News

The operator says around 70% of the site’s energy needs are expected to be generate by on-site wind turbines and solar panels

Today, BT has announced the activation of a new mobile site powered by on-site renewable energy generation.

The 4G/5G site, located in the Shropshire Hills, is supported by a bank of solar panels and a miniaturised wind turbine, which combine to provide up to 70% of the site’s power. Energy generated from these renewable sources is stored in the on-site batteries, which then release it as needed.

In total, BT expects the site to generate 17,000kWh of energy per year, delivering a cost saving of over £10,000.

Back-up power to the mast is provided by a Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) generator, which powers the site if the stored energy is fully depleted.

“Delivering ubiquitous coverage is critically important in an age where connectivity has never been so central to everyday life, but it absolutely must be done in a responsible and sustainable manner. It’s paramount that we increase the energy-efficiency of our networks, and so we’re really excited about the potential of self-powering sites in enabling us to meet both our sustainability and connectivity ambitions,” said Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer and BT Group.

BT says it has already identified ‘hundreds’ of additional locations that are suitable for the deployment of on-site renewable energy generation.

This concept of powering mobile sites using locally generated renewable power is not new. Indeed, Vodafone UK began a similar initiative in 2021, with the first deployments taking place in 2022. The trial, which took place at Home Farm in the village of Eglwyswrw, Wales, was expected to take two years and so should now be complete, but no results have yet been published.

Perhaps one of the most exciting elements of on-site power generation for mobile sites – beyond the obvious reductions to energy bills and carbon emissions – is its potential to allow for deployment in remote areas without being connected to the national grid. This would reduce a significant pain point for rural mobile deployments, potentially making it viable to deploy sites in some of the remotest areas of the country.

On the other hand, deploying wind turbines and solar panels come with their own challenges, such as requiring additional permissions from landowners and maintenance obligations. Couple this with the fact that only a small number of locations around the country (typically hills and coastal locations) are suitable for this type of deployment, and it seems unlikely that these self-sufficient sites will become a major feature of the operators’ rollout plans.

Join us at next year’s Connected North, 23-24 April in Manchester. Early discounted tickets are available here! 

Also in the news:
Singtel becomes latest telco to launch AI cloud services
South Korean telcos accused of collusion, may face fines of $4bn
Hexatronic: Innovation will be needed to reach rural customers

News 

Oracle will modernise the platforms in four different government departments 

Four major UK government departments have chosen Oracle Cloud to modernise their corporate services in a decade-long deal worth £1 billion.  

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), and the Home Office will all use Oracle’s platform to streamline their finance, HR, and supply chain operations, affecting nearly 250,000 civil servants. 

Part of the government’s Synergy Programme, this move will introduce a common operating model and a single SaaS platform backed by common data standards across the departments, helping to improve efficiency and cut costs. By adopting Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), the departments aim to boost productivity and make better use of data for decision-making. 

DWP, Oracle, and Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) members IBM and Deloitte will jointly implement the programme. 

“We are building a common operating model and establishing business processes that will be used collectively across four Departments that employ nearly half of all civil servants in the UK,” said Chris Murtagh, Chief Technology Officer and ERP Programme Director of the Synergy Programme in a press release.  

“Oracle Cloud will create a single platform that will expand insights, increase efficiency, and allow us to better meet the needs of citizens,” he added. 

 “Governmental departments are under ever-increasing pressure to make sure they are working efficiently and cost effectively,” said Siobhan Wilson, senior vice president and UK country leader, Oracle. “The move to Oracle Cloud will increase efficiency and deliver more value to UK citizens.” 

Join us at next year’s Connected North, 23-24 April in Manchester. Early discounted tickets are available here!  

Also in the news:
Singtel becomes latest telco to launch AI cloud services
South Korean telcos accused of collusion, may face fines of $4bn
Hexatronic: Innovation will be needed to reach rural customers 

Ofcom has published the results from a new survey that is intended to help monitor how well the UK mobile market is functioning and whether it continues to deliver good outcomes. For example, the work reveals that unlimited data (broadband) tariffs accounted for 13% of mobile plans in 2023 (up from 5% in 2019), but plans with smaller allowances are now less common.

The survey – ‘Monitoring Consumer Outcomes in the Mobile Sector‘ – similarly noted that consumers typically used only a small share of their mobile data allowance, and 67% of customers did not use their full monthly data allowance at any point during their contract or PAYG tariff.

