As the UK seeks to become even more connected, companies are turning to solutions providers across the industry to maximise innovation success.

STL Technologies is one of the largest suppliers and manufacturers to the UK market, selling to telcos and data centre enterprise companies for more than two decades. We spoke with Rahul Puri, CEO – Optical Networking Business at the company, about new developments the company is working on and how these will benefit UK markets.

“We want to help the UK or any other market ‘fibreise’ (move to fibre networks) quickly and in a sustainable way for the long-term. Whatever networks we’re building today will last for the next 30 years, if not more,” Puri explained.

“We see fibre implementation challenges – it’s about how we make it simpler and easier for installers to do it faster, cheaper and better.”

Addressing UK network challenges

Whether it’s PON Connect dry solutions or fibre cables that are compatible with older fibre cables, these solutions are helping the need to fibreise UK homes and offices. It has been argued that the UK has perhaps been slow to adopt new connectivity technologies, including 5G, on account of high costs and competition, along with other reasons.

“The UK has come a long way since COVID, where we were struggling with almost 10% fibreisation,” Puri said. “60% of homes have been fibreised already, so we’ve bridged the gap quite a bit, and we’re also starting to see more market consolidation. Some of the alt-nets are looking at merging.”

There is also a significant ongoing shift towards hyperscale data centres with the continued AI boom, meaning that the UK is having to transition its infrastructure to be ready to support these newer business requirements.

“We’ve been building more to connect homes and offices but when you start providing for hyperscalers, low latency and larger capacity and speed is needed,” Puri added. “The next shift you’ll see happening is needing the proper equipment and people to be able to build those networks.”

Another challenge Puri identified is uptake, particularly from the view of telcos and the government.

“How do they ensure that once they have passed a home, they have consumers coming in and monetising the networks they have built?” he said. “That will also be the next wave of acquisition that we see.”

To stay ahead in the industry in efficiency and fibre networking, STL is using green hydrogen in optical fibre preform manufacturing. Hydrogen, alongside other gases, is a critical part of creating a glass preform – the glass rods optical fibres are drawn from.

Having its own preform, STL is able to draw fibre out of that, which is an important of its glass and fibre manufacturing. The company has started to use green hydrogen in glass manufacturing.

“Driven by our ESG, this is an industry first,” Puri said. “We have a captive plant that is dedicated to our glass facility closer to our factory in Maharashtra in India.”

Supporting the European AI transition

Being present in over 100 countries, STL has witnessed the impact of AI demand. Not only is it contributing to hyperscale data centre needs but also continued demand for fibre optics.

“If you look at the demand, today almost 30% of the fibre demand is coming from hyperscale data centres focused on AI business. Going forward, we see this almost doubling up to 60 to 70% demand driven by AI,” Puri explained. “It looks like there will be a massive demand for AI-backed data centres globally. You need to see a lot of hyperscale expansion happening in Europe, especially in the UK and US.”

STL also has a dedicated business focused on data centres where it works closely with its larger customers to create solutions that are ready to meet future needs. With hyperscalers needing low latency and larger capacity, the company is developing products like its rollable 864 ribbon to support these customers.

Puri said: “We also have a complete suite of production solutions focused on data centres, which are now being distributed to many markets, including Europe, India and the US.”

With AI workloads driving significant growth, STL is committed to developing its multicore fibres.

“I personally feel multicore fibre will play a crucial role in enterprise and data centre space going forward because, especially inside data centres, you are always concerned for space. You want to make it sleeker, slimmer, smaller as you keep putting in data centres,” Puri said. “Multicore addresses that, but there is more innovation happening around that space.”

Investing in greater, long-term connectivity

As STL continues developing its services around the world, Puri explained that the company has stayed true to its core by focusing purely on passive connectivity solutions. This has meant STL has a significant global manufacturing presence in countries like Italy, the US, China, India and the UK.

“What we pride ourselves on is that we do not create a solution and then go and sell it to our customers. We work closely with our customers and, through our tech focus and agility, are able to co-create solutions to solve the challenges our customers face,” he said.

“We are a global company which also has a local presence in every market. We can create solutions and turn around solutions very quickly.”

Moving forward into its next phase of business, STL is focused on glass, fibre and cable – it’s core business – in addition to its solutions around fibre cable connectivity. This, alongside its data centre-dedicated business, has significant growth potential for the company, Puri said.

He added: “We’ve come a long way and seen the business grow. Last year, we turned a corner and saw a jump in our revenues. We continue to grow in key markets in Europe and the US and that’s where our focus will be for the foreseeable future.”

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Image credit: STL Tech