The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) team has informed ISPs of several forthcoming changes to their Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which helps those in rural areas to get a gigabit-capable internet connection installed. The big news is that the maximum voucher values are to be increased. The GBVS scheme normally offers vouchers worth up […]

Network builder Freedom Fibre, which is supported by broadband ISP TalkTalk, has announced their first build in Wales with the £14m rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to the city of Wrexham. Previously, the provider had tended to only focus on semi-rural parts of North England. Many of the operator’s initial deployments have […]

The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA) has announced a shortlist of potential finalists for their forthcoming 2022 awards event, which aims to recognise and celebrate the best alternative broadband networks (altnets) and ISPs from across the United Kingdom. Some operators, such as B4RN and Truespeed, have been nominated across several different categories. The winners will […]

London-based Axione UK, a subsidiary of French provider Axione that is investing £300m to deploy a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to 4 million UK premises, has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that their initial build is “on track” to cover 30,000 premises by the end of March 2023. The operator, which is targetting both […]

The Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has launched a Public Review to confirm the existing and planned gigabit-capable broadband infrastructure coverage within parts of the Highland Council Area, which relates to the authority’s investment under the new Inverness and Highland City-Region Deal (IH-CRD). The IH-CRD reflects a commitment of £315 million worth of funding – […]

Rural Broadband Solutions Plc (RBBS), which via ISP SWS Broadband serves UK homes in rural parts of Shropshire (England) and Wales via both wireless and full fibre (FTTP) connectivity, has today announced that they’ve secured a huge investment of £75m from Tiger Infrastructure Partners to extend their coverage. The company originally revealed last year that […]

Over the past week we’ve seen a feeding frenzy of UK news reports (here, here, here, here and here) that warn consumers against “turning off Wi-Fi at night” to save electricity, which is usually followed by claims that doing so could hamper the speed and stability of your broadband ISP connection. But this is not […]

STARTUP STORIES

We’ve met Net AI before but things have moved on for this startup spun out of the University of Edinburgh, including attending MWC earlier this year.

Tell us about your start up
Net AI is a network intelligence company whose mission is to develop a market-leading deep traffic analytics platform that can drastically reduce CAPEX/OPEX/TCO for mobile operators and enable new high-margin revenue streams.
Our customers are mobile network operators, telco OEMs, and professional services companies with a global presence.

What is your USP?
Net AI has developed a family of cloud-native software solutions that build on years of research at the intersection of mobile networking and artificial intelligence conducted at one of Europe’s leading computer science research centres, the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh.

Our key differentiator is a combination of a patent-pending stream decomposition and analytics framework and an AI-based prediction engine, which facilitates real-time and predictive insights into per-service network usage on a real-time basis, fuelling the automation of network and compute resource management. Our products are fully automated, scalable, encryption-agnostic, and deployable with emerging Open RAN and 5G architectures.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
We are engaging with 1) mobile network operators who seek to meet their customers’ demand in a cost-effective way using intelligent solutions; 2) cloud computing companies that recognise their customers face new challenges that can be tackled with AI solutions, but AI may not be their core business; and 3) system integrators that seek to understand what services are relevant where, how to automate operations, and how to mitigate high customer churn.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
We raised £750,000 pre-seed investment in October 2021, led by Techstart Ventures, with Nauta Capital, Creator Fund, Old College Capital, and Edinburgh Technology Fund also participating. We also received support through grants from Innovate UK and Scottish Enterprise, and we were part of the AI Post-covid Accelerator funded by the Scottish Funding Council and hosted by the Bayes Centre.

Why did you establish the business?
As networks are increasingly built-in software, we believe real-time and predictive traffic analytics can revolutionise the management and monetisation of mobile networks. In addition, AI-driven traffic insights can drastically improve energy efficiency of mobile infrastructure, which already contributes an important fraction of the global carbon emissions. Not least, we believe everyone should have equal job and education opportunities and affordable mobile connectivity can enable this, which is another reason for establishing our business.

I am an engineer by training and have been a faculty member at the University of Edinburgh for the past 9 years, where I have pioneered the use of deep learning for tackling challenging problems in the mobile networking space. This line of research can bring important commercial and societal benefits, and that’s why I decided to spin-out Net AI.

Who inspired you?
In similar measures: Nikola Tesla (pioneer of the alternating current electrical system and wireless communications), Robert Moog (inventor of the synthesiser), and Douglas Adams (author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

What does the future hold for your business?
We plan to take a share of the global network automation market, which is expected to exceed $28bn by 2028.

COMPANY CV
HEADQUARTERS: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 8
LAST FUNDING TYPE: pre-seed
URL: https://netai.tech
FOUNDERS:
Paul Patras
Mark Chapman
Marco Fiore

Net AI will be in the Startup Village at Total Telecom Congress in London on the 1-2 November 2022. Meet them there by requesting your ticket

The post Startup Stories: The hitchhiker’s guide to mobile network management first appeared on Total Telecom.

