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Pioneering research at Bangor on the advanced communications technology termed Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OOFDM) has enabled industrial impact with global implications. OOFDM was a candidate technique for the ITU-T G989.1 NG-PON2 and the IEEE 802.3bm standards and is currently under consideration by the IEEE 802.3 400Gb/s Ethernet Study Group. Supported by 8 patent families and first-phase funding of £1.1M, in 2013, the pre-revenue Bangor University spin-off company Smarterlight Limited, was established. Smarterlight has deployed services to several international telecommunications companies to develop advanced solutions for access optical networks and data centres.
Researchers at Queen Mary have applied mathematical modelling techniques to understand how and when problems may arise in complex man-made infrastructure networks including electricity, gas, global shipping and haulage networks. Many of these networks have points of vulnerability where a local issue such as an earthquake, a terrorist attack or even a simple engineering problem can bring down widespread areas of the network. Our research and the associated modelling techniques have impacted on organisations including the UK Treasury Office and the European Commission's Joint Research Centres at both Petten and Ispra, where it has been used to inform UK and European policy guidelines and legislation for infrastructure projects.
A series of funded research projects have been completed by the University of Sunderland in close collaboration with BT Research Labs Ipswich. This research, which has resulted in a series of novel optimisation approaches, led to the development of suite of tools used for network planning. These tools are primarily based upon the application of evolutionary computing methods. Researchers produced intelligent network planning tools for the development of the national Internet. The tools have been used extensively since 2008, and the network for the Olympic games in London 2012 was designed and planned using these smart tools. A company specialising in vehicle tracking has also been formed as a direct result of the research.
As a key participant in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Dr Perkins has been instrumental in developing key protocol standards that underpin modern telecommunications. The Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) acts as a transport layer distributing audio-visual data across the network, whilst the Session Description Protocol (SDP) describes the format and destination of streaming media. These standards are essential components of 3G and 4G mobile phone standards and form the infrastructure for many fixed telephone networks. They are implemented in Apple's Mac OS X and iOS, Google's Android, and Microsoft Windows, and feature in billions of devices around the world.
Lancaster University's pioneering research on Quality-of-Service (QoS) architecture has led to significant impact on the development of TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) — the digital radio standard used by emergency and public safety services globally. The route to impact was via UK projects on Mobile and Emergency Multimedia. It involved the transfer of QoS technology and know-how to HW Communications Ltd (HWC), a Lancaster-based SME. HWC became instrumental in developing the outcomes of our collaboration in TETRA's Multimedia Exchange Layer (MEX) standard and its specification for TETRA II (or TETRA Enhanced Data Services, TEDS) — a new version of TETRA that enables multimedia data services. MEX was adopted as a new clause in the TETRA II release in 2010. The impact is that vendors of TETRA equipment manufactured after 2010 can implement MEX in their products, thereby leveraging Lancaster's pioneering QoS research to enable applications to obtain the best possible level of service in a standardised way — which is absolutely crucial for the public-safety and related applications for which TETRA is being used.
Research at Bath has developed a new network charging methodology, known as "Long Run Incremental Cost (LRIC) pricing for electricity distribution systems". The methodology enables the calculation of location-specific annual network charges for electricity generators and suppliers. It has replaced the flat-rate charging approach used by the industry for the previous 25 years. Bath's work on LRIC has led to: 1) major impact on government policy, because in 2008 the UK regulator Ofgem required Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) to adopt LRIC as an industry standard, using the evidence provided by Bath that LRIC's uptake can lead to efficiency savings over the next 20 years of about £200 million for DNOs, and 2) major impact on industrial practice, because the subsequent industrial adoption of LRIC over 80% of the UK distribution area has enabled the DNOs to promote efficient use of the existing infrastructure. Further, LRIC's adoption in the UK has triggered a wide review of transmission and distribution pricing in countries including Brazil, Ireland, India and China. It also led to the establishment of the IEEE International Working Group on Network Charging, chaired by Li (Bath). Many of LRIC's key researchers at Bath have subsequently taken key roles in network planning and pricing in UK and international industry.
While basic communications protocols for the Internet were developed decades ago, new requirements such as bandwidth-hungry multimedia and the need for the Internet to reach the "final third" of the population create constant demand for improvements. Research at the University of Aberdeen has greatly contributed to meeting this demand by influencing the standardization and implementation of the Internet Protocol (IP) stack in commercial networks. New standards for Internet Transport Protocols and Satellite IP Transmission resulting from the research have been implemented in industrial products in Europe and the US, benefitting industry and millions of end users.
Researchers in the Centre for the Mathematics of Human Behaviour at the University of Reading have developed a novel approach for the real-time monitoring of evolving social networks. These networks, in which connections between individuals change over time, are an important opportunity for online advertising. The research has been used in collaboration with Bloom Media Ltd to develop a new tool that gives their clients a better understanding of the impacts of social media campaigns. As a result Bloom are leading the field in this area, allowing them to attract major new clients and leading to significant growth of the business. The company now directly employs highly skilled mathematics graduates specifically to work in this area.
UCL spinout company, Senceive Ltd, has established itself as an innovative provider of wireless enabled remote condition monitoring solutions. The company provides a robust, scalable, safe and highly cost-effective infrastructure monitoring capability for railway and construction industry applications, with customers including Amey, Costain, Network Rail and Tubelines. Recent deployments on projects such as Crossrail have been recognised by industry bodies as delivering significant product innovation and cost savings in excess of £1 million compared to use of a wired monitoring solution.
Today's global telecom systems are powered by technology developed at the University of Glasgow. This technology has been utilised, endorsed and developed by a series of internationally successful companies, facilitating multimillion pound investment from across Europe and the USA for the companies.
Gemfire Europe acquired the University of Glasgow IP and technology and between 2008 and 2012 launched a range of `green' products with reduced power consumption. The company's revenues reached $12m annually and in 2013, Gemfire was one of the world's top five planar lightwave circuit companies. Gemfire was bought by Kaiam, one of the world's market-leading optical networking companies in April 2013, stimulating further innovation and investment in the production of high-speed components for the global data networking market.