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Ciena upgrades SEA-ME-WE 4 as Red Sea cable cuts remain in spotlight 

Simon Dux
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Ciena upgrades SEA-ME-WE 4 as Red Sea cable cuts remain in spotlight 

New cable will be more resilient but not anchor-proof as the world’s cable operators know only too well

The venerable 18,800km SEA-ME-WE 4 cable connecting Europe and Asia is getting a capacity boost along its route by deploying Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme and WaveLogic 5 Extreme products to significantly improve it from 65Tbps to 122Tbps. 

The submarine cable is operated by 16 telecom operators and connects Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria, and France. 

The upgrade demonstrates just how far subsea optical technology has progressed. The cable, which was made ready for service in 2005, had an original design capacity of 1.28Tbps. It was upgraded to 4.6Tbps in 2015 and in 2022, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company announced further upgrades to its segments.  

Just over a decade ago Ciena was selected with Alcatel-Lucent to upgrade the cable to 40Gbps transmission. Ciena was selected to supply optical switching equipment for all 16 cable landing sites as well as for 100G transport for an upgrade of the terrestrial link connecting Alexandria to Suez in Egypt. Today, Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics increases the capacity per wave up to 450Gbps. SEA-ME-WE 4 is also utilising Ciena’s Navigator Network Control Suite for real-time visibility into and control of network performance. 

“Ciena’s cutting-edge technology is helping us in optimizing the resources of the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable, thereby enhancing its capabilities to address evolving connectivity demands through enhancement in network capacity, flexibility, and durability,” said SEA-ME-WE 4 consortium management committee chairman Sidheeque Machinal. “This upgrade holds particular significance given the pivotal role of the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable system in driving digitalisation efforts across the diverse regions where the system is passing through.”  

“The Europe-to-Asia route, where SEA-ME-WE 4 is situated, is experiencing a major digitalisation push, resulting in extreme capacity demands,” said Ciena VP global submarine solutions Thomas Soerensen. “We’re helping SEA-ME-WE 4 address rising capacity demands by making the switch to network architectures that adapt to leverage intelligence, scalability, and programmability.”  

Resilient but not anchor-proof 

New technology can always boost undersea cable resilience, but SEA-ME-WE 4 is one of around 15 cables traversing the seabed of the Red Sea which was recently bottom trawled by a crippled ship’s anchor, cutting four cables – Seacom, TGN, AAE-1, EIG. The resultant cuts had an estimated 25% impact on traffic. According to HGC Global Communications Limited (HGC), around 15% of Asia traffic goes westbound, while 80% of that traffic will pass through these [cut] submarine cables in the Red Sea.  

As a result, HGC like many other telcos has rerouted traffic through mainland China and the US and taken capacity on the other 11 uncut cables. Meanwhile Seacom told the media it was still awaiting the necessary permits to fix its broken cable system in the Red Sea. Its repair partner, E-marine, had applied for repair permits through the appropriate authorities, Seacom said in a statement. “As part of the regulatory process, we anticipate that permitting could take up to eight weeks to obtain,” it said. 

“While we remain optimistic that the cable repairs will proceed as planned during the second quarter, as previously communicated, we are mindful of the ongoing unrest in the region,” the company added. 

The conflict in the region is also posing a dilemma. “This situation may introduce unforeseen challenges that could potentially impact our repair timeline. We are closely monitoring the situation and will continue to keep all stakeholders updated on the progress of the repair operations as events unfold,” said the Seacom statement. 

Canadian pension board to pay €2bn for 17.5% of TIM’s NetCo

Annie Turner
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Canadian pension board to pay €2bn for 17.5% of TIM’s NetCo

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has holdings in other overseas network operators

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) is to pay €2 billion for a 17.5% stake in Telecom Italia (TIM)’s recently created NetCo.

The somewhat complicated transaction will be carried out by CPP joining investor group Optics Bidco which is controlled by KKR and heading up the NetCo’s privatisation.

