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Interview

At the Submarine Networks EMEA 2026, we caught up with UltramapGlobal’s marketing lead Mychael Owen and CEO Martin Connelly to discuss the company’s role in securing submarine infrastructure

As geopolitical tensions and high-profile disruptions push submarine cables from the realm of invisible infrastructure into mainstream media headlines, subsea security has suddenly become a focal point of global anxiety.

At the Submarine Networks EMEA 2026 event in London, the conversation naturally turned toward shielding these critical data arteries from both intentional harm and accidental damage.

It was against this backdrop that UltramapGlobal’s Mychael Owen and Martin Connelly discussed the ongoing evolution of the company’s AssetMonitor platform. What began in 2022 as a focus on “selling surety” for cable operators quickly evolved into a data-driven virtuous cycle by 2023 as the company gained momentum, with more customers leading the company to adopt the ‘better informed, better protected’ mantra.

By 2024, the rapidly scaling business was forced to interpret data in entirely new ways to meet varied client reporting needs and, in 2025, AssetMonitor became the world’s most used subsea cable monitoring software.

Now the company is preparing for further growth thanks to its recent acquisition by Abingdon Software Group. Far from disrupting operations, the merger has provided stability and continuity for existing customers while supercharging the company’s capabilities.

“What they have given us is the ability to innovate and add to the software when we need to. We can do things better and bigger than we were able to before,” explained Connelly, noting that the partnership has also dramatically increased their international scope.

Integrating Lumetec’s sensing technology

The fruits of this newly expanded innovation capacity are already on display. Ultramap Global has recently integrated Lumetec’s Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) and State of Polarisation (SOP) technology into the AssetMonitor platform, giving cable operators even more data about their infrastructure’s surrounding environment.

“DAS can tell you a whole host of things, including the health of the cable,” said Connelly. “But the more important thing for us is it’s a source of information about the cable’s environment in real-time. For example, if a fishing vessel is trawling nearby, it can detect that activity on the seabed.”

This live environmental insight serves multiple critical functions. It allows Ultramap to pre-emptively contact nearby vessels to warn them of cable proximity. Furthermore, it provides forensic evidence of overhead activity. Connelly pointed out that fishermen often claim they lift their gear when approaching a cable, and this technology verifies if they are actually doing so. It is equally valuable for tracking “dark” vessels that have turned off their Automatic Identification System (AIS).

With this upgrade, cable operators remain grounded in factual security based on real-time feedback.

“It’s all about dealing with what’s actually happening. A lot of the news recently has been fear around what could happen. We need to keep it real,” concluded Connelly.

How is connectivity for the UK’s critical infrastructure evolving? Join the discussions at Connected Britain 2026

Also in the news
TELUS and L-SPARK give Canadian startups access to AI supercomputer
Belden to acquire RUCKUS Networks for $1.85bn
VMO2 taps Suffolk solar farm for 10 years of clean energy

The post Subsea cable security: Focusing on reality over fear with UltramapGlobal appeared first on Total Telecom.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Comparison service Switchity has taken Ofcom’s recently released Spring 2026 Connected Nations data report (our summary) and turned it into a simple but useful map of full fibre (FTTP) broadband coverage across the United Kingdom, including devolved constituencies (781 seats) and all 361 local authorities.

The interactive map also depicts current take-up levels and includes the regulator’s latest forecast for future full fibre coverage to January 2029, while at the same time highlighting the digital divide between coverage in urban and rural areas.

The catch is that they’ve only looked at full fibre coverage and not the broader definition of gigabit-capable broadband, which is what the government uses and would have delivered slightly higher figures (mostly due to the impact of Virgin Media’s older Hybrid Fibre Coax lines).

Switchity’s UK Full Fibre Broadband Map
https://switchity.co.uk/broadband-areas/uk-broadband-divide/

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Communications provider Clarus Networks has this morning announced that they’ve reached an agreement to become an authorised reseller of the Amazon Leo (Project Kuiper) service, which reflects a huge constellation of ultrafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – available to the UK and globally.

