British Telecommunications Public Limited Company provides communications solutions and services. The Company offers fixed-line, broadband, mobile, and TV products and services as well as. Pentti Airikkala (4 September 1945 – 30 September 2009) was one of the 'Flying Finns' who dominated world rallying in the past four decades. His career was more sporadic than many of his contemporaries, and he competed in only three World Rally Championship (WRC) events regularly; the two Scandinavian rallies (the 1000 Lakes and the Swedish Rally) and the RAC Rally in the United Kingdom.

Today, Canonical announces its Charmed OpenStack on Ubuntu has been selected by BT as a key component of its next generation 5G Core. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, will provide the open source virtual infrastructure manager (VIM) as part of BT’s Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) program, and the transition to a cloud-based Core network.

This open source cloud-based approach will ensure that BT can quickly deploy new services, and increase capacity to stay ahead of customer demand driven by 5G and FTTP. Canonical’s OpenStack architecture will also facilitate the delivery of BT’s full 5G Core network.

Openstack cloud software will enable the separation of network hardware and software, turning Core network components into software applications, meaning they can be updated faster with continuous integration and development. This separation allows different network applications to share the same hardware across data centres, making the network more resilient and scalable when additional capacity is needed. The speed at which software can be updated compared to replacing core network equipment will lead to a new way of working for the development of 5G services where BT can build new services in weeks and deploy in days.

NeilJ. McRae, BT Group Chief Architect, said: “Canonical is providingus with the ‘cloud-native’ foundation that enables us to create asmart and fully converged network. Utilising open source andbest-of-breed technologies will ensure we can deliver on ourconvergence vision, and enable a world-leading 5G and FTTP experiencefor our customers.”

MarkShuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, said: “BT has recognised theefficiency, flexibility and innovation afforded by an openarchitecture, and realises the value of such an approach in enablingits delivery of new 5G services. We’re delighted to be working withthem to deliver the foundation to this approach, which will underpinBT’s 5G strategy.”

BT’sEE mobile network switched on 5G in six launch cities on Thursday30th May 2019.Customers and businessesinLondon, Birmingham,Cardiff, Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast are the first places inthe UK to experience the benefits of 5G. BT has also outlined its 5Groadmap, which will see the cloud-based full 5G Core introduced from2022.

Thehigherbandwidth and lower latency, coupled with expansive and growing 5Gcoverage, will deliver a more responsive network, enabling trulyimmersive mobile augmented reality, real-time health monitoring, andmobile cloud gaming. The full 5G Core is also a vital step on BT’sconvergence of network technologies, bringing together fixed, mobileand WiFi into one seamless customer experience.

Furtherdevelopments, able to be introduced with more agility thanks to thecloud-based architecture, will introduce Ultra-Reliable Low LatencyCommunications (URLLC), Network Slicing and multi-gigabit-per-secondspeeds. This phase of 5G will enable critical applications likereal-time traffic management of fleets of autonomous vehicles,massive sensor networks with millions of devices measuring airquality across the entire country, and the ‘tactile internet’,where a sense of touch can be added to remote real-time interactions.

ENDS

Notesto editors:

BT’s 5G Core will be built on Canonical’s Charmed OpenStack, and utilise Canonical’s open source tools to automate the deployment and operations of their infrastructure. To deploy the virtual infrastructure manager (VIM), BT has adopted Juju and Charms for a model-driven architecture to onboard virtual network functions (VNFs) applications, while MAAS is used as the cloud provisioning tool. BT’s 5G Core will be backed by Ubuntu Advantage for Infrastructure for the ongoing management and support of operations.

AboutBT

BT’spurpose is to use the power of communications to make a better world.It is one of the world’s leading providers of communicationsservices and solutions, serving customers in 180 countries. Itsprincipal activities include the provision of networked IT servicesglobally; local, national and international telecommunicationsservices to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move;broadband, TV and internet products and services; and convergedfixed-mobile products and services. BT consists of fourcustomer-facing units: Consumer, Enterprise, Global Services andOpenreach.

Forthe year ended 31 March 2019, BT Group’s reported revenue was£23,428m with reported profit before taxation of £2,666m.

BritishTelecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Groupplc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BTGroup. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and NewYork.

Formore information, visit www.btplc.com

AboutCanonical

Canonicalis the publisher of Ubuntu, the OS for most public cloud workloads aswell as the emerging categories of smart gateways, self-driving carsand advanced robots. Canonical provides enterprise security, supportand services to commercial users of Ubuntu. Established in 2004,Canonical is a privately held company.

Ubuntu cloud

Ubuntu offers all the training, software infrastructure, tools, services and support you need for your public and private clouds.

Can you remember what you were you doing back in 1981? Maybe this was the year you were born? Let’s continue our nostalgic trip back through the decade with the biggest events of 1981.

1. Bucks Fizz

This was one of the rare years that we avoided the famous “nil pwa” and had a Eurovision winner with “Making your mind up” by Bucks Fizz!

2. The Yorkshire Ripper

Peter Sutcliffe, a 35 year old lorry driver from Bradford was arrested and charged with murdering 13 women and attacking 7 others between 1975 and 1981.

3. British Telecom

It was good to talk in 1981 as the British Telecommunications severed links with Royal Mail and started trading as British Telecom. Nowadays shortened to BT.

4. John McEnroe

McEnroe returned to Wimbledon in 1981 and when disputing an Umpires descision coined the phrase, “You cannot be serious!”

5. The Royal Wedding

On 29th July 1981, The Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer married at St Paul’s Cathedral. 30 million of us joined them by watching live on television.

6. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Who was a fan of Indiana Jones? This 1981 release is still one of the highest grossing movies to date.

7. MTV

MTV, the music channel that had such a huge influence on popular culture was born on 1st August 1981!

8. Sinclair ZX81

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This hugely successful low cost home computer sold 1.5 million units before it was discontinued. It had just 1KB of internal memory!

9. Moira Stuart

Moira Stuart was appointed the BBC’s first black news reader and what a great career she has had!

10. Rupert Murdoch

Australian newspaper owner Rupert Murdoch agreed to buy The Times. This was just the start of his empire!

11. The London Marathon

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The first London Marathon took place, has anyone ever taken part? If so, we would love to hear when you ran it?

12. The Humber Bridge

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The Humber Bridge was officially opened by the Queen in July, 1981.