Optics Bidco includes Azure Vista, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Italian infrastructure fund manager F2i and the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.

The transaction values the NetCo at about €18.8 billion.

James Bryce, MD and Global Head of Infrastructure at CPP Investments, stated its investment in the NetCo will generate “long-term risk-adjusted returns for the fund”.

The transaction should be completed by the end of the year.

CPP Investments has a shareholding in the US neutral host networks specialist Boldyn Networks, as well as the European Cellnex and V.tal, a Brazilian wholesale fibre network.

Skyrise, VMO2 Business to provide data-based insights to advertisers

Annie Turner
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Skyrise, VMO2 Business to provide data-based insights to advertisers

The operator will submit anonymised, aggregated data reflecting how people move around the UK

As operators strive to find new revenue streams, Virgin Media O2 Business has teamed up with Skyrise. The operator will provide anonymised data for generating marketing insights and “bespoke audience design” using Skyrise’s advertising tech. The two have signed a five-year, exclusive partnership with the aim of delivering more effective media campaigns for advertisers and agencies.

Alternative fibre network provider CityFibre is also a Skyrise customer.

The agreement will include data from O2 Motion, a Virgin Media O2 Business service that uses anonymised and aggregated data from its mobile network which identifies movement trends = how people move around the UK. According to the press release, this “insight and analysis will be important for marketers as it analyses hundreds of thousands of scenarios for campaigns, of where and when adverts will be seen, and finds the optimal combinations of media channels.”

Big win for advertisers?

Skyrise’s Co-Founder Ian Vint commented, “Adding Virgin Media O2 Business to the Skyrise stable of data partners is a landmark moment for our business. We are committed to empowering agencies and advertisers with the best data and insights to make better media decisions. Unfortunately, most data available to marketers is not of a high enough standard. It’s not clean enough, not comprehensive enough and most importantly not meaningful enough.

“Our partnership with Virgin Media O2 Business solves this by giving brands access to the best data on which to make investment decisions. It represents a huge improvement in how brands and agencies can plan and buy media. Using the power of anonymised and aggregated O2 Motion data through Skyrise brands can see their audiences like never before, and make better media investment.”

Skyrise has headquarters in Manchester (pictured above) and operates in the UK and across Europe.

Investigating encrypted data with deep traffic visibility

Annie Turner
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Investigating encrypted data with deep traffic visibility

Partner content: Pervasive encryption of communications challenges lawful interception and intelligence practices – investigators need new tools and techniques

As communications and services have proliferated, particularly with over-the-top (OTT) communication platforms such as Telegram, Signal, Messenger, and WhatsApp, so has the pervasiveness of encryption. In this environment, law enforcement agencies (LEAs) are not only unable to read the contents of messages, but often cannot even classify the traffic. In response, it has become increasingly critical to develop and use mechanisms for investigating the evidence that remains available.

In practical terms, extracting intelligence from encrypted communications requires a refocus from the payloads of messages to the traffic flows that surround them. Superior traffic analysis based on deep packet inspection (DPI) can reveal insights that help overcome the limitations to low enforcement authorities (LEAs) of an internet gone dark.

The SS8 lawful intelligence platform provides visibility into encrypted traffic flows using the Enhanced Protocol Extraction Engine (E-PXE), such as what application and underlying service a subject of interest is using, when, and for how long. Building on that foundation, SS8 capabilities make it possible to identify other parties involved, establish patterns of life, and advance investigations, regardless of message encryption.

Analyze traffic flows

SS8 builds on nearly 25 years’ experience to extend the potential of DPI to reveal maximum intelligence from encrypted traffic streams. E-PXE investigates beyond the conventional IP packet headers used for network routing and into the nested headers of encapsulated traffic. By analyzing those headers, DPI makes it possible to generate metadata that can be analyzed to reveal application-level characteristics of the communications from captured data sessions.

