Customers of broadband and energy provider Shell Energy may like to know that the ISP, despite recently being placed up for SALE by its parent (here), has still found time to introduce a new Wi-Fi 6 capable router that is made (casing) from 100% recycled plastics. A Wi-Fi6 capable signal booster device is also being […]

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The pair’s latest trial offered users the chance to try mobile cloud gaming using a dedicated 5G standalone (SA) network slice

Could 5G standalone be a gamechanger for mobile cloud gaming? Vodafone and Ericsson think so, with their latest combined trial showing that 88% of gamers ranked their experience as 8/10 or above, compared to just 13% using non-optimised connectivity.

The trial, conducted at Coventry University, saw an undisclosed number of trialists invited to play cloud-based games on their smartphone in two different scenarios. Scenario A simulated a public network, while Scenario B used a 5G SA network slice that had been optimised for cloud gaming.

As a result of this optimisation, Scenario B’s network featured a 270% increase in download performance, a 25% decrease in latency, and 57% less jitter, according to Vodafone.

The results showed a clear distinction between the two scenarios. Of those experiencing cloud gaming using the Scenario A set-up, 63% rated the experience between 0/10 and 5/10, with just 13% ranking their experience as 8/10 or higher. By contract, of those experiencing the Scenario B set-up 88% ranked their experience as 8/10 or better.

“5G Standalone aims to deliver novel services that would not be possible on today’s networks. Few areas can benefit as much as cloud gaming, not only to improve customer experience, but to open the door to entirely new types of content. Today, immersive gaming is realistically limited to consoles and desktops, but with 5G Standalone, we can bring it to mobile devices,” said Phil Patel, Group Director of Product and Services at Vodafone.

“5G Standalone is not an upgrade on 4G, but an entirely new type of technology,” added Andrea Dona, Chief Network Officer at Vodafone UK. “Through this trial, we provided a slice of connectivity, customised specifically for gaming, to provide a full fibre like experience over the airwaves. This is the value of network slicing – a more personalised connectivity service to make digital more in-tune with each customer.”

As always with Vodafone press releases of late, the company took the opportunity to espouse the virtues of their proposed merger with Three UK, noting that their proposed combined investment of £11 billion would see 5G SA coverage reach 99% of populated areas by 2034.

Indeed, Vodafone is already rolling out 5G SA in the UK, offering services to customers on the upgraded network via their ‘5G Ultra’ packages. However, it should be noted that the availability of 5G SA is currently limited, with only London, Manchester, Glasgow, and Cardiff included in the initial deployment, though more locations are expected to be added later this year.

What impact will 5G standalone and network slicing have on the type of services telcos can offer customers? Join the telecoms ecosystem in discussion at this year’s live Connected Britain conference

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The move is the latest in a string of AI-related investments from the South Korean telco, reflecting its ambitions of becoming an ‘AI company’

This week, SK Telecom (SKT) has announced that it has become the third-largest shareholder in Persona AI, a South Korean AI technology firm focussing on AI contact centre (AICC) solutions.

Persona AI has developed a natural language processing engine capable of voice recognition and sentence analysis that can directly handle customer interactions. After interacting with the customer, the AI can make suitable recommendations to the service’s operator and allowing for faster processing of requests and even automation of responses where appropriate.

In this way, businesses can offer 24/7 customer support through consultations with AI chatbots and phone bots, removing the need to connect to the human agent.

SKT says it will work together with Persona AI to co-develop further phone and chatbot products, incorporating SKT’s NUGU speech recognition and text-to-speech technologies alongside Persona AI’s natural language processing and generative technology.

Ultimately, SKT hopes to offer a pre-built AICC service to business customers on a subscription basis, which will encompass the entire AICC process from sales of solutions to consulting, infrastructure construction, maintenance, and business process outsourcing.

“We plan to expand the ecosystem so that voice AI can be used not only in AICC but also in various industrial areas,” said Lee Gyu-sik, SK Telecom’s AICC business manager.

The financial details of the deal and the size of the stake purchased have not been disclosed.

For SKT, the investment in Persona AI is the latest addition to their growing portfolio of AI investments, including, most recently, a $100 million stake in US AI firm Anthropic.

The operator has signalled its intention to become a AI powerhouse for over a year now, with SKT’s Chief Financial Officer Kim Jin Won noting that the firm was “stepping up efforts on all fronts to transform itself into an AI company”.

Back in July, the company joined forces with a trio of international telco giants – e&, Deutsche Telecom, and Singtel – to form the Global Telco AI Alliance, seeking to combine their collective AI expertise to help co-develop new, innovative products for telco customers.

Are operators using AI effectively to enhance their operations and service offerings for customers? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s live Total Telecom Congress in Amsterdam, Netherlands

Also in the news:
Dish seeks extension for purchase of T-Mobile’s low-band spectrum
Battle for Ethiopia’s mobile money market begins as Safaricom’s M-Pesa takes on TeleBirr
What’s in a name? 6G Internet falls foul of advertising regulator over consumer confusion

Mobile operator Vodafone UK and network supplier Ericsson have today announced that they’ve concluded a successful trial of cloud-based video gaming on their new 5G Standalone (SA) network, which delivered big improvements in gaming performance via mobile broadband (i.e. download / uploads speeds, latency and jitter). Unlike existing Non-Standalone (NSA) based 5G networks, which dominate […]

Broadband ISP BT (EE) claims that the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 has driven spikes of up to 16% in their UK data traffic as people streamed the Lionesses’ on-pitch action live, rising to a peak of 866TB (TeraBytes) during Sunday’s final against Spain – as many viewers streamed it via the BBC and ITV […]

Broadband ISP and network operator Brsk, which has so far built their own gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to cover 266,000 UK premises – mostly around the Midlands (rollout plan), has today secured an “additional” £156m debt investment from funds managed by existing investor Ares. The operator, which in 2022 secured a funding boost of “up […]

Multiple industry sources have informed us that the Government’s Building Digital UK agency is fielding interest in a new funding option for rural-focused procurements under their £5bn Project Gigabit programme, which appears set to target smaller community style builds of around 200-500 properties. At present over 76% of UK premises can already access a gigabit-capable […]

The 411km long FibreSpeed network, which is owned by the Welsh Government – albeit now operating as an independent business – and reflects a high-capacity fibre optic communications and broadband network that spans across North Wales, has launched a new Prior Information Notice (PIN) to help plan its future beyond 2025. The network itself, which […]

Grimsby-based civil engineering firm Telec Networks, which has been used by full fibre (FTTP) operators like CityFibre and County Broadband to help construct their networks across various parts of England (e.g. Suffolk, Lincolnshire and Norfolk etc.), has reportedly notified that it intends to appoint an administrator. According to a report on The Business Desk, the […]

Some of Vodafone’s broadband ISP customers, specifically those covered by Openreach’s gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, have been unable to take a package faster than 200Mbps because of capacity problems, which for some of those affected had been going on for nearly two years. But the issue may now be resolved. We first reported on this […]