• The Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) is investing in European 6G R&D projects
• It has just identified 16 projects that, between them, will receive €127m in funding
• The SNS JU has now awarded more than €500m in funding to date

The Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU), a partnership jointly led by the European Commission (EC) and the 6G Smart Networks and Serv

Ceredigion County Council is proud to be part of the groundbreaking Rural Connectivity Accelerator (RCA) project, funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). This innovative project uses Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications to overcome connectivity challenges in rural and remote areas, setting a model for environmental monitoring advancements.

ESA is continuing its commitment to strengthening international cooperation by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the area of 5G/6G communications with the Satcom Forum of South Korea, a group of 41 leading Korean companies including LG, Intellian and KT SAT. The announcement took place at Mobile Korea 2024 on 28 October 2024 in Seoul in front of a local audience of large organisations within the telecommunications sector.

5G DRIVE (Diversified oRAN Integration & Vendor Evaluation) was funded by the Department for Science Innovation & Technology (DSIT) under the Future RAN Competition (FRANC) programme. It developed a low-cost, secure 5G Diversified Open RAN Integration solution for private mobile networks. This solution integrates seamlessly with public networks using modern internet protocols. 

Today at UKTIN we’re proud to be celebrating National Engineering Day, an awareness day that aims to make the UK's engineers and engineering more visible, and celebrate how they improve everyday lives and shape the world around us for the better. 

Engineers play a critical role in our sector and our sector really does underpin all others. In many ways therefore our telecoms engineers are the unsung heroes of our everyday lives: enabling communication, commerce and the delivery of public services.

A new innovation project is steaming ahead in Dorset to test if WiFi can work on even the most rural and oldest railway networks. 

Dorset Council has been awarded £163,000 government funding from DSIT (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) to bring 21st century technology to Swanage Railway.

As part of the national Rural Connectivity Accelerator programme, Swanage Railway will be a testbed on how innovative connectivity has the potential to boost the rural economy. 

At the end of October, UKTIN invited a select group of investors to a VIP lunch. The aim? To facilitate a frank conversation about the future of connectivity, the perceptions of telecoms among the investor community and the opportunities available in our sector.

It was a fascinating and at times robust discussion which covered everything from how we define telecoms to the impact of geopolitics. Our key highlights are below:

Setting a new standard in business networking with unparalleled fiber and 5G convergence in a single device

• Virgin Media O2 has agreed to sell an 8.33% minority stake in the Cornerstone mobile towers JV to Equitix, while retaining a 25.01% holding in Cornerstone overall
• The deal, which will see Virgin Media O2 receive £186m in cash upon completion, is structured through a 16.66% sale in a holding company which indirectly owns 50% of Cornerstone
• The deal follows on from and is on equivalent terms to the previous minority stake sale in November 2023

Virgin Media O2 has today announced an agreement to sell an 8.33% minority stake in mobile tower joint venture Corners

The project aimed to transform the C-PON architecture from TRL3 to TRL6, focusing on energy-efficient processing cells, intelligent processing steering, and the development of LLMs models.