The service, which will be available to consumers, businesses and the public sector, is currently still in its commercial beta phase and will start to launch properly later in 2026 or 2027. Amazon Leo currently has approval to deploy and operate their own initial constellation of 3,236 LEO broadband satellites (altitudes of between 590km to 630km). A total of 329 Kuiper satellites have already been placed into orbit (they need at least 500 for basic global coverage) and many more are due to follow, although progress has been slowed after one of Blue Origin’s first rockets blew to bits.

At present we’re expecting Amazon to sell packages directly to consumers, while the new deal with Clarus Networks is more focused on serving enterprise and maritime customers. Clarus already has similar agreements to harness and supply rival broadband satellite networks from Starlink and OneWeb (Eutelsat).

Clarus specialises in designing, deploying, and managing LEO based satellite connectivity solutions for complex enterprise and maritime environments.

Derek Phillips, Managing Director of Clarus Networks, said:

“Becoming an authorized reseller of Amazon Leo is an important step in our mission to give customers more choice, more resilience, and better connectivity wherever they operate. By combining Amazon Leo low Earth orbit satellite technology with our managed service, deployment expertise, and 24/7 operational support, we can help customers build more reliable, flexible, and future-ready networks.”

Customers of the service, once it eventually goes live, will connect to the network using one of several compact, high-performance antennas: Leo Nano, Leo Pro, and Leo Ultra. Leo Ultra is the most powerful model in the line, capable of delivering download speeds of up to 1Gbps and upload speeds of up to 400Mbps — capacity for demanding enterprise applications.

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Streaming platform provider Roku has reached an agreement that will see it being acquired by Fox Corporation in the USA for £16.4bn ($22bn) – reflecting a mix of cash and Fox stocks. The strategic move is largely designed to scale Fox’s digital advertising and content distribution in the US market, but it may eventually have impacts on Roku UK too.

According to the announcement, the transaction will combine FOX’s sports, news and entertainment content and its Tubi streaming service, with Roku’s connected TV platform, The Roku Channel, first-party data and direct relationship with more than 100 million global streaming households.

The new “scaled next-generation media and technology company” that will be created by this is said to be “committed to continuing to operate Roku as an open, partner-friendly platform and to the continued ubiquitous distribution of FOX content“, while also becoming the third-largest player in U.S. television by share of viewing.

Assuming they can get this deal past the USA’s regulators, then the transaction is expected to close in the first half of calendar year 2027.

Lachlan K. Murdoch, Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Fox Corporation, said:

“This is a defining moment for FOX, and a natural extension of the deliberate and focused strategy we have been executing for nearly a decade. In 2019, we reoriented the company around live news and sports. In 2020, we acquired Tubi and under our stewardship it has become one of the most successful businesses in streaming.

Today, we take the next step: bringing together the most valuable live content portfolio in video consumption with the preeminent streaming platform through which America watches it. This combination will transform the scope of our company into high-growth verticals and yield a step change in our overall growth profile.”

Anthony Wood, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Roku, said:

“Over the past two decades, we’ve built Roku into the leading TV streaming platform, reaching more than 100 million households globally and reshaping how people discover and enjoy entertainment. I’m incredibly proud of what our team has built, and the combination with FOX is an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate our vision, scale faster and innovate more aggressively for viewers, partners and advertisers.

That’s why our Board of Directors unanimously determined after concluding its strategic review process that this transaction offers a significant premium to Roku shareholders while also providing them with the opportunity to participate in the compelling future upside of the combined company. I couldn’t be more excited about what we’ll accomplish together.”

Fox’s focus above is clearly on what benefits this can bring to their core market in the USA, but we’re naturally more interested in what it might mean for the UK platform. Initially nothing is going to change in the UK, although it’s reasonable to assume that over time Fox may wish to raise the profile of its own content to UK users and perhaps find a way to combine Tubi with ‘The Roku Channel’. Fox could also seek to do more with advertising on the platform, including hoovering up more customer data to support targeted ads etc.

