Aurora Telecom’s John Fitzgerald discusses the challenges and trends of telecoms and how he approaches leadership.

“Even from a young age, I’ve always been interested in telecoms,” says John Fitzgerald. “I found it fascinating how someone in [the] Aran Islands can talk to someone in Australia via a multitude of technologies, eg satellites, fibre over subsea cables, mobile etc.”

With a base interest in the area already, Fitzgerald saw telecoms as an emerging industry and decided to pursue a diploma in the subject.

25 years of working in telecoms and procurement later and now Fitzgerald is now head of technology at Aurora Telecom, where he’s responsible for the roll-out of managed bandwidth services over Aurora Telecom’s national fibre footprint.

Data overload

Fitzgerald tells SiliconRepublic.com that Aurora Telecom has always been focused on being “a terrestrial carriers’ carrier”.

The company, which is a division of Gas Networks Ireland, provides secure and scalable telecommunications solutions through an open-access dark (unlit) fibre network. Its customers include streaming services, search engine providers, social media giants and state organisations.

Dark fibre refers to unused optical fibre cables available for use in fibre-optic communication. Aurora Telecom works to connect subsea cables to data centres or major urban centres by using this network.

According to Fitzgerald, the company sees “strong potential” in supporting edge data centres and 5G backhaul, which he says will underpin next-generation applications.

“We want to support our customers who serve the large enterprises who need access to high capacity,” explains Fitzgerald. “We believe high-capacity managed bandwidth services complement the products we already serve today and will allow us to offer flexible, scalable solutions to customers with dynamic capacity needs.”

During these tech-heavy times, Fitzgerald explains that data is growing “at a phenomenal rate”, driven primarily by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, online content and gaming.

However, Fitzgerald views this enormous surge in data as an opportunity.

“Our goal is to make connectivity an enabler, not a bottleneck, for emerging technologies and digital transformation,” he says. “Ultimately, our strategy is to stay ahead of the demand by building a carrier class network that scales with innovation and [is] future-proofed.”

Challenges and predictions

In terms of major challenges facing the telecoms industry, Fitzgerald says the main issues are security, resilience and high availability. “Data connectivity is critical to individual households as much as it is for industry,” he says.

“Based on this we are seeing more investments in technologies such as fibre sensing,” he adds. Fibre sensing technology is where certain parameters such as temperature, pressure and strain are measured along the fibre optic cable. “We’re currently trialling this technology on sections where our fibre and high-pressure networks traverse the country.”

Fitzgerald says that fibre sensing will allow Aurora to detect potential threats to network integrity before they occur and even identify gas leaks, “enhancing safety and reliability for everyone”.

In terms of the future, Fitzgerald believes that service providers will have to improve the stability of their networks as access to data becomes critical to industry and emergency services.

“Heavy investment in this area will start to become the norm without any increased revenue,” he says, adding that providers will be expected to have a stable, secure network all-year round with no outages – even during extreme weather events.

He also believes that edge data centres – which he says depends on secure fibre networks located near end users – will become increasingly vital as the demand for rapid, low-latency connections grows.

Leading by example

“I really enjoy the industry I work in,” says Fitzgerald, “as its always changing and new technologies are always emerging that impact industry.”

A big source of excitement for him is knowing that the work he and his team does has an impact on people’s daily lives, whether it’s supporting broadband roll-outs, supporting the mobile industry or assisting government agencies.

Ever the telecoms enthusiast, Fitzgerald is always preparing for the future.

“I continuously read up on what will be the ‘next big thing’ so we are ready when it arrives.”

As Aurora’s head of technology, we asked Fitzgerald about how he approaches leadership, which he says doesn’t differ from how he approaches life in general.

“I feel you need to be supportive, empathetic and understanding but also lead by example in my work ethic,” he explains. “You need to build an environment that allows for new ideas and new approaches to be brought forward and, in doing so, be open to criticism in a safe environment.

“It also needs to be a fun environment, and everyone should enjoy and be excited about the role they hold and be cognisant that what you are doing has an impact on lives and industry.”

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