Page 82 - SAMENA Trends - June-August 2021

TECHNOLOGY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

DCMS Unveils Plans to Trial Broadband Rollout Via UK’s Water Pipes

Fiber broadband cables could be fed in water pipes in other countries such as on changing regulations to make
through the UK’s water pipes as part of Spain. A competition has been launched to infrastructure sharing easier. Commenting,
the government’s plan to speed up the select a consortium, which could comprise Stephen Unger, Commissioner at the
nationwide rollout of superfast broadband telecoms companies, utility providers Geospatial Commission, said: ‘Fiber is
and mobile coverage in rural areas. Under and engineering companies, to lead and the future of digital communications. Its
the three-year ‘Fiber in Water’ program – deliver the project. As part of this, a region unmatched performance and reliability
which is scheduled to conclude in March or multiple regions of the country will be can seamlessly connect our society
2024 – the government will invest GBP4 selected to host the trial, and a deadline together. But it took over a hundred years
million (USD5.5 million) in the project, which for applications of 4 October 2021 has to build the legacy copper network, so
will also look to test solutions that reduce been set. Meanwhile, the government body replacing it with fiber won’t be easy … The
the amount of water lost every day due to has also confirmed that it is considering best way to meet this challenge is to use
leaks. Any solution used to trial fiber-optic giving broadband firms access to more existing infrastructure, such as the water
cables in the water mains will be approved than a million kilometers of underground pipes that already reach every home and
by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) utility ducts to boost the rollout of next- business in the country. Our ambition
before being used in a real world setting, generation broadband – including must be for reliable broadband to become
the DCMS noted, though highlighted the electricity, gas and sewer networks – as easy to access tomorrow as drinking
fact that fiber has already been deployed and will soon respond to a consultation water is today.’

Google Develops Custom Chip for Upcoming Pixels

Google revealed its upcoming Pixel 6 smartphones would be recognition and photographic abilities. Its current flagship series,
powered by in-house chip Tensor, a move it claimed was a response the Pixel 5, uses a Qualcomm chipset. “The team that designed
to computing limitations of third-party options. The software our silicon wanted to make Pixel even more capable,” Google
giant stated AI and machine learning features enabled by the noted in its corporate blog. “With Tensor we thought about every
system-on-chip (SoC) silicon would “unlock specific experiences” piece of the chip and customized it to run Google’s computational
on its handsets, pointing to intended improvements in speech photography models. For users, this means entirely new features,
plus improvements to existing ones.” Alongside enabling specific
consumer features, Google claimed the security core on Tensor
combined with the device’s integrated Titan M2 chip would give
the Pixel 6 handsets the most layers of hardware security in any
phone on the market. In a social media post Google CEO Sundar
Pichai said the chip had been four years in development, adding
“Tensor builds off of our two decades of computing experience
and it’s our biggest innovation in Pixel to date”. Other details
released on the forthcoming flagship handsets include upgrades
to its user interface and revamped camera design compared with
its predecessor, which features a black strip across the back of
the devices housing the lenses and flash. The company plans to
launch the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro devices later this year.

1&1 And Rakuten to Build Fully Virtualized Mobile Network Based on

OpenRan

1&1 has announced that it is entering into a long-term partnership cloud-based multi-vendor network architecture. Rakuten will
with Rakuten to build a fully virtualized mobile network based on take over the build of the active network equipment and will also
OpenRAN technology, as it seeks to become Germany’s fourth be responsible for the overall performance of the 1&1 mobile
wireless network operator. With this, 1&1 is moving away from network. 1&1 will have access to the Rakuten Communications
conventional proprietary networks, which are often provided Platform (RCP) stack of access, core, cloud and operations
overall by just one network supplier, towards a completely solutions as well as to its partner network. In this context,

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