City-focused broadband ISP Hyperoptic, which has so far extended their full fibre (FTTP/B) broadband network to cover “more than” 1.4 million UK homes across parts of 64 UK towns and cities, has today announced the appointment of Caroline Rider to become their new Director of Residential Broadband. Caroline has 14 years of experience in commercial […]

As expected, the wholesale division of UK ISP TalkTalk has today officially rebranded itself from ‘Wholesale Services’ to ‘PlatformX Communications‘ (PXC). The move forms part of the group’s ongoing demerger process, which began last year and is currently ongoing. Just to recap. The TalkTalk Group has spent much of the past year wrestling with the […]

Business telecommunications and UK broadband ISP Spitfire has today announced that they’ve signed a new a wholesale partnership deal with Vorboss, which will enable them to harness the operator’s new 100Gbps capable dedicated full fibre network in London. At present Vorboss, which is backed by the Fern Trading Group to the tune of up to […]

Broadband ISP Connexin has said they’re investigating after their UK engineers, who were deploying poles to carry a new 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) network in the East Yorkshire (England) town of Beverley, accidentally damaged a gas pipe in the Beverley Parklands area on 11th March. The network operator began their £3m roll-out in the […]

Mobile network operator giffgaff, which has pledged not to raise its prices mid-contract, has today launched a new promotion that attempts to soften the impact of soaring mobile and broadband bills by offering free pizzas across the UK via Deliveroo this Friday (15th March). The operator’s ‘It’s the yeast we could do‘ campaign (the yeast […]

News

This year’s Connected America event has kicked off in Texas

The second annual Connected America event is underway at the Irving Convention Center in Texas, bringing together leaders from the telecommunications field and public-sector leaders, along with non-profits, suppliers, providers, and manufacturing leaders.

Jose Ortero, the vice president of 5G Americas, began the event with a keynote speech and reminded attendees that the country is “less than five (or) six years away from 6G.”

“One of our main commitments as an industry is to explain to the government the need that we have (with) spectrum,” Ortero said, and added that the United States needs to do more when it comes to providing mid-band spectrum.

Ortero was then joined by a panel to discuss the American mobile landscape. The panel included Karmen Rajamani, the vice president of government affairs at the Wireless Infrastructure Association, Amanda Toman, the director of the innovation fund at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and Yigal Elbaz, a senior vice president and network CTO at AT&T.

During the panel, Toman laid out a roadmap to the remaining $1.3 billion that her agency is set to award to advance broadband builds across the United States.

“We’re going to have additional opportunities, two additional opportunities this calendar year, for industry to submit for funding opportunities to enhance the supply chain,” she said, and added that one funding chance would be focused on specific hardware, and the other would focus on software that can increase efficiencies.

“We hope that we get a lot of interest from industry players,” she said.

Connected America, an event that’s part of the Total Telecom portfolio, will continue until Wednesdays, March 13, when the event concludes after dozens of panel discussions that will focus on topics like middle-mile fiber builds, tribal connectivity, sustainability, what comes next after the potential lapse of the Affordable Connectivity Program, along with much more.

The event expects to bring together thousands of attendees, scores of exhibitors, and hundreds of organizations.

Those not at the event can track news and updates about Connected America by following the hashtag #ConnectedAmerica.

This article was originally published by Brad Randall (brad.randall@totaltele.com) on Total Telecom’s sister website, Broadband Communities.

Keep up with all the action on social media with #ConnectedAmerica

Also in the news:
BT wins £26m contract to connect UK schools
Apple fined €1.8bn by European Commission over Spotify row
Japan to reduce regulatory pressure on incumbent NTT

Press Release

Stockport, UK, March 12, 2024 – CDW, a leading multi-brand provider of information technology solutions to business, government, education, and healthcare customers, has joined forces with Stockport NHS Health Foundation Trust to better enable staff and improve patient care with innovation and digital capabilities. The collaboration is part of an 18-month digital transformation programme, and includes introducing cutting-edge solutions at Stepping Hill Hospital, the main acute hospital in the Stockport area.

The digital transformation, facilitated by CDW, includes the implementation of a new Cisco wireless network infrastructure, digital informatics supporting agile working, Kontakt.io Real-Time Location Services (RTLS) for medical device management integrated with Imprivata Enterprise Access Management (formerly OneSign) and VDI infrastructure for fast and easy access to clinical workspaces. Additionally, the partnership incorporates a Zebra electronic blood tracking system which enhances traceability and reduces potential errors, thereby improving patient care.

Stockport NHS Foundation Trust runs Stepping Hill hospital; the first acute hospital in the UK to implement the Kontakt.io Real-Time Location Services solution. Setting a precedent for innovation within NHS trusts, Stockport is paving the way for other trusts to integrate new technologies that can vastly transform and enable improved patient outcomes.