Consumers in the UK also tend to be a bit more wary of the Murdoch empire, which may discourage some from adopting Roku UK. Question marks also remain over how this might impact Roku’s future relationships with rival streaming services and apps. We’ve seen in the past how disagreements between big media groups can sometimes cause Apps not to be appear on certain platforms, while showing on others. Time will tell.

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Clevedon-based broadband ISP Glide Group has announced that they’ve significantly extended their existing relationship with the university of King’s College London, which previously covered providing internet connectivity to student accommodation and campus-wide guest Wi-Fi. The communications provider will now also deliver a resilient, high-capacity managed Wide Area Network (WAN).

The agreement will see Glide connect King’s sites and datacentres through a 100Gbps (Gigabits per second) capable managed network designed around “resilience, diversity and clear accountability“. The new connectivity will underpin critical academic and professional services, supporting staff, students and researchers across the site.

The new contract will deliver the infrastructure through a combination of Glide connectivity solutions, although they didn’t reveal much detail on this part in the announcement.

Tim Pilcher, CEO at Glide, said:

“We’re delighted to be expanding our relationship with King’s College London. This agreement reflects the confidence that comes from strong delivery, trusted service and a shared focus on long-term partnership.”

Karl Everett, Head of Infrastructure at King’s IT, said:

“The implementation of a 100Gbit/s network is a vital investment in the university’s digital infrastructure. It will significantly enhance our ability to support data-intensive research, enable faster collaboration, and ensure our academic community can work efficiently with modern tools and large datasets.

Adopting a single supplier also strengthens resilience by simplifying network management, reducing points of failure, and improving reliability across teaching, research, and administrative services.

This upgrade directly supports King’s Strategy 2030, which sets our ambition in service of society through academic excellence, enabled by effective services and robust digital infrastructure. It positions the university for future growth, providing the performance, security and flexibility needed to support emerging technologies and sustain excellence in research and education.”

The news doesn’t reveal how long the contract will last or how long the deployment might take, although Glide has plenty of experience with WAN deployments.

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The Stop Killing Games group, which is a consumer campaign that seeks to preserve video games after they are taken offline, has joined with a number of global rights respecting organisations to create a sister campaign called Stop Killing the Internet. The aim is to defend the open internet against policies and practices that “impose surveillance, exclusion and excessive centralised control” in the name of online safety.

The international campaign follows shortly after the UK government confirmed its intention to introduce an online Social Media ban for children under the age of 16 against ten popular platforms, as well as various other measures (summary). But the launch of the new movement also comes just as a petition not to ban social media on the UK Government website broke through the 100,000 signatures required to trigger a debate in parliament (it’s currently on c.192,000).

The new international Stop Killing the Internet campaign aims to support alternative “rights-respecting approaches to child protection, privacy, democratic accountability and platform responsibility“, while pushing back against stricter forms of censorship and solutions (e.g. social media bans, scanning of devices and additional surveillance).

“There was widespread feeling that a global threat required a global response, and that the UK’s announcement of prohibition and device scanning required an immediate response,” said the announcement, while highlighting how it would make it harder for young people to access educational videos online, or connect with friends, and socialise while playing games.

Moritz Katzner, Director of Stop Killing Games, said:

“The internet is a place of education, games, friendship, culture, work and public debate. Like any town hall, it can become ugly. But we would never respond by shutting down the town hall. We would never demand identity papers at the door.

We are building a global movement, if you believe in building a better internet and fighting for a global connected internet then join us.”

The full public launch is due to take place on 27th June 2026, although people can sign-up to join the campaign today. But thus far politicians in the UK and other countries, where similar measures are being taken, have shown little interest in addressing the more negative aspects of the restrictions they’re trying to impose.

Most people can easily understand the principles of what governments are seeking to do, but often it falls down on implementation and risks significant unintended consequences in the process. Speaking of which, Ofcom’s letter to the government on the recently proposed ban (here) highlighted how much work there is still to do on the issues and some of the challenges involved.

For example, Ofcom warned that while “age assurance at 16 should be technically feasible“, it is not an easy thing to get right and there are also “privacy considerations“.

