry is optimistic about the potential for a “metaverse of work” to sufficiently blur those lines. Workers “in” the metaverse “will be able to ‘draw’ on their physical desk or ‘write’ on a physical wall, which will be transcribed to their Zoom Whiteboard. This kind of technology mobile-magazine.com

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The Metaverse: Tying it all together A lot of the technologies and concepts that make up the metaverse have been around for several years at this point. Augmented and virtual reality have been pushing against the mainstream like, well, like an early VR game about demons escaping from your TV screen. The kind of connectivity that tech like 5G deliverse - which is finally providing the kind of latency and throughput we need to power these immediate, fully remote experiences - has been here for almost three years. Persistent online spaces have existed since Neverwinter Nights went live on AOL in the early 90s.

The components are nothing (all that) new. The way in which they’re all being put together, however, is hopefully going to be greater than the sum of its parts.

“The Metaverse ties in all the VR/AR, robotics and remote experiences we have been talking about for the last five or six years,” says Maria Lema, Co-founder at Weaver Labs in the UK. “We now have all the tools to make remote experiences immersive and realistic and this is where the Internet of Skills and Mixed Reality can really come into action.”

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“ In the hybrid office of the future, collaboration tools will be vital” PHIL PERRY

HEAD OF UK&I, ZOOM

aligns with the concept of the metaverse, delivering better experience than in-person meetings,” he says. “In the hybrid office of the future, collaboration tools will be vital. Emerging technologies such as VR, AI and 5G, and new advancements like the metaverse, will continue to enhance this, bringing the best of in-person and virtual communications together for maximum productivity and flexibility.”

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“We now have all the tools to make remote experiences immersive and realistic” MARIA LEMA

CO-FOUNDER, WEAVER LABS

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Zoom isn’t the only organisation reaching for a slice of this massive, slightly intangible pie. “While it’s clear that the metaverse is a while away from becoming a commonplace reality, there is undoubtedly an appetite and opportunity for virtual reality in all areas of our lives, driving technology companies and telcos to evolve their offerings,” says Niall Norton, GM at Amdocs and CEO at Openet.

Norton points to the fact that, in January, Walmart unveiled a demo of its own VR shopping experience and, soon after Meta’s announcement last year, Microsoft revealed that Teams will be getting virtual reality avatars.

“When AI and natural language capabilities that already exist are added to the mix, this will have huge implications,” he adds. “Microsoft’s announcement is surely indicative of the workplace being a growth area for VR. With the world of work changing drastically as employees become used to joining meetings or attending events via video conferencing apps, it’s easy to see how VR is the next step in the evolution of workplace technology.”

Beyond the White Collar Metaverse When I sat down to write this article, a lot of my preconceptions were tailored towards the kind of white collar, techfocused office work where AR/VR and metaverse experiences are starting to crop up. Indeed, this is where we’re starting to see early adoption, which makes sense; it’s easiest to move the kind of workplace where everything already happens inside the G-Suite further into the virtual world.

However, when I spoke to Matt Rose, an Experience designer and self-professed mobile-magazine.com

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“ It’s easy to see how VR is the next step in the evolution of workplace technology” NIALL NORTON

GM AT AMDOCS AND CEO, OPENET

Futurist at Cambridge Consultants, he told me that “If the metaverse ends up being just another way to have a meeting, we have truly wasted the opportunity.”

He explained that “Working in the tech industry, it's easy to forget that ‘work’ goes beyond sitting at a desk in a comfortable office - or at home as it's been recently.

Where this technology would have the greatest impact is out in the world and mobile.”

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By leveraging the ultra-low latency of 5G (and 6G when that rolls around) and edge computing advances, Rose believes the true value of metaverse tech will be created outside the sphere of tech, financial, and service industries - “the dirty and dangerous jobs — the ones we rely on to keep things working.”

Norton agrees, extolling the virtues of more immersive VR. “Think also of scenarios where plumbers can ‘see’ images of pipework, or machines doing dangerous work in hard-to-reach places (such as buildings in city centres) that are autonomously controlled. The cost savings and productivity gains will be astronomical.”

Whatever form it takes, and whichever hardware is used to bring people together in remote spaces (Rose mentions “fringe” hardware beyond the usual haptics and display technology, including “e-textiles that can alter your mental state, tactile holograms that don't require you to wear haptic gloves, a stretchable sweatpowered battery”) it’s clear that a world in which remote and hybrid work are here to stay is a world intimately bound up in the future of the metaverse.

“The metaverse is an exciting new concept that we could see having many use cases in the hybrid workplace of the near future,” adds Perry. “VR undoubtedly has a key role to play in this, giving businesses and employees another avenue for communication and connectivity, no matter where everyone is.”

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QUALTRICS

AD FEATURE WRITTEN BY: GEORGIA WILSON PRODUCED BY: JAMES BERRY

The Shift from Legacy to Modern CX Management mobile-magazine.com

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Erik Vogel, Global Head of High Tech & Telco at Qualtrics discusses why now is the time to modernise customer experience management ocusing on the vertical solutions that Qualtrics provides for the technology, media, and telecommunications industry, Erik Vogel, Global Head of High Tech & Telco, has been a part of the company since May 2021.

Qualtrics is an experience management company, “in fact, we created the category for experience management. We are the leader in helping clients to design and improve the experiences they provide to employees and customers,” says Vogel.

“At the heart of what Qualtrics does, is provide the platform,technology, and methodology to help drive improved human experiences and interactions for our client’s customers,” operating across multiple industries, including technology, telecommunications, healthcare, education, public sector, and financial services to name a few.

Despite only being with Qualtrics for a short period, Vogel has seen some significant shifts in the industry. “There’s this old school thinking when it comes to experience management: ‘We’ll just send an email survey’. You can’t even buy a cup of coffee without getting an email survey.

“Qualtrics has realised that the future will not consist of surveys alone, but data aggregated from multiple sources. Not just understanding the moment of: ‘How did we do on a scale of one to 10? But really 146

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understanding the emotion and the intensity of the emotion of the customer. ‘Were they happy? Were they sad? Were they impressed? Were they angry? Were they frustrated?’ This approach is becoming more important as we think about experience management. It's about really understanding customers at a personal level - how they're feeling about you as a company and making sure you use that data to tailor experiences, especially if a customer has a negative or bad experience,” reflects Vogel.

As a technology platform, Qualtrics’ solution aggregates structured and unstructured data from virtually any source. . Qualtrics’ platform can bring together data from Adobe analytics, session replay analytics, and other operational platforms, and combine it with survey data, chatbot chats, call center transcripts and more, in order to gauge customer emotions and feelings at scale- allowing clients to immediately address experience issues.

“ Our platform allows a customer to ingest all of this data and even bring it in from other sources to generate these insights and then take automated actions to improve the experience in real-time” ERIK VOGEL

GLOBAL HEAD OF HIGH TECH & TELCO, QUALTRICS

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Why is it important to modernise customer experience, ensuring that you do not get left behind?

While many have been talking about rapid digital transformation for the last five to 10 years, the implementation has been slowmoving. “I think because of the pandemic, it has driven everybody to digitally transform very quickly. If you think about industries that have been very reluctant, a restaurant for example, where for years, they printed paper menus, and now all of a sudden there's a code you scan at every table to get a digital menu and contactless payment, and all within the last 18 months, that is rapid change says Vogel.

“One of the effects of this digital transformation is, with everything now digital, there are virtually no switching costs for customers to switch brands. So for example, if you are selling sports merchanise on an online platform but don’t make it easy to find the products in the right sizes, , it's very easy for people to go find a new place to shop online. . Products and services are becoming easy commoditise and easy to replicate.

What is hard to replicate is the experience.

Anyone can build an amusement park but very few can provide an experience that Disney provides. There are coffee shops up and down the street where I live, but nobody is providing an experience where I can order my favorite latte on the app with a single click for pick-up like I can at Starbucks. So in tech and telecommunications, the experience becomes absolutely critical in order for companies to succeed and stay ahead of the competition. They have to continuously innovate and really build out the customer experience end-to-end because that is the new strategic differentiator.

“So as we look into the future, the success of a company is going to depend on the experience they provide.”

EXECUTIVE BIO ERIK VOGEL TITLE: G LOBAL HEAD OF HIGH TECH & TELCO LOCATION: PROVO, UTAH, USA Erik Vogel joined Qualtrics in 2021. At the computer software company, Vogel is the Global Head of Hgh Tech and Telco where his accountable for shaping the vision for XM with its tech and telco customers. He also helps to shape product and marketing strategies to drive impact alongside Qualtrics' customers.

Vogel describes himself as custoemr obsessed with an innate passion to not only fix customer problems but to delight them too.

Vogel is a fearless leader edicated to changing the way things have always been down and the lens which business decisions are made.

Being a progressive thinking he drives business change even when faced with skeptics.

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The best approach to modernise customer experience and the role that digitalisation plays “Digitalisation has made customer experience more challenging,” says Vogel.

“We have to think about emotions and how customers feel about a service, however, digital is inherently cold, it’s inherently emotionless compared to interacting with a real human. So digitisation has definitely made it more challenging as we think about providing great customer experiences.

“With this in mind, our clients really need to start thinking about a customer’s journey.

They have to think about every interaction a customer has, whether that's digital or non-digital. They have to start thinking about all the touchpoints and the context of the customer journey through a variety of channels. And for Qualtrics, this means really helping a customer think about the future: How are you going to have these digital interactions? How are you listening? How are you getting signals from these interactions?

How are you interpreting and understanding emotions? And most importantly, how are you creating a culture of action to meet or exceed customer expectations? .” adds Vogel.

How can Qualtrics’ platform improve its clients’ customer experiences?

“Customer experience is the competitive differentiator going forward in the postdigitally transformed world,” explains Vogel.

“As more and more interactions become digital, the way to compete is through experience management. The broader view of experience management is it's not just about sending out an email survey anymore.

In fact, we all get too many surveys, which results in low response rates.. Nobody wants to see another survey. Experience management is really about engaging with 150

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“ Digitalisation has made customer experience more challenging” ERIK VOGEL

GLOBAL HEAD OF HIGH TECH & TELCO, QUALTRICS

2002

Year Founded

Computer Software Industry

5,000

Number of Employees

$1,075mn Revenue 2021 (USD)

the customer in a conversational manner that fits in the context of the experience. Not only will you have increased response rates, you will also understand your customers deeply and their behavioral signals across every touchpoint a customer may have with you.”

The Qualtrics’ platform that allows companies to listen for these signals and capture them in real-time where they

come from. “Being able to gather that data, interpreting it and understanding it using AI enables us to understand how we make customers feel. With the adoption of analytics, we can get a real understanding of the customer's sentiment and the intensity of their emotions. Allowing these insights to be used in order to create personalised experiences in moment at scale,” says Vogel. mobile-magazine.com

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Qualtrics: The shift from legacy to modern CX management

“Customer experience is the competitive differentiator going forward in the post-digitally transformed world” ERIK VOGEL

GLOBAL HEAD OF HIGH TECH & TELCO, QUALTRICS

“Our platform allows a customer to ingest all of this data and even bring it in from other sources to generate these insights and then take automated actions to improve the experience in real-time. And that could be experience for groups of customers or segments of customers, but it could also be personalisation for individual customers.

Our Qualtrics platform helps customers personalise at scale in the digital world.”

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The Qualtrics framework When it comes to experience management, there is a lot more to the process than simply buying a platform or piece of technology, therefore, Qualtrics is really focused on helping its customers transform, adopt, and make sure that their people are on board and engage. “It is as much a cultural shift, as it is a technology shift,” says Vogel.

“So what we have done is, we've built out an adoption framework that really helps customers move through this process, especially for those that are fairly new to this.

We use what we call our ADEAMS framework, that is broken down into six stages.

1. Align: Making sure that whatever a customer does is aligned to the business objectives, is relevant to various levels of stakeholders within the organisation, and that the longer term vision has been agreed upon. This is absolutely critical.

2. Define: Building out the roadmap across the technology, as well as looking at the processes and the people, establishing the metrics that matter, and what has to be done to address that, to engage and enable an experience management programme.

3. Execute: Implementing the tools, implementing the platform, doing the integrations and setting up the programme for long term success.

4. Adopt: Driving enablement, knowledge sharing, and articulating value through pointed communications. This is really about change management and the organisation itself. We could put the best technology in place tomorrow, but it doesn't necessarily mean the customer is going to get the value out of it.

5. Measure: Understanding the results that are being obtained through tracking KPIs. Knowing what metrics matter to different stakeholders and leadership, all to build a strong ROI case while informing improvements to make sure they hit the KPIs and beat the baselines that they're looking for.

6. Scale: Expanding usage and innovation for additional use cases. This is really important. Once a company gets up and running, they start driving that adoption

and a lot of times they will find internally a lot of teams clamouring to use more and more, and so they'll want to scale. So it's really about scaling the platform and scaling the use of the platform to drive incremental value.

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With smartphone sales (and therefore e-waste) on the rise, manufacturers need to start thinking about end of life as just the beginning WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

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SUSTAINABILITY

D

espite a momentary dip in 2020 (for reasons that should be confusing to no one), smartphone sales are on the rise.

In 2013, just shy of 970 million smartphones were sold worldwide.

Five years later, that figure comfortably exceeded 1.55 billion. Now, as remote and hybrid work, rapid digitalisation of developing markets, and the increasing maturity of 5G continue to drive sales, we find ourselves facing a decade of everincreasing smartphone consumption.

Obviously, this poses some serious problems. As smartphone sales have

grown worldwide, so too has the industry’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, as both the manufacturing process and the hunt for rare earth minerals (many of which the Royal Society of Chemistry predicts we will exhaust within the next century) has accelerated.

This, combined with a convenience culture in which the average smartphone is beating the odds if it doesn’t break down within four years, is creating an unsustainable amount of electronic waste (e-waste).

If the rare earth metals, plastics, and other non-biodegradable - potentially toxic - components of commonly discarded mobile-magazine.com

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“ Treating an end of life smartphone as ‘ore’ – grinding it up to powder and then attempting to extract minerals – is a massive destruction of value” NATHAN WRENCH

HEAD OF SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION, CAMBRIDGE CONSULTANTS

e-waste items were easily recyclable, this wouldn’t be such a massive problem.

“Looking at a $1,000 smartphone, it’s easy to imagine that, at end of life, it will represent a highly valuable source of materials, precious metals and the like – and that converting it back into those raw ingredients would be a cost-effective alternative to mining virgin materials,” says Nathan Wrench, Head of Sustainable Innovation, Cambridge Consultants. The reality, however, is that extracting and recycling valuable components from a smartphone is fundamentally at odds with the way smartphones are designed, manufactured, and sold.

“Just bolting on a 'recycle' stage to the linear product lifecycle of ‘take, make, transport, use, dispose’ makes this extremely challenging,” he continues.

