The U.K. government's research and innovation funding body (UKRI) is working on a series of telecom and networking projects covering photonics, advanced antennas, and next-generation connectivity solutions.

Approximately $17 million in government funding is being spread across 11 projects covering three focus areas: strengthening phone signals at major events, enabling “instant" 3D video streaming, and transmitting data using light.

Among the projects is Voltaire-B, which aims to create advanced light sensors that maintain fiber optic networks. Led by Scottish firm Pangolin Industries, the project looks to create new sensor designs to support future network upgrades and repairs.

Also receiving UKRI funding was Novocomms Limited, a Birmingham-based company developing network switches capable of supporting ultrahigh-speed wireless access solutions. Novocomms’s project aims to boost internet connections in underserved areas, including rural locations, without the need for installing wired or fiber optic infrastructure.

A University of Surrey project received some of the $17 million funding, with its researchers looking to use swept-beam antennas to boost cellular network quality. Swept-beam antennas can dynamically steer radio frequency beams in different directions over time rather than maintaining fixed beam patterns, effectively allowing carriers to provide higher capacity where and when it's needed by following user movement and traffic patterns.

UKRI said the University of Surrey project “has the potential to decrease the number of deployed cellular masts by maintaining the same level of coverage across a network.”

The research body also marked funding for Vector Photonics and its photonics project, which aims to use lasers to transmit data. The Glasgow-based project, dubbed HOPLITE (high optical power PCSEL laser for intersatellite data transmit enhancement), aims to create faster, more secure methods to send information between buildings, campuses, and satellites without the need for cables or radio signals.

The 11 projects were chosen as part of the second round of a competition supporting “advanced connectivity technologies,” with the funding agency saying the additional funding will enable the projects to “build on their successful developments and accelerate commercial deployment of next-generation technologies.”

“By advancing U.K.-based telecoms innovation, these projects will create high-skilled jobs and position Britain at the forefront of the telecommunications revolution that will define the next decade of digital connectivity,” UKRI said in a statement.