Extract from the Regulator’s Letter to Government

A clear lesson from the first year of implementing the Online Safety Act has been that clarity in the law facilitates successful compliance and enforcement. We would encourage the Government’s regulations to be as clear and specific as possible, including about the services these restrictions will and will not apply to. This would allow Ofcom to move rapidly to detailed implementation and then driving real improvements for children online as soon as possible.

We have already kicked off work to support Parliament’s consideration of the regulations that government will be laying later this year, and I can confirm that we will deliver by the end of October a technical assessment of Highly Effective Age Assurance at 16. Our initial observations are:

• That age assurance at 16 should be technically feasible but there are currently fewer available methods than at 18. For example, email-based age estimation or credit cards checks are not applicable or not available at 16. We have more work to do to understand the effectiveness and accessibility of different methods, the availability of identity and age attributes at 16, and the privacy considerations of different existing and emerging methods. We will work closely with the ICO as we develop the assessment.

• There will be a range of practical implementation challenges, including accuracy at boundary ages and how to approach the “ageing” of child accounts. Some services will need clarity on how to ensure their age assurance process is highly effective at correctly determining both users who are 18+ and 16+, in order to fulfil concurrent regulatory obligations.

• We are already learning about effective design, implementation and enforcement from the new Australian regime. For example, some services likely to be captured by the ban have relied on age inference models (where user activity is analysed to estimate age) to meet their obligations in Australia. The evidence does not yet show that these models can deliver an effective, privacy-preserving solution for an under 16 ban.

• Age checks are most effective when they are built into multiple stages of the user journey. Our age assurance report in July will assess the use, effectiveness and challenges of the current service-level statutory approach to age assurance. In the longer term, a layered or whole-of-system approach may be most effective, reducing circumvention and increasing public trust. We will issue a follow-up report in the first year of the social media ban coming into force to specifically consider the issue of displacement.

Ofcom’s letter also highlights the “particular stress that the Secretary of State has placed on enforcement“, with the regulator seeking a deeper understanding of how the Government expects them to drive compliance with the regime, while “noting the constraints placed on us by the legal processes on individual cases and the importance of retaining flexibility to respond to developing situations“.

The reality is that there isn’t a perfectly workable solution to everything the Government are seeks to do, which seems likely to result in a solution that does just as much to irritate adult users as it does the under 16s. But as Ofcom says, the government first needs to be much clearer about precisely which services these restrictions will and will not apply to.

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News

Ekholm will hand over the reins on September 30, having held the role since 2017

Today, Swedish telecoms equipment giant Ericsson has announced that CEO Börje Ekholm will resign. He will be replaced by Per Narvinger, an Ericsson veteran that has served as the company’s head of business area networks since March 2025.

Ekholm will step down from the role of President and CEO on September 30, 2026, and will leave the Board of Directors from October. He will serve as an executive advisor to the new CEO until June 2027.

Ekholm has served as Ericsson CEO for over nine years, taking over the reins at a time when the company “faced considerable headwinds” both from fierce external competition and internal restructuring.

“Since then we have turned Ericsson around and emerged as a global communications and technology leader,” he said. “Today, Ericsson is driving the transformation of mobile connectivity by changing how networks are used and commercialized, and we are leading the industry into the next stage of AI: the physical AI era.”

“With Per Narvinger as CEO, Ericsson will have the right leader to continue developing this great company,” he added.

Narvinger has worked for Ericsson his entire professional life. Currently Ericsson’s head of business area networks since March 2025, he has held a wide range of additional roles, notably leading the cloud software and services division.

“It is a great honour to step into this role in a company where I have spent my entire professional career. It has been a pleasure working with Börje in our joint efforts to create a stronger Ericsson,” said Per Narvinger. “This is a pivotal time in our industry. As AI continues to industrialize, this will increasingly require advanced connectivity solutions, an area where Ericsson is leading. With our extraordinary employees who are cementing technology leadership as a foundation for success, we will continue to provide great value to our customers. I look forward to taking up the role as President and CEO of this amazing company.”