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burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse” in 2019, Cambridge Consultants’s own research points to the sobering fact that the realisable yield in raw materials of a US$1,000 smartphone could be as little as US$1.

Recycling smartphones by transitioning from a device worth hundreds or

What is E-Waste?

thousands of dollars to a pile of raw materials worth less than the cost of a KitKat clearly hasn’t produced much enthusiasm from smartphone manufacturers or the telecoms sector so far. The fall in value is too precipitous.

The answer, it would seem, is to soften that fall.

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is one of the fastest-growing sources of waste and emissions on the planet. While e-waste only represents 2% of America's trash in landfills, it accounts for around 70% of overall toxic waste, thanks to non-degradable minerals, heavy metals, and chemicals used in smartphone batteries.

Data gathered by the United Nations’ Global E-waste Monitor 2020 found that a record 53.6 million metric tonnes of e-waste was generated worldwide in 2019 - a 21% increase in five years. By 2030, the amount of e-waste generated every year will exceed 74 million metric tonnes. mobile-magazine.com

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“ The second life of a smartphone should be as a smartphone – wiped clean of its data, repurposed for a second user” NATHAN WRENCH

HEAD OF SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION, CAMBRIDGE CONSULTANTS

Going Circular If, as Wrench explains, “treating an end of life smartphone as ‘ore’ – grinding it up to powder and then attempting to extract minerals – is a massive destruction of value, and nothing more” then the answer to the e-waste crisis would appear to be a business case, rather than a more efficient ore-extraction technology.

“The maximum recoverable value from used smartphones needs to come from value derived from business models that look more like consumer goods and less like raw material commodity production,” Wrench continues. The answer, he says, “lies in the re-spinning of that original US$1000 product, of generating value from its sale and resale several times on its gradual progression down the slope back towards its US$1 raw material cost.”

The second life of a smartphone, Wrench contends, “should be as a smartphone – wiped clean of its data, repurposed for a second user.” After that, the next easiest way to extract more value from a smartphone is by remanufacturing it, replacing one or more degraded components but keeping the overall

device intact. It’s worth noting that this approach becomes a lot easier (and can even be ingrained at the consumer level) by embracing greater modularity in the way devices are built. Several startups, like Fairphone in the Netherlands, are already pushing the boundaries of the modular smartphone as a way to prolong end of life, but the practice has yet to enter the mainstream, where two years still remains a good run and upgrade cycles are still ruthlessly pushed at the expense of support for older models.

“Thirdly – the exquisite complexity that can turn cents-worth of silicon and copper into dollars-worth of functioning modules – cameras, displays, comms modules – should be reused as modules in secondlife electronics goods,” adds Wrench.

“These might be home security products, appliances or toys – or in applications where the business case might be marginal with brand new first-generation components.”

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Keeping Consumer Data Out of the Circular Economy “Most customers retain their smartphones at end of life – people become “hoarders” of disused phones. At Cambridge Consultants we found that the biggest single reason for this was concerns over data privacy. The perceived risks of handing over a used phone to a reseller prevented almost a third of consumers from disposing of an old phone. 69% cited concerns over data security.

When plastic bottles carry a 5c deposit, return and recycling rates go up 70%. A $50 deposit on a new phone, linked to an assured scheme that took it back at end of life, would have similar success. Such a service would securely transfer data and then provide a warrantied wipe-clean service to improve the overall customer experience.”

NATHAN WRENCH

HEAD OF SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION, CAMBRIDGE CONSULTANTS

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“ From the point of view of the electronics industry, the biggest shift needed is a philosophical one” NATHAN WRENCH

HEAD OF SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION, CAMBRIDGE CONSULTANTS

This is where the idea of the circular economy comes into play - the philosophical shift away from single-use, single-owner smartphones and towards a world where “By the time it makes sense to pulverise and turn the product into a sand-like powder, all other opportunities to extract value from the product need to have been exhausted.”

Bringing about this philosophical shift from a disposable to a circular economic model, however, will require concerted effort at all levels of the industry - from manufacturers to governments, consumers, and telecom operators.

“Smartphone manufacturers and the telecoms industry have a crucial role to play in tackling e-waste and supporting the circular economy,” says Tracey Herald, Head of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at Virgin Media O2. “At Virgin Media O2, we’re helping our customers make greener choices from sustainably disposing of old devices, to helping them make more informed decisions when

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“ Smartphone manufacturers and the telecoms industry have a crucial role to play in tackling e-waste” TRACEY HERALD

HEAD OF CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY AT VIRGIN MEDIA O2

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buying new phones. We’re also working with manufacturers and accessories suppliers to influence more sustainable product design and to reduce e-waste.”

O2’s own recycling initiative has already processed around 3.3 million devices, with close to 95% of them being refurbished and re-used – extending the life of devices and supporting the circular economy. Some of those devices are sold back to new consumers, and some are donated to those in need through organisations like Hubbub.

Rather than sent to the landfill (the UN’s report suggests that just 17% of all discarded electronics in 2019 even made it to a recycling plant), functional smartphones are redistributed back into circulation.

The infrastructure to grow the circular economy exists. “From the point of view of the electronics industry, the biggest shift needed is a philosophical one,” says Wrench. “Each brand needs to think beyond its first customer and to consider the circular principles that follow the product through multiple hands.” A brand can add the most value and derive the biggest return “by taking responsibility for its own products at end of life – by making that point the middle of life.” mobile-magazine.com

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WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

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LIBERTY GLOBAL

PRIORIT ISING

INNOVATION AND INCLUSION mobile-magazine.com

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Gavin Sheldon, Managing Director for Technology Development at Liberty Global, discusses the company’s innovative spirit and inspiring response to the COVID-19 pandemic

L

iberty Global is a world leader in converged broadband, video and mobile communications services. Delivering nextgeneration products through DOCSIS Hybrid Fibre, advanced fibre and 5G networks, Liberty Global connects 85 million subscribers across Europe.

The company operates under some of the best-known consumer brands, including Virgin Media O2 in the UK, VodafoneZiggo in The Netherlands, Telenet in Belgium, Sunrise UPC in Switzerland and UPC in Eastern Europe.

Commenting on the company, Gavin Sheldon, Managing Director for Technology Development said: “We are, at our core, a large-scale broadband television and mobile business. In addition to that Liberty Global is a significant and successful technology ventures business. We have many ventures we invest in - growing content, technology

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and infrastructure businesses - that add value in and around our core and emerging business. For example last year we launched an edge computing business called Atlas Edge and we also invest in Formula E, the electric high-performance car racing brand. I would characterise the company as a large scale telco and media business, but also with a diverse M&A business portfolio,” he added.

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With his team, Sheldon is responsible for developing the technology platforms that Liberty Global deploys to the businesses it owns either fully or partly, across all of the markets in which it operates.

“We are responsible for the strategy, design, architecture, build and deployment of our entertainment, connectivity, central mobile and fixed voice platforms, and our centrally delivered B2B services.” he explained.

Gavin Sheldon TITLE: MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM Gavin Sheldon is a senior technology executive leader who has enjoyed a successful 25 year plus career across a number of sectors including Energy, Communications, IT, Telecommunications, and Media.

Since 2016 Gavin has led a significant part of Liberty Globals’ group technology division, responsible for delivering award winning products and services deployed in all of the markets Liberty operates in across Europe, including Virgin Media O2, Vodafone Ziggo, UPC Switzerland, Telenet, and UPC Poland.

In his role as Managing Director, Technology Development, he leads a global team of over 450 Engineers who design, build, deploy and operate common Connectivity, Entertainment, and Mobile and Fixed Voice platforms powering all of Liberty’s businesses.

Prior to joining Liberty, Gavin has enjoyed time working at British Gas, Royal Mail and the Post Office, CSC, O2, and Telefonica in roles ranging from Technical Support and Development, Operations and Service Management, Innovation and Design, through to Strategy and Business Development.

Married to wife Kate, and father to Isla, 8 and Jenna, 4. Gavin is a proud northern Englishman, who travels often and enjoys a global outlook.

“ We are, at our core, a large-scale broadband television and mobile business. In addition to that Liberty Global is a significant and successful technology ventures business” GAVIN SHELDON

MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, LIBERTY GLOBAL

ENGINEER THE

WITH EPAM

C O N S U LT

DESIGN

ENGINEER

OPERATE

OPTIMIZE

Interviewee: Erica Moreti, Head of Strategy and Innovation at EPAM Continuum Erica Moreti, Head of Strategy and Innovation at EPAM Continuum, explores how the metaverse is driving the next generation of the internet and where today’s potential growth opportunities are.

The metaverse is being built today, piece by piece to connect people, help them work, learn, and play. While it may take several years for the metaverse to fully come to fruition, early-stage investment opportunities are emerging as the metaverse evolves.

According to Moreti, telcos can continue to focus on their core business offerings while expanding into both the physical and digital world. “Metaverse could perhaps be the best use case for monetization of 5G, bringing low latency networks seamlessly into your everyday life. If telcos can provide the speed and capacity for virtual reality and augmented reality applications, they will soon be able to support in creating virtual worlds. As 5G (and the ever closer 6G) continue to evolve, this level of connectivity is essential to drive next generation connectivity and enable the future of the metaverse.”

Innovation at EPAM means connecting the dots and blurring the lines of physical and digital in a way that defines a path forward for businesses into the metaverse. Optiva Media has recently joined the EPAM family, bringing with it industry specific media and virtual reality products like metaverse platform Virtual Xpanse, and a host of clients that they have partnered with on virtual reality initiatives including Vodafone’s 5G powered virtual reality.

EPAM by the Numbers • 6/10 of the largest telcos in the world rely on EPAM • 500M + players engaged across EPAM supported platforms • Partnered with 160+ leading technology companies

Learn more

Using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to benefit employees and customers As Managing Director of Technology Development, Sheldon uses technology to remove barriers, helping teams complete their work effectively and efficiently.

“My job involves making sure we support our people in everything they need to do, whether it's through making sure they've got the right resources or prioritisation on delivery. A major part of my role is making sure we're clear on what we will and won't do, and crucially, removing barriers for people,” he said.

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Recognising the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML), and its ability to free up time for Liberty Global employees, Sheldon explained the company is increasingly looking at this technology to harness its rich dataset and use it to drive action.

He explained: “We increasingly use data, AI and ML to improve the functionality and prioritisation of features, and bug removal/ fixes/improvements on our platforms.

Telemetry is at the heart of the ongoing optimisation of our platforms, helping us to

LIBERTY GLOBAL

improve the customer experience with all our regular, agile-based software releases.”

“We use artificial intelligence to spot where customers have poor in-home Wi-Fi and placement of boosters, and we'll automatically reach out to them before they contact us to advise them, for example ‘we can see you have poor Wi-Fi in your bedroom.

We recommend moving your Wi-Fi booster, and/or adding a new Wi-Fi booster which we can provide’. Data is allowing us to be proactive and help us making our products better for the customer’.

Harnessing this technology is part of Liberty Global’s core strategy. As keen innovators, the company is always looking for new technologies to invest in and develop.

Reflecting on the past two years, Sheldon outlined some key examples of this: “We've launched a small, innovative Internet Protocol (IP) set-top box. It has won several

“ My job involves making sure we support our people in everything they need to do, whether it's through making sure they've got the right resources or prioritisation on delivery” GAVIN SHELDON

MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, LIBERTY GLOBAL

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“We use artificial intelligence to spot where customers have poor in-home Wi-Fi and placement of boosters, and we'll automatically reach out to them before they contact us to advise them” GAVIN SHELDON

MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, LIBERTY GLOBAL

Title of the video

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“ There's more to do but I’m proud of everything our people are doing across the organisation to build an inclusive movement, because it's simply the right thing to do” GAVIN SHELDON

MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, LIBERTY GLOBAL

awards for its green credentials and for its design aesthetic. Importantly it allows us to deliver the same entertainment experience to all our customers, whatever the network type. As long as they're connected to the internet, we can give them the service they desire. This device runs the same self-built middleware and back-office as our more traditional Cable/IP Hybrid device. We now have one connectivity platform, powering different boxes and product types, across all of our markets.”

Maintaining Liberty Global’s digital-first strategy With its vast reach across Europe, Liberty Global offers broadband/Wi-Fi, mobile and entertainment services. To ensure its customers gain the best digital experience, the company provides a converged service both in a commercial and technical sense.

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of our markets to improve our IT and digital technology capability to make it easier for customers to engage with us.”

By listening to customer feedback, Liberty Global has created platforms that earn high levels of customer satisfaction. Sheldon says: “We are proud of our entertainment platform, called Horizon. It is evolving to be a place where we aggregate more content of different types - content we own, free to air, national broadcaster and increasingly apps such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and YouTube. It’s a smart platform that delivers a fantastic customer experience, and so far, our customers' feedback tells us the strategy is working. We're continuing to invest in the platform in line with evolving customer demands,” he continued.

tricky and uncertain time for many, Sheldon explained how the company played an essential role keeping people connected at home and making sure businesses, education and healthcare services could continue to function with a reliable, secure and fast internet connection.

Although the pandemic highlighted the importance of the company’s services - with its usage going up by 35% and remaining there – it also demonstrated the resilience of staff who effectively and quickly transitioned to remote working.

Rising to the challenges brought about by COVID-19 As with companies across the globe, Liberty Global had to respond to challenges brought about by COVID-19. Although a mobile-magazine.com

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Sheldon commented on his team’s response to remote and agile working: “We saw productivity increase during the lockdown because people were spending less time travelling and more time working on core deliverables.”

Also, during the pandemic, Liberty Global launched the Virgin Media O2 joint venture (JV).

“That was one of the biggest telco JVs that's happened in the past 10 years.

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Largely orchestrated and planned over video conference calls!” said Sheldon.

Not only did the company’s response to the pandemic show its ability to thrive in unprecedented conditions, but it also highlighted the company’s unwavering commitment to its employees and their well-being. Sheldon adds: “Businesses are built on relationships, team work and on connections. I’m proud of how we've worked hard to support our colleagues

LIBERTY GLOBAL

“ Businesses are built on relationships, team work and on connections. I’m proud of how we've worked hard to support our colleagues through this period with wellbeing packages” GAVIN SHELDON

MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, LIBERTY GLOBAL

through this period with wellbeing packages, apps and access to industry experts. We also launched the Liberty Global Response Fund, raising $4m, to help employees and their families affected by the crisis.”

Growing with diversity and inclusion at the forefront Sheldon also praises Liberty Global’s ambition to provide an inclusive culture that supports employee wellbeing and

empowers people to bring their full self to work. “In the past two years, we have had a pronounced focus on diversity and inclusion.

We’re running a number of initiatives across the group that are challenging our thinking and encouraging diverse, equitable and inclusive conversations within our business.

“In particular we are taking action to hear from our employees through surveys and listening sessions and ensure promotion of positive role models, removing any bias mobile-magazine.com

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“ Digital-first is our strategy, we want to try and engage with our customers digitally because that’s what they want to do!”

