The UK government has announced a new fund for businesses of up to £160 million ($202 million), intended to spur the development of new low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations.

The Connectivity in Low Earth Orbit scheme (CLEO) would provide organizations and academics with funding to accelerate development into next-generation LEO communications.

Examples of innovations in the sector include using artificial intelligence (AI) to make data transfer more efficient, improving satellite hardware entirely, or improving interoperability of satellites to prevent vendor lock-in with satellite operators.

It is hoped that the funding will support hundreds of LEO satellites to be launched, which could go a long way toward supporting satellite broadband and eventually expanding 5G access.

“Tackling the digital divide is at the heart of empowering our citizens wherever they live, and by investing in the vital research and development that CLEO would facilitate, we can level up our country while growing the economy through high-quality jobs,” said Michelle Donelan, science, innovation, and technology secretary.

“This proposed record investment is also potentially a huge opportunity to harness our reputation as a world leader in innovation and R&D investment, supporting leading UK businesses to deliver the next generation of satellites and positioning the UK as a true space superpower.”

Up to £100 million ($127 million) could be made available through a direct government grant, with a further £60 million ($76 million) potentially available through the European Space Agency’s (ESA) UK-backed Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) program.

ARTES funding was used for the government’s £15 million ($19 million) satellite tech competition in October 2022, which aimed to support businesses proposing new satellite constellations or ground systems.

Although the funding has been specifically tied to the research and development of new satellites, no specific money has been allocated for launching this hardware. 

The final grant amount has not yet been agreed upon, with £160 million ($202 million) proposed as a maximum dependent on internal conversations.

What are the benefits of LEO satellites?

LEO satellites could be used to dramatically increase rural connectivity, as they can be coupled with receivers on the ground to provide data speeds as high as 200 Mbits/sec to the most remote premises.

Unlike many communications satellites, LEO satellites are not geostationary so can only provide connectivity for as long as they are over a given area. This is not a problem, so long as each one forms part of a larger constellation of satellites that work in tandem to give users seamless connectivity.

Due to their remote nature and uptime potential, LEO satellites make an excellent backbone for traditional communications networks and critical national infrastructure. 

They could be employed by governments and businesses to ensure that key networks experience zero downtime even in the most adverse circumstances.

In the US, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has engaged firms such as Intel, SpaceX, and Amazon to work on an extensive LEO network to facilitate military, government, and civilian data transfers.

The design phase for the project will last until late 2023, with the second phase set to run well into 2025 with an aim to eventually support 100 Gbits/sec connections.

SpaceX has worked with the UK government in trials to demonstrate the usefulness of LEO satellites in rescue operations, and a May 2022 government consultation found that 43% of businesses had explored satellites as an alternative to fixed broadband.

The Ukrainian government has made heavy use of SpaceX’s Starlink in its fight against Russian invaders, with the service providing a steady back-end to critical systems even as Russia has bombarded traditional communications infrastructure.

But The New York Times reported that SpaceX tried to drop its initial free Starlink offering to Ukraine in September, and at that time asked the US Department of Defense to provide $400 million to keep the service running for another year.

The same report alleged that Elon Musk has overseen efforts to geofence Ukraine’s Starlink connectivity. In practice, this may have prevented Ukrainian troops from accessing the internet when in zones of the country occupied by Russia.

Actions of this kind could convince governments and private organizations to invest in a wider range of LEO options, to avoid becoming reliant on the mercy of any one satellite communications network such as Starlink.

Cisco has announced its intent to acquire network performance monitoring partner Accedian as it moves to bolster its network assurance and observability capabilities.

Founded in 2004, Accedian provides Skylight, a virtualized performance assurance platform that features full-stack unified network and application monitoring and data analysis. 

The offering is designed to proactively ensure networks and cloud applications meet performance requirements, optimize network capacity, as well as offer fixes for any problems it identifies.

Accedian is already a Cisco partner, with the pair having worked together as part of the Cisco SolutionsPlus program over the last two years, and Cisco currently offers Skylight to service partners as part of its Crosswork Network Automation platform. 

By bringing Accedian’s network performance and user experience monitoring capabilities in-house, Cisco said it has a “unique opportunity” to link the firm’s data into Cisco ThousandEyes’ cloud-to-end network assurance. 

The aim is to facilitate improved management of latency-dependent services that run on 5G networks.

“Accedian greatly strengthens Cisco’s approach to assurance, helping to enable agility, efficiency, and the scale that service providers need to drive success,” said Kevin Wollenweber, senior vice president and general manager for data center and provider connectivity at Cisco. 

“Accedian’s service assurance portfolio of microsecond level sensors and the powerful Skylight Analytics platform, coupled with Cisco’s robust portfolio, will enable Cisco to bring transformational solutions to our service provider customers.”

Upon completion of the acquisition, which is expected to close during Q1 of Cisco’s FY24, the Accedian team will join Cisco’s Data Center and Provider Connectivity organization. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Microseconds matter to customers and customer experience, and precise, granular performance visibility is a foundational requirement for closed-loop automation, agile telco cloud environments, and latency-sensitive 5G services,” said Dion Joannou, CEO at Accedian.

“We look forward to bringing our critical capabilities to a wider set of solutions within Cisco’s Networking portfolio and taking the next step in the partnership we have built with Cisco and our joint customers over the last years.”

The acquisition is the latest in a string of security buys for Cisco in 2023, with the networking giant previously snapping up multi-cloud security startup Valtix, Israeli security software firm Lightspin, as well as AI-powered threat detection provider Armorblox.

Whilst many applications have moved to the cloud, or are in the process of moving, most network security functions remain tied to on-premise hardware appliances. Many corporate networks rely on legacy hardware appliances to define their perimeter, enforce policies, and route traffic.

Hardware boxes can be expensive, hard to manage and slow. With new supply chain pressures, lead-times of up to a year are not uncommon, delaying business-critical IT initiatives. The steady shift of data, applications, and employees to using the Internet as the primary means of connectivity, new security and performance issues arise that hardware may not be able to handle.

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The government has announced plans to create a cutting-edge telecoms lab in the Midlands, to bolster the UK network strategy and create high-skilled jobs in the region.

The UK Telecommunications Lab is to be built in Solihull, and once operational will host academics, telecom operators, and network suppliers to confer on network rollout and test equipment effectively. The lab will also be primed to detect network security vulnerabilities, in order to prevent cyber threats to critical national infrastructure (CNI).

A key goal for the lab will be to support emerging telcos, by ensuring the interoperability of telecommunications equipment within the wider market. This will enable tech from a range of manufacturers and network operators to work together, which is essential to the government’s £250 million strategy to diversify the UK 5G market.

It's hoped that the national research facility will provide manufacturers with an environment in which they can realistically demonstrate new 5G equipment, and will also act as a hub for 6G trials as the new standard matures.

The lab will feed into schemes such as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport's (DCMS) disruptive telecoms tech competition unveiled in March, and its £3.6 million research scheme in partnership with South Korea, to accelerate the development of Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) technology.

Greater use of Open RAN, disaggregated kit across the 5G network would allow for network operators to leverage hardware and software from a range of manufacturers, potentially leading to improvements in the speed, and stability of the network for businesses and consumers.

Birmingham is one of the UK’s leading cities within the sector, boasting over 56,000 tech startup employees. According to research by job search engine Adzuna, tech jobs in Birmingham were up by 21.3% in the first half of 2022.

“Fast-growing firms are cementing Birmingham’s status as a tech powerhouse - boosting jobs and spreading economic growth right across the West Midlands,” stated tech minister Damian Collins.

“As a result, there is no better home for the new UK Telecoms Lab, which will turn the region into a centre for expertise and innovation in the security of next-generation mobile networks.”

Further details on the lab, and a more thorough timeline of its construction, will be announced by the government at a later date.

A number of manufacturers are running trials to expand and improve 5G infrastructure throughout the UK. In March, Vodafone and Ericsson pulled off the UK’s first 5G network slicing trial, a method of separating a network into multiple strands by use case. This could have the advantage of increased network security, as well as faster speeds on slices dedicated for tasks such as video conferencing.

Carrier aggregation, in which a number of carrier bands are brought together into one stable connection, is also being trialled in the UK. BT and Nokia successfully performed a test of the tech in August, in real-world conditions using BT’s radio mast at Adastral Park, Suffolk. The tech could be used to provide far more stable 5G access, as well as provide higher bandwidth and speeds necessary for internet of things (IoT) networks.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has announced a UK partnership with the Republic of Korea, along with a new research scheme, all aimed at accelerating 5G and 6G development.

The UK government will invest £1.6 million into a competition totalling £3.6 million, in partnership with the Republic of Korea to create world-leading research and development of interoperable solutions such as Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) technology. This will be matched by a total of £2.1 million from the industry.

Applicants must be from consortia with two or more organisations from a relevant industry, academic field, or public sector background. Each country will fund a group of several companies.

The DCMS also set out plans for The Future Open Networks Research Challenge today, a £25 million fund set up to help fund consortia of firms and universities developing solutions for 5G and future 6G networks.

Entrants will be able to sign up to help fund network equipment research and open and interoperable telecoms solutions. Research in this field is expected to yield greater network speed and efficiency, but technology such as Open RAN needs more development to become commercially viable.

It is hoped that by boosting research in the sector the high energy cost of Open RAN might be reduced. In turn, this would help promote more carbon-neutral operations. Variation in telecommunications technology is also seen as a bonus for the sector, with companies ideally offering more choice of network and technology shortly.

The announcement follows the creation of the UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN) in March, a body which seeks to fund research and development in network technologies such as Open RAN.

The winners of the UKTIN competition, announced today, are The Digital Catapult, Cambridge Wireless, University of Bristol and West Midlands 5G. From September, they will advise on private and public investment in the telecoms industry, as well as guide firms and researchers in need of funding or facilities.

“The seamless connectivity and blistering speeds of 5G and then 6G will power a tech revolution which will enrich people’s lives and fire up productivity across the economy,” said Digital Infrastructure Minister Matt Warman.

“It’s why we’re investing millions and partnering with international allies to unleash innovation and develop new ways to make these networks more secure, resilient and less reliant on a handful of suppliers.”

Bids for the UK-Republic of Korea competition must be submitted by noon, on September 20 2022. Projects are expected to run until March 2024.

For the Future Open Networks Research Challenge, consortia need to be led by universities and include at least one large vendor. Proposals must be submitted by October 3 2022.

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IBM and Verizon have expanded facilities at their Industry Solution Lab in Coppell, TX to include an environment for developing and testing 5G-enabled use cases for Industry 4.0 applications.

The new capabilities will enable enterprise customers to develop and test how 5G Ultra-Wideband can combine with hybrid cloud, edge, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance next-gen use cases like robotics, guided vehicles, manufacturing process automation, visual quality inspection, data analytics, and more.

Verizon has installed 5G ultra-wideband and multi-access edge computing (MEC) to trial use cases, alongside IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI technologies, which run on Red Hat OpenShift.

The lab will offer customers a pre-commercial, standalone 5G network and all the technical resources needed to test and optimize products. Customers can co-create business-specific use cases and jointly work with IBM Global Business Services and ecosystem partners to leverage these technologies in solving current business challenges and bring new solutions and services to market.

The lab will focus on three priority areas that take advantage of 5G networks.

The first area is asset monitoring and optimization. IBM and Verizon said major shipping companies with ground and package-handling facilities could use the IBM Maximo Application Suite and IBM Acoustic Insights to trial how they can use ultrasonic technology to anticipate and prevent their package handling machinery from malfunctioning.

The second area is in field worker productivity and safety. By using Maximo Mobile on devices on the Verizon 5G Network, a utility company could trial scenarios where it uses AI, remote human assistance, and real-time data to “improve the on-the-job safety and enhance the quality and efficiency of fieldwork with guided workflows, reducing multiple repeat inspections and repairs of the same equipment.”

The third area is visual inspection. IBM said industrial product manufacturers could leverage IBM’s suite of visual inspection products, including IBM Maximo Visual Inspection.

