Ron Schaeffer, Chief Strategy Officer at pureLiFi, Joins The UKTIN Wireless Networking Technologies Expert Working Group
Photo Credit to pureLiFi
UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN)
pureLiFi announced on their LinkedIn page of Ron Schaeffer joining the UKTIN Wireless Networking Technologies Expert Working Group. This group will consider key evolutions across wireless telecommunications. Ron will explore how LiFi and optical communications more generally will play a key role in 6g, networking and telecoms.
According to their website, UKTIN is the innovation network for the UK telecoms sector, bringing together industry, academia, and government stakeholders to catalyse telecoms R&D talent in investment, cooperation and commercialisation.
Formed in 2022, it is delivered by a consortium of four partners that draw on distinct strengths in a collaborative approach: Digital Catapult, Cambridge Wireless, University of Bristol, and WM5G.
UKTIN’s mission is to transform the UK telecoms innovation ecosystem, capitalising on the country’s strengths in technology, academia, and entrepreneurialism, while positioning it for growth as new opportunities emerge in the industry.
The network will work towards this goal by forging connections between the many businesses and organisations involved in telecoms research, development and innovation in the UK. Currently, these players are dispersed and fragmented, making it difficult to turn invention into innovation and profitable commercial outcomes.
UKTIN provides an impartial, accessible and inclusive forum for the UK telecoms innovation ecosystem, convening a range of bodies and organisations into one network where they can interact in a neutral environment and on a level playing field. Here, they can discover ideas and concepts with innovation potential from throughout the country, understand where to accelerate innovation, the skills needed to capitalise on new opportunities, and funding routes available, and match resources (such as investment and talent) to organisations and projects.
UKTIN has been initially funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) to drive the 5G Supply Chain Diversification Strategy and will provide support for supply chain development in UK telecoms. It will work towards this goal by strengthening UK capabilities in open telecoms, attracting overseas companies and R&D talent, catalysing public and private investment, and proactively promoting UK capability internationally.
As the telecoms market embraces new approaches such as Open RAN and digital technologies such as AI and the latest network technologies, there are huge opportunities for the UK to tap into its strengths in research, academia, and technology skills. There are already so many exciting projects happening and so many ideas emerging across all four nations. By bringing together this brilliance, UKTIN will open up new possibilities for innovation and growth, supporting UK telecoms to transform into a thriving, resilient and internationally significant sector.
The UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN) provides an impartial, accessible and inclusive forum for the UK telecoms innovation ecosystem, convening a range of bodies and organisations across industry, government stakeholders, and academia into one network where they can interact in a neutral environment and on a level playing field.
The UKTIN Expert Working Groups bring together academic and industry leaders and experts, governmental and regulatory specialists, and representative bodies to explore the opportunities, gaps and challenges in the UK telecoms ecosystem. Bringing to bear their collective expertise, the groups aim to identify where the UK can lead and how the UK ecosystem as a whole can benefit from various opportunities.
Specifically, the groups have been established to:
Inform a better-shared understanding of key technical issues through knowledge sharing, leading to increased use of testbeds and other facilities across the ecosystem;
Drive increased confidence in the security and resilience of the UK telecoms infrastructure and supply chain development by connecting with a broad supplier base, aiming to remove dependency on high-risk vendors;
Consider measures that will accelerate the development and deployment of interoperable and open interface solutions, as well as catalysing the telecoms diversification strategy.
pureLiFi
pureLiFi develops technology for communication networks that integrates data and lighting utility infrastructures. It offers a LiFi enabled device that converts the beam of lights into an electrical signal. The signal is then converted back into data. The company was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Edinburgh.
pureLiFi demonstrated the next LiFi system for the home at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022 in Barcelona. pureLiFi stated that this is the world’s first LiFi ecosystem for the consumer market, named LiFi@Home™.