GAVIN SHELDON

MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, LIBERTY GLOBAL

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in our recruitment practices and focusing on hiring diverse talent. We’re also taking steps to ensure that our communication and policies are inclusive for all genders, races, ethnicities, disabilities, neurodiversities, ages and sexualities, and we have set up a number of employee resource groups to provide communities of support for our people,” he added.

Liberty Global, Sheldon outlined, is committed to building its diverse, equitable and inclusive culture as it grows in the future.

“There's more to do but I’m proud of everything our people are doing across the organisation to build an inclusive movement, because it's simply the right thing to do. I believe this for two reasons, firstly my personal experience of working in more diverse teams is you innovate more effectively, and secondly if we better represent the breadth of our customers we will be a more successful business.”

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WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

WOMEN LEADING THE TELCO SECTOR Mobile Magazine recognises 10 women who are leading the telecommunications and technology sectors in 2022

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TOP 10

he telecommunications industry - like many technology sectors struggles with gender parity. In a 2020 study conducted by GLF, researchers found that in 70% of telco organisations fewer than 30% of technical roles are held by women.

Also, while corporations like to make news of the fact they hire women into executive roles, the majority of these positions tend to be within the realms of HR, marketing, customer experience, and (to a lesser degree) finance. Executive leadership and technology-focused roles at technology companies are even less representative than executive teams as a whole. Not that there’s anything wrong with marketing, CX and finance.

This month, Mobile Magazine wants to highlight (in no particular order) 10 influential, inspiring women leading the telecommunications and tech sector. mobile-magazine.com

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10

Anne Mullins

Senior Vice President and Chief Digital & Information Officer

Corning

Anne Mullins was appointed as Corning’s senior vice president and Chief Digital and Information Officer in 2019. Since then, she has been responsible for evolving the digital footprint of the world’s leading manufacturer of smartphone glass components, including the Gorilla Glass screen line and camera lenses. Prior to joining Corning, Mullins served as Chief Information Officer for Lockheed Martin. She has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from George Washington University and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University.

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09

Rima Qureshi

Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer

Verizon

Rima Quereshi has served as Verizon’s executive vice president and Chief Strategy Officer since 2017, joining the company after a stint as the president and CEO of Ericsson North America. At Verizon, Quereshi is responsible for the development and implementation of Verizon's overall corporate strategy, business development, partnerships, strategic investments and acquisitions. She is also a board member of MasterCard Incorporated and the GSMA.

“ My team and I are in the business of building a better future through mobility, technology and innovation for our customers”

08

Susie Armstrong Senior Vice President of Engineering

Qualcomm

Susie Armstrong is one of the pioneering engineers behind mobile internet. She’s worked at Qualcomm for more than two decades, leading a variety of teams, including the company’s mobile chipset division and software engineering business unit. Armstrong herself developed key software that handles data on cell phones, including web page access, phone apps, and photo viewers.

07

Nicola Palmer

Chief Product Development Officer

Verizon

Nicola Palmer has served as Verizon’s Chief Product Development Officer since 2019, prior to which she worked in a number of executive roles throughout the company, including Chief Network Engineering Officer and Head of Wireless Networks, and CTO. Palmer is a veteran network engineer, a widely-respected innovator, and a major advocate for women in the technology and telecommunications industry.

Currently, Palmer oversees the growth and development of Verizon’s 5G ecosystem. mobile-magazine.com

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06

Serpil Timuray

CEO Europe Cluster

Vodafone Group

A member of the Vodafone Group’s executive board since 2014, Serpil Timuray was appointed as the CEO of the group’s Europe Cluster in October 2018, which comprises Albania, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Romania and Turkey. She also oversees Egypt and Vodafone’s interest in the Netherlands joint venture with Liberty Global. She is the Chairperson of Vodafone Turkey, Vice-Chairperson of VodafoneZiggo Netherlands and a Board member of Vodafone Egypt.

05

Jenni Lukander President

Nokia Technologies Jenni Lukander has served as President of Nokia Technologies and a member of the Nokia Group’s Leadership Team since 2019 - prior to which she held a number of key legal roles and was instrumental in Nokia’s transition to a networks prover. Now, she heads up the licensing arm of Nokia, monetising Nokia patents, proprietary technologies and the Nokia brand. These businesses collectively generated €1.4 billion in revenue in 2020.

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04

Tami Erwin

Executive Vice President and CEO

Verizon Business Tami Erwin is executive vice president and CEO of Verizon Business, leading a $30 billion business with over 26,000 employees serving 97% of the Fortune 500. She joined Verizon in 1999 as a vice president of customer service, rising through a series of leadership positions thanks to her drive, ambition, and diverse skill set. Erwin is an alumnus of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and also serves on the board of John Deere, along with other advisory roles.

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03

Belinda Finch

Chief Information Officer

Three

Belinda Finch joined Three UK as the company’s CIO in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, when security officers were facing unprecedented challenges posed by rising cybercrime and en masse remote work. Finch joined Three from Centrica where she served as group CIO. Prior to that role, she spent 8 years in several different digital transformation roles at Vodafone.

Patricia Obo-Nai CEO

Vodafone Ghana

02

The first woman to become Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone Ghana, Patricia Obo-Nai is a giant in the African technology and telecoms sector.

Prior to her appointment as CEO of the country’s second-largest mobile carrier by market share, Obo-Nai was a 20 year veteran of the country’s communications space.

Obo-Nai has an unceasing passion for using technology and telecommunications to better the lives of marginalised Ghanaians across the country, and is a fierce advocate for using technology to lower mortality rates among pregnant women. “It is wholly unacceptable that a mother in sub-Saharan Africa is over 100 times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than a woman in Western Europe,” she wrote in an open letter to The Africa Report.

“ When it comes to your career … nobody defines your pace; you must define your own”

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20th Anniversary of the Outstanding 50 Gala Keynote Speaker: Anne Chow

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Anne Chow

Chief Executive Officer

AT&T Business

Anne Chow has led AT&T’s Business Solutions unit since September 2019. She oversees more than 30,000 employees across the $39 billion business group, serving nearly 3 million customers in more than 200 countries and territories around the world, including nearly all of the world’s fortune 1000 companies.

Chow is the first woman of colour to lead AT&T’s Business unit. She’s a vocal and active advocate for the advancement of women and minorities in the telecommunications sector; thanks to her support, over 400 women of colour have expanded their

“ Be a lifelong learner. You will never know everything so don’t try to do that. But fuel that curiosity”

professional opportunities or been promoted within AT&T Business. She is also an outspoken opponent of antiAsian biases in the workplace and, prior to becoming CEO, created a mentorship and sponsorship program for women of color at the company.

Chow is a Cornell-educated engineer who transitioned into executive roles over the past three decades.

FIRST STEPS TO AN

AUTONOMOUS NETWORK

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*All data figures stated from November 2021

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Self-healing autonomous network will deliver a seamless customer experience as Virgin Mobile O2 rolls out 5G following £31bn merger rust is the most valuable commodity in the world, according to Matias Quintanilla, Head of Customer Experience Monitoring at Virgin Media O2, who is working to ensure a seamless move into an automated world where networks can run via Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms and a service orchestration layer.

Quintanilla points out how Virgin Media O2 is already working to achieve autonomous networks through data analytics and AI “one use- case at a time” as such a monumental shift cannot be resolved with a “big bang”.

“It is a journey where you need to build your automation by defining one use-case at a time - what I call the magic triangle - which is data, processes and platforms,” comments Quintanilla, who joined O2 (Telefonica UK) in 2018, transferring from Telefonica in Argentina.

Two years later Quintanilla was working in London when the £31bn merger, by O2 owner Telefonica and Virgin Media parent Liberty Global took place in June 2021 - one of the biggest UK mergers in a decade and the largest UK telecoms deal ever. According to O2’s website, O2 and Virgin Media will continue to exist separately, as well as together as they move forward.

“The merger sees the largest and most reliable mobile network combined with the fastest broadband provider in the UK with a very clear mission to upgrade the nation,” 198

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Example of an image caption *All data figures stated from November 2021

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First steps to an autonomous network

“ It is a journey where you need to build your automation by defining one use case at a time - what I call the magic triangle - which is data, processes and platforms” MATIAS QUINTANILLA

HEAD OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MONITORING, VIRGIN MEDIA O2

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said Quintanilla whose role is to focus on customer experience monitoring.

“The shift to an autonomous network is a marathon not a sprint,” said Quintanilla. The future network is designed to run with minimal human intervention, and is able to configure, monitor, and maintain itself independently.

For a man who has the human touch always working to ensure the welfare of his colleagues and customers - Quintanilla is now focused on building trust in the future of autonomous networks as the repercussions of the merger start to settle.

MATIAS QUINTANILLA TITLE: HEAD OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MONITORING COMPANY: VIRGIN MEDIA O2 INDUSTRY: TELCO

How Virgin Mobile O2 will supercharge the market As two of the most iconic brands Virgin Mobile and O2 - which combine 47 million+ broadband, mobile, phone and home subscribers, and around 18,000 employees - have come together in the merger to give the UK more choice, value and pave the way for 5G across the UK. O2 is the UK’s biggest mobile phone operator with around 41.6 million customers across its networks, which also include giffgaff, Tesco Mobile, Sky Mobile and Lycamobile. *All data figures stated from November 2021

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM Young, dynamic and risktaking, describes Matias Quintanilla, Head of Customer Experience Monitoring at Virgin Media O2.

Quintanilla started working in teleco at 19 with his father who founded Skynet Communications, a small ISP company in Buenos Aires while studying for his Telecommunications Engineer degree.

He then worked for Alcatel Lucent and Huawei before joining Telefonica Argentina and rose to Head of Planning while finishing his MBA. Quintanilla transferred to the UK in 2018 to head the Performance Management & Data Analytics team at O2 Telefonica UK. In 2019 he was appointed Head of Customer Experience Monitoring at Virgin Media O2.

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HOW VIRGIN MEDIA O2 IMPROVES CUSTOMER NETWORK EXPERIENCE Matias Quintanilla, Head of Customer Monitoring at Virgin Media O2, shares how Ookla® Spatialbuzz helps prioritise network improvements Evolving network technology now makes it easier for operators to deliver lightning-fast network speeds and broad coverage. So how do the world’s leading mobile network operators differentiate their services in highly competitive markets?

Virgin Media O2 has transformed their business by connecting data from digital customer interactions to the Service Operations Center (SOC). By partnering with Ookla, the global leader in network intelligence, and adopting the Spatialbuzz™ platform for customer-driven network improvement, VMO2 empowers their customers with self-serve digital tools — and provides proactive, transparent communication to customers. As a result, the operator has emerged as a leader in the U.K. for customer network satisfaction.

Network prioritisation driven by customer data Every mobile network operator must manage ongoing service disruptions. Most prioritise network fixes based on traditional network alarms or escalations from the call centre.

However, leading-edge operators like VMO2 know that network improvements should be prioritised based on the volume and severity of impacted customers.

Spatialbuzz provides consumers with a simple interface to check their network status and receive network updates. It connects this subjective network feedback with device radio measurements, and delivers the data to the teams who need it most: the Network Operations Centre (NOC) and SOC. By putting customer experience at the heart of their network operations, VMO2 delivers network improvements where they matter most to customers.

“Spatialbuzz has made a tremendous impact on our customer satisfaction scores,” Quintanilla says. “We’re fixing and improving the things that matter most to our customers, faster. We are giving them crucial information at the right time — so that they don't even need to pick up the phone to tell us something's wrong.”

Happier customers on a better network To the customer experiencing a disruption, clear and proactive communication means the difference between a happy customer and a dissatisfied customer. Since adopting Spatialbuzz, VMO2 has seen vast improvements in Net Promoter Score™ (NPS). Customers report a high level of satisfaction with the increased transparency of VMO2’s messaging.

By communicating that they’re working on the network — often before a customer even realizes there might be an issue — VMO2 delivers both a superior network experience and a superior digital customer experience.

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“ The tools allow us to self heal the network whenever we are having a problem if certain parameters are in place” MATIAS QUINTANILLA

HEAD OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MONITORING, VIRGIN MEDIA O2

Virgin Media has around 5.7 million customers.

“The merger is a 50/50 joint venture between, Liberty group and Telefonica group, who decided to take us on this adventure which is very exciting,” said Quintanilla who will be overseeing the customer experience during this journey and is keen to focus on the future of autonomous networks, the rollout of 5G and how the merger will benefit customers.

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“We are supercharging our proposition with our service called Volt and the best thing is that simply being a customer of both brands already gives you benefits, such as twice the broadband speed, plus twice the mobile data, and supercharged connectivity at home or on the move.”

A total of 210 UK cities currently have access to 5G, but Quintanilla says there is a drive to upgrade by 2023 which will benefit its business and domestic customers.

“We already have 99% population coverage with 4G and we have made a promise to upgrade our fixed network to full fibre to the premises (FTTP) by 2028, which is a huge upgrade of our network, and see 50% population coverage with 5G in 2023.

By offering 5G and gigabit broadband all under one roof, Virgin Media O2 customers can experience next-generation connectivity both in and out of the home,

VIRGIN MEDIA O2

SUPERCHARGING WITH VOLT

KEY PARTNERSHIPS

Supercharge your world – Volt from Virgin Media O2

“ We are supercharging our proposition with our service called Volt and the best thing is that simply being a customer of both brands already gives you benefits, such as twice the broadband speed, plus twice the mobile data, and supercharged connectivity at home or on the move” MATIAS QUINTANILLA

HEAD OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MONITORING, VIRGIN MEDIA O2

*All data figures stated from November 2021

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June 2021 merger of Virgin Media and O2

47m+

broadband, mobile, phone and home subscribers

£2.6m

Revenue in Q3 (0.7% YoY)

15.5m+ premises with broadband

DID YOU KNOW...

ON TARGET FOR 100% GIGABIT BROADBAND IN UK

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Virgin Media O2 predicts it is on schedule to complete the rollout of gigabit broadband across its entire cable network of 15.5m homes.

It has been reported that 1.6 million properties, located across Lincoln, Bath, Lancaster, Fife, Huddersfield, Ipswich, Slough, Salisbury, can now access the company’s fastest speeds of 1.13Gbps, bringing the total number to 14.3 million which means they are now on track to reach the target of 15.5m.

Lutz Schüler, Chief Executive Officer at Virgin Media O2, said: “We’re making great strides ahead in upgrading the UK and are within touching distance of bringing the benefits of future-proof gigabit broadband to everyone on our network.

“With our gigabit rollout progressing at an unmatched pace, we’re building the next-

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generation broadband network that’s ready for the technology of tomorrow.”

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport – using ThinkBroadband data – revealed that more than 50% of UK homes now have access to gigabit broadband and praised Virgin Media O2 for its major contribution.