“Mobile devices running the suite could be mounted on assembly lines, robotic arms, or even held or worn by the user to inspect components and finished goods for defects using near real-time insights to improve manufacturing processes,” said Steve Canepa, global GM & managing director at IBM’s Communications Sector.

He added that the joint 5G test bed with Verizon “serves as a signal of IBM’s ongoing investment in capabilities that include, among others, centers of excellence and labs around the world.”

The network has been the heart of the IT revolution for nearly 40 years, and as more of us adopt remote working, the network is adapting to meet our demands, keeping us in touch no matter where we’re located. However, as our IT networks evolve, they also grow more complex.

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There are several fundamentals in our complex IT systems, and one of the biggest is computer networking, as it links together all our computers together, allowing quick and efficient information sharing and receiving. This information sharing is what allows email, file sharing, IoT devices, and a host of other tasks to work as expected and allow modern businesses to hum along.

Because it's essential in nearly every aspect of business communication, computer network architects are critical cogs in any organization's wheel. The growth of the computer network engineer is highlighted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) prediction that demand for these architects will rise by 5% by 2029. One of the largest employers of computer network architects is the computer systems design industry, as it accounts for 32.3% of the total architects employed.

The architect's importance in an organization is further confirmed by the average annual pay of $112,690. You don't need a degree in quantum computing to see why this has become such a highly desirable field for IT specialists.

Are you interested in a computer networking role? We've put together this guide to help get you started.

What is computer networking?

You must first know how networks function before you can fully understand computer networking. Well-structured networks allow devices and endpoints to connect, and these networks comprise various switches, routers, and wireless.

Additionally, networks use software protocols to communicate different types of data securely. A familiar example of a wireless computer network is Wi-Fi, whereas a wired network features copper-based Ethernet cables and fiber-optic cables for data transmission.

What does a computer network architect do?

Computer network architects, or network engineers, plan and lay out data communication networks from the ground up. After chalking out a network topology, a network engineer presents the plan to the higher management, explaining its operational implications and benefits.

Depending on the requirements, the proposed networks can vary greatly in size and specification. A local area network (LAN), for instance, spans across a small area, which is perfect for a single-office organization or a cyber cafe. However, for a multinational corporation with numerous offices worldwide, a wide area network (WAN) fits the bill.

Apart from planning and designing, network architects oversee the plan’s execution and ensure it aligns with the network infrastructure. Network architects also research new networking technologies to determine what may cater to an organization’s changing needs.

Popular job titles in computer network architecture

Computer networking encompasses a variety of system-specific job roles. Some of the most important designations are mentioned below:

• Computer systems analyst: Identifies areas for improvement in an organization’s computer systems by determining the existing systems’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Information security specialist: Implements security measures to secure an organization’s computer systems and networks.
• Network administrator: Installs and configures computer networks and systems in addition to fixing network connection problems.
• Systems architect: Designs and deploys an enterprise's integral systems.

How to become a computer network architect

Getting a network architect job can be quite tricky if you don't know what path to take. This three-step guide will help you along the way.

Step 1: Get formal training

A bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems or a related field is the first step toward becoming a network engineer, as the program will help you understand the basics of network architecture. Also note that certain employers prefer applicants with a master’s of business administration (MBA) in information systems.

This is especially true in the case of firms that move their business through the internet. The two-year course includes business and computer-related subjects to understand network characteristics in the corporate sector better.

Step 2: Gain experience

Most network architects gain five or more years' work experience in a related field, such as network administrator or computer systems analyst, before moving into their main industry.

As beginners, they monitor the day-to-day operation of computer systems and networks, implement security measures to safeguard the system and recommend upgrades when necessary.

As they move up the ladder, many begin to organize computer network specialists to improve existing systems by taking on a managerial role.

Step 3: Earn relevant certifications

Earning a vendor-specific certification is arguably the best way to improve the chances of getting hired by the same vendor. After all, companies require their network architects to be certified in the products they use and manufacture.

Cisco is a fine example of this strategy: the Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA), which is a beginner-level certification, offers an insight into the configuration and installation of Cisco-related products besides networking fundamentals.

More senior network architect credentials include:

The road ahead for computer network architects

A computer without a network serves a minimal purpose. As organizations continue to expand their networks, the need for skilled network architects who can design, maintain and upgrade existing networks will continue to rise sharply.

A thorough understanding of modern computer networks and a love for technology will ease your way into the industry, should you wish to kickstart a career in the networking field.

"You will have to constantly learn," says Peter Steenkiste, a professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "You need to be very much aware of not just about the technologies available today but about the trends. A lot of the designing of networks is effectively upgrading and expanding the networks."

A group of researchers at University College London (UCL) has set a new record for data transfer rates with speeds of over 1Tbps.

The rate was set as part of research on the capacity limits of optical transmission systems, designed to address the growing demand for fast data rates.

To achieve these speeds, the team used techniques from information theory and digital signal processing to build an optical communications system with multiple transmitting channels and a single receiver.

The project set out to investigate ways to improve the optical network infrastructure to support the increasing amount of digital content, cloud and e-health services, as well as the universal connectivity of smart devices referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT).

The team was able to determine the best way of encoding information in optical signals, taking into account the limitations of the transmitter and receiver. They then applied coding techniques commonly used in wireless communications, but not yet widely used in optical communications, to ensure the transmitted signals are adapted to distortions in the system electronics.

At UNLOC labs at UCL, the researchers built the new optical system and measured its performance. Fifteen channels, each carrying an optical signal of different wavelength were modulated using the 256QAM format typically used in cable modems, combined and sent to a single optical receiver for detection.

By grouping the channels together, the team created a super-channel' that, although not yet commercially available, is widely believed to be a way forward for the next generation of high-capacity communication systems.

Lead researcher, Dr Robert Maher at UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering, said that while current state-of-the-art commercial optical transmission systems are capable of receiving single channel data rates of up to 100 Gbps, "we are working with sophisticated equipment in our lab to design the next generation core networking and communications systems that can handle data signals at rates in excess of 1 Tbps".

"For comparison, this is almost 50,000 times greater than the average speed of a UK broadband connection of 24Mbps, which is the current speed defining "superfast" broadband. To give an example, the data rate we have achieved would allow the entire HD Games of Thrones series to be downloaded within one second," he added.

Intel has agreed to buy Avago Technologies' Axxia networking business for $650 million.

The all-cash deal, which has been approved by the boards of directors for both Avago and Intel, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approvals.

The unit, which made 113 million in revenues last year and employs 650 people, will help Intel in its bid to provide processors to service providers building more intelligent networks. The firm makes systems-on-a-chip (SOCs) for networking infrastructure.

"With this acquisition, Intel gains a compelling product line and talented team to continue to deliver on this long-term vision," said Rose Schooler, vice president of Intel's data centre group, in a blog post.

She added that the opportunity was "significant and wireless access is a critical component of the mobile network, which is part of a growing network market segment estimated to represent a $16 billion silicon market segment".

Intel already supplies the vast majority of processors in PCs and servers and is looking now to bolster its share in markets such as networking, the Internet of Things and mobile devices. With the latter, Intel has been caught on the hop by the likes of ARM. Such a move would help Intel decrease its reliance on an uncertain x86 market.

"In the same way that Intel helped to transform the data centre into a business enabler, Intel can help transform networking by providing new technologies and a portfolio of solutions that allow for new innovative services and efficient scaling of a more flexible, cost effective network infrastructure," said Schooler.

Axxia was part of LSI, which Avago acquired for $6.6 billion in May. That month, Seagate signed a definitive agreement with Avago to buy LSI's flash storage business for $450 million.

Cisco has set out the next phase of its unified networking strategy, as it strives to help CIOs cope with the demands imposed on their networks by the explosion in connected devices.

The firm took the wraps off its Unifed Access One Network strategy during the opening keynote of the Cisco Live conference in London.

Its aim is to simplify users' network infrastructure so it can cope better with the demands of mobile workers.

No longer are users a barrier to IT projects, they're a catalyst.

The networking giant's chief technology officer, Padmasree Warrior, gave an example of how the internet has grown over the last 20 years, showcasing the need to manage data. She claimed there were only around 1,000 devices connected to the internet in 1984.

"By 2020, we will have 50 billion [connected] devices...which is creating a lot of data," Warrior said.

Rob Soderbery, senior vice president and general manager for the enterprise networking group at Cisco, said the company's aim is to make networks "simpler, more secure and easier to operate" as the number of devices plugging into them increases.

"[We want] one policy, one where you can describe to users what they can do, how they can transverse the network, what resources [employees, guest and clients] can access," he said.

"[We need] to make sure [the network] has consistent services and capabilities across that network, so no matter where users come in [using wired or wireless devices]."

Underpinning this strategy will be two new products, the Cisco Catalyst 3850 LAN controller, which retails at around $5,000, and the 5760 wireless controller, which costs around $20,000.

Soderbery said the 3850 "brings together the best of Cisco wired and wireless technology in a single box", and can provide 40GB of wireless performance.

"If you're about to go into a wireless closet upgrade, [and you've got a] Greenfield opportunity...the 3850 is a great solution for you," he said.

"If you have existing wireless deployments...and are not in the position to upgrade, [the] Cisco 5760 [has] 60GB wireless performance - 6x the performance [of its predecessor] and is ready to scale for the mobile era.

"These two products are going to be the bedrock of new wired and wireless networks," he added.

During a post-keynote address to the press, Gordon Thomson, director of enterprise networking and security business sales for EMEAR at Cisco, said the firm's Unified Access strategy was designed to stop IT departments being viewed as a "barrier to innovation".

This is because departments are finding their activities hamstrung by network constraints, which means they often cannot respond to end user demands for mobile devices in the workplace quickly enough.

"IT departments need to change and cannot afford to operate in the way they have in the past. They need to improve their speed of execution. They need to reduce complexity and cost," said Thomson.

"iPad, iPhones and Samsung have turned the world on its head. No longer are users a barrier to IT projects, they're a catalyst [by bringing in their own devices] and that's why this announcement is so key."

HP claims its new pay-per-use networking programme will allow enterprises to apply the principles of "cloud economics" to hardware procurement.

The hardware giant took the wraps off its HP FlexNetwork Utility Advantage Programme earlier today at an event in central London.

The scheme will see HP partner up with communications service providers to supply networking kit to customers on a pay-per-use basis.

This, the company claims, should put a stop to firms investing in network capacity that isn't used.

Network infrastructures do not fluctuate with the needs of the business.

Speaking at the event, Mike Banic, vice president of global marketing at HP, explained: "In some places of the network, the infrastructure is overutilised...and in other places it's underutilised. In other words, it doesn't fluctuate with the needs of the business.

"These are an important set of opportunities for us to address."

Traditionally, network investments have always been considered as a capital expense that's been "carried on the balance sheet," he said.

The programme aims to change that and free up funds that can be reinvested in "innovative" IT projects. It will also help firms meet the demands placed on networks by cloud, BYOD and unified communications.

"The programme we're announcing takes advantage of the entire product portfolio that makes up the Flex Network architecture," said Banic.

"[It is] designed to enable communications service providers to deliver pay-per-use managed LAN offerings that allow HP to address the needs of enterprise clients, in many case the global 1,000 clients we want to earn more business from."

Although, during a media Q&A session at the event, Nick Watson, vice president of HP Networking for EMEA, said the pay-as-you-go elements of the programme would make it a good fit for SMBs too.

"When we started looking at this, people kept telling us this really is a small-to-medium business [-focused] model...and will only appeal to smaller customers," explained Watson.

"If you think of a small business, it could be a branch of a [larger one], but the irony is that the interest we've had has been from hugely towards the biggest companies, which isn't necessarily [the way we thought this would pan out] when we first started."

The programme will only be offered to customers through HP's service providers, as the firm has no plans to offer it directly.

"For years, the issue has always been the communications service providers have never wanted to put this on their balance sheet in the first place. What they've wanted to do is find a partner who will partner with them," he said.