Younger mobile customers also tended to choose tariffs with higher allowances, while older customers typically chose tariffs with lower allowances. Almost a quarter of customers in the 16-24 and 25-34 age groups, for instance, held tariffs with an unlimited data allowance. These customers were also more likely to purchase contracts with higher limited data allowances (>100 GB and 30-100 GB) compared to older customers.

By contrast, less than 10% of customers in the 65-74 and 75+ age group held unlimited tariffs and more than half of customers who are 75+ held a tariff with a data allowance of less than 3GB (GigaBytes). But for the median (average) consumer, data allowances increased from 4GB in 2019 to 12GB in June 2023, which is a threefold increase.

Ofcom also analysed mobile data usage. The median data usage more than doubled from about 1GB in 2019 to about 2.7GB in June 2023. The 75th percentile showed a similar increase from around 3.5GB to about 8.7 GB during the same period.

Elsewhere, the average monthly spend gradually declined between 2019 and 2021, by around £2 (or 7%) (in nominal terms). But after that period the analysis shows prices rising in early 2022 and early 2023 when monthly spend rose by around 5% and 7%, respectively. “These increases were most likely due to the high inflationary environment resulting in high in-contract price rises but also potentially due to higher prices for new tariffs,” said Ofcom’s report.

The full report covers a variety of different areas around consumer choice of package, data usage and pricing. The report is in a format that makes it difficult to summarise and put into a simpler context, but hopefully the above summary offers some insights.

Customers looking to take one of Virgin Media UK’s (VMO2) top broadband, pay TV, phone and or O2 SIM bundles – specifically ‘Mega Volt‘ and their ‘Biggest Combo‘ – should note that the ISP has quietly downgraded the Netflix plan they include in these packages with a much cheaper option.

Several of ISPreview’s readers (credits to Brad and Luke) have recently pointed out that the aforementioned bundles previously included Netflix’s Standard plan, which normally costs £10.99 a month when taken directly from the streaming provider. But the provider has now quietly downgraded the Netflix plan they include to adopt ‘Standard with Ads‘, which normally costs £4.99 when taken directly, albeit forcing users to view adverts.

The change is similar to EE and Sky’s (Sky Broadband) recent decision to swap their bundles with Netflix ‘Basics’ plan for the same ‘Standard with Ads’ (here), although in that case the adjustment made more sense because ‘Basics’ had already been retired by the streaming provider in favour of the ads tier and the pricing difference was much smaller. By comparison, Virgin Media can’t use the same excuse.

The change wouldn’t be so bad if the price of the packages had been decreased by a similar amount to reflect the cheaper plan, but so far as we can tell they’re still being promoted at roughly the same price as before (e.g. Mega Volt still starts at £84.99 per month on an 18-month term).

A spokesperson for Virgin Media told ISPreview:

“These changes were introduced on 14 October, bringing us in line with competitors. It will apply to new customers only, with existing Biggest Combo and Mega Volt customers continuing to have access to Netflix Standard.

We always look to give our customers the best value possible, and the inclusion of Netflix Standard with Ads for new customers means we can continue to offer our customers a competitive package that includes all of the entertainment they enjoy. Customers have the option to upgrade to Netflix Standard or Netflix Premium should they wish to.”

Existing customers with the same bundles will naturally continue to receive the regular ‘Standard’ plan, although there may come a time when they want to re-contract and find that this means having to downgrade the Netflix plan at the same time to ‘Standard with Ads’.

Broadband ISP and mobile operator Vodafone UK has today announced the results of two recent 5G trials using a large chunk of millimetre wave (mmWave) radio spectrum, which managed to deliver home broadband (FWA) connectivity peak speeds of up to 4Gbps (dropping to 2.8Gbps in a more traditional mobile environment).

The challenge with using mmWave (mmW) bands for low power wireless communications stems from the fact that such signals are extremely weak and don’t tend to travel very far. As a result, constructing a mobile network that can harness them tends to be very expensive (dense and complex), which limits the viability of such bands to busy areas (e.g. shopping malls, events etc.) or for fixed wireless access (FWA) style links to homes and businesses.