Virgin Media O2 has also recently announced its intention to upgrade its fixed network to full fibre to the premises (FTTP) with completion in 2028. This technology is capable of delivering symmetrical 10Gbps download and upload speeds meaning Virgin Media O2 will build on its existing leadership position today and be well equipped for the decades ahead as the demand for speed and capacity continues to rise.

“ The shift to an autonomous network is a marathon not a sprint. But you have to start and take it one use-case at a time” MATIAS QUINTANILLA

HEAD OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MONITORING, VIRGIN MEDIA O2

allowing them to take advantage of the latest technology on offer.

“We believe this is what our customers need,” said Quintanilla. “I think 4G and 5G are *All data figures stated from November 2021

both very important pillars in this merger. We have upgraded more than 85,000 postcodes this year with 4G and reached 210 cities with 5G. Plus we have started delivering low band spectrum sites, which will increase the coverage that 5G offers to our customers, especially indoors.

Magic triangle of autonomous networks “The shift to an autonomous network is a marathon not a sprint. But you have to start and take it one usecase at a time,” said Quintanilla.

An autonomous network is designed to run with minimal intervention, and is able to configure, monitor, and maintain itself independently. Automation itself, and the idea that technologies could be self-provisioning, mobile-magazine.com

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“ In the end it all comes down to whether your customers and partners trust you to do business with you and help you achieve your potential as an organisation” MATIAS QUINTANILLA

HEAD OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MONITORING, VIRGIN MEDIA O2

self-diagnosing, and self-healing, has been around for some time. But with advances in AI and cloud technologies, it is rapidly becoming a reality.

“There is not a big bang solution - you do not go from not being automated to suddenly being fully automated. It is a gradual journey to build your automation, through data analytics and AI, by defining one use-case at a time - what I call the magic triangle - which is data, processes and platforms. *All data figures stated from November 2021

“You start by automating one part of your day-to-day work. Make sure that you have the right data, the right processes and the right platforms in place, once you have that you develop that use case, and then you start the next and then the next one until you get to that fully autonomous network of the future that we all think about today.”

Quintanilla commented it is vital you engage your employees on your journey to autonomous ways of working. “One of the biggest problems is that people believe their jobs are going to be taken over by machines.

In fact automation should be about enabling people to do more interesting jobs - rather than repetitive jobs - that can deliver better value to the company.”

Self-healing networks Commenting on how far Virgin Media O2 is on their road map to an autonomous network Quintanilla said they are “where they need to mobile-magazine.com

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99%

population coverage with 4G

210

UK cities delivering 5G

18k+

Number of employees

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“SpatialBuzz is a platform that allows us to monitor our customer status checks - it’s all about putting the customer's lens on everything we do” MATIAS QUINTANILLA

HEAD OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MONITORING, VIRGIN MEDIA O2

be” and highlighted how they are already using tools to self heal the network which is improving the customer experience.

“The tools allow us to self heal the network whenever we are having a problem if certain parameters are in place.

DID YOU KNOW...

FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY WITH ELECTRIC VEHICLES [EVs] Virgin Media O2 has revealed the first electric vehicles (EVs) to be deployed across its fleet. The company has also ordered 280 new Vauxhall e-Vivaros to help engineers carry out installations and services, with a view to making its entire fleet of 4,300 vehicles electric by 2030.

“With a fleet of 4,300 vehicles visiting millions of homes and businesses every year, we have a responsibility to swap to cleaner, more sustainable alternatives as soon as possible,” said Tracey Herald, Head of Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability at Virgin Media O2.

Virgin Media O2 is also a participant in the 5G Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) testbed and has a jointventure called Liberty Charge which will use its cable infrastructure and expertise to support the deployment of charging points.

*All data figures stated from November 2021

For example if you were in the centre of London, where you have a lot of sites nearby, and one of the sites suddenly goes out of service the rest can pick up the load and make small adjustments to ensure coverage is maintained.”

Quintanilla said it is vital for Virgin Media O2 to focus on autonomous networks today as the rollout of 5G across the UK will create more complex networks so they need to be ready.

“The future for VMO2 and the rest of the industry should look simple and see less from a customer experience perspective.

The network should be able to ensure the highest level of service availability and the customer should not even care about which technology they are using. The only thing that should matter is whether they have connectivity or not and that’s it. Having connectivity should allow our customers to use all the services they require whenever they want it.”

Why trust is the most valuable commodity Quintanilla points out how Virgin Media O2 is working to reinforce the trust of its customers and partners. “When we talk about the most valuable commodity, I thought at one point it was having the data to make the right decisions, or even money, but I came to realise the most valuable commodity you can have in the world is trust. In the end it all comes down to mobile-magazine.com

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“ The dramatic change has been in being able to send bespoke messages telling our customers what was happening while they were having the incident” MATIAS QUINTANILLA

HEAD OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MONITORING, VIRGIN MEDIA O2

whether your customers and partners trust you to do business with you and help you achieve your potential as an organisation.”

Commenting on how the newly-merged company is focusing on this Quintanilla said it was all about clear communication, openness and clarity. “It is also important to 212

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be timely for our customers.

This means getting a message to them before they realise they are having a problem and that gives them the confidence that Virgin Media O2 is dealing with it.”

Power of partnerships Quintanilla pointed out that Virgin Media O2 has two very specific partners who are helping them on their customer experience journey. These include Ookla, who recently acquired Spatialbuzz, and Nokia.

Ookla's Spatialbuzz platform combines digital customer engagement tools with real-time insights into network issues and customer dissatisfaction. With Spatialbuzz,

VIRGIN MEDIA O2

network improvements are prioritised based on customer impact — resulting in happier customers on a better network.

“Spatialbuzz is a platform that allows us to monitor our customer status checks it’s all about putting the customer's lens on everything we do. If there's a lot of customers telling us something's wrong with the network, we set up an investigation for that area and we try to understand what's going on. At the same time we give customers the possibility to sign up so we can keep them posted with messages directly sent to their mobile phone.

“The dramatic change has been in being able to send bespoke messages actually telling our customers what was happening while they were having the incident, keeping them updated and then telling *All data figures stated from November 2021

them the problem is solved which has been absolutely fantastic,” said Quintanilla.

“Clear and timely communication is vital for a positive customer experience and this was highlighted in our NPS surveys. I believe that this has been critical for the work we do from a customer experience perspective and helps us to build their trust.”

Virgin Media 02 is working with Nokia on the Customer Service Operations Centre tool which will allow them to bring together data sets from different data feeds that focuses on performance, configuration or active incidents in the network.

“With Nokia, we are in the last stages of implementing the solution which will give us the capability to be able to look at our customer services one by one. The perspective of data, and different services within data, will enable Virgin Media O2 to do a variety of things that will help us understand our customers better and give them better propositions. For example, enabling us to send more bespoke messages to them whenever we see that something's wrong. We will also get that root cause analysis that we need in a very automated way.

“We have been working with Nokia on this for the last two years. It has been a fantastic collaboration exercise and we are now starting to see its fruition.”

Commenting on plans for the future Quintanilla said; “There's a lot of benefit in bringing the mobile world and the fixed world together. Both companies have a wealth of experience so now that we're Virgin Media O2, we need to find a way to get the best out of the two former organisations.”

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VODAFONE ZIGGO

THE DIGITAL EXPEDITION WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE

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PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

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As VodafoneZiggo embarks on its network of the future, technology strategist, WILCO DEKKER, equates the journey to the focus he used to climb Everest

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© Wilco Dekker

A

s VodafoneZiggo works towards a network of the future, technology strategist and Dutch adventurer Wilco Dekker equates the ‘digital expedition’ to the focus he used to conquer Mount Everest.

As Dekker drives the digital journey of VodafoneZiggo, at a time when the Netherlands is ahead of the curve compared to any other European country in their consumption of data, he applies the same focus and vision he adopted to climb the world’ highest mountain, to chart success for the communication provider.

“An explosion of happiness” is how Dekker describes the moment he stood on the roof of the world. But he soon realised the ascent of Everest was only half the story as the descent was still to come. “The real achievement is when I got to base camp.

Then I could celebrate. On the way up, I had a problem with my oxygen bottle in the Dead Zone, and it was a life or death decision, what to do. Preparation and instinct came into play.”

Dekker admits this achievement appeared like ‘mission impossible’ a few years before his climb in 2019. He now uses the same motivation he needed for this feat of human endurance as an analogy for success within VodafoneZiggo and other businesses as they embark on the ‘digital expedition’ to industry 4.0.

“I take companies through the same seven steps I went through to climb Everest to prepare them for the future, which is essentially unexplored terrain. It’s an area where nobody has ever been, so how do we prepare for that?” said Dekker speaking from the Technology office of VodafoneZiggo in Amsterdam.

“If you want to get the job done, you have to prepare for it well in advance, fail fast, learn quickly, and then you will enjoy the ride.

2017

joint–venture Vodafone and Ziggo founded

€4bn

revenue with €800+ million reinvest in the network

7,500

number of employees at Vodafone Ziggo mobile-magazine.com

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VODAFONE ZIGGO

“Before starting on any journey, you have to be aware of the goal before identifying the direction and how to get there. For me, the success of getting there exists with 80% preparation and 20% execution,” said Dekker, who cites the seven steps to success as: • Awareness • Preparation • Leaving your comfort zone • Research • Practise • Conviction • Overview He is now drawing on them in his role as Manager Technology Strategy with VodafoneZiggo to help navigate its digital transformation to ‘build for the future’.

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Following the merger of Vodafone, which entered the Dutch market in 1995 under the name Libertel, and Ziggo in 2017, the company adopted the name VodafoneZiggo and now serves 5.2 million mobile customers.

Dekker joined VodafoneZiggo in 2014 and is helping to shape their pledge to build a 'network of the future' with smart connections. This includes providing fixed, mobile, and integrated communication and entertainment services to consumers and businesses. They offer consumers entertainment from TV, sports, movies and series and help entrepreneurs on their way with impactful business operations.

“Technology as a facilitator allows us to enjoy our lives to the max,” commented Dekker.

COMPANY NAME

Wilco Dekker TITLE: TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY MANAGER COMPANY: VODAFONEZIGGO INDUSTRY: COMMUNICATION PROVIDER LOCATION: AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

© Peter de Jong

EXECUTIVE BIO

Wilco Dekker is responsible for the Video–, HFC and Access domain of the VodafoneZiggo network.

Dekker, who climbed Mount Everest in 2019, worked on the first Pay–TV system and introduced the first digital TV platform in the Netherlands. After the merger of Vodafone and Ziggo, he is now an internal advisor.

Dekker’s role at Liberty Global was as VP Broadcast & Media Services and was responsible for all digital broadcast services.

In 2011 Dekker worked for Doctors without Borders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In 1994, he worked on the transformation of the one–way CATV network into a bi–directional multimedia telecom network.

“ I TAKE COMPANIES THROUGH THE SAME SEVEN STEPS I WENT THROUGH TO CLIMB EVEREST TO PREPARE THEM FOR THE FUTURE, WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY UNEXPLORED TERRAIN” WILCO DEKKER

TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY MANAGER, VODAFONEZIGGO

VODAFONE ZIGGO

VodafoneZiggo: The digital expedition

One step ahead of the competition “In the corporate world, it is important you are prepared for your digital journey and start before your competition does so,” said Dekker, who cited five reasons why he thought the Netherlands is growing faster than any other European country in their consumption of data.

• Good infrastructure with many homes connected • High capacity networks • High internet usage • Digitally skilled people • High number of smart TV’s and connected homes “All this means there is more data going through our network than in other countries.

In an exponentially growing data market, that means that 30% of a little is still a little, but 30% of a lot is serious business. Knowing this, we can 220

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take precautions and look at an early stage at potential changes and other technologies.

“VodafoneZiggo is on top of the digital transformation. We made it one of our strategic pillars to ‘go digital’. We have a dedicated department in charge of transformation and reach out to all of our employees to create awareness about the

“ VODAFONEZIGGO IS ON TOP OF THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION. WE MADE IT ONE OF OUR STRATEGIC PILLARS TO ‘GO DIGITAL’” WILCO DEKKER

TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY MANAGER, VODAFONEZIGGO

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need to change. Many processes, platforms and systems have to change, and that takes time. But it all starts with the belief of the people who operate all of this that we have to make this move.”

VodafoneZiggo is a joint venture between Liberty Global, the largest international TV and broadband internet company, and the Vodafone Group. As a provider of entertainment services, Ziggo has four million television and internet customers and 5.2 million mobile telephony service subscribers (1.5 million converged). With 457,977km of coaxial cable and fibre optic cable – which they claim would ‘stretch to the moon’.

The four strategy pillars of VodafoneZiggo are: • Live up to the customer promise • Go digital • Hero products • Invest for the future

© VodafoneZiggo

VODAFONE ZIGGO

DID YOU KNOW...

READY FOR THE FUTURE IN MAASTRICHT The latest roll–out of super–fast internet has been completed in Maastricht to almost 59,000 households and businesses. Download speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second are now possible in the municipality of Limburg.

In total, Ziggo provides more than 3.3 million Dutch households and companies with gigabit speeds with this latest connection. In the course of 2022, VodafoneZiggo will offer all customers access to a download speed of up to 1 Gbps via the existing network.

Ziggo's network has recently been improved by smart technology. As a result, it was not necessary to break open the street.

The 1 Gbps download speeds are therefore available immediately. There are no waiting times or delays.

"The roll–out of super–fast internet in the Netherlands fits in completely with VodafoneZiggo's ambition to prepare the Netherlands for the digital future", says Jeroen Hoencamp, CEO VodafoneZiggo.

"Under the name GigaNet, the powerful network of Vodafone and Ziggo, we invest hundreds of millions annually in a stable, innovative and secure network. 'Gigabit without digging' is an important part of this.”

Ziggo's fixed network is a typical hybrid network consisting of fibre optic and coax.

In April, VodafoneZiggo achieved a download speed of 10 gigabits per second on the existing fixed network during a test. At this speed, an average two–hour 4K movie is downloaded in 10 seconds.

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5.2mn

million mobile customers

3.9mn

fixed customers (7.3 million homes passed) – of which 1.5 million have a combined subscription

2mn

reach with social program

1st

provider to offer 5G in the Netherlands

VODAFONE ZIGGO

“IN THE CORPORATE WORLD, IT IS IMPORTANT YOU ARE PREPARED FOR YOUR DIGITAL JOURNEY AND START BEFORE YOUR COMPETITION DOES SO” WILCO DEKKER

TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY MANAGER, VODAFONEZIGGO

Build for the future Commenting on how the company has become stronger since the merger of Vodafone and Ziggo, Dekker said there is now a focus to ‘build for the future’.

“It was a strategic decision to combine the fixed with the mobile world and offer more with less investment due to many synergies that can be gained. For a start, it is about two strong mother companies coming together.

We can learn from one another and combine product offering and backbone traffic.”

Vodafone offers 4G+ coverage in more than 250 municipalities across the Netherlands.