He also stressed the pay-per use programme will not affect HP's business model, which has traditionally been based on hardware sales.

"This [will create] an annuity stream [of revenue]...and we are expecting this offering will prove so strong [the recurring revenue business model] will really start to work [for HP]," added Watson.

Mobile operators Vodafone and Three have agreed to pool their resources to bolster the network coverage on offer to customers in Ireland.

The pair have formed a joint venture company and will share their infrastructure at more than 2,000 locations across the country.

The Dublin-based company will manage the rollout of shared network sites and the maintenance of ongoing operational service and associated equipment.

The new venture is expected to be in business by the autumn and will be staffed by 80 employees from Vodafone Ireland and Three Ireland.

According to a report on 3G.co.uk, the partnership is expected to save both companies 200 million over the next five years, as duplicate network sites will be decommissioned.

Robert Finnegan, chief executive of Three, said the venture will create the largest physical network for Irish consumers.

"We expect to be able to deliver the latest technologies to our customers faster than ever before," Finnegan said.

"This new joint venture combines the best of both networks and will be the smart choice for the savvy mobile customer," he said.

Both companies will remain independent and will separately maintain their core network capabilities, service platforms and spectrum.

Jeroen Hoencamp, chief executive of Vodafone, said consumers will continue to see some healthy competition between the two firms.

"At a retail level, we will continue to compete aggressively against one another and with other operators to offer value and innovative services to consumers and businesses," said Hoencamp.

Poor quality hardware and internet connections are holding back corporate adoption of high definition video conferencing tools, research shows.

According to a poll, carried out by Virgin Media Business, many users are reluctant to invest in the technology because they do not have the PC and networking infrastructure in place to support it.

The survey was compiled using responses from major electronic retailers including ASK Direct, Anvika, Dell, Dixons, eBuyer, Millgate, Panasonic, PC World, Samsung and Sony.

According to its findings, 50 per cent of respondents said business users fear their internet connections are not reliable enough to support HD conferencing.

Meanwhile, 80 per cent said business users feared their office computer equipment was also not up to the job.

Despite this, every retailer claimed sales of basic video conferencing packages were on the rise.

Tony Grace, chief operation officer of Virgin Media Business, said companies could use bring your own device schemes to get round some of the hardware challenges video conferencing presents.

"It presents a tricky dilemma for business owners and CIOs. They recognise the need to use HD services, but don't want to make wholesale and expensive upgrades to their hardware," said Grace.

"BYOD schemes allow employees who really need HD equipment to get the hardware first as each person is given their own budget to buy the hardware," he added.

The arrival of World IPv6 Day has prompted concerns about how the switchover will affect internet security, accessibility and performance.

The event, organised by The Internet Society, marks the official start of IPv6 support by ISPs, router manufacturers and websites across the globe, including Yahoo, Facebook, Google and YouTube.

The change from IPv4 to IPv6 presents many challenges that organisations need to be aware of and solve.

According to findings proffered by the Society, there are no IPv4 addresses left in the Asia Pacific region and Europe is expected to run out later this year, which is why the move to IPv6 is so important.

"The support of IPv6 from these thousands of organisations delivers a critical message to the world: IPv6 is not just a nice to have'. It is ready for businesses today and will soon be a must have'," said Leslie Daigle, chief internet technology officer at the Internet Society.

"We believe the commitment of these companies to deploy IPv6 will ensure that they remain industry leaders [and] any company wishing to be effective in the new internet should do the same."

However, IT industry watchers have warned that the switch from IPv4 to IPv6 could create security headaches and user experience problems for many firms.

Michael Allen, application performance management director at network monitoring software vendor Compuware, said the switchover will affect the way internet browsers and devices connect to the internet, which could cause accessibility issues for some users.

"The change from IPv4 to IPv6 certainly brings more addresses, scalability and flexibility to the internet, but at the same time it presents many challenges that organisations need to be aware of and solve," said Allen.

"This not only puts end user experience at risk, but also impacts business revenue and brand reputation, as poor application performances will not be well received."

This situation will be exacerbated by the fact that very few networks are IPv6-ready, warned Allen.

"Most carriers do not provide full end-to-end IPv6 connectivity. This means that some IPv6 traffic will have to be tunneled' through IPv4, [which will also lead to] poor performance and availability issues," he added.

Meanwhile, Mark Lewis, vice president of development at cloud service platform provider Interoute, said IPv6 adoption could leave companies vulnerable to malware and viruses.

"The introduction of IPv6 effectively opens a series of new back doors for viruses to sneak through," he claimed.

"Organisations need to consider whether their network and security hardware supports IPv6 and then formulate plans that facilitate the secure running of IPv4 and IPv6 devices and applications side-by-side.

"If you consider how ubiquitous IP devices are in the workplace, and the wealth of applications in an average organisation, this will not be an easy task," warned Lewis.

Andrew Mulholland, business solutions manager at router manufacturer D-Link, said, despite the arrival of World IPv6 Day, companies still have time to plan their migration to IPv6.

"Ultimately, all devices on the network will need to be IPv6 compliant in order to communicate with each other and allow access to users from IPv6 addresses," explained Mulholland.

"Starting to make preparations now can remove the headache and the cost of replacing the whole network in one go in the future."

IT departments are failing to understand the demands on their networks, and seeing application performance fall as a result. And a significant minority of CIOs do not even know what applications their business is running.

According to a research report commissioned by Easynet and Ipanema, 69 per cent of IT staff do not know how much network bandwidth applications are using. As many as 31 per cent do not know how many applications their networks are running; unsurprisingly, 44 per cent are reporting problems with application performance.

And, although applications such as video and voice over IP are most often associated with network performance issues, the research found that the largest proportion of issues (26 per cent) were reported with line-of-business applications.

A further 21 per cent of IT professionals reported problems with "enterprise" applications. However, the respondents also predicted that video was likely to be the most demanding application in the future. And the demand on the network from cloud applications is expected to more than double.

According to Justin Fielder, CTO at Easynet, customers are increasingly reporting issues with network and application performance, yet spending on the network remains a relatively low priority for IT teams. This is being reinforced by the fact that two-thirds of IT managers surveyed said their budgets were either flat, or declining.

At the same time, though, Fielder suggested that companies are in danger of making false economies by ignoring the network demands of otherwise expensive applications, and by failing to monitor application performance properly. Improving network usage will, he said, boost real-world application performance quickly.

"We found that 55 per cent of companies relied on end users to tell them if there was something wrong with their applications," he said. "And the industry has not helped itself by providing too many ways to measure performance, when what really matters is the end users' abilities to do their jobs."

Mobile usage will cause video to quadruple IP traffic by 2015, according to Cisco's CTO.

Padmasree Warrior said in a keynote speech to delegates at the Interop conference in Las Vegas that internet traffic is doubling in size every 5.32 years and with this increase comes more IP traffic, bandwidth and devices. There would also be more threats and attacks.

She said that IP traffic would quadruple within the next couple of years because of the amount of video being consumed by users with two-thirds of this traffic coming from mobile devices.

Warrior predicted that by the end of the year 70 per cent of enterprises would be using a form of cloud technology within their organisations. More companies would also be using virtualisation with 56 per cent of organisations wanting desktop virtualisation.

She also said there would be "big shifts" in the future due to social collaboration and big data. "right now, organizations need to think about bring your own device (BYOD), seamless access and having real time analytics."

Warrior said that while BYOD was an important trend, she added that for the modern enterprise, mobility is "about more than that" with the requirement that users have to bring applications from the office environment to "anytime and anywhere" environments.

She then talked about network programmability as an essential factor that enables modern enterprise networks.

She said Cisco's view was that there needed to be a set of protocols that are modular and can be tuned. These networks have to be manageable and automated to improve productivity.

"There is lots of discussion around Software Defined Networking and Cisco is investing in this area," said Warrior but warned that people needed to "think more broadly about it."

She concluded that networking was entering a "period of transition".

"It's an important time for the industry and we're about to re-invent the fundamentals," she said.

HP is to partner with F5 Networks to cut down the time involved in configuring and deploying virtualised server applications on enterprise infrastructure.

The new initiative sees F5's application management tools combining with HP Virtual Application Network (VAN) fabric. The platform offers a set of plugins and configuration tools which let administrators create policies and profiles for configuring virtual machines and integrating them into an organisation's infrastructure.

Using the two technologies should see application deployment times cut from months to minutes, according to estimates by HP.

"We have separated the control plane from the devices themselves," said Bethany Meyer, general manager of HP Networking at the Interop conference in Las Vegas. "It makes networks programmable."

Layering automatic network configuration on top of HP's managed network products should increase the performance of popular application servers, such as Microsoft Exchange 2010, VMware-based backup and disaster recovery, and application acceleration, according to HP.

According to HP Networking's director of marketing Kash Shaikh such a platform would remove the need for systems administrators to configure settings manually in virtual machine deployments. He added that using command line interfaces to set up network configurations can require up to quarter of a million entries per server and it was easy for human input to create errors.

"You can still have one error in a thousand and end up with over a thousand errors," he said. Shaikh added that this would be the "beginning of the end for the command line interface."

The integrated technology means that networks can automatically sense the application running on the network and adapt. Meyer said that video could be displayed properly by analysing network traffic, seeing video was being passed through and adjusting the network to optimise performance.

Such adjustments could decrease spam on networks running Exchange 2010 by up to 70 per cent and decrease the time needed to move a virtual machine from datacentre to datacentre from 20 minutes to around 38 seconds, according to Meyer.

The release of HP's Virtual Application Networks is earmarked for around June. HP would not disclose pricing for the new platform.

HP said it will release further information about the platform over the next few months. It also plans to use F5 technology to accelerate other enterprise applications other than Exchange and VMware.

An elementary computer network using the principles of quantum physics has been demonstrated by a group of German scientists.

Boffins at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics created a simple quantum network by joining two atoms with a fibre optic cable. A single photon was used to pass data between the two ends.

While quantum effects have been used in cryptography, using entangled pairs of photons to exchange cryptography keys, this new research shows how two quantum states can be used to create a computer network.

They achieved this using a single rubidium atom trapped in a reflective optical cavity. One atom is at each end of the network and these are connected via an optical fibre. Each rubidium atom is able to store a quantum state called a qubit.

When this atom emits a photon, the state of the atom is encoded in the photon's polarisation. At the other end of the fibre, the atom takes on this polarised state. This means that atoms can be used to store data in the form of qubits while photons transmit data.

However, while the atomic and photonic qubits were proposed fifteen years ago, getting these particles to interact with each other has been difficult.

Stephan Ritter of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, told Scientific American the problem was that "if you want to use single atoms and single photons, as we do, they hardly interact."

The research team overcame this using a reflective cavity. When the photon arrives at the end point, it can be reflected thousands of times, improving the likelihood of it interacting with the rubidium atom.

While Ritter said the cavity enhanced the coupling between the photon and the atom, the scientists still only achieved a successful quantum state around 0.2 per cent of the time.

Another test, potentially more useful, showed how emitted photons were used to entangle rubidium atoms. These entangled particles copy the quantum state of their partner atoms over large distances. In theory, such entanglements could form the basis of a network with zero latency and mitigate the inconsistency of single atoms.

This could lead to a network of "quantum repeaters" that use entanglement, rather than photons, to transmit data between places in an instant.

"Entanglement of two systems separated by a large distance is a fascinating phenomenon in itself. However, it could also serve as a resource for the teleportation of quantum information," said Ritter.

"One day, this might not only make it possible to communicate quantum information over very large distances, but might enable an entire quantum internet," he added.

EMC's hold on the storage market has led to a "bottleneck" in the industry many companies are finding it hard to break out of.

This was the belief of David Flynn, chief executive of Fusion IO, who met with IT Pro today to vent his frustrations.

He claimed NAND flash was a key component of storage, but the way EMC was trying to use it was too expensive and didn't offer enough performance.