After a communication service provider (CSP) responds to a warrant or other authorization with data intercepted from a subject of interest, E-PXE uses enhanced DPI to provide insights from individual packets as well as broader traffic flows. In addition to identifying the application – such as WhatsApp – the Intellego XT lawful intelligence platform can also use this information to identify the specific communication modality, such as text, voice, or video, as well as the devices and IP addresses related to each data flow.

The metadata that the SS8 platform captures and attaches to traffic flows enables matching based on analytics and digital signatures between intercepted traffic flows and known patterns. The scope of metadata tags used varies according to the type of intercepted traffic involved, but they capture information specific to the individual communication session, such in as the following examples:

  • Web browsing – URLs, hostnames
  • Messaging – Chat IDs, nicknames
  • Email – Account login IDs, email addresses
  • Voice and video – E.164 international phone numbers, session initiation protocol (SIP) data

The SS8 platform applies heuristics-based analysis to this metadata to deliver probability-based conclusions about the nature of the communications. Timestamps derived using protocol information and heuristic methods can be applied to the traffic flows to provide timelines for specific interactions. Overlaying those timelines with the broader context of a crime can help establish a subject’s patterns of life and determine whether or not that individual was involved with key events. SS8 maintains the signatures used in these processes based on evolving intelligence, similar to antivirus signatures.

Identify and profile subjects

The growing prevalence of direct, peer-to-peer communications between devices in OTT applications adds complexity to the process of developing protocol-oriented insights. For example, most WhatsApp calls are initiated by the service but carried out directly from one handset to the other using Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) and related mechanisms. While the communications stream does not pass through WhatsApp servers, the information needed to initiate the connection can automatically and efficiently identify, for example, that a video call occurs between two specific IP addresses.

Using that information, an LEA can work with the relevant application providers and mobile network operators to identify the subscriber assigned that IP address at the relevant time. In the common case where the phone number belongs to a burner (pay-as-you-go) phone that does not require registration, the LEA may be unable to associate it with an individual of interest.

Intellego XT works through that limitation, creating a bridge to a real-world identity through integrating open source intelligence. Formal, pre-established workflows in the SS8 platform make it possible for investigators to heuristically find that identity.

The process involves scraping the internet to find relevant associations between the phone number and other information. Investigation can extend to the deep and dark web as well, to identify the existence and nature of potential illegal activities by the subject as well as whether that individual’s information is included in a data breach, for example.

SS8 MetaHub ingests that information and correlates the clues together to posit the identity of the parties on the call. In addition to identity details, additional context about individuals of interest and their associates found through this process can help advance investigations from scraps of information to clear insight.

About the authors

David Anstiss is Director of Solution Engineering at SS8 Networks. He has been with SS8 since 2015 and has significant experience in critical network architecture technology and advanced data analytics. He currently works as part of the Technical CTO Group under the leadership of Dr. Cemal Dikmen and is responsible for leading engagement with both intelligence agencies and Communication Service Providers (CSPs) around the world.

He has been instrumental in helping them transition to 5G, defining system requirements to meet regulatory compliance. As a member of ETSI, he represents SS8 to ensure the adoption of cloud-native infrastructure is met with industry best practices and to guarantee that compliance of lawful interception is maintained. Learn more about David here on his LinkedIn profile.

Rory Quann is Head of International Sales at SS8 Networks and brings with him over 10 years of experience in the Lawful Interception and Data Analysis industry. Prior to joining SS8 in 2013, Rory worked for BAE System Applied Intelligence where he was focused on large scale Government deployments of Intelligence Solutions.

Rory has held multiple positions in the Lawful Intelligence space ranging from Deployment Engineer, System Consultant, and Sales Engineer focusing on Country-wide Passive deployments. Rory is a Certified Microsoft MCSA Engineer and EMC Certified deployment Engineer. You can learn more about Rory on his LinkedIn profile by clicking here.

