Dana Strong

Excited to be partnering with Ericsson and Nokia to support the delivery of world-class connectivity across the UK. Backed by a £11 billion investment, we’re building the UK’s best network and accelerating 5G Standalone (5G SA) to cover 99.95% of the population by 2034. Four British based site-build partners with extensive experience – Beacon Communication Services Limited, Circet Wireless Limited, M Group Limited and WHP Telecoms Limited – will accompany the technology partners, delivering vital work to enable the build across the UK.  Vodafone and Three customers are already feeling the benefits of the merger. Almost instantly, more than 7 million Three UK and SMARTY customers experienced a boost in 4G speeds (up to 40%) and, just three months in, millions of Vodafone and Three customers are automatically using each other’s network, providing access to roam at no extra cost. By the end of the year, this integration will remove a total of 16,500 sq/km of not-spots in the UK. https://lnkd.in/dbNs5tFC  #VodafoneThree #NationsNetwork #Connectivity #5GSA

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The massive seasonal influx of visitors to the UK's most popular holiday destinations presents a significant network engineering challenge for all operators. This surge in demand often strains local mobile network capacity to its limits, where usage can vary enormously from month to month. Addressing this requires the operators to partner to offer (often temporary) additional capacity. The latest move from O2 (Telefónica UK) and Freshwave, deploying small cells in popular UK holiday towns like St Ives and Newquay, is such an example. It’s a more surgical approach to network densification. Instead of building significant new infrastructure, it is delivering a targeted capacity injection at specific high-footfall locations like beaches and train stations, managing the spikes in data demand that these destinations experience every summer. The partnership between the operator, the infrastructure specialist, and the local authority serves as a classic blueprint for regional network enhancement that is likely to become far more common as data demand continues to surge. These alliances are increasingly being recognised as prudent and economic solutions to troublesome and often uneconomic challenges for traditional network planning strategies. #5G #4G #SmallCells #Connectivity #UKTourism #Cornwall #O2 #Freshwave #NetworkDensification #UKTelecoms #CustomerExperience

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Interesting announcement from Tata Communications yesterday about #VoiceAI, specifically for the banking, finance & insurance sector (BFSI). It's a multilingual speech-to-speech offering that sits alongside its #cloud platforms, network assets and existing #CPaaS business. - #speechtospeech conversations with claimed latency under 500 ms - supports 40+ Indian / other languages, with context maintained across customer sessions. Importantly, it is dialect- and accent-aware, which is something I think localised cloudcos and telcos could find an advantage in - #agenticAI architecture which integrates with enterprise APIs and fintech systems to manage whole customer journeys (e.g. account setup, issue resolution) without forcing users to jump between channels - however, it is also multi-channel capable if users *prefer* to jump - based on Tata’s AI Cloud and global voice/network infrastructure One thing it reminded me about was a recent article I've read, noting that speech-based access to AI tools (and voice assistants more broadly) is already very common in India. Thinking about it further, it made me realise that the value-chain for AI voice in future verticalised (and some horizontal) applications is likely to expand. Depending on the specific functions involved, delivery platforms (eg app vs. calls), pain points such as regulatory awareness or network latency, or integration with other capabilities, there will be several options: - Direct path through a cloud platform such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon etc - Preference for conventional CPaaS, especially if international numbering or multi-channel is necessary - Telco channels where there is a suitably flexible voice/comms platform, plus route to market such as into SMBs There will also be hybrids and partnerships here - for instance where a telco or MSP partners with a cloud platform for better developer access and support, or (as here) where a CPaaS provider works with an AI or cloud infrastructure partner or close affiliate. The chart below is a fresh "epiphany in the shower", "not available from AI", illustration of this, and I'll probably refine it over coming weeks. Expect to see a version of this, if you come to the Nov 6th #UnthinkableLab workshop on Voice & AI. Links to the Tata announcement and workshop in the comments.

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