There are more than 4,500 4G masts and small cell towers. They are the driving force behind Dutch digitisation but also the builder of the infrastructure that should help to guarantee the digital lead of the Netherlands in the future.

It is predicted the company's network will see mobile and fixed connections connect even closer to each other and are ‘stable, smarter and faster,’ with internet speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second – which is needed due to the growth of data needs in the Netherlands.

“If we fast forward, I foresee a further increase in fixed and mobile data usage. The internet signal from our datacenter to the customers home follows for 97% via fibre which will be a great base for a dense network to support future roll–out of 5G mmWave and getting prepared for 6G in 2030,” said Dekker. mobile-magazine.com

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1 Gbps download speed on the fixed network

50%

reduction of CO2 with VodafoneZiggo social program

457,977km of coaxial cable and fibre optic cable – which they claim would ‘stretch to the moon

“We have to create ‘bandwidth rich’ networks that will be integrated. The access network for the customer will be a wireless experience, being Wi–Fi or Pico cells.

There will be new products tailored to the customer's needs.

“Essentially, customers simply want connectivity and access to the services

“ TECHNOLOGY AS A FACILITATOR ALLOWS US TO ENJOY OUR LIVES TO THE MAX” WILCO DEKKER

TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY MANAGER, VODAFONEZIGGO

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they are looking for. There is no distinction anymore what type of network they are using,” he said.

Digital expedition “Be flexible, adapt to the situation, have confidence, trust yourself,” are quotes from Dekker’s description of his ascent of Everest, but how does he think these qualities could be relayed to enterprises hesitant about embarking on their digital journey?

“Digital transformation has become a kind of a buzzword, but what is it exactly? I refer to it as a digital expedition. It's a journey to become digital. But the next question is, how do you deal with it?” said Dekker.

“I think that in general where there is doubt, you should not freeze but get in an active mode. In all cases, it starts with good preparation work. You have to invest on the forehand without a 100% guarantee that you

© Peter de Jong

VODAFONE ZIGGO

QUICK FIRE QUESTIONS: How did the challenge of your Mount Everest expedition prepare you for the challenges faced during the pandemic?

Climbing Mount Everest puts a lot of things into perspective. It covers questions like: • How dedicated are you?

• Are you willing to prepare?

• How to deal with surprises?

• What is really important to you?

The pandemic forced us to do things differently.

Personally, I took it as a new challenge and dealt with the new situation. However, it came with a new set of rules that we all had to adapt. There was not really another choice.

Luckily VodafoneZiggo’s telecommunications infrastructure is in such a shape that it could deal with the increase of people working from home.

What advances in technology are you personally most excited about?

With the evolution of technology, we have already changed our way of living in relation to smartphones (apps and nanotechnology), over

the top content (IP streaming) and virtualisation (cloud services).

I predict that more and more customers will expect a wireless connection inside and outside the house to be always available. We should converge fibre with 5G, 6G and small cells, and there will be a focus on ‘QCSA’: Quality, Capacity, Security, Accessibility along with IP streaming, apps, cloud solutions, automation, data lakes, AI and customisation. I am also excited about the advances in Quantum computing, blockchain, 6G and biometrics.

What is the secret of success for VodafoneZiggo?

A combination of different cultures and networks opens the mindset to trigger new ideas and delivers more to the customer in the shape of state of the art products with good deals and pricing. There are great minds looking into the long term strategy making sure VodafoneZiggo will continue to be a number one player in the Dutch telecom market.

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LIFE OUTSIDE THE OFFICE

Do you have any other challenges you would like to achieve?

An expedition is on the horizon to climb Mount Vinson in Antarctica.

When we can travel again – what will be your first holiday destination and why?

Camping with my family on one of the Dutch Islands. To keep my balance in a fully connected world, I need to be disconnected every now and then.

Most inspiring book?

The Whole Elephant Revealed by Marja de Vries What is your favourite cuisine?

In winter, nothing beats the traditional Dutch stew. In summer, I favour the Asian kitchen Favourite drink?

A mojito, but during my descent of Mount Everest, it was a Chinese cup of tea – that was the best ever!

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© Wilco Dekker

What inspired you to climb Mount Everest?

It had never been on my bucket list, but it came on my path because I followed my passion step–by–step. It came from the belief that we can do way more than we think we can, and the fear you feel when doing something scary can be managed and will lead to exponential joy and happiness.

What is your most precious possession?

My curiosity: it is the creator of all my experiences. I am not that related to materials.

Favourite movie?

Braveheart and The Shawshank Redemption.

What advice would you give to a young Wilco Dekker?

“Get inspired. Follow your intuition. Never lose your curiosity, get inspired by others but follow your own path, trust your intuition. In a complex world, it is key to understand the main players and differentiators. Focus on connecting the dots and projecting this in the long term. This will become your strategy and makes it a lot easier to make good decisions.

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VODAFONE ZIGGO

will succeed. You need a firm belief that you Prepare to be agile did all you could and did more than others Commenting on what gave VodafoneZiggo would ever do that makes the difference. its competitive edge during the pandemic, “It also means to expect surprises and Dekker said: “First of all, COVID–19 forced deal with them when everybody to work from home. they appear. With all the This caused an increase in preparation you went data on our network, both KEY FACT through, the skills you upstream as downstream. gained, and the time you Due to the many Zoom practised, you will be VodafoneZiggo achieved and Teams meetings, the able to deal with them. a download speed of 10 quality had to be excellent.

But it indeed means that gigabits per second on the “Due to the size and quality you have to start at the existing fixed network during of our network and the daily beginning and take time a test. At this speed, an work of many hundreds of to understand what it all average two–hour 4K movie network technicians, we could entails you are getting is downloaded in 10 seconds. deal with the increase of data into,” he said. instantly. It was not so much a technologymagazine.com

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“ MOUNT EVEREST WAS MY OBVIOUS SUMMIT, BUT THE NEXT SUMMIT FOR ENTERPRISES IS THE FUTURE AND INDUSTRY 4.0, SO LET'S WORK TOGETHER, AND WE WILL GET THERE” WILCO DEKKER

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Mount Everest 2019 Tibet North Route

peak increase but an overall increase during the day that required adequate monitoring and high standards in field services daily.

Dekker said they would continue to be agile to the needs of the consumer by being “quick to respond to any change in the market”.

“All our systems and network elements must support this way of working. An important requirement that sounds simple but always creates a lot of hassle. It often means that legacy systems must be phased out. This often results in an exchange of CPE and additional budget requirements.

It requires automated processes and systems that can provide the data to align on. It requires smart cooperation between departments. Architectures, processes, and people will be impacted and need to change.

“Agile sounds simple, but it requires a lot of preparation. You can go as fast as the budget available. We engineer and develop to make sure that our customers get an

amazing experience and can offer anything the customer wants.

Dekker points out how VodafoneZiggo is focused on quantum computing, blockchain, IoT, 5G, 6G and Artificial Intelligence as they move forward. “It's a logical sequence we're going through with all these technologies.

Quantum computing will speed up the calculation power, and blockchain will create a trusted environment. All of these technologies will make life easier and help us to do things faster.

Commenting on the digital expedition to Industry 4.0, Dekker concluded: “We want to do a lot of things tomorrow, but it takes time to get there. Mount Everest was my obvious summit, but the next summit for enterprises is the unknown future, so let's work together, and we will get there.”

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STAYING AGILE IN THE NORDIC MOBILE MARKET

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3 SCANDINAVIA

WRITTEN BY: ALEX TUCK PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

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Per Stigenberg, CTO & CIO at 3 Scandinavia, discusses the convergence of IT and Network and responding quickly to the needs of the customer

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n the Nordics, the 3 Technology brands consist of 3 Sweden and 3 Denmark, two markets at different stages but both with vast opportunities for growth and expansion. In charge of enabling this growth from an IT and Network infrastructure aspect is Per Stigenberg, Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer of 3 Technology.

Operating as mobile-only, a point of difference in the Scandinavian market where rivals operate fixed services, 3 are the challengers - taking an innovative, agile and technologically advanced approach while staying extremely price competitive.

The competitive advantage of 3 Stigenberg is proud to be working for a company that is constantly at the forefront both technically as well as commercially.

Technological examples include the launch of eSIMs and voice services over LTE and Wifi (VoLTE/WoWifi). Commercially, 3 Scandinavia was leading the evolution towards flat fee concepts with mobile broadband and being an operator associated with user-friendliness, great customer service and simple, well-defined and fairly priced offerings.

“The eSIM is a replacement for the physical card that we put in our mobile phones. It's generally believed to be the future of SIM cards. Physical SIMs are still dominating the market, but we were very

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3 Scandinavia: Staying agile in the Nordic mobile market

“WE COULD LOOK ANYONE IN THE EYE AND PROUDLY SAY THAT WE HAVE A GREAT NETWORK”

early to market with is. We like to be welleSIMs. We were also prepared for the future,” early with smartwatches, he said. so a customer can basically download an Future architecture eSIM without having to As Chief Technology go to the shop and buy Officer, Stigenberg it.” said Stigenberg. doesn’t resonate with “It’s basically a software the phrase ‘digital version that frees up a lot transformation’. In his of valuable real estate in mind, there is no end and PER STIGENBERG a handset. Within the B2B no start to innovation.

CIO/CTO, segment, such as IoT and He said “It's an 3 SCANDINAVIA so forth, eSIMs will have ongoing, continuous great operational advantages such as vast improvement process. We constantly need reductions in energy consumption and field to make sure that we have the systems, the maintenance.” he continued. technology and the architecture in place At present, adoption has been amongst so we aren’t locked in and prevented from the more tech savvy clientele, but Stigenberg evolving. We’re trying to combine a very thinks the technology is an investment in the agile set up with a flexible architecture, so future, an approach that typifies 3’s attitude. we can change direction rapidly to adapt “We are constantly making sure that we to whatever our business departments adapt to whatever market change there require from us.”

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PER STIGENBERG TITLE: CIO/CTO INDUSTRY: TELECOMMUNICATIONS

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: SWEDEN Per Stigenberg has been CTIO (CTO& CIO) of 3 Scandinavia since August 2017. Per has the responsibility for the mobile Networks of 3 Denmark and 3 Sweden and also for the IT systems of the combined entity 3 Scandinavia.

Prior to joining 3 Scandinavia, Per worked for ten years at Swedish Telecom operator Tele2 in various management positions within IT and Network such as Director of Core Network, Director of IT Development & Director of IT strategy. He has also been part of building up HiQ, a very successful Swedish IT consultancy.

Per has extensive and broad experience within all technical aspects of Telecommunications and is particularly specialized in running lean and efficient development and operations. He holds a Master of Science in Engineering Physics.

TCS, 3 Scandinavia and the power of purpose Written by: John O’Hanlon

TCS has partnered with 3 Scandinavia for 17 years: now it’s helping them build their digital core on the cloud Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is among the largest IT services, consulting and business solutions organisations. It’s a long-term technology partner of leading CSP 3, Scandinavia.

Saravanakumar Kadirvelu (SK) is TCS’ Stockholm-based Client Partner for 3 Scandinavia.

Over the last 17 years. “It’s been a long, fruitful and purposeful journey together for both of us.

Currently we are helping them build their digital core on Cloud.

“We have delivered transformation programmes, platform upgrades and critical milestone projects with innovative solutions and thought leadership. We perform a wide variety of services, all really important to 3 Scandinavia’s consumers and make life easier for their employees.”

Long-term commitment is what makes any partnership successful. Making all of the accumulated experience and knowledge of TCS, (and in the global Communications Service Provider (CSP) space that experience is deep and extensive), is essential in the journey of digital transformation. “With TCS, you experience certainty. We take a long-term view, building relationships that endure, leading to mutual growth and sustainable outcomes. TCS is a knowledgeable global network of the smartest minds and practitioners. We master the journey, and provide the agility and continuity you need to navigate perpetual change together with ideas magnified and value multiplied at global scale.

“The decision to choose TCS, stay with us, and now trust us to facilitate the demanding process of migrating 3 Scandinavia’s IT systems to the cloud shows great confidence. How we go about transformation is completely different”, says SK. “We understand the power of purpose and how it transforms businesses for the better. Customers like 3 Scandinavia who organise themselves around their purpose seek out like-minded businesses to partner with. They chose TCS as a partner because we have a similar value-set and philosophical approach to doing business.”

Discover more

Get in touch

While 3 still has some legacy systems in place, it doesn’t believe in tearing things apart and throwing them out to bring in something big.

“We are relatively small compared to our competitors, which we use as one of our key advantages, as we are very cost efficient.

We're very cost-conscious. As we need to be careful with our money, we're very lean and efficient. We can't afford to fail!”

“ PHYSICAL SIMS ARE STILL DOMINATING THE MARKET, BUT WE WERE VERY EARLY TO MARKET WITH ESIMS” PER STIGENBERG CIO/CTO, 3 SCANDINAVIA

AT 3 Technology, it’s all about taking controlled, well-defined steps that deliver value along the way, throughout its target architecture.

At every step, the business ensures it doesn’t diverge from the product architecture. As the Technology department at 3 is always thinking a couple of years down the road, they can identify what purpose they are striving for, while managing the day to day considerations like what kind of systems are running out of support or end of life.

“For me, Agile is being able to deliver value constantly and continuously along the way, so even if I stopped the project or the work that I have done, it should not be in vain. I should have gotten some value from it. This can happen if we have to change direction quickly due to market demands, because we can't anticipate everything that happens.” added Stigenberg.

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An advanced customer offering “When it comes to offering a variety of customer options, I think no one can beat us in how quickly we can implement new price tariffs,” says Stigenberg.

The reason for these capabilities is linked to the maturity of the markets in Sweden and Denmark. As Stigenberg suggests, in order to make things simple for the customers, you need to do some advanced things internally.

“We have a very competent and very flexible IT stack. With a large IT swap project,that's a huge undertaking, where a lot of things would have been built from the beginning. In certain areas in some companies, and in particular markets, you 242

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can do a greenfield approach. But we have decided not to do that because it's not suited for our market.” he added.

At 3 Technology, the approach is to do a lot of things in-house, but they do have certain key partners day to day, such as a PeopleSoft CRM from Oracle and a single view billing system from CSGi. Both the billing system and CRM system are configured to 3 in a way that creates an advanced business logic.

“We have a strategic partnership with TCS/Tata consulting but we also like to keep things local by using a number of highly specialised local consultancies. And for development, we have a large number of

3 SCANDINAVIA

“WE’RE TRYING TO COMBINE A VERY AGILE SET UP WITH A FLEXIBLE ARCHITECTURE” PER STIGENBERG CIO/CTO, 3 SCANDINAVIA

highly skilled employees that we bring in specifically from local companies.”

Using Java code, 3 Technology develops a lot of functionality on their own.