French prosecutors probe Altice’s links to alleged corruption

Annie Turner
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French prosecutors probe Altice’s links to alleged corruption

No charges have been brought but investigators are looking into the scandal that first surfaced in Portugal involving the group’s co-founder

Bloomberg reports that French prosecutors are investigating potential corruption that could involve Altice.  Last July, the telecom group’s co-founder, Armando Pereira, and other business associates were arrested in Portugal for running a suspected money laundering scam through procurement processes, tax fraud and corruption.

Pereira was released on €10 million bail while the investigation continues.

According to Bloomberg, the investigation by France’s Parquet National Financier began in September. It is looking into its wider procurement practices and possible corruption, money laundering and attempts to cover it up. Apparently no-one in public office is under suspicion.

News of the French investigation comes at a bad time. The Altice group has been rocked by the scandal in Portugal and its better known co-founder, Patrick Drahi, is trying to sell off assets to pay down its nett debt of €60 billion.

Almost every part of the business Drahi has built up over the last 30 years, fuelled by debt, is potentially for sale. Iliad group and stc are both interested in buying Altice Portugal assets  

Altice France, including French carrier SFR, is Altice group’s largest unit in revenue, with €11.3 billion in 2022. KKR and Macquarie Group are reportedly interested in acquiring its XpFibre unit.

Broadcom’s Q1 revenues rise 34% propelled by VMware

Annie Turner
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Broadcom’s Q1 revenues rise 34% propelled by VMware

The company is predicting full-year revenues of $50 billion

Broadcom has reported that its Q1 revenues were close to $12 billion (€10.97 billion) for the period up to 4 February. This is an increase on 34% on the same period last year.

VMWare was a major contributor to this bump, but Broadcom’s own sales grew by 11%. Broadcom acquired VMWare last November for $61 billion after a protracted approvals process involving many regulators.

Broadcom’s CEO Hock Tan, said, “Our acquisition of VMware is accelerating revenue growth in our infrastructure software segment, as customers deploy VMware Cloud Foundation”. He put Broadcom’s rising silicon sales down to “strong demand for our networking products in AI datacentres, as well as custom AI accelerators from hyperscalers.”

Stellar software

On the earnings call with analysts, Harsh Kumar from Piper Sandler asked Tan to explain why he was predicting software sales to almost double in Q2. Tan replied, “With the acquisition of VMware we’re very focused on selling, upselling and helping customers, not just buy but deploy this private cloud what we call virtual private cloud solution or platform on their on-prem data centres.”

He pointed out that as the deal only closed in November, Q1 earnings had only just over 10 weeks’ contribution from VMware, adding, “but we have been very prepared to launch and focus on this push initiative on private cloud, VCF [Virtual Cloud Foundation]. And the results has been very much what we expect it to be, which is very, very successful.

Positive outlook

Broadcom says it is on course to generate full revenues of $50 billion this tax year with an adjusted EBITDA of $30 billion.

Broadcom’s share price more than 28% this calendar year, although the acquisition of VMWare by Broadcom has received criticism from many sides. As recently as January, The Wall Street Journal fan an article that included fears about the damage Broadcom could do as a renowned cost cutter with a focus on short-term profits. Or as Forbes put it, strive to dominate the on-prem cloud sector rather than invest in VMware’s tech.

Sateliot raising €100m to fund 5G NB-IoT smallsat fleet 

Simon Dux
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Sateliot raising €100m to fund 5G NB-IoT smallsat fleet 

The Spanish startup is promising to launch its first four commercial satellites by June

Spain-based satellite IoT startup Sateliot hopes to buck the current trend of other failing satellite firms after announcing plans to seek €100m in equity and debt from private equity investors, funds and banks, according to media reports.  

The startup, which partnered Telefónica last August, already has two test satellites in orbit, claims it has a book order worth about €187 million in annual revenue and its clients are mostly from countries with vast areas not covered by mobile networks, including Canada, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia or Australia, CEO Jaume Sanpera told Reuters. 