Narvinger takes over the role at what the company’s Board call a “pivotal time”, with the company repositioning itself to capitalise on the emerging ‘physical AI era’.

Ekholm’s approach to this challenge had involved digging deeper into network APIs and pushing into enterprise software, aiming to make the network more flexible and developer friendly. Ultimately, this resulted in the disastrously expensive purchase of Vonage and has so far delivered lacklustre growth in the enterprise segment.

Despite this, given Narvinger’s background it seems unlikely that he will attempt to change the company’s direction dramatically. He has long championed the company’s extensive R&D efforts – including the company’s cloud offerings and purpose-built 5G silicon, which could become vital to meeting the real-time demands of the “physical AI” era.

While Narvinger’s appointment signals continuity rather than a strategic reset, his deep technical pedigree and long-standing focus on network innovation will now be tested as Ericsson seeks to turn its AI ambitions into sustainable growth.

How is connectivity for the UK’s critical infrastructure evolving? Join the discussions at Connected Britain 2026

Also in the news
TELUS and L-SPARK give Canadian startups access to AI supercomputer
Belden to acquire RUCKUS Networks for $1.85bn
VMO2 taps Suffolk solar farm for 10 years of clean energy

The post Narvinger to replace Ekholm as Ericsson looks to the ‘physical AI era’ appeared first on Total Telecom.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The UK telecoms and internet content regulator, Ofcom, has published a revised guidance document on network resilience, which was first published in 2024 (here) to give broadband, mobile and other digital network providers greater clarity on how they can “reduce the risk of network outages“. The new update clarifies their stance on power backup for mobile cell / mast sites.

Communications providers in the UK currently have a legal duty to identify, prepare for and reduce the risk of anything that compromises the availability, performance or functionality of their networks. The original guidance was thus intended to provide public network operators with greater clarity on how they could comply with their duties for security and resilience.

The hope is that this would serve to reduce the chances of serious and protracted network outages occurring, or at least make them quicker to resolve. But modern networks are complex beasts that can fail due to all sorts of reasons (it’s often the ones you don’t foresee or expect that bite the hardest). In addition, the 2024 guidance left open the question of precisely what measures mobile operators should take to mitigate against the risks of power outages.

The specific issue of improving power backup for Radio Access Networks (RAN) is not an easy one to resolve, with a number of UK mobile operators being known to have balked at the potential costs of deploying national battery backup (here and here); costs that could potentially work their way into higher retail prices for consumers.

Nevertheless, Ofcom has today published a 2026 revision of their Network and Service Resilience Guidance for Communications Providers (PDF), which among other tweaks now includes some clarifications on the regulators “expectations for mobile network operators’ backup power arrangements in the RAN“.

ISPreview had to do a bit of a before vs after comparison to find some of the changes (they weren’t clearly signposted), but this bit of new text below did stick out. Back in 2024 the same section was largely blank, pending the need for more studies, which have since taken place.

Power backup in mobile RAN sites

In the case of mobile cell sites, in order to meet their duties, including under Regulation 3 to take appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure the network is designed and constructed in a manner which reduces the risks of security compromises occurring, we expect MNOs to take robust measures to manage and mitigate against the risks of power outages and support continued communications services during power outages and surges which might reasonably be expected to occur. The measures we expect for mobile cell sites include the following parts of this guidance:

• our expectation that all communications providers maintain an ongoing programme of risk assessment and to make plans and investments commensurate with the identified risks, taking into account both the likelihood of events and the impact of their occurrence (3.2), which could include considering communities that may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of a power failure in the mobile RAN.

• on access sites and equipment where a significant number of customers’ last-mile connections are aggregated, resilience of the equipment and all key dependencies should be considered in the site and equipment design (see section 1.3.4). Where possible, communications providers should seek to eliminate loss of key dependencies, including mains power and network timing/synchronisation, for a significant period of time bearing in mind that citizens depend on the access network for access to emergency services (4.2.1).

