Tag: driven

Ookla partners with Dublin City Council to tackle telecoms deficits in the city

Today, Ookla, a global leader in connectivity intelligence, announces its partnership with Dublin City Council and the City Telecoms Association to identify and tackle telecoms deficits in Dublin. This first-of-its-kind initiative, fueled by Ookla’s Speedtest Insights®, offers a practical blueprint for l cities across Europe to drive digital inclusion and optimise network outcomes through actionable, data-driven insights.
The partnership demonstrates how a data-driven approach can enhance connectivity outcomes in a tangible way, empowering cities to better serve citizens. For the first time, the city is addressing connectivity gaps through targeted policy interventions, and fostering collaborative efforts with operators to attract investments that were previously hindered by site acquisition challenges.
You can find the full partnership case study here with more information about the five high-impact use cases created by Dublin City Council using Ookla’s network intelligence data.
Key points from the study:
  • Telecoms strategy and digital inclusion:  A proactive data-driven telecom strategy aimed at bridging digital divides, with significant analysis of how socio-economic factors affect connectivity outcomes, especially in areas with high social deprivation.
  • Identification of connectivity gaps: Ookla’s real-world data has enabled DCC to pinpoint key areas in Dublin with significant connectivity issues, influencing policy and planning to prioritise interventions where they are most needed.
  • Innovative use of city assets: Dublin’s approach to leveraging city-owned assets for telecom infrastructure, including facilitating multi-operator site access, represents a strategic move to optimise asset use and reduce urban clutter, aligned with EU regulatory goals​.
  • Transparency and public engagement: The Council has launched a public educational initiative on telecom infrastructure, including visualisations of before-and-after network improvements from new site deployments, to engage citizens and increase acceptance of new infrastructure.
  • Comparative benchmarking in Europe: Through Ookla’s data, Dublin has gained insights into its telecom performance relative to other European cities, highlighting areas of competitive strength in 5G availability and identifying room for improvement in 4G speeds​.
Key data and methodology:
  • The collaboration saw Ookla collect Speedtest® network data across the city over two 12-month periods (June 2022-June 2023 and June 2023-June 2024) with a sample size in the tens of millions; creating the most comprehensive analysis of mobile network performance ever conducted at the city level in Ireland.
  • Leveraging Ookla’s Speedtest® Insights platform, DCC were able to integrate other data sources, such as internal city asset registries, mobile site location maps from Ireland’s telecoms regulator ComReg, and social deprivation data from Pobal.
  • Geospatial analysis created a localised tile-based grid across the entire city to categorise mobile network performance at different times of the day. Performance was evaluated against two metrics; signal strength and download speed. Each location tile was categorised as unacceptable if it had less than 11 dBm signal strength and 5 Mbps download speed. Anything above 11 dBM and 5 Mbps was categorised as ‘acceptable’.

Five steps to become a data-driven business using technology

Every organisation and industry has had to transform in recent years. All are striving to move faster, become smarter with data and innovate more with technology. The main message I’ve been hearing from business leaders in every corner of Ireland is that digital transformation is a must-have. As organisations navigate this journey of change and transformation, they manage increasingly complex data and tasks. And while data is considered critical for any efficient operation, it also has the potential to become the number one barrier to transformation. Jason Ward Vice President and Managing Director, Dell Technologies Ireland tells us more. 

According to the recent Breakthrough study of 10,500 knowledge workers, business decision-makers, and IT decision-makers undertaken by Dell Technologies, 42% of organisations in Ireland believe the opportunity to become a data-driven business will pass them by. Another way to put this is that at every business conference you attend, there is a chance more than half your peers are worrying about data.

Going deeper, 30% of Irish respondents believe their people won’t be able to keep up with technological change. It is an interesting paradox. While technology is an enabler to human potential and it has significant business benefits, the number of solutions and settings to navigate can overwhelm workers with too many choices. From my interactions with customers facing the same challenges, I noticed the path out of the data labyrinth is often a mix of the right set of tools with a human perspective. Here are five steps to help Irish businesses navigate their digital transformation:

1. Have a clear shared vision of how digital transformation can help you realize your business goals.

Every IT problem starts with a business problem. Before laying down the foundation on how to deal with your data, think about the challenges you are trying to solve as a company. Once you have that vision, you can articulate the right technology solution and partner with the IT experts on your team to build a plan. You don’t have to build an aggressive timeline. A phased approach accounts for your most important asset – your people. Give them enough time to understand the strategy and align to it.

2. Invest in appropriate edge and as-a-Service Strategies that can scale.

As-a-service experiences help ease or drop the infrastructure management burden on your teams. When working with a flexible IT consumption model, you can operate with agility. But you can also control and scale your environment, adapting to different dynamics. And then there is an opportunity in the edge – where you can act on data near its point of creation to generate. With real-time data analysis, you can act faster and reduce the cost concerns associated with sending large amounts of data to a central location. This is especially true in industries like retail, healthcare, and even public transportation.

3. Automate mundane tasks.

The research shows that people would be willing to partner more with technology if the personal benefits are clear. In fact, 66% of respondents in Ireland would look forward to having more time to develop their skills and elevate their roles. By automating work, people are available to focus on what inspires them and on uncovering business opportunities. The curiosity mindset is a valuable skill for data analytics. And once your teams have enough time to look at the data with a strategic approach, you start to pave the way for insights-driven decisions.

4. Start with small-scale pilots.

The sandbox environment is perfect for the test-and-learn method. People feel safe, and you have control over the impact. It is one of the best tactics to gain insights from analytics while stimulating people to adopt and publicize the successes. At this point, you go back to the number one step in this framework. Look at the initial business problem. Combine your newly added technology with your team’s recent gains in time to generate a positive outcome. Then assess your pilot. Replicate. Scale.

5. Provide adequate coaching, mentoring, and reassurance. 

Real breakthrough happens at the intersection of people and technology. Thus, it is paramount to recognise that while consumption-based IT models provide the necessary breathing room to your teams, you must deploy them in ways that are sensitive to human behaviour. Make sure that everyone is accessing the necessary tools and has enough training and resources to use them to their fullest. Communicate and establish a platform to contribute ideas and be heard. Lack of communication is one of the areas where respondents say their teams struggle the most.

At Dell Technologies Ireland, we have been helping leading companies leverage data in order to enhance business performance. Through our partnership with Ronan Daly Jermyn (RDJ), we’re enabling one of Ireland’s top law forms to harness the power of data to transform its legal services and adopt a hybrid working model running on Dell Technologies infrastructure.

Outpacing competitors also requires organisations to embrace new technologies. The Dell Technologies Ireland team is well positioned to help businesses realise this goal. Thanks to the work being undertaken at our 5G Edge Labs, led from Cork and Limerick, we are bringing together 5G, Edge Computing and Machine Learning to prototype next generation products and services for the global and Irish markets.

I am optimistic about the role that technology plays a role in unlocking a company culture shift toward data-driven decisions. Once organisations augment human capabilities with automation and consumption-based IT, they create new opportunities and experiences that excite their team, while delivering incredible business outcomes.