The company expects to launch its first four commercial satellites by June and by doing so, it will be able to invoice. Sateliot has spent about 25 million euros to develop, build and send in orbit, through SpaceX, the two test satellites and the first four commercial ones. Unlike other struggling smallsat providers Satelliot has heavy hitters backing it, even separate to the Telefónica tie-up. Shareholders include defence contractor Indra, Cellnex and the Spanish Government.  

Starting in 2024, Telefónica aims to be the first MNO to provide to its customers with a NB-IoT everywhere-in-the-planet connectivity through a seamless combination of cellular and satellite standard NB-IoT network and with inexpensive commercial standard NB-IoT devices. Lat year, the companies showed that a standard roaming connection can be authenticated by the Telefónica core through Sateliot’s networks. 

Sateliot’s patented “store & forward” two step authentication method was also successfully tested. The technology lets a satellite store data when it is out of contact with a ground station, forwarding the data when it comes back into coverage – important when a satellite constellation is still small and IoT applications are delay tolerant.   

Sorting out partners 

Sateliot recently signed an agreement with Turkcell to test and demonstrate connectivity to the IoT market on out-of- coverage areas in Turkey. Sateliot’s chief commercial officer Gianluca Redolfi pointed out that the standard approach allows any MNO to integrate satellite connectivity to their offering, just by a simple roaming agreement.  

Last month, Sateliot worked with Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) to connect a 5G messaging service through that satco’s commercial network, KSATlite, together with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Using AWS, Sateliot has built a fully virtualized cloud-native 5G core for NB-IoT non-terrestrial networks.  During 2023, Sateliot claims it closed agreements with “hundreds of IoT solution providers” to bring standard 5G satellite connectivity to their industries, digitising agriculture, livestock management, and maritime logistics, among others. 

Tunisia wants six to seven submarine cables 

Simon Dux
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Tunisia wants six to seven submarine cables 

Communications ministry makes claim as Ifriqiya submarine cable branch pronounced ready for service after landing last month

A government spokesperson said Tunisia has identified a need for around 6 or 7 submarine cables and the country has invited operators to invest in making this a reality. The chief of staff of the minister of communication technologies Kamel Saadaoui made the claim to local news agency TAP at the ready for service ceremony for the Ifriqiya submarine cable. 

Ifriqiya, which has a capacity up to 3Tbps, is connected to the main route between Marseille in France and Abu Talaat in Egypt over a 950km length from the Bizerte connection point. It is part of PCCW’s 15,000km Peace subsea cable, built by Huawei, which links Marseilles in France to Egypt and on to Pakistan, Kenya in 2022 and Singapore last year. The cable has a capacity of up to 96Tbps for the Pakistan-Egypt segment and 192Tbps for the Mediterranean segment from Egypt to France. 

Ifriqiya landed at the Ain Meriem area of Bizerte, which is also currently the landing point for the SeaMeWe-4 cable. A branch of the Medusa cable is also set to land there (via Marseilles) with Orange as the partner. Tunisia’s other landing point is in Kelibia, which hosts the Didon cable (owned by Orange and Ooredoo), Hannibal, and Trapani-Kelibia cable systems.  

Saadaoui said Ifriqiya was part of the nation’s strategy and represents one of the priorities in the development of the basic infrastructure of telecommunications networks, as well as an ideal infrastructure for the launch of 5G services. 

Ooredoo Tunisia CEO, Mansour Rachid El-Khater, said that the Ifriqiya project is one of the strategic projects launched by Ooredoo to connect the northern Tunisian coast from the city of Bizerte to the city of Marseille in France “in record time”. 

DT signs up its first Business GPT customer

Annie Turner
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DT signs up its first Business GPT customer

The UKA Group specialises in renewable energy and has access to a secure, regulation-compliant, cloud-based tool for Generative AI

Deutsche Telekom (DT) has signed up its first Business GPT customer, the UKA Group. The company specialises in renewal energy projects and now has access to generative AI-enabled (GenAI) tool.