“What we try to do is to isolate functionality. So not too much of one system, otherwise it becomes very complex to swap it. Our architecture targets the goal of having a modular, microservices-based model. That's one thing we were working under the hood to create; a sort of an APIbased backend that delivers very clear sorts of interfaces towards the online area, for instance,” he continued.

Stigenberg admits that the company isn't at a perfect stage yet, but the business has

identified what it needs to do in terms of the architecture, which is to build it around the customer.

“We make the customer journey online as simple and quick as possible, because I think that's important in these days where people are impatient and they expect quick feedback,” he said “So we spend a lot of time learning how to build a rapidly dynamic, low-latency online experience; ensuring we optimise so that the experience is quick,” added Stigenberg.

A critical element for 3 is the collaboration between the business side of the company and the Technology department, to reduce the number of steps in the process. The last couple of years has seen the speed of the experience vastly increase.

“Our experiments with AI-based chat functionality are looking very promising. We also set up customer communities, so they can help each other. I think it's a win-win mobile-magazine.com

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“OUR EXPERIMENTS WITH AI-BASED CHAT FUNCTIONALITY ARE LOOKING VERY PROMISING” PER STIGENBERG CIO/CTO, 3 SCANDINAVIA

between us and the customers in a way.” said Stigenberg.

flexibility to give them a great offer if they want to stay committed to us,” said Stigenberg.

Altering approach to the market 3 have both Swedish and Danish market presence, but they operate differently according to the business rules and market conditions in those countries.

In Denmark, it's very strict regulations on binding times, so you're not allowed to bind your customer for more than six months.

This provides a certain specific challenge, which 3 have been successfully solving with its home offering, allowing customers to ‘roam like home’, even outside the EU. The COVID situation has impacted this solution, but historically it’s an area where 3 have been very successful.

In Sweden, 3 have launched something called ‘3 Gather’ (in Swedish, “3 Samla”), where you can tie additional subscriptions to your main subscription. With an unlimited phone subscription you could, for instance, add your children, mother or best friend at a significant discount.

The company is now looking into doing similar things in Denmark too. The 3 Flexible option also offers a decouple option, creating a conditional discount not tied to either subscription or the hardware.

“As long as they stay with us, they will keep receiving this conditional discount. It gives the customer flexibility, and it gives us the

A strong network Stigenberg is fiercely proud of what 3 have achieved in a relatively short space of time: “We could look anyone in the eye and proudly say that we have a great network. It differs a bit between Denmark and Sweden because of the geography. Denmark is a much, much smaller country where we have great coverage. We're actually now rolling out 5G and extending the network at a very high pace.”

“With Sweden being a very large country, at least comparatively, it takes a while to build out the coverage. In the southern parts of Sweden, where the vast majority of the customers or the population live, our network is very strong. I've been here for four years and our network has grown 50% in the number of sites,” he added.

With voice services 3 provides cover 99% of the population, and then with 4G services and data services, they cover 96% of the population.

“We are the fastest growing of the big telecoms players. It shows what we have done the last year in terms of building out the network and improving customer experience. It's really started to pay off,” concluded Stigenberg.

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DEVELOPING CABLE SYSTEMS AROUND THE GLOBE 246

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SUBSEA NETWORKS

WRITTEN BY: SAM STEERS PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

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SUBSEA NETWORKS

SubSea Networks has been involved in the telecommuni­cations industry for a decade, providing high quality consultancy services for global clients. Lynsey Thomas tells us more

S

ubsea Networks was founded in 2012 by Jol Paling after many years working for BT, STC Submarine Systems, ASN and Global Crossing. His idea was to form an independent consultancy business made up of specialist subsea personnel.

Based in the heart of the historical subsea industry near the Porthcurno submarine telegraph museum in Cornwall Jol selected experts with the necessary background and experience to offer support and solutions for people looking to build new cable systems.

Jol was soon joined by Jeremy Marston, Denis Gallagher, and Neil Dann who had previously worked for Global Crossing and Level 3. SubSea Networks are also supported by a number of other subject matter experts providing detailed knowledge and experience in a number of key disciplines including marine surveys, subsea installation, optical design and other commercial and technical backgrounds.

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SubSea Networks: Developing cable systems around the globe

Building projects, new customers development and negotiation as well as and the EllaLink system the construction because you become Six years later, Lynsey Thomas joined the really focused on making sure you have management team on an outreach basis, the best agreement in place to facilitate rather than in Cornwall, and has been at the a smooth build phase.” Talking about the company for almost four years. During that stages of involvement in a project, she time, she has helped with the development added that SubSea Networks are typically of several of Subsea Networks’ projects and engaged from concept through tender contracts. “We really like to get involved with evaluation and on to construction and O&M. new projects right at the beginning, at the “We provide project management services embryonic stage when new routes are being to support both turnkey and disaggregated developed. This includes due diligence, supply and we can provide managed business case development, looking rep solutions, which consist of client at designs, finding anchor tenants and representatives on board vessels or in cable customers and forming stations,” Thomas said. Subsea contracts with them,” Networks have provided Based in the heart of the Thomas said, explaining Horizontal Directional Drill historic subsea cable how the company solutions but much of their industry, Subsea Networks supports its customers. work focuses on the earlydevelops and manages submarine cable projects She also points out that stage development, contract around the world from when developing new support and getting projects its offices near Penzance systems, it’s “really great funded and/or signed. Subsea in Cornwall. to work on the contract Networks is very proud of the

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“We really like to get involved with projects at the beginning, at the embryonic stage. This includes business case development, system design, finding anchor tenants & customers to reach the critical mass that brings a project to reality” LYNSEY THOMAS

DIRECTOR, SUBSEA NETWORKS

Lynsey Thomas TITLE: DIRECTOR COMPANY: SUBSEA NETWORKS

EXECUTIVE BIO

INDUSTRY: SUBSEA CABLES, SUBMARINE, TELECOMMUNICATIONS Having been involved with the subsea telecommunications industry since 1995 Lynsey’s previous roles include VP Global Sales for Xtera, Director of Operations for Apollo SCS Ltd and Department Head for the Cable & Wireless Submarine Systems Engineering team. During her time at C&W Lynsey worked on the Europe India Gateway system, leading the Commercial Working Group and co-chairing the Purchaser Group from conception through to contract. Having worked worldwide as a supplier, customer, operator and consultant, she has an extensive knowledge of the telecoms market.

Lynsey has served as a trustee in the renewables sector and is a freelance writer and previous columnist for The Guardian.

SUBSEA NETWORKS

fact that once their customers have worked with them at the early stages and seen what they can do, then they are usually engaged for the ensuing project management quality assurance, technical support and network lighting, to name just a few aspects.

Over the last five years SSN has supported EllaLink both through the development of the funding,and negotiating and managing anchor tenant contracts, as well as the technical consultancy and project management support. “EllaLink is a new lowlatency, diverse, transatlantic cable system,” Thomas says. “It runs from Sines in Portugal to Fortaleza in Brazil, and it has branches into Madeira and Cape Verde. The EllaLink system has created a direct connection between Europe and Latin America that

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avoids the two-hop route via North America that traditional cable systems take – it is a route revolution!” Thomas explains that the company worked on that project from formation to provisional acceptance, adding it was “fantastic to be involved with.”

The NO-UK cable system: 700km of cable across the North Sea in 22 months A highlight for Subsea Networks was the recent NO-UK cable system, that was designed and installed by turnkey supplier Xtera. Running between Norway and the UK, connecting the Green Mountain data centre in Stavanger and the Stellium data centre in Newcastle, the project was a team effort with just 22 months between contract in force and provisional acceptance.

Subsea Networks were engaged to get the system over the line, to make the vendor selection recommendations and to support the drafting and negotiation of the supply contract. This resulted in a twoyear engagement to project manage the successful installation and system turn up.

“It is easy to underestimate the challenges a system like this can create,” Thomas said.

“We were working in the North Sea, which as you know, has many constraints in terms of terrain, weather and cable crossings.

Lockdown in the UK came a month after we signed the supply contract, which obviously created issues for everyone in the industry to some extent. The market was exceptionally busy, with vessel availability stretched and cable manufacturing slots sparse.”

Another challenge the team faced was permitting the project in time to allow marine operations within the available weather windows. “In order to obtain the permits in principle, crossing agreements and the operational permits in time to meet the programme, the teams at Subsea Networks, Xtera, NO-UK and Altibox Carrier (the system operator) had to remain very focused. The experience of the experts involved played a key part in the NO-UK success story”.

“An active dynamic management style was needed for this project, and everybody played their part,” Thomas said. She noted that one of the interesting aspects of the project was that during the commissioning period, Ciena, the lighting vendor selected

by Altibox Carrier, performed trials which concluded that NO-UK is the only submarine cable system in the world that has been able to carry an 800Gbit/s channel to date. This is in part due to Xtera’s wide bandwidth and low noise repeater, and is a terrific achievement for the teams at Xtera and Ciena and a great result for the customer.” Thomas said.

“Furthermore, using software automation that forms part of Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme

“You really need to have a good idea what all the suppliers are capable of and what technology is available, but also what it will take to get a concept or project over the line” LYNSEY THOMAS

DIRECTOR, SUBSEA NETWORKS

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Creating outstanding solutions for undersea system owners

Exponential increases in data and cloud services, streaming and social media have driven an explosion in demand for new undersea networks. Cable owners need rapid solutions, high performance systems and commercial agility to keep pace with global demand.

Xtera design and deliver outstanding turnkey underwater networks. Our team has deep industry knowledge, technical expertise and a straight-forward commercial approach that accelerates your project success.

FIND OUT MORE

Our mission is to swiftly deliver subsea networks through best-in-class project management and strategic partnerships with industry-leading suppliers From initial route design and survey through to marine installation and commissioning, our team has significant subsea telecoms experience in both repeatered and unrepeatered networks. Xtera’s expertise, know-how and ability to innovate is underpinned by leading-edge research and development which enables us to deliver subsea systems efficiently, with maximum capacity and capability.

The recently deployed NO-UK submarine cable system is a testament to our ability to deliver challenging projects within recordbreaking timescales - with the project being completed just 22 months after the Supply Contract came into force. The 8 fiber pair system, which forms part of Altibox Carrier’s network, provides a robust connection across the North Sea between Stavanger and Newcastle with a record-breaking bandwidth capability. Direct Data Center to Data Center connectivity is where the market is headed and the Xtera team are leading the way.

Xtera offers turnkey or disaggregated SDM subsea cable systems with repeatered transmission from one to 24 fiber pairs.

Our repeater goes beyond the industry norms with subtle evolutions offering builtin equalization, intelligent powering giving greener use of energy, sensors embedded in the repeater and best-in-class repeater monitoring as we have worked to retain the active supervisory in spite of offering a highly competitive 24fp SDM capability.

We can meet your needs for complex subsea architectures with power, fiber and band-switching branching units and can take the system from Data Center to Data Center with our complimentary competence on terrestrial and unrepeatered systems, using our high launch power amplifiers and system design expertise.

FIND OUT MORE

6

Number of employees

2012 Year founded

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SUBSEA NETWORKS

JOL PALING TITLE: MANAGING DIRECTOR

feature set we were able to test all 8 fiber pairs in one day during the Purchaser test period. Something which would have taken far longer previously. This automation, combined with a collaborative open cable way of operating (as per ITUT G.977), allowed Ciena, Xtera and Altibox Carrier to work together throughout the project to ensure all parties expectations for the system were aligned.”

Finding supplier strengths for each project When starting a project, it’s important for the purchaser to select its suppliers carefully and make an informed decision on which one would suit it best. This process is adopted by Subsea Networks for every project it embarks on. Discussing it further, Thomas said: “We’ve worked with the main players in our industry. We’ve been deeply involved with new build projects from Xtera, ASN and SubCom for many years, so we’re well versed in the sort of technology and skillsets of the various suppliers.

EXECUTIVE BIO

COMPANY: SUBSEA NETWORKS Jol Paling is the founder and managing director of Subsea Networks Ltd. His expertise ranges across the full scope of submarine cable project development, having been involved in over 20 new cable system build projects. His passion is taking projects from conception through to completion.

Jol gained a master’s degree in telecommunications at the University of Essex in 1990 and Chartered engineering status with the IEE in 2002. After his degree he joined BT as a NOC manager in 1990, before moving to STC Submarine Systems/ASN and then Global Crossing, until setting up Subsea Networks in 2012.

“You have to consider which supplier is right for which project. Some may have more strengths on the marine side.

Others may have more strengths on the project management, permitting and optical side. You have to look at the region, the seabed, geopolitics, the required functionality of the equipment or capacity of the system, amongst other things.

“So, you really need to have a good idea what all the suppliers are capable of and what their technology and availability is, and match this with what your customer wants,” summarises Thomas. mobile-magazine.com

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Is time more important than money when it comes to customers?

The tender process Thomas says that, in reality, time and money are likely to be equally important, and moreover are often one-and-thesame thing. “But what are the main drivers for your customers?” she asks, before explaining that the “best way to get a good understanding of how to design and construct any new system is to run a tender process.” These can be time-consuming and involved, and so Thomas says it’s often a good idea to engage someone who has a deep and broad subsea knowledge if your company doesn’t have that skill set in-house.

Experts can help customers to run tender processes and evaluate the available suppliers both fairly and equally, so that the customer can move forwards into the next stage of contract negotiation, Thomas explains.

The SubOptic Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging working group and its aim to promote culture and ethnic equality in the subsea industry Thomas is a member of SubOptic’s Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging working group and helped to start their mentoring programme, a subject which she feels passionately about. Our goal is to foster innovation and attract diverse talent into the submarine cable industry; we aim to promote cultural and ethnic equality, respect and value differences.

“I’ve had mentors throughout my career, and I think it’s really valuable for development and confidence.

It’s a two-way street: both mentors and mentees learn and benefit from each other,” Thomas said.

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“ You have to consider which supplier is right for which project. Some may have more strengths on the marine side. Others may have more strengths on the project management, permitting and optical side” LYNSEY THOMAS

DIRECTOR, SUBSEA NETWORKS

International Women in Engineering Day: Encouraging women to develop their engineering careers Speaking of diversity and inclusion, Thomas points out that there has been an increase in proactiveness regarding encouraging women to pursue careers in the subsea and engineering industries. Discussing this in more depth, Thomas said: “As a woman who’s worked in this industry for 27 years, I would say it is a good working environment for women. I have always felt supported and have worked within many different inclusive teams. mobile-magazine.com

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Altibox Carrier – the digital highway to the Nordics We own, operate and build fiber optic cables bringing enterprises to sustainable and cost effective data storage in the Nordics: z At the speed of light z With high diversity z And low latency

DISCOVER THE POSSIBILITIES

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www.altiboxcarrier.com

SUBSEA NETWORKS

However, the number of women pursuing careers in engineering is low, something which Thomas would like to change. “There is a massive shortage in young girls signing up to become engineers, and there has been for many years,” she said.