At present, UK mobile operators aren’t able to harness much mmW spectrum because Ofcom has yet to conduct their auction of the related 26GHz and 40GHz bands (here), which is itself awaiting the outcome of the proposed merger between Vodafone and Three UK. But the regulator does allow mobile operators to trial such spectrum, which is something we’ve already seen EE doing and now Vodafone has done something similar.

The operator – supported by partners at Qualcomm Technologies Inc. and Ericsson – recently conducted two successful trials that demonstrated the potential performance benefits of mmW (i.e. faster data speeds, increased capacity, reduced latency, and enhanced network performance). Both trials made use of Ericsson’s AIR 5322 (antenna-integrated radio) and Baseband 6651 technology, as well as various devices powered by the Snapdragon® X65 5G Modem-RF System from Qualcomm.

The first trial (fixed wireless access)

The first trial focused on how the higher download and upload speeds of mmWave spectrum can help deliver “fibre-like speeds and home broadband services” over the airwaves without the need for extensive underground infrastructure deployment. Below are some key findings from the Newbury location using full spectrum bandwidth (800MHz of mmWave spectrum). But they haven’t told us which specific bands this involved.

Within 100 metres of the mast, the devices (from Askey and ZTE as well as a MiFi from Netgear, powered by the Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System) were able to achieve peak download speeds up to 4Gbps and 500Mbps for uploads. At a range of 400 metres, the peak download speeds were 2.3Gbps and 200Mbps for uploads. At the edge of the coverage zone (up to 700 metres), the peak download speed was 500Mbps. Latency was also found to be 4-5 times lower than existing 5G capabilities, but they didn’t include any specific millisecond figures for this.

The trial also demonstrated a higher level of data upload to the network. In addition to the home broadband use case, the higher upload speeds could be used to wirelessly connect cameras and broadcasting equipment to provide a more cost-effective and flexible solution for media companies to cover events.

The second trial (mobile connectivity at a busy stadium)

The second trial took place in a London football stadium, to address network congestion. With a stadium capacity of 20,000 people, the club’s fans can often experience network congestion due to the large, concentrated number of devices trying to connect at the same time.

The higher capacity of mmWave spectrum can help connect more people simultaneously, to improve customer experience. Using a commercial Snapdragon-powered smartphone, the trial registered peak download speeds up to 2.8Gbps at various points with unobstructed views of the mast, and even 500Mbps for locations that didn’t have a direct line-of-sight.

However, Vodafone didn’t include any figures for upload performance, which seems to overlook that such events will often generate a lot more upstream traffic than normal due to social media sharing etc.

Andrea Dona, Chief Network Officer, Vodafone UK, said:

“While mmWave is a niche technology for mobile network operators in the UK, the uplift to customer experience will be incredible. With installations on a small number of sites, millions of people could benefit multiple times per week. This trial demonstrates how we can significantly improve customer experience by strategically targeting today’s challenges.”

Besides high-capacity use cases, mmWave technology would also be useful for businesses with low latency use cases such as factory automations, robotics, remote assisted training, and surgery. But much will depend upon the outcome of Ofcom’s future auction and how much investment the various mobile operators are willing to put behind its deployment.

Broadband ISP Hyperoptic, which has so far deployed their full fibre (FTTP/B) network to reach “more than” 1.73 million homes in parts of 64 UK towns and cities, has today announced that they’ve appointed Geoff Heddle to be their new Director of Product.

Geoff is understood to have 15 years of experience in the realm of Product Management and Digital Transformation. The new position will see him being tasked with enhancing the end-to-end customer experience and shaping the provider’s product strategy to ensure they stay ahead of the curve, “continuing … [Hyperoptic’s] journey towards becoming UK’s most loved broadband provider“. A tough ask for any ISP.

The operator, which is now home to a customer base of 340,000 and is targeting 500,000 for the future, was previously known to be aiming to cover 2 million premises with their gigabit broadband network by the end of 2024.

Lutfu Kitapci, Chief Customer Officer & MD ISP at Hyperoptic, said:

“Geoff is another great hire for the team. His expertise in product design and management will play a key role as we continue to push the boundaries of broadband innovation, delivering the best possible experience for our customers.”

Broadband ISP and mobile operator EE (BT) has today become the latest network operator to switch-on a self-powered 4G and 5G (broadband) mobile site, which uses a mix of solar power and a wind turbine to help support its operation in a remote rural area of the Shropshire Hills (England). The deployment represents a trial, but more could follow.