Details of how UKA plans to use the tool are not specific: “With this solution, UKA offers its employees an application for everyday use and can also test innovative use cases within its specialist departments. In future, it will be possible to connect company applications directly via programming interfaces.”

Secure cloud

DT says the application is tested for IT security and data protection and hosted on Telekom’s cloud environments. This means UKA retains control of its data in accordance with the GDPR and German data protection law. Telekom MMS ensures that UKA employees can enter company data securely and use it on all end devices. 

Business GPT is browser based and UKA’s employees can access it via their own intranet. According to DT, “This greatly shortens the path from business case to productive usage”.

The tool is multilingual and so useful for international organisations like UKA.

DT runs the tool on secure cloud environments in Europe, so companies can use the GPT 3.5 and GPT 4.0 models from Microsoft Azure OpenAI Services in a shielded area.

The product was originally developed for use by DT’s employees, with security, data protection and employee representation built in. After successful internal implementation, Telekom MMS added Business GPT to its portfolio.

Real innovation through AI

Christian Schmidt, Head of IT and Digital at UKA, commented, “Business GPT makes us absolute pioneers. With this tool, we enable our employees worldwide to test use cases for AI language models in a secure environment and use them profitably. That’s what I call real innovation.”

“Compliance and security – that’s what our customers expect from us. It’s in our DNA,” says Klaus Werner, Managing Director for Business Customers at Telekom Deutschland GmbH. “Business GPT combines Telekom’s reliability with the latest in natural language processing and all the innovation that comes with it.”

Sonatel launches Orange 5G in Senegal 

Simon Dux
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0
Sonatel launches Orange 5G in Senegal 

Orange money and network upgrades to 4G are both boosting subscriber numbers as well

Sonatel, which trades as Orange in Senegal through that company’s controlling stake, has launched commercial 5G pilot to provide fixed and mobile internet to residential and business customers in the country. The operator has invited prospective customers to see 5G in action at the Orange Digital Center (ODC) in Dakar.  

The launch of commercial 5G by Sonatel comes around seven months after the operator acquired the first 5G operating licence in Senegal from the Telecommunications and Postal Regulatory Authority (ARTP) for $57 million. It’s taken a while given the operator first mooted 5G in 2020 and then announced a successful test in December 2021. In July 2022, it launched the 5G ODC. 

According to Ecofin, In the 5G segment, Sonatel is ahead of its main competitors Expresso Sénégal and Saga Africa Holding Limited (Free). The latter acquired its operating licence in December 2023 for CFA 13.5 billion. 

According to ARTP data, Orange had 12.5 million mobile subscribers in the third quarter of 2023 for a market share of 56.47%. Expresso and Free respectively controlled 16.8% and 23.89% of the national mobile telephone subscriber base. In the Internet segment, Orange held a market share of 66.52%. 

Last month, the Sonatel Group, which operates in 5 countries (Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone) posted strong FY2023 results on the back of high-speed data, mobile and Orange Money. Its fixed, mobile and internet customer base increased by 6% compared to 2022 and reached 41.1 million thanks to growth in all countries and mainly in Guinea, Senegal, and Mali. 

The number of active mobile data customers of the Group now stands at 19.1 million, an increase of 10.1% YoY. The active 4G base reached 14.4 million customers, an increase of 35.5 % compared to 2022. Sonatel wants to offer full 4G mobile networks in all its countries of presence – it is already doing so in Senegal and Mali. 

The Orange Money customer base reached 31.6 million customers, an increase of 19.8% compared to 2022 thanks to the diversification of the portfolio of offers and the price adjustments carried out in several countries. 

Sonatel’s fixed broadband customer base has 741,000 customers, including 659,000 fibre and Flybox (4G router) customers, an increase of 25.1%. Also, from CFA 15,000 per month, households can subscribe to optical fibre with 710,000 optical fibre sockets deployed by the end of 2023, mainly in Senegal and Mali. 

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