Good afternoon all. um, thank you for the next session.
Um, I'd like to introduce Mick Mohan.
The stage and uh Brick Hagan.
Um, they're going to talk about using hybrid network to provide.
Connectivity. Can you hear me OK?
Everybody hear me? Right, I think we've got some people still out
at lunch, OK? So, uh, you guys are gonna have to look after
us carefully. Um, good afternoon.
It's a pleasure to be at BAO 2024.
My name is Mick Moen and I'm the group engineering director at Talent.
Uh, and for the next 20 minutes or so between myself and Rick.
Rick's going to join us to talk about ST1 partway through.
Uh, we're going to talk to you about hybrid network working,
providing fantastic connectivity, because I'm not going to say the word that's on the slide
because it's, uh, it's just too complicated.
Um, we've got quite a short agenda. We'll do a brief intro about talent.
We'll touch on.
We'll touch on the growth of Wi Fi within the UK with us all and the importance of it,
improving the user experience with AI and some of our ideas that we're working on with our
clients, extending 4G and 5G.
Rick will talk about SD-WAN and the importance of security in that space,
and then I'll wrap up towards the end.
So, let's think about a place in the world where technologies and services we provide if
they don't exist today.
Just look at how important technology is right from the underground to the roads that we drive
on to the streets that we walk within to the SOS calls that we need to make.
Technology is everywhere, and talent is at the heart of that.
Critical national infrastructure is a key part of talent's DNA.
We use critical national infrastructure every single day as we can see from this slide.
It's so, so important to us and we rely on that service.
It keeps millions of us in the UK safe and secure.
Now at talent, we design, we build, we support, and we manage critical communication networks
and operational technology that keeps the UK safe.
We work closely in the transport sector, in the communications sector.
We work with emergency services, and clearly we work with the public sector too.
And we've got an expertise across a range range of technologies.
We're able to operate in a diverse range of environments.
It's one of our key strengths.
We work in data centres. We work on the road.
We work on the rail, both overground and underground.
Now, talent has got a major commitment to emergency services,
and we've worked in the emergency services industry for many,
many years, with police, fire, ambulance, plus maritime and safety with the RNLI and MCA.
Now, as a business, we operate UK wide, and we've got a national field force capability in
over 40 different locations. Extensive coverage,
great coverage, we're always there.
We have experience and capability across a range of technologies used by the emergency
services. Everything from managing control rooms,
mobilising solutions, vehicle voice and data coms, plus enabling IT and communication
networks. And that's what's different at talent.
It's the fact that we have the skills, both the frontline applications to support the frontline
team, but we've also got the enabling IT and infrastructure behind the scenes,
looking after the back office and keeping it secure.
It's mission critical networks that are the foundation of the common denominator across the
markets that we address.
The slide shown's got some sample of the organisations we support in the UK.
We're very pleased and proud of the fact that we've got many organisations that are blue chip.
If you go from the top right round, clearly emergency services and public safety
organisations are key. London Ambulance, the NHS,
North West Fire Control, just to name but a few.
A range of traffic customers down there towards the bottom right,
highways England and over 20 different local authorities.
The nuclear sector and utilities included the University of Exeter,
Bristol, and Hinkley Point C.
we also work closely with.
Moving around towards the right, of course, service providers are key.
We work closely with the likes of BT and Virgin Media.
And then finally, last but not least, top left there is the rail and transport companies
including TFL and Network Rail and multiple train operating companies.
We're busy and this is an exciting time for talent.
Now network services are essentially the foundation of all technology solutions,
connecting people, devices, organisations, communities, and applications together.
That's the key. Today, multiple options for connectivity are
widely available.
So if we start with fibre.
We've had a fibre rush, I think, over the last 10 years,
certainly within the UK.
Full fibre is now widely used in many locations, especially urban,
to homes and business, and we're starting to see that now occur or come available in more of
the rural locations.
Mobile, the availability of 5G is increasing and provides a real alternative to fixed line
connectivity. Leo's satellite is now available in a practical
and more affordable solution for remote rural locations, and it's also a viable operations
for tactical deployment. I'll talk more about that later.
And then finally, Wi Fi, as users are generally prefer to connect to wirelessly in the
workplace, but also at home and on the move.
Now users like us, we've got high expectations.
We like to be connected wherever we are, and it's got to be good,
it's got to be strong, it's going to be reliable, it's got to be fast.
Our expectations have increased significantly over the last few years.
Plus, the working environment has changed for us all.
