A new funding competition is supporting local businesses and industries in the Belfast region to harness the power of 5G and digital technologies to deliver enhanced operations and solutions.

Organisations can apply for grants of between £50,000 and £100,000 for innovative projects that make use of 5G, and other types of advanced wireless connectivity, to deliver economic, social, and environmental impacts.

CityFibre has announced a long-term partnership with Sky to expand its network reach.

As a result, Sky’s Full Fibre Broadband is expected to launch on CityFibre’s network starting next year.

However, over time, this will extend to more than 1.3 million homes in hard-to-reach areas, supported by CityFibre’s involvement in theGovernment’s Project Gigabit Programme.

The 2024 edition of the ITU Radio Regulations ensures a stable regulatory environment for innovative radiocommunication services

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) released today an updated version of the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the global use of radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits.

A series of Future Capability Papers, authored by the UKTIN Expert Working Groups have been published over recent months. Find out more here.

UKTIN spoke to Howard Benn and Luis Lopes, Co-Chairs of the UKTIN Standards Expert Working Group, to learn more about the group’s paper.

The Department of Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is conducting a survey of UK businesses. Help us understand how we can support innovation in businesses and shape future policies.

DSIT, in collaboration with PA Consulting, is conducting a survey of businesses to better understanding the nature of how UK businesses adopt and distribute ‘innovative new technologies or processes’.

The Flex-5G project has successfully developed an Open RAN compliant 5G Standalone (5G SA) network. Leveraging a unique approach to Software-Defined Radio, Flex-5G’s network solution exhibits remarkable adaptability, dynamically responding to real-time variables such as traffic demands and spectrum availability. This innovative flexibility ensures the extraction of maximum performance and efficiency tailored to a wide array of 5G use cases.

India’s 5G deployment is expanding rapidly with almost half the population (49%) expected to be using the mobile technology by the end of the decade, according to new figures released by the GSMA ahead of its involvement in October’s India Mobile Congress. 

• Research firm reports that fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) subs growth in UK is faster among altnets than major ISPs
• Altnets accounted for nearly 30% of retail UK FTTP connections at the end of Q2 2024; market leader BT had a 37% share
• Stinging rebuke for Virgin Media O2’s “premium pricing” for consumer FTTP
• While FTTP’s star is on the rise, fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) is on the wane against a backdrop of stagnation in the overall size of the UK broadband market

When it comes to growth

D-Wave Quantum Inc. a leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services and the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, and NTT DOCOMO Inc., Japan’s largest mobile phone operator with over 90 million subscriptions, today announced a quantum optimization pilot that resulted in demonstrable mobile network performance improvements.

Hello, I’m Andrews King, the founder of Softonets, an end-to-end technology solutions provider. I am also a member of the UKTIN Core Networking Expert Working Group.