Tag Archives: NextGen

Economic Revitalisation

10 Dec

It’s becoming better understood that Cities and Communities who have identified better connectivity as an enabler of economic growth must also pursue a series of programmes designed to exploit the enhanced infrastructure and secure commitments to its future improvement.

In this briefing on Economic Revitalisation, written ahead of NextGen’s 2013 UK events programme, we identify five essential programme strands that together will ensure that the investment in connectivity is worthwhile. At the same time these strands will also inform the local criteria for network design and operation.

The five key strands have emerged from global studies of ‘intelligent communities’ and the UK government’s Open Data and Digital by Default initiatives. They are collectively described as ‘applied’ digital infrastructure.

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4G race starts as 5G warms up

28 Oct

The imminent launch by mobile operator Everything Everywhere of the UK’s 4G services (with others to follow in 2013 when spectrum is auctioned) comes just 2 weeks after announcement of government research funding for  5G.

The £11.6m from the UK’s Research Partnership investment fund will be more than matched by a further £24m from a consortium of mobile infrastructure providers and operators.  The funds enable a 5G innovation centre to get underway at Surrey University.

Since the heady days of 2G (GSM) Europe has lost pole position in mobile technologies although we should not forget that Cambridge-based ARM has a dominant presence in billions of mobile devices.

The shape of mobile things to come is highly speculative and, with pressure for ever-greater spectrum efficiency and higher-capacity links to support bigger and faster applications, there is a huge interdependency on the adequacy of the fixed digital network to handle the traffic from thousands of smaller localised mobile base stations.

The expected explosion of demand for M2M devices and ‘The Internet of Things’ may already be stretching the limits of 4G and no-one imagines that the global standards-making process for 5G is going to be an easy collaborative ride.

Full story here

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NextGen Challenge: into the final digital furlong

1 Oct

The runners and riders in this year’s NextGen Challenge – the UK awards programme for advanced broadband network projects – are now in the final straight and heading towards the winning post.  The results will be announced at the  NextGen12 conference dinner in the Members’ Dining Room inside the Palace of Westminster.

The entries span the length and breadth of Britain and, in the spirit of ‘Open Access’, the competition was open to all-comers regardless of their technology choices.

The independent judging panel has the task of evaluating entries from projects in four categories – Rural and Community Leadership, Innovative Funding Solutions, Urban Network Enterprise and Collaborative Advantage.

Once again the NextGen Challenge programme demonstrates that enterprise and innovation is alive and well in this most vital of infrastructure investment areas .

Full story (and links for conference and dinner registration) here

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The Connectedness of Policy in a Digital Economy

27 Sep

For all students of the Digital Economy – its impacts and the potential for changing the way we can do things around here – we recommend the FCC’s task force report on mHealth.

This report is not just an example of the awesome lobbying power of the Mobile industry.  It carries the message that regulating the communications industry is about understanding the needs of all sectors of the economy.

Connected Health is an obvious place to start trying to catch up with ideas developed in remote parts of Scandinavia.

At NextGen 12 the session on trends in the mobile industry is being chaired by the Editor of Groupe Intellex,

Full story and link to the mHealth report here

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Deference and Diffidence diluting the digital economy

20 Sep

The shock of realisation – the realisation that permission is not required – may have been novel in the late 1980’s but is still reverberating more than twenty years on.

In this editorial – prompted by examples of modest ambition – we consider whether the highly civilised Anglo-Saxon traits of diffidence and deference are inhibiting growth of our increasingly digitalised economy.

The recent Summer of Olympic endeavour certainly loosened  societal interactions but, in the context of much needed infrastructure investment in Intelligent Cities, is this alone going to relight economic growth?

Full story here

 

The Rise of the Intelligent City and other ‘digital economy’ issues will be centre-stage at NextGen12 – 8th & 9th October, Westminster, London.

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Smartphones: the Remote for controlling your digital economy

14 Sep
In Leonard Cohen’s dark interpretation of the future, (‘things go ‘n slide – slide in all directions’) his fear is that ‘there won’t be nothing you can measure anymore’.
‘Sliding’ is a good word for the conceptual turmoil facing mobile operators.  In this editorial written for Bdaily – the UK’s business news network – we consider measures of mobility, the shift from voice to data apps and the investment needed for the next generation of ‘small cell’ base stations.
The Mobile, we conclude, has become a Remote – a controller for your personal version of the digital economy – and depends on avoiding mobile networks for much of its smartness.
The word ‘sliding’ implies a loss of directional control.   In ‘smartphones and smarter phoners’ we look forward to the debate at NextGen12 when the Mobile Operators Association goes head to head with Rethink Wireless.
Full story here.

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The Macro and Micro Digital Deficits

31 Aug

There’s ‘The Deficit’ and umpteen other deficits that are giving grief across all sectors of the economy.  But underlying all these, inhibiting a revitalisation of the economy, is a deeper, darker deficit – the Digital Deficit.

In this CMA editorial written for Bdaily (the UK’s online business forum) we discuss a top down and bottom up view of the impact of the digital deficit in the context of an emergent digital economy and the upcoming debate at NextGen12

Full story here.

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CMA welcomes House of Lords report

7 Aug

The House of Lords Communications Committee’s report offering an alternative vision for the UK is an important contribution towards the challenges of resolving the country’s digital deficits.

The Communications Management Association’s view has been widely reported.

The linkages between digital investment and economic growth will now be further explored at NextGen12.

Read the original CMA text here.

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Letting go – job polarisation and innovation in the digital economy

26 Jul

No-one doubts that small companies are great generators of new employment but new research has also highlighted the effects of ‘job polarisation’ where the growth is found in either ‘lovely or lousy’ jobs at the expense of ‘middle income’ roles.

In this review of ICF’s latest report by co-founder Robert Bell we ask why large companies find innovation so difficult and we suggest that major firms have a wider responsibility for investment that could balance the apparent reluctance of banks to lend to small businesses.

Read the full story here

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reflections on a rainy month

15 Jul

It isn’t just the inclement weather that has disheartened UK citizens this last month.

The realities of digital dependencies have been heightened by bank systems failures, banks’ ethical failures and bank-sponsored bike breakdowns.

But it’s not just in the banking sector that regulatory reform is in the air.

Dig into all the calls for infrastructure investment (mostly in the cause of economic growth) and you find at their root the need to tackle the ‘digital deficit’ – something whose very existence many would deny or not yet comprehend.

It all adds up to a need for a post-Olympic rethink of national policy priorities.

read the full story here.

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