Thomas also participates in many initiatives to promote women in engineering including celebrating ‘International Women in Engineering Day’ with her peers and encouraging a diverse participation at conferences and events. As part of the Advisory Board for ‘Submarine Networks EMEA’ Lynsey said she was “pleased that the conference will have free tickets for students and recent graduates this year”.

“An active dynamic management style is required, and projects generally don’t happen without targeted momentum” LYNSEY THOMAS

DIRECTOR, SUBSEA NETWORKS

Long-existing contracts and embryonic partnerships to continue into the future Looking ahead to the future, Subsea Network’s aim is to continue to support its existing customers and partnerships.

Which are very much a crucial part of the business. “We’re always on the lookout for projects at the early development stages, identifying where and how to build new systems, identifying customers and negotiating the contracts – that is really the exciting part of our job. Developing designs, supporting the development of new routes and getting projects off the ground, these are the sort of activities we have planned as a company over the next 18 months,” noted Thomas excitedly.

Subsea Networks also prides itself on the fact that it has been able to add momentum to projects, both at the start, middle and end of their life cycle.

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Aqua Comms & Ontix

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AD FEATURE WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

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Neutral carriers Aqua Comms and Ontix stand at two ends of the connectivity spectrum but bridge oceans and cities for a seamless service to the end-user

H

ow did your New Year’s Eve selfie travel from Times Square to Trafalgar Square?

Have you ever thought about the transatlantic journey this, or any landmark photograph, takes once you have snapped the perfect shot with your smartphone.

First stop will be the visible mobile infrastructure provided by Ontix, such as a small 4G or 5G within the casing of a lamp post, and the second, more intriguing part of this split-second journey, is via Aqua Comm’s 5,536km subsea cable system from Shirley in Long Island in the US under the waves of the Atlantic to Killala, County Mayo in Ireland, via its points of presence in London and New York.

Once the Aqua Comms cable – known as AEC-1 – hits the city, Ontix, a nextgeneration infrastructure-as-a-service provider, picks up this global relay baton of connectivity to deliver your selfie as it pings into the smartphones of your friends, family or colleagues.

“I love the interconnectivity of what Aqua Comms and Ontix are able to achieve together as neutral carriers,” said Nigel Bayliff, Chief Executive Officer of Irish-based Aqua Comms which has specialised in the building and operating of submarine cables since 2014 and was recently acquired by Digital 9 Infrastructure.

As Aqua Comms focuses on its global ambitions with plans to connect Europe with the Middle East and India the long-term focus

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2014

Year founded

5,536km

Distance of subsea cable system from Ireland to US

2

Live cables from Europe to the US

1

Cable due to be completed in 2022 from Boston to Slough

2024

Cable completion from Europe to India

400

Gigabits per second on one channel/ cable

25+

Year lifespan of fibre optic cables

“We are putting high-grade electronics – the equivalent of electronics that go into a space shot — at the bottom of the ocean which is a place less visited than men who have walked on the moon.

It is a fascinating challenge both technically, politically and financially” NIGEL BAYLIFF

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AQUA COMMS

Aqua Comms & Ontix pass connectivity baton from land to sea

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“We’re creating infrastructure in a carrier neutral way – we don't sell to the customers of our customers. We stay in the layer of the industry which is neutral for anybody” NIGEL BAYLIFF

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AQUA COMMS

NIGEL BAYLIFF TITLE: CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER COMPANY: AQUA COMMS INDUSTRY: TELECOMMUNICATIONS

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: DUBLIN, IRELAND Nigel Bayliff, CEO of Aqua Comms, is a global telecom veteran of 30+ years' experience.

He has been a consultant to cable development, private equity and government clients, and ViceChairman of the United Nations Joint Task Force.

Bayliff was also CEO of Huawei Marine Networks, where he introduced technological advances. Previously, he was a member of the executive team of FLAG Telecom where he was responsible for the operation of the FLAG Global Network, which encompasses 65,000 km of submarine cable systems providing carrier-grade connectivity to 40 countries. In 2006, he was elected as a Fellow of the UK Institute of Engineering Technology.

for Ontix’s small cell infrastructure is the UK market extending out of London into the shires.

These connectivity solutions are relied upon by today's cloud, content and carrier players.

“Ontix is at the forefront of providing the last few metres of connectivity to the end user,” comments Patrick Bradd, CEO of Ontix.

“The demand for capacity is unrelenting and while Aqua Comms is about moving bandwidth across the Atlantic we are getting it to the end user.”

For anyone sending a selfie from Copenhagen to New Jersey along Aqua Comms second cable (AEC-2) it’s fascinating to hear from Bayliff that it passes the iconic hull of the RMS Titanic which lies on the seabed off the coast of Newfoundland. “You can see some of the debris fields of the Titanic on our survey charts as our cable goes through a place known as the Seamounts Monument Area off the North East coast of the US,” says Bayliff who speaks passionately about an industry he has been part of since 1988.

Spine of the digital infrastructure Submarine cables make up the invisible information highways driving the global internet and form the spine of the digital infrastructure that power a digital world.

Dublin & London to New York was Aqua Comm’s first fibre-optic network route to deliver secure, low latency, high-quality transatlantic connectivity with diverse mobile-magazine.com

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backhaul fibre to additional Points of Presence (PoPs). The second was Copenhagen to New Jersey and the third cable from Boston to a data centre in Slough is due this year (2022). This continues to build on its vision of efficient submarine infrastructure ownership with membership of the HAVFRUE consortium and development of CeltixConnect-2 and North Sea Connect.

“We are putting high-grade electronics – the equivalent of electronics that go into a space vehicle – at the bottom of the ocean which is a place less visited than the moon & equally as inhospitable. It is a fascinating challenge both technically, politically and financially,” said Bayliff who pointed out it takes a year to survey the exact route and the cable is laid “with one metre accuracy along a 5,000km route” with the whole project taking up to five years.

Power of fibre optics It’s incredible to think the first ever cable connection under the ‘pond’ was in 1858 when Queen Victoria sent a telegram to US President James Buchanan honouring his "great international work". The message took over 17 hours to deliver, at two minutes and five seconds per letter by Morse code. Today an email will travel at 99% the speed of light.

“ I love the interconnectivity of what Aqua Comms and Ontix is able to achieve together as neutral carriers” NIGEL BAYLIFF

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AQUA COMMS

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While the method of laying the cables in the depths of the ocean – by uncoiling them from the inside of a boat – has not changed, today’s fibre optic cables are built to survive.

The capacity of a modern fibre optic cable is in the order of hundreds of terabits – typically the equivalent of running more than 100m zoom video calls per second.

Bayliff, who was involved in laying one of the first private optical cables in 1988 highlights how connectivity speed has changed. “The entire capacity of the whole cable was 400 megabits per second. We've just launched a product which is 400 gigabits per second on one channel – that's one channel of 100’s on one fibre pair of eight – on just one of our cables. That’s a thousand times more capable than the

whole cable that cost US$1b to build when I started.”

As the world is expected to create more than three times the data over the next five years than it did in the previous five, this speed will be essential. Data will be generated in emerging technologies such as IoT devices which include sensors in homes, factories and cities, as well as driverless cars, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 5G. How two ends of the network spectrum came together Aqua Comms and Ontix may be at two ends of the network spectrum but they work together to pass the connectivity baton from land to sea creating. Both companies come

from the same development cloud which looks set to grow as the demand for mission critical infrastructure will be vital to cope with the exponential rise in data and online services.

“Aqua Comms and Ontix may seem like completely opposite business types but, in many ways, we are the same – we both deal in invisible infrastructure,” said Bayliff. “We not only share a common heritage but also carry neutral infrastructure for the deployment of all services. We may serve different parts of the marketplace with different technology but our approach is exactly the same.

“At Aqua Comms we intend to take our model for efficient infrastructure ownership, operations and distribution to the widest market in a carrier neutral way around the world. There's almost no ocean that it doesn't mobile-magazine.com

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INSIGHT...

QUICK FIRE QUESTIONS FOR NIGEL BAYLIFF CEO AQUA COMMS

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How many miles of cable do you currently have under the sea?

Aqua Comms currently has two cables in operation with another due in 2022 (AEC-3) from Boston to Slough. There are also two shorter routes from Dublin to Anglesea and Blackpool plus plans for a cable from Europe to India – via Egypt and down the Red Sea (EMIC-1)- which will be ready in 2024. This equates to 20,000km which includes AEC-3 and another 10,000km from EMIC-1 so 30,000 total operational or in development

by D9.

Where are the cables made?

Our two live ones were made by Subcom in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in the US and we are having more made & laid by Alcatel Submarine Networks in Calais, France. They travel 70-80km at a time and then they have to be connected to amplifiers, which boost the signal. The cable is then wound backwards into a ship. In the case of our cables we laid them from either side and met in the middle which took about eight months.

How do you work to ensure the cable has the shortest passage through the shallow water?

We spend a year surveying an exact route –

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mapping up to 5,000km – and lay the cable along this route very accurately. We send out ships to survey the seabed and make sure there are no boulders, we avoid rock falls, shipwrecks, other cables, fishing grounds and navigate over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The Atlantic has about 300km of shallow water at each side which is less than 1,000 metres deep in which we have to bury the cable using a plough to avoid anything which disrupts the sea bed, like ship anchoring and bottom/trawl fishing.

Why is Aqua Comms not using legacy cable systems laid in 2000?

A lot of cables were laid around that time and are now getting old and almost incompatible with modern day product requirements. We’re all about selling a large pipe of bandwidth, and the current currency level is 100 gigabits, the next step up is 400 gigabit circuits and the older cables can't handle that technology as they have insufficient optical clarity in them.

In 2015 Aqua Comms laid one of the first two cables across the Atlantic in 16 years.

What is your focus when it comes to sustainability?

Most of the reduction in CO2 in the last 18 months should not be attributed to the pandemic but to telecoms which enabled us to shift to remote work, education and socialising and reduce our travel emissions” We should take that carbon deficit and chalk it up as a positive. Of course it’s not a zero-cost to install cables as it is essentially a product which does use fossil fuels in manufacturing and installation, but having cables on the seabed for 25 years will reduce the need for people to fly around the world to conduct business.

“ We intend to take our model for efficient infrastructure ownership and operations and distribution to the widest market in a carrier neutral way around the world.

There's almost no ocean that it doesn't make sense to do this in and it makes sense because that growth curve is quite well-established” NIGEL BAYLIFF

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AQUA COMMS

make sense to do this within as the growth curve is well-established.”

In the UK Ontix is transforming the entire process for wireless network densification by investing in neutral shared small cell infrastructure – including connectivity – and selling this to multiple operators. This innovative business model enables operators

to benefit from small cells with 5G-ready connectivity at a much lower cost.

Patrick Bradd, who was appointed CEO of Ontix in August 2021, said: “We earn the rights to deploy our infrastructure primarily in urban areas in both indoor and outdoor settings, and we enable 4G and 5G services to be deployed at high capacity to meet user expectations. That’s what people are expecting from mobile networks.”

Outdoors, Ontix designs and builds small cell networks on lamp posts owned by local authorities to provide the capacity needed for 4G and 5G mobile, and deliver that to Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) neutrally to ensure all operators can benefit simultaneously from their infrastructure assets. They don't own the customer consumer layer, but deliver connectivity to the subscribers of multiple MNO simultaneously. In a similar way indoors,

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Ontix provides operator neutral solutions by working with property owners and managers to deploy small cell infrastructure in offices, conference venues, and other indoor spaces where mobile capacity is needed.

“The demand for capacity is unrelenting.

Ontix is at the forefront of providing the last few metres of connectivity to the end user,” said Bradd who pointed out they are working with local authorities across the UK to deploy their infrastructure outside London and eventually into more rural areas.

“In places like the centre of London it's difficult to provide the right amount of capacity needed by mobile network operators, so we work with local authorities to secure the rights to use their street assets 272

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to put our equipment on and sell that as a service to mobile network operators.

“For someone standing in Trafalgar Square, their mobile phone is connected to a small cell that we’ve placed on a lamp post or the side of a building above street level. We are coming up with some very innovative solutions to hide equipment within lamppost casings.

Councils are keen to work with us as they know the importance of connectivity for their towns especially when it comes to attracting business and tourism.

“When we build small cell networks in towns, it is not only for the mobile network operators, but also to provide a neutral connectivity layer for smart city initiatives.

We’ve deployed live smart city solutions,

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“ I felt uniquely positioned to be able to drive that infrastructure layer as a service and provide network infrastructure providers and network operators high capacity in a much smaller space” PATRICK BRADD

PATRICK BRADD

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ONTIX

COMPANY: ONTIX INDUSTRY: TELECOMMUNICATIONS LOCATION: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

EXECUTIVE BIO

including next generation WiFi connectivity and footfall analytics to power applications being developed by local authorities around the UK.” “Aqua Comms is about moving bandwidth across oceans and around the world but you have to get all that bandwidth to end users.

The old ways of building mobile networks just don’t provide enough capacity. Instead you need to build more cells, make them smaller in size, but higher in capacity. So, in a city, instead of using rooftops and having bigger cells, outside we put the cells on a lamppost and inside we put cells on office ceilings or walls. We can get a lot more data into a lot smaller space,” said Bradd Bayliff commented: “Patrick Bradd is experienced in the industry and understands what carriers want. Ontix is creating a layer that allows carriers to use their assets and I’m doing the same on the subsea fibre infrastructure side. We’re creating infrastructure in a carrier neutral way – we don't sell to the customers of our customers.

We stay in the layer of the industry which is neutral for anybody.”

TITLE: CEO

Patrick Bradd was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Ontix in 2021. Ontix, delivers next-generation wireless infrastructure-as-a-service.

Bradd is an experienced telecoms industry executive, with an international background in technology, operations, finance, and sales across a variety of service providers, managed service businesses, and telecom equipment vendors.

He has built and rapidly scaled technology businesses and most recently led the turnaround of QA Limited’s technology talent business as their Chief Operating Officer. Prior to that, Bradd has held senior C-Level technology and operational leadership and board roles at Essensys Ltd and Cable and Wireless Communications.

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DID YOU KNOW HOW D9 IS INVESTING IN DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE “The greater the demand for the internet, the greater the demand for the infrastructure to support it,” claims D9 Infrastructure which has invested in Aqua Comms. The company targets sustainable income and capital growth by investing in the following: • Subsea fibre-optic networks • Data centres • Terrestrial fibre-optic networks • Wireless networks

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D9 raised more than US$400 million after a successful IPO – the trust started trading in March 2021 and has already raised more than US$1 billion. Originally Aqua Comms and Ontix had a common shareholder in the form of Aqua Ventures Ltd (AVL) until April 1, 2021.

The third part of D9 focuses on data centres. The company has just acquired Icelandic-based Verne Global which is 100% powered by renewable energy from geothermal power plants. “These three building blocks of radio distribution, fibre distribution and data centres form the backbone of D9,” said Nigel Bayliff, Chief Executive Officer at Aqua Comms. “We have already deployed US$600m in Aqua Comms and Verne Global.”

