We are living in the age of data with the volume of data stored globally doubling approximately every four years. Creating, transferring, utilising, and managing data is necessary for the smooth running of daily life for consumers, governments and businesses alike.

The International telecommunications union (ITU) has estimated that mobile and fixed broadband traffic had an annual average growth of 30% globally between 2019 and 2023. In that same period the UK’s mobile data consumption increased by 300%.

The operators of the networks that provide telecommunications services to residents and businesses are having to respond to these higher traffic loads and the demands for lightning speed communications. Meanwhile, the venerable synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) that operators have relied on for many years has reached retirement age.

The new generation of telecoms networks must cope with the future growth of traffic loads fuelled by cloud services and use of artificial intelligence. Other services with special requirements and increasing relevance, including massive machine type communications (mMTC) and mobile edge computing, must also be catered for.

Specialist services that depended on the SDH also have to be catered for when transitioning to the new generation of networks. These include the utility sector’s SCADA and teleprotection communications .

Optical transport networks (OTNs) that employ very high capacity optical fibre with optical switching offer the capacity, low latency, and operational flexibility required now and in the future. They also provide the characteristics required by a range of different services.

There are several ways in which OTNs can be implemented each with their own advantages. Choosing the appropriate configuration can be challenging especially as advice from equipment suppliers is unsurprisingly often coloured by their own offerings.

PTT’s new online course provides an in-depth, impartial treatment of the operation and possible architectures of, and services provided by, optical transport networks.

Telephony services have relied on the use of copper wire pairs for the last 150 years. In that time service providers have made a considerable investment in installing and maintaining the copper-based infrastructure that the public switched telephone network (PSTN) relied on.
But the venerable PSTN is reaching the end of its life. Its old technology is increasingly difficult to maintain and many customers are using alternative methods of communications.

Although those copper pairs now also provide broadband services as well as telephony, the ultimate plan is to also retire and remove the copper infrastructure. BT in the UK estimates they can recover an estimated 200,000 tonnes of copper through the 2030s.

The ultimate aim of service provides is to move customers to fibre to the premises with telephony using voice over IP (VoIP) techniques.

The European Union (EU) has a target of switching off copper-based services entirely by 2030 while in the UK, the incumbent operator BT has the aim of moving its PSTN users to VoIP services by 2027. However, many of those BT customers will be migrated to VoIP over the copper pairs that still provide Internet access.

There are many challenges for service providers in achieving their aims. A recent report revealed that just ten countries in the EU were expected to meet the 2030 deadline. For example, Belgium predicted it would migrate 80% of customers to an all-fibre service by 2034 and reach 100% by 2040.

The main hurdle to total migration is not technical but human. Customers need to be prepared for the required changes to how they access a service and convinced by the benefits that can ensue from an all-digital environment. But there are also technical issues: alarm services may not work over a digital connection and VoIP telephony requires battery backup to retain service provision when mains supply fails.

Apart for residential customers, businesses also need to be prepared. It has been reported that less than 26% of businesses in the UK have a plan in place for the switch-off of analogue telephony and less than one in ten are aware of the 2027 deadline.

Education and preparation are therefore key to a successful transition to an all-fibre future.
PTT online courses include those covering “Telephony and data services”, “Introduction to telephony”, and “Voice over IP”.

When we use our mobile phone we may check whether its battery needs a charge but it’s unlikely we consider the power requirements of the site that provides the mobile service. But for operators, power consumption of their equipment has a significant financial impact. With a looming climate crisis, there is also greater emphasis on reducing the environmental impact of providing a service.
The UK telecoms provider BT has recently taken steps to go green at one of its rural cell sites. Solar panels and a wind turbine provide renewable energy and, on dark and windless days, a generator using green fuel kicks in once the battery runs dry. Vodafone has also removed the need to connect one of its cell sites in Wales to the power grid by using locally produced renewable energy.
Hrvatski Telekom in Croatia has gone one green step further by installing a wooden cell tower. The 40 metre tower is made of processed durable, fire-resistant wood. This recyclable material has a much smaller carbon footprint than steel and has a smaller aesthetic impact on a rural landscape.
You and your colleagues can also go green by studying PTT online courses instead of travelling to a classroom-based training site. The PTT catalogue includes a wide range of courses covering the technologies that underpin telecommunications services.