"EMC are still so focused on their storage boxes," he said. "Yes, they can [upgrade them with flash] and offer you twice the performance, but they will charge four times as much."

By putting SSDs into the storage boxes EMC are trying to push an elephant through a straw.

There is no question in the storage industry that NAND Flash is the future for high performance, but the debate of where the technology should sit within the system rages between the two firms.

EMC has attempted to move it to the storage array, putting SSDs into its portfolio to speed up the read/write process. However, Fusion IO, has invented a new way of plugging flash straight into the memory.

By putting one of its ioDrives straight into the server, it removes barriers between the processor and traditional storage arrays, meaning the server can act as primary storage and access applications even faster.

"By putting SSDs into the storage boxes EMC are trying to push an elephant through a straw," said Flynn. "We are right next to the processor and don't rely on networking or [other hardware] performance."

He claimed the openness of the Fusion IO technology and its compatibility with other vendors meant end users only had to buy the one component, rather than hefty hardware in the back-end, which EMC is known for.

"For every $10 EMC costs, we can give you 1,000 times faster performance and cost just $1," added Flynn.

"EMC cannot afford to do it [Fusion IO's] way because they would lose thousands of dollars."

EMC do offer a caching technology for servers called VFCache, allowing a cached version of data to be stored before heading to the storage. However, the CEO said it didn't compete with the number of terabytes its own Fusion IO directCache could offer.

EMC still holds the number one spot in market share when it comes to storage. However, Fusion IO has the likes of Apple and Facebook on its customer lists, both of which is worked together with to get the product just right for their internal systems, and has Steve "Woz" Wozniak backing the firm as its chief scientist.

Flynn revealed there would be more products and market opportunities from his company next month just before EMC has its own annual conference but his company "didn't need to sell boxes" to give great storage capabilities.

"It is not about the hardware in the big boxes anymore," he concluded. "It's about elements of hardware working together with software to give the end user the best performance, as well as the best price."

South Tyneside Council has been wrongly labelled as a Boadband Development UK (BDUK) funding denier by central Government.

Yesterday, the Department for Culture Media and Sport said the North and South Tyneside councils were the only two in the UK which failed to produce plans for the Government on superfast broadband deployment.

The DCMS said neither local authority expressed an interest in using their allocated funding.

There has been a need to work with various partners on the broadband plan, which we are continuing to develop.

However, the South Tyneside local authority told IT Pro the Government's information was not accurate.

"We submitted an expression of interest and remain committed to improving the broadband infrastructure for South Tyneside," a council spokesperson said.

"There has been a need to work with various partners on the broadband plan, which we are continuing to develop. We are contacting BDUK to discuss this further."

BT has plans in place to provide 31,400 homes and businesses in South Tyneside with access to superfast broadband by the end of this year.

As for North Tyneside Council, it said investment from BT and Virgin would cover over 90 per cent of the area by 2015 without the need for Government investment, sister title PC Pro was told.

North Tyneside had been granted 800,000 of BDUK money, but turned it down. Mayor Linda Arkey said earlier this year it would not be financially feasible to match the figure, as councils are required to do if they want BDUK funding.

The Government said the two councils' confidence in their plans may be misplaced even though South Tyneside remains interested in BDUK help.

"North and South Tyneside seem blithely confident they will deliver world class digital infrastructure - I just hope they are not being complacent," said culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.

"No one in the UK can afford to slack on making sure we have the best broadband network in Europe upon which so many of the jobs of the future depend.

"We set a demanding timetable and I'm pleased that we are making such fast progress. Virtually every local authority is on track to roll out superfast broadband. But we cannot afford to relax - we must continue to drive forward with taking superfast broadband to all areas of the UK."

A total of 18 councils have now had their local broadband plans approved and IT Pro understands the first procurement announcement is coming in the next week or two.

There are fears BT and Fujitsu will gain the majority of contracts. Some local ISPs have threatened legal action if the bigger players get contracts, claiming it will amount to state aid if major vendors win and leave smaller infrastructure makers out of the loop.

The Government has allocated 1 million for BDUK legal costs.

Meanwhile, IT Pro revealed two weeks ago that BT has not yet received any bids for its wholesale fibre infrastructure product.

Some expect bids for Openreach's Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) product to come in once BDUK funds have been allocated.

Swiss start-up Koubachi has developed a low-power Wi-Fi sensor that tells you how best to care for your houseplants.

It monitors temperature, light and soil humidity, and uses your Wi-Fi to send the readings to Koubachi's servers, where they are checked against a database of popular plants. Care instructions are then sent back via email or an iPhone app, with an Android app in the works.

For IT teams, the sensor's underlying technology is more widely applicable. Koubachi said it has worked extensively to ensure its Wi-Fi consumes as little power as possible, and claimed that the device will run for at least a year on a pair of AA batteries.

It said the plant monitor is only the first of a range of low-power sensors that will layer home automation-type capabilities onto existing Wi-Fi networks, as part of the so-called "internet of things".

If it is houseplants that are your thing, though, Koubachi said its plant database is expanding to some 300 houseplants, including some herbs and vegetables. The sensor costs 190, and can be moved from plant pot to plant pot once it has measured each one's environment.

The next release of the software will allow it to simultaneously monitor multiple plants, for example in a window box or atrium.

Interestingly, the name is apparently a play on the Tamagochi toys that were popular a some years ago the iPhone app looks like a virtual garden.

Ofcom has set the reduced Openreach wholesale prices a href="https://www.itpro.com/638695/bt-considering-ofcom-price-cap-appeal" target="_blank"]announced last month[/a], but BT says it is still considering appealing.

The communications regulator took its revised prices to the European Commission in February and they have now been confirmed.

The changes mean BT will have to charge competitors less for use of its broadband infrastructure, which would mean customers will get reduced bills too if operators decide to pass on the benefits.

For fully unbundled lines running from the cabinet to a property, where ISPs rent the line to provide broadband and telephone services, Ofcom wants Openreach to cut prices from 91.50 to 87.41 for the financial year 2012/13.

We continue to disagree with some of the underlying assumptions they have used to determine these controls.

For wholesale line rental, where providers take over the whole Openreach line to provide services, the price would go down from 103.68 per year to 98.81.

Where ISPs are renting the line between the cabinet and the premises solely for broadband, the cost would drop from 14.70 per year to 11.92.

As BT said last month, it would consider an appeal.

"We continue to disagree with some of the underlying assumptions they have used to determine these controls with our primary concern being that we are able to achieve a fair rate of return in order to continue our investment in the future of the UK's communications infrastructure," a spokesperson said.

"Now that we have received Ofcom's final decision, we will consider all options available to us, including appealing."

When Ofcom made the announcement last month, it said BT's pricing did not meet some of its requirements.

"We have a model which has various inputs going into it and we reach our conclusions based on the inputs that are going into that model," a spokesperson said.

"The main ones are cost of capital, volume of lines we forecast Openreach to be serving over a certain period and also the rate of efficiencies that BT Openreach will make going forward as well. They are the three main components. Based on our analysis, we set our draft controls."

BT Openreach has not yet received any bids for its fibre broadband Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) product, even though it launched in November 2011, IT Pro understands.

BT has been trialling its PIA offering with other providers, including Fujitsu and Sky, on the Wirral, but it has not helped inspire any firm offers from other ISPs yet.

PIA relates to the ducts and poles Openreach rents out to other providers in remote areas, in a bid to bring high-speed internet to the UK countryside.

Once local authorities announce the outcome of the tenders, we will have a much better idea of whether PIA is a dead duck.

Britain's number one telecoms provider came under fire for its management of PIA last year, with a host of rivals including Virgin and TalkTalk complaining prices were too high.

Even when BT cut prices, operators were still not happy with the changes.

BT didn't explain why it thought no one had bid yet, but simply noted how it had worked to "launch a PIA product that meets the needs of industry and according to the timetable set out by Ofcom."

"The regulator has been very supportive of the revised prices that we published in Autumn last year and we will continue to work closely with interested communications providers," a spokesperson told IT Pro.

As for why other operators had not yet made PIA bids, Fujitsu, which is leading a consortium including Virgin and TalkTalk to bring superfast speeds to remote areas, said it was still collaborating with BT on "defining the final product definition."

"Subject to satisfactory interim and final product definitions, Fujitsu may choose to use Openreach's PIA products," Fujitsu said.

TalkTalk said it was not planning to use PIA itself. "We understand that the product, while improved from a year ago, still remains expensive and difficult to use in practice," a TalkTalk spokesperson said.

A Sky spokesperson, meanwhile, said the company was "still only at a trial stage" and was currently "focused on launching our wholesale fibre service and continuing to build out our LLU network."

BDUK fears

Many may simply be waiting for Broadband Development UK (BDUK) funds to emerge before they make bids for PIA.

IT Pro understands BDUK allocation announcements are coming in the next two weeks.

"Once local authorities announce the outcome of the tenders, we will have a much better idea of whether PIA is a dead duck, or a swan just waiting for its time to flourish. LLU was similar in its first year or two of existence," said Andrew Ferguson from thinkbroadband.com.

"Alas the race to make Britain a Great Broadband Britain is a slow one, with thousands of trees paying the price in terms of consultation documents. Real progress on the projects are not expected until 2013 - one or two BDUK pilots may start to deliver a few connections in 2012.

"The bigger question is this: why are new startups in places like Russia getting the investment capital to install fibre loops, but the UK is struggling to do the same with funds from here and there, or dare one say in usual British haphazard fashion."

When BDUK allocations are announced, many expect legal issues to arise. Cumbria-based superfast provider NextGenUs recently indicated it would take legal action if its county's council gave its BDUK funds to BT, according to the Br0kenTeleph0n3 blog.

Geo Networks, which is helping deliver superfast networks in Wales in partnership with the Welsh Assembly, has already withdrawn bidding for Government-provided BDUK funds after claiming the market was "non-contestable."

The Government is far from its goal of having high-speed broadband covering most of the UK by 2015, uSwitch.com has claimed.

According to body, the average broadband download speed across the UK is 6.742Mbps, but a third of postcode areas receive speeds even lower than 5Mbps.

One in ten UK postcodes are operating at a snail's pace with download speeds less than 3Mbps, uSwitch said. This is at least six times lower than the basic superfast broadband speed of 20Mbps.

The data is based on over 1.68 million broadband speed tests carried out by home and business users over the past six months.

Those who live in the village of Winchelsea, in East Sussex, inhabit the slowest postcode in the UK, with an average broadband download speed of 1.11Mbps.

The study also took into account population size in a city relative to the average download speed in that location.

"Hereford has a population of more than 55,000, and yet average download speeds are a pedestrian 3.196Mbps, more than 50 per cent slower than the national average," the report read.

"Lancaster, with a sizeable population of almost 134,000 and home to two universities, is also below the national average speed, at 5.479Mbps. At this speed, it would take just under 24 minutes to download a standard quality 1.5GB movie.

"These figures bring into sharp focus the challenge the Government faces if it is to fulfil the pledge made back in December 2010 that everyone in the UK would have access to superfast broadband by 2015."

BT poking fun

Yet BT has mocked uSwitch's research. "As for uSwitch's claim that 49 per cent of homes have speeds below the average, hey, that's math for you," a spokesperson told IT Pro.

According to BT, the uSwitch.com survey mixed up current broadband speeds with the availability of superfast broadband.

"It isn't as simple as that," a spokesperson said.

"Just because users in a certain area have an average speed of say 6Mbps, it doesn't mean that customers in that area don't have access to much faster speeds."

BT explained that the current average broadband speed is due to the fact that most users will be on older copper broadband whereas fibre optic broadband may be fairly new to the area or not even available yet.

"Just because the average speed in a city is 6Mbps it also does not mean that customers in that area can't order a much faster service should they want to," a BT spokesman commented.

Despite concerns the UK won't get 4G connections until 2015, Everything Everywhere is trying to push ahead with LTE connections in 2012.