It's no longer a place of where I go.
It work is a thing that we all do.
Wherever we are and our preferred advice is what we want to have at hand.
We need it instantaneously.
Our expectations are high.
Now that demand and usage for Wi Fi has continued to grow over the last 4 or 5 years.
And as users, we prefer to connect using wireless, as I said,
both in the workplace, at home, or on the move.
But there are several factors driving an increasing demand on our organization's Wi Fi
across all of our businesses.
Think about this. Everything in our workplace is connected.
Be that sensors, be that building management devices, whatever,
it's all connected to the Wi Fi.
We're using more and more applications as individuals and as teams.
Mobile network operators are pushing far more traffic to us on a daily basis.
And of course we're working more remotely, as I said earlier.
That's driving Wi Fi traffic for us all.
And increased digital interaction and digital transformation projects that we're working on
as projects and within teams using Shareport and the like,
they're just increasing to grow the traffic.
So what are we doing about that at talent?
Well, what we're really doing is bringing the best to breathe solutions,
and it starts with the fact we've got over 500 specialist engineers that work with our clients
to look at the design, the opportunities, and build solutions for them.
We work closely with them. We test them, we sign them off,
and then we manage them and we serve them, and we're very proud of doing exactly that.
But we're also vendor agnostic.
We work with some of the very best technical partners, Cisco,
Palo Alto, Juniper, to name but a few, and there's many up there.
We've got good strong partner relationships with our technical partners.
But security is also important, clearly, and we take an approach of security is built into our
network and our IT solutions. We now have our own dedicated cybersecurity
business, CIO cyber.
And then finally, increasingly our solutions are using AI-driven operations and performance
monitoring to improve efficiency and enhance the user experience.
So let's talk about that in a little bit more detail.
Now, leveraging AI and machine learning, machine-based learning to provide excellent
user experience.
The network solution anonymously reports performance and metadata to a central
cloud-based data lake.
Along with metadata for many other solutions.
Now using AI and machine learning technologies, we analyse that data for the solutions to
deliver personalised monitoring, diagnostic reports, and configuration recommendations to
increase and make sure we maximise the user experience.
We've got a virtual assistant using natural language processing,
allowing rapid diagnostics of any issues that are reported.
Now there are many tangible benefits for operating and moving in this way.
Faster deployment of new projects, new applications, and upgrades and changes.
Reduce time with trouble tickets, quicker response time,
making sure we resolve things first time.
And fewer visits And overall, we're looking to provide a better or the best user experience,
lower cost of support, and more time for IT to focus on the real value added work.
Now 5G and private networking is also a real alternative to Wi Fi.
5G Private combines the performance of wide ethernet networks with flexible wireless,
delivering high performance and high speed.
Low latency and importantly, secure connectivity for mission critical
communications.
Using lightly licenced yet low cost spectrum allocations to the technology solution,
using access points to provide much larger coverage per per base station compared to
technologies such as Wi Fi.
So it's more flexible. Now we've deployed this technology to large
scale manufacturing facilities and also major construction projects,
and our clients like it.
But there are also applications for emergency services applications of the 5G private
networks, an obvious case being to provide a cost effective and reliable wireless network
coverage for HQ and training facilities, particularly for those containing multiple
buildings spread across a large campus site environment.
It can be very efficient and very, very effective.
Now also of note, especially for the community that we've got here over the next couple of
days, is the 5G tactical bubble.
Now 5G private networks can also provide a rapidly deployable field-based solution as and
when it's needed, which provides tactical communications bubble for major instances
capable of supporting voice, data, and video connectivity across multiple agencies.
Now the tactical communications solution, which comprises of a controller,
a 5G access point on a telescopic pole, and a suitable PSU which can be installed in the
instant control unit or another vehicle on site.
The 5G network can then easily be deployed, containing tactical com solution provided with
a pre-configured handset with 5G routers that are dis dis distributed to all of the key
emergency leaders within the team.
It's a great com solution to make sure the teams are managing the data effectively and
efficiently in one together with speed.
Right, enough from me. I'm gonna hand over to Rick.
Rick's one of our solutions experts back at Talent.
He's over on our stand, so please grab him later.
He's going to talk about ST1. Rick, yeah,
cheers, pal. That's one.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Hi, everyone. So yeah, um, I've just got a couple,
a couple of slides to talk about SD one just to give, uh,
Replace your booming voice with my booming voice.
So SD1, it's an acronym we're all very familiar with.