We should point out that mobile operators have, in the background, been busy looking at this problem and making changes where viable. For example, last year saw Vodafone kick-off a new “Enhanced Power” initiative (here), which will work to boost resilience and extend power backup time at around 10,000 key mobile sites across Europe and Africa using a mix of AI and other technologies (specific plans for the UK were not disclosed).

Ofcom’s latest tweaks to this guidance seem to avoid being too prescriptive with their expectations, but the changes do still seem designed to give mobile operators more clarity and a bit of a nudge to take some greater action.

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Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today announced that they’ve switched-on their next-generation 5G Standalone (5GSA / 5G+) mobile broadband network across more of Suffolk (England), which is said to reach more than 760,000 residents and businesses across 434 towns and villages.

Just to recap. O2’s 5G+ rollout first began in February 2024 (here) and aims to reach “at least 90% outdoor coverage” in every location they cover. The operator’s latest rollout across Suffolk includes locations such as Ipswich, Lowestoft, Bury St Edmunds, Haverhill, Felixstowe, Sudbury, Stowmarket, Newmarket, Beccles and Woodbridge.

The new 5G+ network is currently live across more than 86% of the UK’s population. The technology offers a pure end-to-end 5G network that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better speeds (particularly uploads), network slicing, improved support for IoT devices, increased reliability and security etc. By comparison, early 5G networks used a Non-Standalone (NSA) approach, which was hobbled by being partly reliant upon older and slower 4G infrastructure.

Professor Robert Joyce, Director of Mobile Access Engineering at O2, said:

“Our new 5G+ network is now live in Suffolk, providing an impressive upgrade for local people and businesses and creating new opportunities in and around the county.

Combined with investment as part of our Mobile Transformation Plan, we’re improving our mobile network every day to deliver a faster, more reliable experience for customers, futureproof connectivity and pave the way for future innovations.”

The new network is typically available to O2’s customers with compatible devices “at no extra cost“, although we do wish that mobile operators would start giving geographic coverage figures for their 5G+ network as population figures always sound better than the reality often shows.

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News

The operator has partnered with the tower giant to extend its mobile coverage across the busy train line

This week, O2 has sign a new agreement with tower operator Cellnex to join the Brighton Main Line (BML) connectivity project.

The partnership will see O2 deploy mobile network equipment on Cellnex’s infrastructure along the BML, improving connectivity for thousands of passengers.

The BML connectivity project began in 2021, when Cellnex won a contract with Network Rail to deploy neutral host infrastructure across the 108km BML.

Cellnex subsequently deployed a wide range of neutral host infrastructure including: 130 km of high-capacity fibre; four Base Station Hotels to host mobile network operator equipment; 39 Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) within tunnels and along trackside locations; a dedicated station DAS at London Bridge, London Victoria and Clapham Junction; and 16 macro sites along the railway route.

Mobile operators leveraging this infrastructure will be able to provide coverage across 99% of the 108km route, which serves over 300,000 rail passengers every weekday.

In addition to boosting mobile coverage, the infrastructure will also eventually support the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS), an international wireless standard that will deliver connectivity services for the railway operators themselves, including the management and interoperation of signalling.

In partnering with Cellnex, O2 joins its rival Three (now VodafoneThree), which signed up to the project in 2023.

“Regular railway passengers will understand the frustration of losing signal mid-conversation or spending whole journeys with buffering videos. With O2 now on board, many more passengers are going to notice the difference on one of the UK’s most important commuter routes,” said Steve Cray, Managing Director of Cellnex UK.

The timeline for the improvements to O2’s network was not specified, but Professor Robert Joyce, Director of Mobile Access Engineering at O2, said that coverage and capacity will be improved “in the coming months”.

How is connectivity for the UK’s critical infrastructure evolving? Join the discussions at Connected Britain 2026

Also in the news
TELUS and L-SPARK give Canadian startups access to AI supercomputer
Belden to acquire RUCKUS Networks for $1.85bn
VMO2 taps Suffolk solar farm for 10 years of clean energy

The post O2 taps Cellnex to improve Brighton Main Line coverage appeared first on Total Telecom.