The operator, formed after the Orange and T-Mobile merger, will have to get approval from Ofcom if it wants to roll out connections, however. Everything Everywhere expects a decision to be made by spring.

If granted, this wider rollout of 4G will follow a trial in Bristol running LTE over existing 1800MHz spectrum.

There is a great opportunity for the UK to have the 21st Century network that it so deserves.

A nationwide HSPA+ 21 - otherwise known as 3.5G - network is also being deployed by Everything Everywhere, which could provide customers with speed boosts of up to 50 per cent. The complete rollout will be finished in the third quarter of this year.

The operator is also planning a HSPA+ 42 rollout, which should provide even faster speeds than HSPA+ 21, due to begin in the second quarter with completion expected before the year is up.

"Everything Everywhere's vision is to launch 4G for Britain as soon as possible, and the roll out of 3.5G HSPA+ and our 4G trials across Britain are major steps towards delivering on that promise," said the operator's CEO Olaf Swantee.

"There is a great opportunity for the UK to have the 21st Century network that it so deserves, putting the nation on a level playing field with other parts of Europe, the USA and Asia."

Across other networks, widespread 4G isn't expected until 2017, but carriers have been pushing ahead with trials.

Everything Everywhere has been one of the main proponents of 4G testing and initiated a trial over the 800MHz spectrum in rural Cornwall with BT. That project was recently https://www.itpro.com/638500/bt-and-everything-everywhere-score-4g-trial-extension to run until July 2012.

Networking vendor Brocade recently said Britain's networks were not ready for 4G, but Everything Everywhere told IT Pro it had already upgraded its 2G networks with Huawei kit so it was prepared for the arrival of LTE.

The much-debated 4G auction is set to take place before the end of the year. Ofcom recently decided it would no longer guarantee Everything Everywhere sub-1GHz spectrum.

The regulator said the operator would not need the extra 800MHz to provide quality 4G services.

Everything Everywhere said it was "very disappointed" by Ofcom's actions, claiming it was "missing a huge opportunity for the UK to address the imbalance in sub-1GHz spectrum holdings."

Today, Everything Everywhere said its Cornwall trial had proven 800 MHz was optimal for running 4G connections in rural areas.

Cisco appears to have turned a corner after posting record revenue alongside solid profit growth in the company's second quarter results.

Net profits rose 43.5 per cent reaching $2.2 billion (1.3 billion) for the three months leading up to 28 January. Sales figures hit $11.5 billion.

The networking giant had a turbulent 2011, a year in which there were widespread job cuts and a major strategic refocus, although the company's UK CTO recently told IT Pro no more employees would be sent packing in 2012.

We are executing well on our three-year plan to drive earnings faster than revenue.

Products including Flip cameras and the umi home videoconferencing have been ditched along the way, after Cisco decided to turn back on its foray into the consumer sphere.

The company had repeatedly disappointed investors, but in the past few months Cisco has performed considerably better.

The results hinted at weaknesses in public sector buying power, largely thanks to austerity plans of Governments across the world, CEO John Chambers revealed in a conference call. Yet the company's core products, including switches and routers, brought in plenty of revenue.

Cisco's switching business saw eight per cent revenue growth. Switching gross margins have returned to where they were two years ago, again hinting the company is getting back to what it's best at. Routing also grew eight per cent in revenue.

"We are executing well on our three-year plan to drive earnings faster than revenue. Our operational focus continues to yield positive results - we hit our billion dollar expense reduction a quarter early - and our ongoing innovation enables our customers to solve their critical business needs," Chambers said.

"You will continue to see a focused and aggressive Cisco that is helping our customers use intelligent networks to transform their businesses."

The company is also making gains in the data centre, with its UCS servers acquiring 10,000 customers overall, with 3,000 in Europe.

Cisco has been benefitting from competitive weakness too, with Juniper Networks' fourth quarter results showing revenue below expectations and net income falling to $96.1 million from $190.2 million the year previous.

Read on for our Q&A with Cisco's vice president for enterprise Laurent Blanchard.

On its fifth birthday, Virgin Media has another reason to celebrate as it posted its first ever profit.

Net income reached 76 million in 2011, whilst revenue crept up three per cent to 4 billion. Revenue for the quarter ending 31 December only rose two per cent.

Virgin has been powered forward by solid gains in its TiVo and broadband customer bases. Its cable product acquired 92,000 new customers year-over-year, whilst TiVo subscriptions doubled.

There were some losses, however. Copper broadband customers declined 28,000 year-on-year and 12,500 quarter-on-quarter, but Virgin said it was winding the business down. Telephone customers went down 29,000 year-over-year.

The good thing is all the financial metrics are up and they're higher than what analysts were expecting in the city.

Virgin remains the number two provider of broadband in the UK, however.

"Ours is less the numbers game than it is about superfast," a Virgin spokesperson told IT Pro. "That's why we're talking about 133,000 superfast customers just in the last quarter alone and 580,000 in the last year alone.

"Basically, nearly two-thirds, certainly six out of 10 customers who want superfast speeds have been coming to us."

In terms of superfast, which Virgin classes as anything above 30Mbps, the ISP said it was "way ahead" of competition like BT.

"BT has around 400,000 [superfast customers], we added 580,000 in the last year. We have a total of around 700,000 customers," the spokesperson added.

At the time of publication, BT had not responded to a request for comment on Virgin's suggested figures.

Virgin recently announced plans to double most of its customers' broadband speeds, although a price rise is coming in April.

Talking about the financials, the spokesperson said Virgin had always focused on the cash generation otherwise known as EBITDA or free cash flow.

"It would be disingenuous for us to say 'look at how great we are at the bottom line,' but for people who have always been fixated on that bottom line it is obviously nice we have been able to report a net profit," the spokesperson added.

"The good thing is all the financial metrics are up and they're higher than what analysts were expecting in the city."

Today also saw Virgin announce plans to increase its workforce by 620. it wants 500 new customer service employees and 120 people to train up as engineers to support the growth of its superfast and TiVo businesses.

Business success

Virgin Media Business had a positive year too, posting 6.8 per cent revenue growth for the year. The company scored a number of big contracts, including a telephony deal with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).

The telecoms giant also signed an agreement with Volkswagen to provide the car maker with a wide area network (WAN) across 434 dealerships.

"When we launched we set out to grow Virgin Media Business and really shake up the B2B telecoms market these latest results show that we're starting to do just that," said Mark Heraghty, managing director of Virgin Media Business.

"We'll also maintain our focus on the mobile market by continuing to give operators access to our fibre optic network and so provide them with the power they need to prepare for 4G.

"We anticipate 2012 to be another year of good momentum and progress."

Nicira today claimed it was bringing the last piece of the cloud puzzle to the market, virtualising the network and removing the hardware restrictions it faces.

The Network Virtualisation Platform (NVP) is a software product deployed at the edge of the network. It views the network infrastructure as an IP backplane to enable virtual networks to run across the same hardware, mimicking the services the physical networks offer including security and quality of service policies.

Nicira allows us to repurpose network infrastructure on-demand and move applications dynamically.

The virtual networks can then connect up virtual machines across a single data centre or multiple locations, enabling companies to get the most out of their network infrastructure and utilise their servers to a higher degree.

"Network virtualisation is the biggest change to networking in 25 years," said Stephen Mullaney, chief executive (CEO) of Nicira.

"NVP provides the final pivotal piece to cloud computing, the most transformational change to IT in a generation, and the largest most forward-thinking cloud providers are laser focused on operations and economics, the two benefits Nicira delivers."

The technology has already won the seal of approval from big names in cloud computing, such as Rackspace, AT&T and eBay. Lew Moorman, president of Rackspace, even went as far as calling it "a game changer."

NVP is compatible with any networking hardware and Nicira claims it can be installed without any disruption of service.

Payment will be delivered in typical cloud model, with users paying usage-based monthly subscriptions, dependent on the number of virtual network ports.

"Nicira allows us to repurpose network infrastructure on-demand and move applications dynamically," added JC Martin, a cloud architect at eBay.

"This eliminates the operational constraints associated with the existing network environment and reduces the time it takes us to deliver a service from days to minutes."

Virgin's 100Mbps fibre product is now available to 10 million homes, meaning the ISP is ahead of schedule in rolling out the service.

The announcement came as 100Mbps connections were established in areas of Bromley, Dundee, Norton Hawkfield in North East Somerset and Staverton in Gloucestershire.

Virgin had initially planned to reach the 10 million figure by mid-2012.

Broadband is coming of age as more people give up on slow DSL.

"Soon half the country will be able to get superfast 100Mbps broadband from us. Reaching today's milestone puts us ahead of schedule as we help propel the UK up the global broadband rankings," said Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin Media.

"Broadband is coming of age as more people give up on slow DSL in favour of superfast fibre optic speeds."

Last week, Ofcom said Virgin was providing the fastest average speeds to customers. The company's 'up to' 50Mbps offering had the highest average download speeds of around 49Mbps.

BT's fibre product Infinity achieved average download speeds of 36Mbps. Infinity achieved the highest average upload speeds of 8.8Mbps.

Last month, Virgin pledged to double the speeds of its broadband for all four million of its customers, apart from 100Mbps customers, who will be upgraded to 120Mbps.

Price rise

Whilst delighting customers with speed increases, Virgin has also upset them by revealing prices will go up across various services from 1 April.

On average, customers are set to see the cost of their contracts go up by around 2.68 a month.

Customers of the likes of Sky and TalkTalk could see broadband prices go down, however, as Ofcom proposed cutting BT Openreach's wholesale prices.

Ofcom said it expected the savings ISPs will make from lower infrastructure costs to be passed on to consumers, as that was what happened in the past.

However, BT said it was considering appealing Ofcom's decision if it is ratified by the European Commission.

BT will consider appealing an Ofcom decision to cap the service provider's wholesale charges, if it goes through.

Ofcom said it was going to cut BT Openreach's Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) and Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) prices, which would make it cheaper for the likes of Sky and TalkTalk to offer broadband over BT infrastructure.

It is now up to the European Commission to decide if the caps will be enforced, as Ofcom is required to send charge control proposals to the EU body. A decision must be made within one month.

We disagree with some of the underlying assumptions that they have used to determine these charge controls.

BT said it was concerned by Ofcom's announcement, in particular taking umbrage with the basis of the regulator's capping.

"Whilst the prices are within the range outlined by Ofcom in November, we disagree with some of the underlying assumptions that they have used to determine these charge controls," a spokesperson said.

"Our primary concern throughout this process is to ensure that we are able to achieve a fair rate of return in order to continue our investment in the future of the UK's communications infrastructure. We will consider all options available to us, including appealing, after Ofcom confirms its final decisions."

For fully unbundled lines running from the cabinet to a property, where ISPs rent the line to provide broadband and telephone services, Ofcom wants Openreach to cut prices from 91.50 to 87.41 for the financial year 2012/13.

For wholesale line rental, where providers take over the whole Openreach line to provide services, the price would go down from 103.68 per year to 98.81.

Where ISPs are renting the line between the cabinet and the premises solely for broadband, the cost would drop from 14.70 per year to 11.92.

Prices will continue to go down in future years in accordance with inflationary pressures.

As for why Ofcom felt compelled to clamp down on BT pricing, a spokesperson told IT Pro the telecoms giant's prices did not satisfy certain criteria.

"We have a model which has various inputs going into it and we reach our conclusions based on the inputs that are going into that model," the spokesperson said.

"The main ones are cost of capital, volume of lines we forecast Openreach to be serving over a certain period and also the rate of efficiencies that BT Openreach will make going forward as well. They are the three main components. Based on our analysis, we set our draft controls today."

Ofcom is obliged by the European telecommunications framework to review the market every three years.

The price caps could see the cost of broadband provided over Openreach infrastructure go down, although that lies in the hands of the ISPs.

"We expect the savings to be passed onto consumers," the Ofcom spokesperson added. "That's what has happened in the past. Obviously these are wholesale prices, so it doesn't mean an ISP has to cut prices."