The idea of using on-site renewable energy sources to power mobile masts is nothing new and, indeed, we still haven’t forgotten Vodafone’s upside down lawnmower approach from 2022 (here). EE states that 100% of their trial site’s power requirements will similarly be delivered by renewable energy sources, 70% of which are generated by on-site solar and wind.

The trial site, which was identified through an environmental assessment, also features battery storage that will help to keep it powered during the night and other periods of low wind or solar generation. In the event of there being an insufficient renewable energy source available and the battery power being fully discharged, a generator powered by Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) fuel will act as a backup (HVO is classed as a green fuel).

BT said they expect the site to deliver approximately 17,000kWh of wind and solar energy per year, as well as cost savings upwards of £10k. The savings are important because building all of that new kit is going to be expensive and will need to pay for itself over the medium to longer-term in order to be viable. Not to mention the need to replace the kit as it reaches end-of-life.

Greg McCall, BT Group’s Chief Networks Officer, said:

“Delivering ubiquitous coverage is critically important in an age where connectivity has never been so central to everyday life, but it absolutely must be done in a responsible and sustainable manner. It’s paramount that we increase the energy-efficiency of our networks, and so we’re really excited about the potential of self-powering sites in enabling us to meet both our sustainability and connectivity ambitions.”

While the Shropshire Hills site serves as a trial, BT says they’ve already identified “hundreds of additional locations“, which have the “potential” to derive much of their power from on-site renewable sources, in particular in coastal or hilly locations. But such sites will also require more space, which can cause problems for private landowners and may increase the cost and complexity of related wayleaves. Time will tell how many are actually viable to build.

Abrdn-backed rural broadband ISP Airband, which has a network that covers rural parts of Wales and South West England via a mix of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and Full Fibre (FTTP) tech, has today become the “first operator in Europe” to deploy Tarana’s next-gen wireless (ngFWA) platform – offering “fibre-class speeds” of up to 400Mbps.

The ngFWA solution from California-based Tarana is a new network technology, which in the UK will be able to harness the 5GHz radio spectrum band (C) and claims to be able to deliver ultra-fast speeds at ranges of up to 7 kilometres – ideal for reaching remote rural communities. This should also give the provider a coverage boost over their existing kit.

Airband recently began conducting trials of the new ngFWA technology, which has already gone live at 5 of their 450 mast sites (a 6th site in Illfracombe will follow next month). Many of those mast sites still use the provider’s legacy wireless equipment, which will eventually need replacement, and that often presents providers with an opportunity to upgrade. The first site to go live was Tenbury Wells. The new service also covers Penrhyn Bay, Barnstaple, Bovey Tracey & Newton Abbot (Same mast) and Llangollen.

The provider’s related AirSpeed packages in these ngFWA areas tend to promise download speeds of up to 400Mbps, although Airband’s engineers are currently reporting speeds over 600Mbps at installation (no doubt assuming ideal conditions and limited strains on their local network capacity).

“Tarana has reinvented fixed wireless by developing true interference cancellation technology and eliminating the need for line of sight. These features greatly expand the scope of reliable broadband and changes the game for internet service providers. Utilising their established fibre network as backhaul, Airband demonstrates the true benefits of an innovative hybrid network,” said the announcement.

Kash Rahman, Managing Director at Airband, said:

“With Tarana, we’re putting connectivity first. ngFWA has made it simpler for us to grow our network and connect more homes and business. We look forward to bringing high-speed service to more communities that are waiting for a better broadband option.”

Basil Alwan, Tarana CEO, said:

“We are thrilled to see ngFWA technology taking off in the UK. Airband is dedicated to their customers, and we are honoured to support them as they expand into new territories to further narrow the country’s digital divide.”

At present there’s not a lot of detail about Airband’s wider roll-out plan for the new ngFWA technology, but the operator said they would also be aiming to increase the speeds across their existing FWA network to a minimum of 100Mbps with “other hardware already available in the UK“. And, through their partnership with Tarana, they’re planning a phased roll-out of ngFWA over the next 12-months to deliver increased speeds of 150Mbps – 400Mbps in areas where there is a requirement for better broadband speeds and market demand.