With circa 6,300 staff, Stepping Hill serves 300,000 patients annually. Like many hospitals, it had been heavily reliant on manual processes. The hospital had a clear need to modernise and introduce technology to enhance patient care and flow. Holly Carr, Chief Clinical Information Officer and Clinical Safety Officer said: “We knew we needed to be smarter to maximise and optimise our existing resources. The new technology makes sharing devices and information more seamless and has enabled us to provide the infrastructure and digital capability to support a more agile working environment and more mobile workforce across multiple care settings.” 
 
The trust turned to CDW as its technology partner due to its longstanding experience and wealth of knowledge in the healthcare sector and because CDW provided consistent value and consultancy throughout the programme. The transformation will serve as a model for other NHS trusts seeking to implement technology to improve overall performance.

According to Phillipa Winter, Chief Technologist for Health and Social Care at CDW: “The forward-thinking vision that Stockport NHS Foundation Trust harboured for integrating technology sparked genuine excitement at CDW. It stands as a remarkable example of harnessing technology not to substitute human efforts but to elevate and amplify their impact on day-to-day tasks. This transformative approach not only empowers clinicians to extend their reach to more patients but also affords them the precious opportunity to invest additional, high-quality time in patient interactions, fostering a future where healthcare is not just efficient but deeply human-centred.” 

Key solutions implemented include:

New Cisco Wireless Network Infrastructure and Digital Informatics:  
               Supports agile working for clinicians to ensure seamless access to data across all clinical areas.
Kontakt.io Real-Time Location Services (RTLS) 
               Equips hospitals with Real-Time Location Services to improve medical device and asset management identifying asset location on-site helping ensure greater efficiency and faster response times.
Imprivata Enterprise Access Management (formerly OneSign)
               Enables quick and secure logins for clinicians wherever they are, facilitating seamless workflows. Reducing login time from three to four minutes down to a matter of seconds.
Zebra Mobile Devices to Support a Blood Traceability System  
               Provides end-to-end traceability of blood products with handheld digital scanners. This improves efficiency and reduces potential errors.

About CDW 

CDW Corporation (Nasdaq: CDW) is a leading multi-brand provider of information technology solutions to business, government, education and healthcare customers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. A Fortune 500 company and member of the S&P 500 Index, CDW was founded in 1984 and employs approximately 15,000 coworkers. For the trailing twelve months ended September 30, 2023, CDW generated Net sales of approximately $22 billion. For more information about CDW, please visit www.CDW.com.

News

Just days after AI was the hottest topic at this year’s MWC Barcelona, the company are firmly standing by human-based customer services

Spusu, an Austrian-based mobile operator with operations in the UK, has confirmed that it will continue to offer human customer service offerings, instead of replacing it with AI services. The company have pledged to only “using human customer service agents”.  

“To our current and future customers, we want to reaffirm that all enquiries are responded to and managed by Spusu’s dedicated customer service team using your preferred contact channel,” said Christian Banhans, UK MD of Spusu. “Our customer feedback shows that our current methods of communication and response are appreciated and well received. We don’t need to fix something that’s not broken,” he continued. 

Spusu, who were launched in Austria in 2015, have a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement via BTWholesale to harness EE’s UK network. The partnership was first announced in June last year, and allowed Spusu to launch their services into the UK market. 

“We’re proud to put accessibility and simplicity at the heart of everything we do and are thrilled to bring our friendly approach to business to the UK,” said Christian Banhans, director of Spusu UK. “Customers will now have access to our cost-effective plans and award-winning customer service, as well as access to the UK’s best mobile network in EE,” he continued. 

The news comes as it was announced last week that Vodafone became the first operator in the UK to launch a large language model (LLM) chatbot, introducing the novel technology for its VOXI customers. The chatbot was developed in partnership with Accenture UK, and will be used to create a more enhanced customer service experience, says Vodafone.  

“VOXI is using generative AI to fundamentally reinvent its business. The customer experience is only the start of how this technology can be adopted at scale across the organisation,” said Accenture UK’s Generative AI Lead, Mark Farbrace. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter 

Also in the news:
BT wins £26m contract to connect UK schools
Apple fined €1.8bn by European Commission over Spotify row
Japan to reduce regulatory pressure on incumbent NTT

It’s still not entirely clear how it happened, but some homes in the tiny rural Cornwall village of Golberdon are currently suffering from a protracted broadband and phone outage after cables belonging to Openreach were accidentally cut last month by an enthusiastic individual using a garden hedge trimmer. A quick look at the community, which […]

A new survey of 504 UK-based businesses leaders by Censuswide, which was commissioned by broadband ISP Beaming, has claimed that businesses lost over 50 million hours and £3.7 billion due to internet failures in 2023. But the amount of time businesses lose to connectivity failures has fallen by a fifth in the last five years. […]