FROM THE INDUSTRY
Is there anything you’d like to communicate to our readers? Rhys Brine: I’d like to challenge your readers and the customers to see if we can save them time and money. Even on that environmental point, can we help them and reduce their environmental costs by improving testing procedures. Ross Stoddart: We’re delighted to have Fibreplus on board and I’m excited to see where things take us over the coming months and years. In addition to Rhys’ comments, I would challenge every provider to consider how they test and monitor their network. Ultimately, the only way to verify the quality of a network build is with a proper testing procedure; otherwise, you’re just praying and hoping what you’re putting in the ground is going to work. If these are the networks that will form the foundations of the communication infrastructure for future generations, then our industry has a duty to do that to the highest standards possible.
which requires a different test procedure and different hardware.
term, we’re still there, regardless of who actually is owning that particular business, they’re still having to get the product, get the training that they need, and we’re still there. Everyone seems to be talking about rural broadband; what are your views on how it’s going to evolve over the next 12 to 18 months? Rhys Brine: There are some companies that are putting in great work in rural communities and I think we deal with a few of them, they’re pushing harder than ever to push it. BDUK are obviously providing funding for those rural communities, it’s all in place. It just comes down to these companies who are focusing on rural to really push it through. Access is the problem. Rural broadband often has to deal with protected lands, land ownership discussions, policy and regulatory challenges and the cost of building new infrastructure out to those areas. How common is this issue? Rhys Brine: Weather has a huge impact as well-hardened ground during winter, flooding in spring all cause issues when completing long-term projects. Ross Stoddart: There isn’t any one blueprint for rural which is part of the problem; even within the one country like the UK, deployments can be very different. It’s not necessarily all broadband either, we’re also seeing fixed wireless access solutions being offered to give gigabit services to customers that way,
Is sustainability something that you talk about as partners? How do you approach this? Rhys Brine: It’s about changing the way we work. Let’s say engineers are testing links that are anywhere from 50m to 5km long, and if they’ve got to drive from one end to the other or they’ve got to repeat tests, then if you just take the diesel used for example, it is a big impact on the environment. We are working to eliminate that. Brianna Grant: Repairing products even after it passed its warranty is a big focus. If people are using technology and they want to upgrade, we will do trade-ins, we’ll repair it. And given that we know what we’re doing, we’re able to then sell that onto customers who maybe don’t need the latest and greatest of technology. At least it keeps it off a landfill for that much longer. Ross Stoddart: Absolutely. VIAVI has been making strides in this area over a number of years now, and every year we publish an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report which can be viewed on our website.
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DECEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.4
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