The announcement also claims that Airband’s network currently spans “more than 440,000 premises in over 200 communities across 7 counties“, which is up significantly from the 315,000 premises claimed earlier this year. Some of that increase will be due to their FTTP deployments, while others are likely to be caught via the expanded coverage of ngFWA and existing wireless deployments.

The provider told ISPreview that the above figure broke down as being 175,000 premises (RFS) via “fibre” (FTTP) and 265,000 premises via wireless (FWA RFS). Technically speaking, the wireless side of Airband’s network can actually reach many more premises than this, but they only include those premises where the speeds they can deliver would be either the same or better than what is already available to the property (e.g. via rivals).

However, accurately gauging wireless coverage and coverage quality is a notoriously difficult thing to do, which is why we often take such figures with a pinch of salt. As a side note, Tarana has a YouTube channel with a number of videos that offer some useful insights into the setup of their new network technology and its advantages, such as the one below from the USA.

Wireless infrastructure firm Cellnex has today announced that they’re partnering with network operator Netmore to enhance the UK coverage of their low power Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) network across as many as 200 streetwork sites.

Fixed wireless LoRa networks typically harness only a small slice of lower frequency radio spectrum (usually in one of the sub-1GHz bands) in order to support relatively slow, but extremely low power, data connections. Such networks tend to run at well below sub-Megabit speeds (although some variants can handle several Megabits), which makes them ideal for linking low-power Internet of Things (IoT) style sensors over long distances.

The new collaboration will see the installation of LoRaWAN gateways on Cellnex UK’s existing streetwork sites. This will in turn to supports Netmore’s network expansion, after being chosen by Yorkshire Water to replace 1.3 million water meters in one of Europe’s largest LoRaWAN projects (here).

Paul Stonadge, Commercial Director at Cellnex UK, said:

“By leveraging our approach to sustainable asset-sharing, we are not only facilitating the rollout of Netmore’s cutting-edge technology, but we are also able to ensure efficient and targeted wireless coverage and capacity for its customers. Cellnex UK’s extensive infrastructure portfolio means we can provide connectivity exactly where it’s needed, whilst also providing a cost-effective solution that allows Netmore to connect to a high volume of water meters.”

Dominic Murphy, Director of International Network Delivery at Netmore, adds:

“Cellnex UK’s innovative method of repurposing street fixtures for network deployment and densification brings substantial value to Netmore as we continually seek ways to lower network delivery costs while maintaining top-tier connectivity services for our customers. The cost efficiencies provided by Cellnex UK directly enhance the speed and scale at which we can integrate devices, such as smart water meters, into our network. We are excited to extend our partnership in this region and beyond.”

So far 20 sites have already gone live with the new kit and an “additional” 200 are due to follow (suggesting a total of 220 sites upon completion).

A new OnePoll survey of 2,000 UK adults, which was commissioned by Vodafone UK, has claimed that 63% of British consumers have put off switching broadband providers for the last 4 years. This is said to be due to the fear of being without internet connectivity (27%) and the switching process being too much of a faff (20%).

The same survey states that over half (56%) of respondents feel “stuck” in their current contracts, while 15% admit they’re spooked by the switch, and a quarter (25%) actually say they want to make a change, and would do so if the process was easier (70%) or if someone could manage it for them (75%).

The survey, which additionally claims that BT customers moving to Vodafone could save over £223 (they’re also offering up to £100 towards contract exit fees, when you pay an early termination fee), is clearly intended to capitalise on the introduction of Ofcom’s new One Touch Switching (OTS) system – this makes it quicker and easier for consumers to change broadband ISPs.

Rob Winterschladen, Consumer Director of Vodafone UK, said:

“Thanks to the launch of One Touch Switch, switching to Vodafone’s Full Fibre Broadband for less really is easy. All people need to do is give us a call or go online, and we’ll manage the whole switching process for them.”

Take note that Vodafone’s saving claim vs BT seems to be a comparison between their Full Fibre 74Mbps (24-month term) package, which costs £24 per month, and BT’s Full Fibre 2 home broadband and phone package at £31.99 per month (plus a £31.99 one-off upfront charge) – comparison excludes new line installation costs & reward cards (data from 22nd Oct 2024 and based on publicly available info.).

However, we should point out that special offers and package prices change all the time, so this gap may go up or down depending on the day you check, as well as whether you’re able to benefit from any special comparison site discounts. The prices can also vary by location (some areas may benefit from specific discounts etc.).