We might even be a little bit sick of hearing about, but why is it,
is it more relevant now? Why are we talking about it again and why,
why is the solution or the solutions on offer, why they're more mature?
And that's really we're all very aware of the of the cloud first,
internet first, not just a strategy and the guidance by The government or by the industry,
but a lot of our platforms that we're using now are increasingly being iterated into the cloud
as a as a cloud delivered platform, not just mission critical,
but life saving platforms like command and control platforms.
So how do we, how do we get immediate access to that data?
How do we get efficient access to that data, as Mick pointed out a second ago,
how do we ensure that that is a good experience and it's secure,
so. SD one, which we are seeing more and more as a
as a means of delivering that cloud first internet first strategy,
and it's, it's about centralised automation, the ability to be flexible and deliver
agile. So in this sort of industry it's around being
able to create pop-up kiosks and deliver increasing amounts of data,
body worn video. As being a good example,
increasing amounts of data efficiently and cost effectively, and centralising that management,
centralising the automation of the security and the centralised integration into other
platforms is a real key feature of what we sort of see in SDO platforms these days.
And again, it's been around for a very long time, but we're seeing that maturity and that
ability to control things simply and going back to the point that Mick said a second ago about
sort of like AI-driven networks.
Not really requiring a great deal of skill to get the most out of these platforms and sort of
really integrate into these platforms.
The increasing costs of one circuits as these as these sort of data requirements go up,
SD1 allows us to bridge that gap by using sort of disparate disparate connectivity types
to consolidate and still control that experience as well.
So I've got a little clicker now, haven't I, of course, yeah,
um. So then that's part of a transformation
exercise, changing the way that we access applications, changing where the workloads are
changing sort of where the users are going to be deployed and agile deployed.
How do we ensure that that's that's done securely as we transform and I appreciate zero
trust and secure by designer are not new terms, but it's the reason I'm talking about this
today is it's about integration. It's about,
it's about that design approach. It's about not just Not just single vendor,
sassy, secure access services edge or secure services edge platforms,
but about an integrated approach, and that's really where where talent we believe really
deliver that extra value by bringing together multiple teams,
multiple strategies, existing skills, and integrating into those strategies and skills
across the entire business platform. And that's how we deliver zero trust into our
customers. Yeah, that was kind of all I was just about to
say. So like Mick says, I'm over just around this
corner here and I, I, I love to listen, but I do like to talk to you if you'd like to come in
and say hello, that'd be great.
Thank you. Cheers.
Cheers, Bob. Oh, there you go.
Right, thanks, Rick. Please, please make sure you take Rick up on
his offer. He's got a fantastic, uh, network,
um, solution, tracking solution that Juniper is showing on our stand.
He'll do it to you later, so, uh, it's worth spending some time with Rick.
Right, so let's just kind of summarise very quickly, um.
There's lots of things that we've kind of talked about,
but it's all really about developing a modern network for the future,
a future that makes sure you get the absolute best out of the network to support you and your
team. There's a couple of things that are key.
Firstly, modern networks, they must support the continued journey for cloud first adoption,
absolutely key. Wi Fi, as I said earlier, will continue to be a
key part of the architecture going further forward.
It's a key method of connection.
SGA, as Rick just talked through, is providing flexibility and it's got the opportunity to
reduce costs over a one network.
Security is absolutely key to ensure that we design security right from the start,
and it's got to be a zero trust approach that's adopted across the piece.
User experience, I think we'd all recognise how important that is.
We're all users indeed ourselves.
It's all about making sure we offer the best possible, and it has to be outcome based.
And then last but not least, but probably most important, it's got to be a solution that's
socially valuable but also sustainable.
We know that modern networks and the technology that our technical partners are bringing out
today has got much lower energy, smarter energy consumption tools within there to make sure
they're optimised for today's modern environment, and it's absolutely essential that
we leverage those and we maximise those going further forward to deliver the sustainability
agenda. So that's it from me.
Please come and visit us. We're just over there on sand F-11.
Uh, we can explore the topics in a bit more detail.
Um, have a discussion, book a demo, spend some time with some of the team,
and we can look at a proof of concept for you. We've got lots of solutions out there that we
deliver for many. And, and as an added incentive,
we're hosting the stand, uh, drinks, fizz, some beer at 3:45.
Please come and join us. It'd be great to see you.
Thanks for listening. Have a great baco 24 and enjoy yourselves.
Thank you. Thank you gents.
Cheers Oh, we don't It's