PRESS RELEASE

EdgeConneX has announced the formation of a joint venture with Aboitiz InfraCapital (AIC), the infrastructure arm of the Aboitiz Group, one of the Philippines’ leading conglomerates, to address considerable and rising data usage in the Philippines. The joint venture will leverage Aboitiz’ century-long local market expertise and its groupwide land and power assets with EdgeConneX’ global data centre platform, build, and operational capabilities.

The exclusive partnership focuses on building a network of hyperscale data centres across the Philippines. The first two data centres focus on the Manila metro area, with a connectivity-focused facility adjacent to the local internet exchange (IX) and a secondary hyperscale campus facility also located in the greater Manila area. The partnership will look to tap AIC’s land bank of 1,400 hectares of prime industrial real estate and AboitizPower’s diversified renewable energy capacity, which the company aims to triple by 2030.

“There is great excitement about the partnership and the incredible market opportunity the partnership enables,” commented Cosette V. Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital President and CEO. “The Philippines is underserved and seeing high domestic data demand growth relative to Southeast Asia. Our market size, favorable demographics, and proliferation of subsea cables make the Philippines an ideal destination for data centre investments. We also have access to prime real estate in both city centres, such as Manila, as well as emerging economic hubs like Batangas. We’re thrilled to have a premier global data centre partner in EdgeConneX.”

“In AIC, we have the ideal partner in the Philippines,” said Randy Brouckman, CEO of EdgeConneX. “They possess the local assets and expertise required to build out critical digital infrastructure that can best support our customers across the entire country. We look forward to investing in the digital economy of the Philippines and meeting our customers’ needs throughout the region. They complement our capabilities required to successfully capture this market opportunity.”

“Asia is a major focus area of investment and growth for EQT and EdgeConneX,” stated Jan Vesely, Partner at EQT Partners. “The data usage in Asia is expected to grow exponentially over the coming years, meaning that the underlying digital infrastructure must scale-up to meet increasing demand, thus creating compelling opportunities for investments. Whether through M&A or joint ventures such as this one with Aboitiz, we look to continue steadily building out the EdgeConneX global platform in Asia in collaboration with leading local partners.”

“The Philippines has consistently flown under the radar until just the last few years,” stated Jabez Tan, Head of Research, Structure Research. “The conditions are ripe for colocation providers to jump in and win business. In the last 12-18 months, data centre operators, real estate developers, and investors have circled the market in anticipation of the expected demand. And the underdeveloped competitive landscape leaves the door open for tremendous opportunities and long-term growth potential.”

Interested in this story? You might enjoy the Playing the data game sessions at Total Telecom Congress – Find out more here

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The post Philippines is ripe for data centre investments first appeared on Total Telecom.

PRESS RELEASE

Acromove, provider of the world’s first cloud computing solution designed specifically for the Edge, announced that George Koronias, one of Europe’s most successful leaders in the telecommunications and high technology sectors, has joined Acromove’s board of directors (BoD).

Recognizing that the future is wireless, George was a pioneer in Greece laying the foundation for mobile telephony. George was CEO of Vodafone Greece from 1992 until 2008, from its founding stages to its IPO, later serving as the company’s Chairman of the Board. He is a recognized authority on high-growth companies in emerging markets. An electronic engineer by training with postgraduate studies in Aerospace systems, he has held leadership positions in aerospace, defense, and information technology. In the past, he co-founded Meazon where he also served as the company’s executive chairman. Currently, he serves as chairman of the board at Excelon Financial Services and until recently a partner and chairman of the board at Inaccess UK.

“We are incredibly honored and excited to welcome George Koronias to Acromove as a board member and investor,” said Artemios Achillopoulos, Founder & CEO of Acromove. “His experience, perspective and in-depth knowledge of the telecommunications market will be a huge asset as we continue our efforts to ignite the Edge revolution.”

“Acromove has a strong vision and plans for the future of Edge computing. I am thrilled to join the company as a board member and help to guide it to the next level,” said George Koronias.

About Acromove

Today there is an explosion of data in every business that is being amplified by IoT sensors everywhere and that requires advanced applications driven by AI/ML to provide results in real time using 5G networks. The current centralized cloud IT infrastructure cannot handle these problems giving rise to what is called Edge computing. Until now Edge computing has involved modifying existing centralized data center solutions, but this has proven to be inadequate – too expensive and too cumbersome to deploy. Acromove is architecting, building, and deploying a new generation of Edge computing solutions that were purpose built from the ground up for the Edge problems. This enables Acromove to deliver new levels of performance at a much lower price. Acromove is providing these novel solutions in the same business model as the cloud – the customer does not have to plan, own, manage or maintain any of the technology. Customers can rent as much or as little Edge computing as they need at any time. Whether it is a public telecommunications carrier, a retail store chain, a factory moving to Industry 4.0 or a smart city architect, Acromove has a solution for any Edge Cloud need. Acromove was founded by Evangelos Achillopoulos and Artemios Achillopoulos in 2014 in Athens, Greece. The company relocated its headquarters to the United States in 2017 and maintains its engineering center in Athens. For more information, visit www.acromove.com.

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The post George Koronias joins Acromove’s board of directors first appeared on Total Telecom.