AQUA COMMS

THE ROCKET SCIENCE OF LAYING SUBSEA CABLES Laying a cable under the sea may not sound like rocket science, but according to Nigel Bayliff CEO Aqua Comms, it's not a million miles away.

For a start more people have walked on the Moon than explored the depths of the oceans on Earth and when you’re laying fibre-optic cables to last 25+ years the engineering has to be precise.

“We are putting high-grade electronics – the equivalent of electronics that go into a space mission – at the bottom of the ocean, which is a place less visited than men who have walked on the moon,” said Bayliff.

“Space and the sea have the same engineering challenge as it is not easy to repair. The cables have to survive in a harsh environment at the bottom of the sea. Our equipment is certified for 8,000m of water. That's an enormous pressure.

It's 83 megapascals of pressure. It's so pressurised it breaks water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen and the tiny hydrogen atoms push through the metal of the undersea equipment which creates a hydrogen contamination of things.

“The interesting thing is copper provides a good shield for hydrogen penetration. This is because it's got a dense lattice structure so the engineering is the same as it would be to keep somebody alive in a space capsule.”

As Aqua Comms continues its work on the new cable from Europe to India the construction company responsible have already surveyed the seabed of the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean

– a major project like this could take five years from inception to readiness.

“There is very little known about some of the seabed which is why we survey it with sonar techniques so we can view its shape and look for shipwrecks as well as other obstructions such as large boulders or faults in the sea bed.”

As Bayliff reflected on how Aqua Comms’ second cable from Copenhagen to New Jersey passes the wreck of RMS Titanic he is reminded how the film director James Cameron – famed for his movie about the ill-fated ship – is one of very few to descend the Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean, to a depth of 10,898 metres.

“We have so much more to learn about the oceans,” said Bayliff who never loses his enthusiasm for using cables to connect the world.

“ Aqua Comms and Ontix may seem like completely opposite kinds of businesses but, in many ways, we are the same – we both deal in invisible infrastructure” NIGEL BAYLIFF

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AQUA COMMS

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Visionary leaders Bayliff and Bradd are both seasoned veterans of the telco industry. Prior to joining Aqua Comms Bayliff was Vice-Chairman of the United Nations joint task force that examined disaster mitigation from the global web of undersea cable systems and was a member of the executive team of FLAG Telecom.

“Compared to what the business was like when I was young to now is astounding.

We partner and work with the very biggest; Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and across the spectrum to anybody who has a requirement to carry traffic from one side of an ocean to the other.”

Bradd has held operational leadership and board roles for both telecom equipment vendors and service providers. At Cable & Wireless, in addition to being an early adopter of small cells, in the Caribbean he faced challenges of connecting cable systems from Jamaica to the British Virgin Islands, and to Florida. “To build out cable systems was an 276

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invaluable experience. I got to see first-hand how one layer of a network drove the capacity requirements of other network layers.”

“When I came back to the UK, I could then really see the value in providing these infrastructure layers, but in the changing paradigm of needing a lot of capacity and in a really small space. I felt uniquely positioned to be able to drive that infrastructure layer as a service and provide network infrastructure providers and network operators high but much denser capacity,” he said.

Machine-driven demand Bayliff highlighted why more capacity is needed today. “It’s not about more calls to the US or selfies and social media – the reason is machine driven. Data is not only stored in the UK but it is also stored in the US as mirror data to form a global footprint.

This can happen with Zoom calls and taking photographs – whether you decide to share it or not – and emails.

“The first thing that phone will do is try and get that photograph back to the home data centre where your Apple or Android service is hosted. So what's driving this uplift in capacity and networking requirements is the machine to machine interaction that is mirroring data and moving that data around.”

Cable versus satellites You may ask what are the advantages of cables over satellites? With more than 1,300 communication satellites orbiting the Earth today and Elon Musk’s high-profile SpaceX attempting to monopolise this market with Starlink, you may be surprised to read that 98% of all data in our daily communications is carried by cables under the sea. There are more than 400 operational submarine cables today – stretching over 1.3million km.

According to Aqua Comms the reason is simple: submarine cables transmit substantially more data than satellites at far lower cost.

“Using radio waves to a satellite will be 100ths to a 10th of the capacity of the sort of similar thing in the fibre optics. So what Musk is doing is creating a mesh and yes, the satellites all talk to each other, but the pure volume of data that you can shift is minuscule and only people who don’t live at the end of a cable – such as those in more remote parts of the world – may decide to use satellites to maintain connectivity.”

Reflecting on how advanced optical electronics has advanced during his career, Bayliff commented: “Innovation has come a long way. Optical fibre transmission is essentially flashing a light at one end of a big glass tube and seeing it at the other end. But the chemistry that's gone into making glass is so pure today it means you don't lose that light across our 5,536km fibre optic cable which spans the Atlantic. That is quite amazing!”

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TRANSFORMING TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THE CUSTOMER

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TELENET | BASE

WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

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TELENET | BASE

Gérald Demortier, Chief of BASE Tribe at Telenet outlines how the company transformed its BASE brand to continuously meet the needs of its customer

A

vailable mostly in Flanders and Brussels, Telenet enables and inspires customers to get the most out of their digital lives and businesses.

It serves Belgium and Luxembourg with connectivity, hosting and security solutions.

The Liberty Global company provides media, telecommunications and entertainment services, offering seamless connectivity, inspiring entertainment and superior business solutions. Through its two main brands, Telenet and BASE, it commercialises its products and services.

BASE, which operates in Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia, is the company’s mobile service that continuously challenges the mobile market by launching services that adapt to meet the needs of the customer.

Telenet acquired BASE back in 2015 to expand its offering within the telecommunications industry.

With nearly 30 years of experience within the ICT industry, Gérald Demortier, Chief of BASE Tribe leads BASE within Telenet and is responsible for marketing, IT, customer journey and digital elements for the BASE brand.

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TELENET | BASE

Transforming BASE to meet the needs of the customer

“ It's clear that BASE had always the mindset to challenge things” GÉRALD DEMORTIER CHIEF BASE TRIBE, TELENET

Discussing the acquisition of BASE, the Tribe lead said: “Telenet, for 20 years, had a fixed network and then acquired BASE in 2015 in order to get a mobile network. It was important to have a fixed and mobile network presence in the FMC strategy and that was one of the reasons Telenet looked to acquire BASE, for its mobile network.”

“But, when you acquire a mobile network, you also acquire the customers, the brand and the people, and that's why BASE is part of the Telenet brand as it is so complementary to the company. Telenet is really the family FMC company within the group and BASE is the mobile-only company within the brand focusing more on individual customers” he continued.

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Telenet: acquiring BASE to expand its mobile offering Following the acquisition in 2015, Telenet began to integrate the BASE company within its operations between 2016 and 2017.

“The way the company went around it was probably not the best choice. 18 months after the integration, we saw a sky-high churn, 20% decline in sales and a 25% decline in footfall within BASE stores,” said Demortier.

To tackle the challenge at hand, Demortier and the Telenet team looked at ways to elevate the BASE brand to improve sales and revenue. To turning this around, Telenet put the focus back on BASE and made the brand its own entity, under the Telenet umbrella.

“This was to give us the right focus, the right positioning, the right project portfolio, the right strategy and the right campaigns,” explained Demortier.

EXECUTIVE BIO GÉRALD DEMORTIER TITLE: CHIEF BASE TRIBE LOCATION: BRUSSELS Gérald Demortier is currently leading the BASE mobile division within the Telenet group. He is a senior leader with solid ICT track record in sales, marketing & operations in Belgium and Europe.

He has an extensive experience in transforming organisation and motivating teams and individuals to go for bold ambition

in complex environments. Gérald has led the end to end agile and digital transformation of BASE and before that he was leading the retail organization of Telenet and BASE for 3 years.

Gérald also worked as Vice President Go to Market of Telenet Residential Marketing where he that a chance to launch iconic campaigns with high impact (King & Kong, Whop & Whoppa). Before Telenet he spent almost 8 years at Microsoft where he led the SMB segment for Western Europe.

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Let us show you how at netcracker.com

Telenet: Learning from Netcracker to improve IT capabilities Gérald Demortier and Micha Berger outline how Netcracker has helped Telenet and BASE streamline, expand and enhance their IT infrastructure Telenet provides Belgium and Luxembourg with connectivity, hosting and security solutions to enable customers to get the most out of their digital lives and businesses.

Liberty Global, Telenet’s parent company, provides media, telecommunications and entertainment services with seamless connectivity, diverse entertainment options and optimal business solutions.

Liberty Global is a successful merger and acquisition business, and Telenet similarly enhances its services by investing intelligently and ambitiously. By scaling its business, Telenet brings superior connectivity and entertainment services to its customers and aligns with Liberty Global’s drive to grow and innovate. Telenet acquired BASE in 2015: “It was important to have a fixed and mobile network presence as part of our FMC strategy, and one of the reasons Telenet looked to acquire BASE was for its mobile network,” said Gérald Demortier, Chief of BASE Tribe.

To streamline the operations of both the Telenet and BASE brands, Telenet embarked on a strategic partnership in 2017 with

Netcracker, a leading provider of digital BSS/OSS and orchestration solutions.

“The partnership with Netcracker is a strategic one because we are completely reshaping the IT back office with them for both brands,” said Demortier.

“Netcracker’s rapid response time in resolving issues and managing requests is key to achieving our goal.”

Mitat Kizilelma, Vice President of Strategic Accounts at Netcracker, also commented on the partnership: “Our relationship with Telenet exemplifies how vital close collaboration, evolving technology and comprehensive strategy are in supporting digital transformation.”

For Telenet, it was incredibly important to find a partner that had extensive experience with operations within Telenet’s field. Micha Berger, Telenet’s Chief Technology Officer, concluded: “We learned a lot from Netcracker, and they took the knowledge from our project to other customers. We’re fortunate to have a positive atmosphere and relationship where everyone grows and learns.”

Learn more

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“It’s the most interesting challenge we had to face, especially in the mobile market which is super competitive. We turned the negative figures into positive figures by having the right people at the right place but also having the right teams focusing on specific elements of the customer journey.

We changed everything and completely repositioned BASE’s image.”

Now, a customer-centric company, BASE continually responds to the needs of its customers and proactively makes changes to meet market demands.

“We also changed our tariff plan strategy, our promo strategy and we invested a lot in digital services. We launched a new app that acts as a tool that customers can use to

“I love working within the telecommunications industry because it’s a never-ending story and the work never stops” GÉRALD DEMORTIER

CHIEF BASE TRIBE, TELENET

manage their subscription plan and make payments. We’ve started to integrate live chat on the website to improve customer engagement,” Demortier added.

By changing a number of aspects within the brand, BASE has transformed its narrative into a positive one and turned the declining sales around. This transformation is not to be taken lightly, Demortier explained, as it was “probably the biggest challenge over the last five years I have had to face with the team. But the change was appreciated by our customers which is reflected in our sales and NPS.” mobile-magazine.com

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TELENET | BASE

BASE also developed its ‘My BASE’ app to make its customers experience as simple and seamless as possible. Within the app, customers can manage and settle invoices, adjust services, request assistance and check their consumption.

It also automatically alerts customers via text when customers have used 80% of their bundle, or when they use a nonincluded service.

With its exclusive ‘Data Jump’ offer, customers can carry over their unused data, it also has a ‘Free Data Day’ where subscribers get access to 24 hours of free data on the first day of each month.

Supporting its customers with two complementing brands As two separate entities, Demortier explained how the two brands, Telenet and BASE, complement each other with the different customers and niches the pair operate within.

“BASE is playing an important role in providing the best possible experience.

We offer an unbundling service where customers don’t need a fixed-mobile conversion. BASE is well known in Brussels and in the south of the country. With Telenet, it is really complementary in terms of the customer base as well as the service the two offer,” Demortier said.

Innovating with the interest of its customers, BASE tends to serve individuals looking for a mobile device plan that offers spending optimisation and the best solutions within telecommunications.

Better suited for families, Telenet gives its customers an improved digital life with its entertainment platform.

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probably sometimes lacks simplicity, and the core of BASE is simplicity. BASE needs to be very pragmatic and very simple in the way we do things because we have fewer people so we need to optimise what we have within the company.”

Looking to challenge typical ways of working, BASE was quick to implement agile way of working. “That is now fully implemented at the Telenet level; they looked at the ways we work and take inspiration from it,” said Demortier.

“BASE has also been used as a kind of pilot.

When we developed our new IT platform, BASE was the first to use the system. It was the first company to use the full new stack operations support system (OSS) and business support system (BSS),” he added.

BASE: adapting to the needs of the mobile market By installing this new IT platform into its operations, BASE has been able to cement its customer-centric approach as it enables more flexibility within the company.

“With the latest technology and new IT system, we now have the ability to develop and change our tariff plans much easier. Now, the time to market has decreased where we need to adapt a subscription plan to respond to threats from competition. We don’t need to negotiate this with IT to make sure we are on the right roadmap, because of the technology we can change the basic stuff such as tariffs to ensure competition,” outlined Demortier.

“It’s really important to have all of those elements within the Tribe, both within our digital platform and in terms of BSS and OSS,” he continued.

This flexibility is crucial for BASE as it responds to the demands of the market. mobile-magazine.com

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“The biggest threat for BASE is the introduction of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) world and its popularity. With this, it gave us two choices, respond to this need or lose customers,” explained Demortier.

It comes as no surprise that BASE made the former choice and looked into FMC last year. With support from Tadaam, a home 4/5G internet and television provider, BASE expanded into the FMC market with Tadaam’s discount offer.

BASE expanded its bundled telecom services and offered mobile subscribers a €5 discount when they took a Tadaam offer of wireless home internet and TV. Telenet launched the Tadaam offer back in 2019 and this was then integrated into BASE’s offering two years later.

“The solution is really moving in the right direction. We are acquiring new customers every month. Guaranteeing a constant service level for Internet & TV services via a mobile network remains a big challenge” said Demortier.

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“ It’s the most interesting challenge we had to face, especially in the mobile market which is super competitive” GÉRALD DEMORTIER CHIEF BASE TRIBE, TELENET

TELENET | BASE

“When you have too many customers using television, for example, through 4G on the same antenna, you have a problem in terms of service level. And that's the biggest challenge we’re dealing with. We need to manage the number of customers and our coverage very smartly, otherwise, as you accelerate your growth, your mobile network will not support that,” he added.

Acknowledging this is the next challenge for BASE. Demortier explained how the company plans to remain a key actor in the telecommunications space. He concluded: “In the future, BASE will continue to be an

important actor in terms of mobile service for the value-seeking customer. We are going to continue to innovate at pace.

We are going to accelerate our internet and TV offer within the BASE portfolio too.

As a company, we also plan to disrupt the way we engage with the customer.

Today it is too traditional, tomorrow it'll be fully digital.”

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