BT is also facing pressure to cut its fibre wholesale prices, even though it cut them last year following pressure from rival ISPs.

The provider announced an FTTP 'on demand' service late last week.

BT today announced a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) on demand' offering, which will let businesses and individuals ask for up to 300 Mbps services when they want it.

It will not be true 'on demand,' however, as customers will not be able to choose short-term contracts when the initiative launches in spring 2013.

The announcement came after a successful trial of FTTP on demand in St Agnes, Cornwall. The offering will be available in any area where BT has fibre coverage.

We remain the number one broadband retailer with over six million customers

Another trial will take place this summer ahead of the 2013 launch.

"Anywhere within a Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) footprint, should a business or a home customer demand it, basically they will sort of splice into the network," a BT spokesperson told IT Pro.

"Because it is Openreach doing this there could be a number of ways that it will work. It could be offered on a wholesale basis, so say for instance BT Retail or another ISP could decide they want to offer this to customers or SMEs wanting this. They could then either pass on the cost to their customers or it might be they decide to absorb the cost themselves.

"Local authorities might decide that as part of their plans, they might have a local business park and there are funds to [get FTTP there] as well."

BT is currently in the process of rolling out fibre to two-thirds of the UK, which it expects to complete by the end of 2014.

The ISP has also confirmed it will have doubled the speeds of its FTTC offerings by spring this year, meaning downstream speeds will go up to 80Mbps rather than up to 40Mbps. Upstream speeds will also go up to 20Mbps.

Seven million premises can currently access fibre broadband over BT's network and this figure will rise to 10 million by the end of this year.

Virgin recently announced it was to double the speeds for all of its four million broadband customers, but it won't be finished until next year.

Results day

Today also saw some solid results for the third quarter ending 31 December coming out of BT. Whilst revenue was down five per cent year-over-year, profit rose by three per cent.

Openreach was the star performer of the quarter, posting a seven per cent jump in profits. BT may be concerned about its Retail division, which sells products like the Infinity fibre offering, as it saw flat growth in profits and a five per cent dip in revenues.

BT chose to blame the weather for the six per cent dip in consumer revenue, claiming calls and lines revenue and lower call volumes in part reflected "the warmer weather compared with the same quarter last year."

"We remain the number one broadband retailer with over six million customers," said BT CEO Ian Livingston.

"Our fixed-line base has now grown for the last five quarters and our active consumer line loss is at its lowest for five years."

BT expects to achieve its profit target of 6 billion a year in 2012, Livingston added.

Virgin is beating BT in the UK broadband pace race, according to an Ofcom report showing overall residential speeds have risen by 22 per cent over the last year.

Of 13 ISPs reviewed by the regulator, Virgin's 'up to' 50Mbps offering had the highest average download speeds of around 49Mbps.

BT's fibre product Infinity achieved average download speeds of 36Mbps. Infinity achieved the highest average upload speeds of 8.8Mbps.

The new advertising rules will, for the first time, force our competitors to be more honest about their 'up to 24Mb' claims.

Virgin was pleased with the turnout as well as new rules clamping down on ISP's misleading 'up to' claims

"It's good to see Britain's broadband speeds moving in the right direction and the new advertising rules will, for the first time, force our competitors to be more honest about their 'up to 24Mb' claims. We hope they'll try to keep up," said Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin.

The new rules mean speed claims should be achievable by at least 10 per cent of the relevant ISP's customer base.

Where a significant proportion of customers are unlikely to receive a speed sufficiently close to that advertised, further qualifying information, such as the speed range obtainable by those customers, should be included in the advertisement. In addition, any claim should be based on robust and reasonably representative data," Ofcom said.

"In line with this new guidance, using data from Ofcom's latest research, the industry average speed based on the 10 per cent availability criteria would be 6Mbps for services currently advertised at 'up to' 8Mbps, and 14Mbps for services currently advertised at 'up to' 20/24Mbps."

BT said it was pleased with both Ofcom's broadband speed findings, as well as the advertising regulation, due to come into force from April 2012.

"Ofcom's approach to assessing broadband performance is moving away from just looking at download speed. Factors such as upload speed, latency, jitter and packet loss are increasingly important when assessing the overall performance of services. This is positive for BT as we focus on the overall experience," a BT spokesperson said.

"We give bespoke speed estimates to all customers at the point of sale and this is now underwritten by the Code of Practice. No customer should be in any doubt as to the likely speed that they should expect from our service before they make a purchase decision."

BT and Virgin have been pushing ahead in earnest with their fibre rollouts. Both have announced speed boosts for customers in the coming months, with Virgin pledging to double many users' capacities.

For anyone who's been watching Cisco's development over the past few years, they'll know the company went through a somewhat chaotic period in 2010 and 2011.

In a bid to galvanise investor confidence, the company distanced itself from the consumer sphere, streamlined operations and went back to focusing on the enterprise.

This translated into the death of Flip cameras and umi home videoconferencing, job losses and greater embracing of technologies tied to the network.

Three years ago, no one would have believed Cisco would play a role in the server market.

We caught up with Laurent Blanchard, the networking giant's vice president of enterprise, at this year's Cisco Live event to ask why IT departments should get excited about Cisco again.

Cisco is still fairly new to the server space, having only entered the market with UCS (Unified Computing and Servers) a few years back. What can you say to IT departments to convince them Cisco is a worthy contender in this industry?

I'm not here to convince you if you are not ready to be convinced but I'm going to give my point of view.

Three years ago, no one would have believed Cisco would play a role in the server market. Actually, what we did was apply our knowledge of driving a huge amount of data through something the network into a server. We redesigned a server from scratch. When you have a legacy of many years, it is very difficult to do this. But the structure of the UCS is new from the design perspective.

In two years, we have just signed the 10,000th UCS customer. Who would have though that we would do that three years ago?

We can differentiate ourselves and the market is actually accepting it very well.

What about bringing in more storage capabilities? Is that something Cisco will do in the future rather than just partnering?

When you look at what is happening, people are moving to the cloud and we've found that there are three levels of services for infrastructure that have to be provided: compute, storage and network.

We believe we have a very strong knowledge of servers, we have 25 years+ in the network and today we believe in storage we are better off partnering with very big companies such as EMC.

We work with NetApp and we work with others as well. We have building blocks together with NetApp in the same way we have with EMC. You can say one is larger than the other one but our approach in the cloud is to drive and to work in an ecosystem.

I think the industry is understanding that the previous way of looking at IT has changed. Now the three elements are extremely integrated and you need to have a huge amount of knowledge in intelligent networks, you have to understand very well how you can virtualise in the server and therefore have the storage as capacity for those two other elements.

It is normal that the industry is going in this direction. Three years ago nobody would have believed it. I think Dell is looking at it as well, like HP, like the others.

With companies coming together in clusters to provide services, what would you say to those worried about vendor lock-in, or siloed IT architectures?

This is not what people have on their minds. First of all, a CIO of a very large organisation, they have an environment with many providers, many suppliers. They may have HP servers and Brocade solution, they don't have only one provider.

The industry is understanding that the previous way of looking at IT has changed.

Our value is that we know how to get all these pieces together and working extremely well.

There was a lot of talk about innovation during the Cisco Live keynote. Can you convince IT departments that you really are innovating when so many smaller players are making big strides?

Our key differentiator is that we know how to manage huge volumes of data transfer in an intelligent manner, in a secure manner.

If you look at the cloud, in 2010 people were saying there is roughly $30 billion investment being made into the cloud. By 2014, it will be at $100 billion and 50 per cent of the compute consumed will be cloud based.

Now if you agree with this, and if you agree with the fact that the volume of data is going to explode, and if you agree the security issue is going to be important you need to have the right network. This is where you put the most intelligence.

The innovation is to continue investing into development of the network and to answer major trends like bring your own device (BYOD), the internet of things, smart grid. Smart grid is huge business. We apply our innovation into the energy market, the smart grid.

We can make video data intelligent. You can do a search on videos now, for example. So you can search for what someone said or for keywords.

Going back to cloud, how much traction have you got within service provider data centres?

We do work with the traditional service providers, like Amazon and Google.

A lot of the talk at Cisco Live has been around providing better than 'good enough' networks, rather than premium ones like Cisco claims to offer. But a lot of IT managers are happy with good enough as long as it has got a low barrier of entry. Do you worry some of the cheaper providers are going to steal business away from you in the current climate?

I think the trend from the IT and CIO/IT manager side, the big one, is the move from Capex to Opex. When you look at the cost of running an operation, most of the cost is not the initial investment, it's running it.

You can go and buy a very cheap server with no security built into it, but it is going to cost you a lot of money after that.

But then you have the business angle which is continuously pushing you to get a new environment, new devices to be supported. Actually, what you're looking at is elasticity and agility at a cost which is the lowest cost.

We're clearly looking at the total cost of ownership (TCO), the cost of running the operation, as well as doing no compromise on security.

You can go and buy a very cheap server with no security built into it, but it is going to cost you a lot of money after that. Security is an environment where we feel there is no compromise and today it is one of the top asks of the CIO.

Can you prove that your TCO is lower than others?

We have very large companies who've done this. Let's take banking firm ING, they moved into a solution using UCS for virtualisation and they've been consolidating many servers they have IBM, HP, Dell servers. They have been consolidating using Cisco technology UCS with a VMware hypervisor and EMC. The cost of what they are running is lower than what they had before.

I don't like overall studies covering this because each environment is different, but I can tell you we would not have gotten to 10,000 customers if the competition was cheaper.

I've been at HP where I sold x86 and you would sell it, sell it, sell it. But if you don't have any differentiators, you are under an additional pressure margin. This is not where we want to play.

Cisco is looking to help IT managers deal with ever-expanding traffic, today announcing upgrade options so customers can achieve 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet capacities in their switches.

The networking giant is offering 40GbE and 100GbE capabilities in its Nexus 7000 switches via two separate modules, alongside a 40GbE module for its Catalyst 6500 products, all delivered by a tonne of 10Gbps lanes.

The latter focuses more on campus setups, the former more on enterprise data centres.

If we got lazy we would get left behind.

The upgrade modules for the various switches will please those looking to cope with ever increasing bandwidth, or IT departments hoping to kick start cloud or big data projects.

Customers appeared at Cisco Live in London today to talk about why they were excited about the announcements.

"We're seeing higher and higher peaks of traffic, so the next natural step is to go to 40G. The announcement on that was really the right timing for us. It is time to look for higher capacity links as we're really going to need them," said Jeroen van Ingen, from the University of Twente's ICT service centre.

Malcolm Days, head of infrastructure services at Warwick University, said the educational body sees ever increasing volumes of data and so needs the extra capacity.

"When 7,000 students are watching video and its moving towards high definition, that's using up a lot of bandwidth," Days said. "As long as the modules are coming when we need the bandwidth, we're happy."

The Catalyst 6500 40GbE module will be release in April 2012, whilst the two Nexus 7000 modules will be released in the second quarter.

Innovator or slow starter?

Cisco was keen to point out that it was leading the pack by getting 40GbE and 100GbE to market, noting Juniper was not supplying such capabilities on its switching platforms.

"Let's compare apples to apples," said Ram Velaga, vice president of product management for switching.

Cisco is convinced it has come along at the right moment with its 40GbE and 100GbE modules, as now is the time when customers are looking to upgrade.

"Sometimes we are ahead of the competition, sometimes we are not," said Christian Korff, director of sales for Cisco's Borderless Networks division. "But if we got lazy we would get left behind."

Korff also claimed Juniper's main selling point was that it could offer a single operating system to manage networks Junos OS. However, Juniper customers will really have to deal with numerous operating systems, he claimed.

Force10, now owned by Dell, was the first to get on the 40GbE switching case way back in 2010. At the time, it distanced itself from 100GbE, saying most customers wouldn't want to shell out to support the premium standard.

Yesterday at Cisco Live, the networking vendor claimed WAN optimisation was just a feature, hinting it may not be a market at all in the coming years.

Wide Area Network (WAN) optimisation is not so much a market but just a feature, according to Cisco.

