Connected Britain is the UK’s largest digital economy event, attracting over 8,000 attendees from across the telecoms sector, for a 2-day conference and exhibition held annually. Connected Britain sees innovators…
Connected Britain is the UK’s largest digital economy event, attracting over 8,000 attendees from across the telecoms sector, for a 2-day conference and exhibition held annually. Connected Britain sees innovators and disruptors, industry giants, alternative network providers, and local and national government come together to learn, network, share insights on the latest topics and help shape the future of UK connectivity.
Reflecting its pivotal role in the telecoms research and development (R&D) space, TITAN made its presence felt at this year’s Connected Britain, both at the conference and exhibition.
Day 1 started on the Federated Telecoms Hubs (FTH) stand where TITAN was exhibiting alongside fellow Hubs CHEDDAR and HASC. All three Hubs were showcasing cutting-edge, new proof-of-concept technologies, with TITAN researchers Xingwen Yi of Bangor University, and Jasmine Parkes of Comtek Network Systems, demonstrating intelligent optical transceivers for real-time fibre network protection. Almost one-third of internet service disruptions are caused by fibre-cable faults, resulting in significant operational costs, service outages and reduced network resilience. Therefore, rapid localisation and identification of fibre events, and continuous in-service monitoring rather than post-fault diagnosis, are critical for network operators.
TITAN’s innovative prototype exploits Rayleigh-scattered and back-reflected signals associated with data-carrying optical transmissions – to provide optical transceivers with built-in sensing capabilities – offering a sensing range up to 60 km, sub-metre spatial resolution and 98% overall event identification accuracy. Fibre events are localised by cross-correlating the transmitted and reflected signals, and identified and classified by extracting time-varying signatures from the captured signals. Use cases include data centres and fibre access networks.
JOINER, the experimentation platform for future connectivity and FTH Hub, also exhibited at Connected Britain on their dedicated stand K25, where they showcased three live demonstrations focused on the future of connectivity.
On day 2, Professor Harald Haas, Van Eck Professor of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Director, TITAN Hub and Lead Co-Director, Federated Telecoms Hubs (FTH), was a panellist on ‘Connecting the crowd: Delivering flawless coverage in high-density venues’, featured within the Smart Places theme.
During a compelling discussion and debate, the panel looked at how venue owners are leveraging connectivity to drive new revenue streams and enhance the visitor experience, what the critical operational requirements are for justifying the use of private 5G networks in high-density environments such as stadiums and airports, and how operators can orchestrate 5G, Wi-Fi 7, and internet-of-things (IoT) to ensure seamless high-capacity performance in complex venue environments.
Professor Haas’s fellow panellists were Dimitra Simeonidou OBE, Director, Smart Internet Lab, University of Bristol, David Crawford, 5G Projects Director, University of Strathclyde and Gareth Thomas Assoc CIPD, Digital Project Manager, Swansea Bay City Deal. The panel was moderated by Marina Koytcheva, Research Director, STL Partners.
Reflecting on the Connected Britain Experience
Sarah Hardy, Marketing Director, FTH said “Connected Britain is a key event in the telecoms sector calendar, giving TITAN, CHEDDAR and HASC an ideal platform to present their latest proof-of-concepts, while JOINER showcased future connectivity through demonstrations on smarter spectrum, AI at the network edge and non-terrestrial networks. Over the two-day event, we welcomed hundreds of visitors to the FTH stand – it was exciting to showcase how we’re driving advanced connectivity technologies towards market viability.”
Photo shows Jasmine Parkes, Comtek Network Systems.