The company made its comments to IT Pro at the Cisco Live conference in London today, after it was bumped off of Gartner's WAN optimisation Magic Quadrant by significantly smaller vendors.

Riverbed remains top of the pile, although new players such as Silver Peak are making their mark too, according to Gartner.

Our strategy is how we can take these services and align them with our networking platforms.

Gartner claimed Cisco was a slow follower in the market and its vision was limited because of an incremental product road map.

Even though it is still considered one of the major players in the space, Cisco thinks WAN optimisation is really just a feature which will increasingly be built into its core networking products.

"Epecially with WAN optmisation, the future is how we integrate that into our networking platforms," said Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior.

In the future, Warrior believes customers will want to consume WAN optimisation as a service delivered via a bigger product.

"That's the movement we see," she added. "More and more, as people move to the cloud, we will move back to software defined networks. Software defined networking is actually integrating some of these services.

"I think in five or six years time we will look at it and things will be more integrated.

"Similarly with load balancing in the data centre we see a tighter connection."

If WAN optimisation and load balancing are just features, will companies such as Riverbed simply be bought out in years to come?

"I think there is a transformation happening but I can't speak for their strategy," Warrior added.

"Our strategy is how we can take these services and align them with our networking platforms."

Storage stasis

One area Cisco won't directly deal in is storage, as the networking giant is fairly adamant it will continue along the partnership route. Currently, it works primarily with EMC in the storage space, providing the networking for the storage giants offerings.

There are fears such partnerships will create proprietary architectures with customers locked in with small clusters of vendors, although Cisco said it was being more open.

"Our approach is to enable interoperability, we really believe that," the CTO added. "More and more we are integrating services."

She gave the example of being able to download WebEx onto any smartphone, but did not mention working closer with other storage vendors or buying into the space.

Cisco kicked off its premier event in London today by announcing a super-powered wireless access point (AP).

The Cisco Aironet 3600 Series AP looks to cater for the 'consumerised' world in which IT departments need to provide quality wireless connectivity to numerous employee devices.

Cisco has sought to innovate in the AP sphere, supporting the latest industry standards, the networking company said this morning at Cisco Live.

The Aironet 3600 supports the 802.11n wireless standard, which provides more stream and range than previous standards.

The hardware also supports the 802.11r standard, which "allows you to move around with very seamless connectivity," said Sujai Hajela, vice president and general manager of Cisco's wireless networking business unit. There is also 802.11u capability.

All this is delivered with this small bit of magic.

Delivered in a shiny white box, the AP is the industry's first four-antenna design for three spatial streams, Cisco said. This means more devices can hook up to the internet via the AP.

"What does that mean? The key part is it means I've got that reliability," Hajela said. "We design our own radio frequency chips, we don't ship them in like others."

Cisco claimed all this would help it achieve 30 per cent faster performance than other products on the market.

In particular, Cisco believes the AP will help provide high quality video, virtual desktop and voice over WLAN.

Other useful additions for IT departments include ClientLink 2.0 to give a performance boost. Importantly, ClientLink does not require Cisco software on client devices.

CleanAir, which will be available with a module in late 2012 to determine which channel is best for serving traffic over, aims to eliminate interference issues, Cisco said.

The Aironet 3600 also has a removable module so customers can insert add-ons or upgrades.

"All this is delivered with this small bit of magic," said Inbar Lasser-Raab, senior director at network systems for Cisco.

"Why are we so excited? If you look at a typical environment you have lots of people using multiple devices, some generate interference like microwaves and video cameras.

"In a regular environment where density of users and interference is high, you get bad signal. That is what wireless networks need to solve."

Cisco has sold 11.7 million access points since 2000 and is convinced the market is going to be a profitable one.

"That just shows you our momentum in the market," Lasser-Raab added. "This market is growing and it is growing really fast."

The Auronet 3600 Series AP is available now. With external antennas, it costs $1,595 (1,012), but with internal antennas the price goes down to $1,495.

There is little difference in radio power between the two models. It comes down to aesthetics, meaning the internal antenna AP is more suited to tight office environments.

Public sector bodies in London are to relinquish some of their spectrum in order to support capacity demands for the Olympics.

Ofcom today revealed organisations, including the Ministry of Defence, will loan out their spectrum on a short-term basis to cater for the massive bandwidth demands the Olympics will bring.

Spectrum freed up by the switchover to digital TV will also be used, the regulator said.

The 2012 Olympic Games will require up to 20,000 separate wireless frequency assignments, more than double the number usually needed in a whole year, Ofcom said.

We are working behind the scenes to make this capacity available, to ensure that this demand is met.

The smooth running of coverage of the Games will need plenty of spectrum. Alongside a massive amount of mobile phone and tablet use during the event, wireless cameras and microphones, walkie-talkies, timing and scoring systems as well as sports commentary technologies will all soak up bandwidth.

"The UK's airwaves are already among the most intensively used in the world. The London 2012 Games will significantly increase demand," said Ofcom's chief operating officer Jill Ainscough. "Ready and prepared for this challenge, Ofcom recognises that there is no room for complacency. We are working behind the scenes to make this capacity available, to ensure that this demand is met."

Ofcom has also designed a spectrum assignment system to ensure interference is kept to a minimum by carefully managing who is using what spectrum.

A sensor network covering the entire country has been built to identify any potential interference issues.

Ofcom has employed a sizeable team of engineers to deal with any interference too.

Ofcom is preparing for a busy year. The regulator is currently in the process of consulting with telecoms firms over the 4G auction, scheduled to take place at the end of the year.

Read on for IT Pro's report from behind the scenes at the Olympic IT control centre.

Virgin has trialled 4G connectivity at its Oxford Street store in London, hinting it may bid in the Ofcom-run auction scheduled for the end of 2012.

The telecoms giant placed a small cell, hooked up to the shop's broadband connection, on the outside of the store and tested connectivity using a laptop and a 4G dongle, delivering speeds of around 10Mbps.

Virgin said it was not certain it would be bidding in the auction, however.

This was a technical trial, so we were testing how far it went, how robust the coverage was and the speeds it was doing.

A spokesperson told IT Pro it was only something Virgin was considering, nothing more.

"Ofcom were quite explicit about encouraging new entrants into the market, which is an encouraging sign," the spokesperson said.

"They are looking at making the sort of spectrum that we would look to use available, not just for the big mobile operators. So there is potential here for the market to open up."

The company started testing the 4G technology in December and is continuing to do so, although it is not running actual applications over the connection yet.

"This was a technical trial, so we were testing how far it went, how robust the coverage was and the speeds it was doing," the spokesperson added.

"We were measuring the coverage rather than using any applications."

Virgin confirmed it was looking at opening up the trial to consumers in the near future. The company has a history of trialling in Ashford, where 50Mbps and 100Mbps have been tested out, so the Kent town could be used for 4G.

"There's a huge challenge to meet this growing demand for connectivity and we're looking at ways to put the power of our fibre optic network where people need it most, both inside and outside the home," a Virgin spokesperson added.

"We're working closely with partners across the UK to develop our proven Wi-Fi solution and our recent 4G trial proved the capability of our small cell solution."

BT interest

Other telecoms firms outside of the major mobile operators 3, Everything Everywhere, O2, Vodafone have expressed an interest in 4G.

Last year, BT expressed concern Ofcom's auction was devaluing the spectrum by requiring 2Mbps mobile broadband cover a minimum of 95 per cent of the UK's population. This would mean a lower cost of spectrum and would therefore be tantamount to state aid, BT argued.

Nevertheless, it carried out the first 4G trial in the UK last year, in partnership with Everything Everywhere.

Ofcom last week revealed plans to reserve 2.6GHz spectrum for low power use - something that pleased BT.

"This will help to enable new innovative solutions that will bring benefits to UK consumers," a spokesperson said.

BT will most likely be interested in 2.6GHz spectrum, as it could be useful for providing improved Wi-Fi coverage. However, BT has not confirmed whether or not it will bid.

Ofcom also said last week it would no longer guarantee Everything Everywhere spectrum, having originally planned to hand the provider a "small amount" of 800MHz spectrum.

Cisco will not be reviewing its pricing strategy in 2012, even in the face of reduced IT budgets across the globe.

Customers IT Pro and others have spoken to have cited Cisco's premium prices as off-putting, when compared to cheaper offers from competitors.

Cisco, which is in the midst of major strategic changes, will not budge on pricing anytime soon though, according to Ian Foddering, chief technical officer and technical director for Cisco UK.

"We will always look to remain competitive but there will not be any wholesale change," Foddering said.

Cisco's refusal to budge on pricing will disappoint IT departments looking to make more out of less. UK councils, for instance, look set to have budgets cut by as much as nine per cent in 2012, according to a Socitm report released yesterday.

We will always look to remain competitive but there will not be any wholesale change.

CEO John Chambers called on Cisco to refocus on it's core strengths namely networking - in 2011 after repeatedly disappointing investors.

This has led to various consumer products being sent to the scrapheap, including Flip cameras and the umi videoconferencing offering.

Yet a pricing rethink does not feature in Cisco's re-organisation plans.

And now for some good news...

Cisco's refocusing has led to job losses too, but Foddering told IT Pro he does not believe there will be any more redundancies this year, even in the face of a difficult financial climate.

"I don't foresee any further changes," he added.

"I'm bringing on board six new apprentices and five new interns actually the big challenge right now is finding the right people."

Whilst he could not provide any figures for how many UK workers were made redundant, Cisco spokespeople said the majority of job losses were in the US.

Many people in the UK who did lose their roles did so voluntarily, according to the Cisco spokesperson.

The company will hold its premier event, Cisco Live, in London at the end of the month.

Check back on IT Pro for all the latest news from the event when it kicks off on 31 January.

The switch to IPv6 from IPv4 is gathering momentum with the announcement that the World IPv6 Launch day will take place on 6 June.

A host of tech giants have jumped on board, saying they will ensure their technology is compatible with IPv6 traffic, organisers the Internet Society said.

Companies including Cisco, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are taking part, as IPv4 addresses get close to running out.

As there are more IPv6 services, it becomes increasingly important for companies to accelerate their own deployment plans.

Outside of compatibility problems associated with this, cyber criminals could use IPv6 traffic to bypass firewalls and security appliances, some of which will not have been configured to pick up on IPv6.

"The fact that leading companies across several industries are making significant commitments to participate in World IPv6 Launch is yet another indication that IPv6 is no longer a lab experiment; it's here and is an important next step in the internet's evolution," said Leslie Daigle, the Internet Society's chief internet technology officer.

"And, as there are more IPv6 services, it becomes increasingly important for companies to accelerate their own deployment plans."

Last year, tech companies organised World IPv6 Day, which saw them testing out technologies in preparation for the switchover.

All businesses were called on to use the day as a test for the shift.

"Last year's industry-wide test of IPv6 successfully showed that the global adoption of IPv6 is the best way to keep web devices communicating in the future," said Jay Parikh, vice president of infrastructure engineering at Facebook.

"Permanently enabling IPv6 is vital to keeping the internet open and ensuring people stay connected online as the number of web users and devices continues to grow."

At Google, almost all its services will be available over IPv6 permanently from 6 June for everyone.

"It will take years for the internet to transition fully to IPv6," said Erik Kline, a Google IPv6 software engineer in Tokyo, in a blog post.

"Permanently enabling global IPv6 access to Google services has been our goal since we first began our IPv6 project more than four years ago."

Various Virgin Media customers across the UK were hit by a broadband blackout yesterday, which appears to be continuing this morning for some.

The outage stretched from 5pm to 8pm yesterday and Virgin has admitted a "routing issue" was to blame.

"Some of customers may have experienced problems getting online for a while yesterday evening," a spokesperson told IT Pro.

"Our engineers quickly fixed the problem and service was restored before 8pm. We apologise for the inconvenience."

Virgin Broadband is down - working from Orange Dongle.

Yet customers have flocked to Twitter to complain of continued problems with their connections.

"Anyone else having major problems with Virgin Broadband today?" said one user.

"Late hello from us as Virgin Broadband is down - working from Orange Dongle," said PopdanceUK.

Virgin has advised customers still experiencing problems to try powering down their routers for five minutes and then switch them back on. That should re-establish the connection, the ISP said.

Upbeat email gaffe

The blackout came in a week that saw Virgin mistakenly send letters to customers about its recently-announced speed upgrade.

An email meant for 100Mbps customers was posted to a cross section of customers, telling them they were going to get 120Mbps services.

However, it emerged after the emails that 50Mbps customers would be getting upgraded to a 120Mbps service anyway. Originally, 100Mbps customers were the only ones set to receive 120Mbps.

"Our first email, intended for our 100Mbps customers, was accidentally sent to some customers on other tiers which may have led to some confusion. We're sorry for any misunderstanding and will be writing to customers again soon to clarify how the upgrade will affect them," a spokesperson said.

"In the meantime, as part of our double speed programme we are delighted to confirm that 50Mbps customers will actually be upgraded to 120Mbps, meaning even more Virgin Media customers will be able to take advantage of the fastest broadband speeds in the UK."

The 50Mbps customers will continue to pay the same for their contracts, whilst 100Mbps users will see their prices drop.

Parliament is looking to get hooked up with fresh Wi-Fi and networking equipment, according to a tender document published online.

Parliamentary ICT is looking for a wide-scale refresh for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, including a telephony system replacement to cover around 6,000 ports.

The same provider who installs the telephony technology may also be tasked with bringing future services, including unified communications and convergence with other parliamentary networks.

The supplier will be expected to demonstrate value for money, plus the capacity for flexibility.

The tender document also revealed Parliament is on the hunt for a managed Wi-FI network for members of both houses as well as for visitors.

"The new network infrastructure must be resilient and have sufficient capacity to carry additional network traffic at a later date," the document read.

"This will allow Parliament to achieve its long term vision of network convergence and delivering the strategic aim of enabling 'to connect members, the public and the administration to the information and services they need from anywhere, at any time and from any device; to reduce the cost of ICT; and to provide new opportunities and pathways for greater efficiency and effectiveness for Parliament.'"

One provider may be able to secure both 'lots' for the telephony and Wi-Fi deployments, but Parliament is open to using two vendors for the separate projects.

"The supplier will be expected to demonstrate value for money, plus the capacity for flexibility, innovation and continuous improvement throughout the life of the contract, together with the ability to manage the planned/unplanned small and large scale changes," the tender document read.

The tender revealed Parliament expects implementation to kick off in September 2012 and be completed by March 2014.

Major vendors like BT and Virgin will most likely be interested in bidding, although major mobile operators are capable of bringing the goods.

O2 yesterday revealed it had won a contract with Network Rail to refresh the company's current Cisco switch and router estate across 450 sites.

Suitors will have to bid to a Government that has become tougher on suppliers since the days of Blair and Brown's Labour rule, which was criticised for wasting money on IT.

Cisco has continued its divergence away from the consumer sphere by ditching home videoconferencing service umi.

Once touted as a high-quality version of Skype, umi was officially dropped by Cisco after blogs sparked rumours of the technology's demise.

While we are ending the sale of umi, the umi service remains unchanged.

The revelation comes less than a year after Cisco decided to get rid of its Flip camera lineup, as it looks to refocus its strategy following poor financial results.

"Cisco announced in April 2011 that, as part of the review of our consumer business strategy, Cisco umi would become part of our business telepresence portfolio. Following the integration, we reviewed our Cisco umi distribution strategy, and decided to no longer sell Cisco umi hardware as a consumer offering," a Cisco spokesperson said.

"While we are ending the sale of umi, the umi service remains unchanged. Existing customers will continue to be able to use the service to make calls to other mi subscribers or to Google video chat accounts."

Cisco has been making major strategical changes over the past year, after CEO John Chambers warned staff to get ready for significant changes in light of weak financial results.

Jobs have been lost as a result. When Flip was ditched, it emerged 550 staff were to be made redundant. In July, Cisco confirmed a further 15 per cent of its workforce was to go.

umi was launched in 2010 and was designed to work on home TVs, but it is unknown how much traction it managed to gain in a market dominated by Skype.

With Skype being a free software product, compared to the hardware extra required with umi, the Microsoft-owned videoconferencing app has gained millions of users.

The $599 (384) cost of the umi package may have been off-putting for customers.

Skype appeared to take a swipe at umi pricing in October 2010 via a blog post.

"Buy a $599 device and it can be subject to obsoletism at the hands of mass-market options that sell for half, then a quarter, and eventually a tenth of the price," Skype's Jonathan Christensen said.

"And, when unbeatable lower cost, high performance options are readily available, spending at the top-end can be like throwing money away, especially if you are buying a video calling system and there is no one else to call."

Despite being cheaper than umi, Skype is not completely free to use on a TV. Users still have to buy the right camera to go with compatible TVs, which together can be pricey.

BT has secured a lucrative deal with the European Parliament, which will see the telco giant provide networking under two framework contracts.

Network equipment and applications will be delivered to the EU body, alongside professional services for those products across three main sites in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.

BT will provide the technology to support a host of telecoms services, including VoIP, unified communications, videoconferencing and telepresence.

BT put together a competitive and strong offering which really stood out.

The deal has been valued at 120 million (100 million).

"BT put together a competitive and strong offering which really stood out," a representative for the European Parliament said.

"Their highly-skilled integration experts and a vendor agnostic approach should enable us to implement all communication infrastructures and services according to our Call for Tender specifications. This makes me confident that we have chosen the right partner."

The deal marks another high point for BT's Global Services division, which is responsible for a sizeable chunk of the telecoms firm's revenue.

In early 2009, the division was actually holding back BT revenue. At one stage it was reporting losses of 124 million. In 2008, BT said it would cut 10,000 jobs due to Global Services' poor performance.

Fast forward to the company results in November 2011, profits had risen 15 per cent and the division was making money thanks to some big deals.

BT has scored a number of contracts in the public sector this year, including one to become a provider for the Public Sector Network.

"Our extensive portfolio of services and our professional services capabilities were instrumental in winning these deals," Luis Alvarez, president for EMEA and Latin America at BT Global Services, said today of the European Parliament deal.

"Our consultancy and systems integration expertise is increasingly recognised in the industry. I want to thank the European Parliament for the trust they put into BT."

Security and WAN optimisation provider Blue Coat Systems has agreed to be acquired for $1.3 billion (836 million).

The vendor's board has apporoved the acquisition by an investor group led by San Francisco-based private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo.

Blue Coat confirmed it would focus on its core areas of internet security and WAN optimisation.

"After an extensive evaluation of strategic alternatives with our independent advisors, the board has determined that the definitive agreement with Thoma Bravo provides an attractive all-cash valuation to our shareholders," said David Hanna, chairman of the board at Blue Coat.

"We look forward to completing the transaction under the terms of the agreement as expeditiously as possible."

Blue Coat has suffered from declining sales this year, as well as a stock drop of 41 per cent, Reuters reported.

The company is also being probed by the US Commerce Department to see whether Blue Coat provided internet-blocking equipment to Syria something which would break a US trade embargo to the troubled nation.

Blue Coat said it was working with the US Government, claiming it believed its equipment had been transferred illegally to Syria.

WikiLeaks has also claimed Blue Coat technology was sold to Governments and subsequently used to prevent dissidents from organising protests online.

Blue Coat said its technologies were "being cast with all these things and that's not what our products do."

The company also replaced its CEO in August during a turbulent year.

Who's Thoma Bravo?

Thoma Bravo is one of the owners of Attachmate, the company that was bought from Novell last year for $2.2 billion.

The company has some major investments in the tech sector. It claimed to have a strong interest in the security industry too.

"Blue Coat marks the continuation of Thoma Bravo's investment efforts in the security technology industry, and is the firm's fifth security technology platform investment," said Seth Boro, partner at Thoma Bravo .

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012.

BT and Orange Business Services are to allow each others' customers to hold telepresence meetings with one another, using Cisco's TelePresence technology.

The service has already been trialled with a number of major enterprise partners and is available for BT and Orange Telepresence Community customers from today.

BT and Orange have already committed to breaking down the barriers between providers' networks. BT said it wanted to "enlarge the global telepresence community."

"This agreement is the latest addition to the expansion of the video industry's connectivity capabilities and is an important step forward," said Rich Lowe, CEO of BT Conferencing.

"It demonstrates our commitment to increasing the network of accessible telepresence locations for our customers and increasing the return on their investments."

Customers will have to contact their provider to learn about using the inter-company service and there will be no additional cost, as their contracts will remain with the same vendor.

"The broader the range of companies that customers can connect with through telepresence, the higher the return on investment in collaborative technology," added Andrew McFadzen, head of international network solutions at Orange Business Services.

Everything Everywhere (EE) today announced 1.5 billion of additional funding for its Network Evolution Programme, much of which will go on tighter integration of T-Mobile and Orange.

EE revealed it is just weeks away from opening up wider, combined 2G and 3G services from Orange and T-Mobile to its customers, meaning it will have the widest 3G coverage in the UK, the company claimed.

The money will be injected into the programme over the next three years and will see customer devices automatically selecting the stronger signal from either network if their own signal is weak.

Everything Everywhere is committed to building a world-class 4G network for Britain.

"With mobile data increasing 250 per cent over the past two years, we are making these investments so we can deliver on our ambition to provide the UK's most reliable, biggest and best mobile data network," said Olaf Swantee, CEO of EE.

Money will also be spent on ensuring EE is ready for the introduction of 4G signals into the UK. Heavy investment will go into upgrading its mobile backhaul to ensure data can travel quickly between different cell sites.

"Everything Everywhere is committed to building a world-class 4G network for Britain," said Fotis Karonis, chief technical officer of EE.

"We are devoting huge resources - including our 15,000 workforce and significant investments in technology - and already trialling, learning and laying the ground-work so that we are prepared to introduce 4G services as soon as it's feasible."

EE is one of the telecoms providers bickering over the UK's 4G auction. Earlier this year, the operator said it stood by its "recommendation that to ensure fairness, the auction is designed so that all operators not just Vodafone and O2 get access to sufficient low frequency spectrum."

O2 and Vodafone believe Everything Everywhere is getting preferential treatment, as they would not be guaranteed any 800MHz spectrum as others might.

The auction is currently due to go ahead by the end of 2012, although spectrum will not actually be available to consumers until 2013.

Virgin Media Business has launched a fresh set of VPN options, designed to ensure IT departments don't waste time and money on costly upgrades.

The company promised to offer "unconstrained bandwidth" across either of its two major VPN products the Ethernet VPN or IPVPN, in three different packages.

Businesses can invest in 10Mbps, 100Mbps or 1Gbps VPNs for a "single, flat price." Virgin was unable to go into what those prices would be as it would be different for separate use cases.

Alison Adams, head of VPN products at Virgin Media Business, told IT Pro she thought businesses who invested in the Big Red VPN offering would be sorted for bandwidth requirements for at least two years.

This would free up time for CIOs to innovate rather than spend time and budget on network maintenance, Adams said.

"The flat rate makes budgeting easier," she said. "We've looked at how we can set customers free.

"We can guarantee these speeds giving CIOs the bandwidth so they can innovate."

She revealed the SLAs for the Big Red VPN will be the same as for Virgin's current Ethernet VPN or IPVPN offerings.

Virgin said it was one of two providers which was capable of offering such a service in the UK, thanks to its fibre network. BT was the other provider, but will it make a similar play?

"It would be great if they were to follow us as it is a great proposition. It removes some of those barriers customers are facing," Adams added.

Virgin Media Business research found 37 per cent of UK CIOs upgrade their VPNs or WANs once a year. On average, an upgrade costs 30,000.

Almost half of CIOs surveyed said they would find IT innovation and budget management simpler if they were relieved of anxieties over WAN or network upgrades.