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European data centre demand outstrips supply – report 

Simon Dux
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European data centre demand outstrips supply – report 

Rental rates on the rise across Europe which will favour only the largest players leading to a hyperscale problem

European data centre demand (511MW) outstripped supply (467MW) across the five largest European markets in 2023, according to global property company CBRE. It was the third time in the past five years that there was more demand than supply in these markets. The new supply delivered last year was meant primarily for hyperscalers in the so-called FLAPD markets (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin). 

In Q4 2023, there was 252MW of take-up in the primary markets, a 41% increase compared to the third quarter. There was 277MW of new supply delivered as well. Across the secondary markets, 94MW of supply was delivered last year. 

As a result, rental rates of leased data centre capacity have risen considerably over the past two years. Build costs are the primary culprit for the rate increases, though the current supply-demand imbalance is a contributing factor as well. Higher build costs for new data centres need to be passed on to customers through higher rental rates. Moreover, there is continued strong demand from hyperscalers, which has led to lower availability. 

According to CBRE’s ‘Europe Data Centres Figures Q4 2023’ report, the combination of rising build costs, low availability, and high demand allows data centre providers to exercise their pricing power with buyers of capacity. As such, rates are expected to grow, likely at double digit rates year-on-year in FLAPD, for hyperscalers and enterprises in need of capacity for the foreseeable future. 

And there is little relief on this way. Hyperscalers are expected to add similar amounts of capacity this year and next to ensure they meet their requirements. However, there are fewer deals being struck between hyperscalers and providers. The average size of deals has grown, and the time to complete deals has increased. 

Supply side 

CBRE found that in total, there was 467MW of capacity delivered to the five largest markets of Europe last year, including 277MW in Q4. Paris (82MW) and Dublin (74MW) accounted for well over half of the Q4 new supply total. London (58MW) and Frankfurt (52MW) are by far the largest markets in Europe, though there was considerably less capacity delivered in those locales last quarter. 

However, the total supply of live data centre space in London is now over 1GW, the only European market to have as much capacity. Frankfurt is expected to surpass that mark in 2024. The new supply figure delivered in FLAPD last year was almost quintuple the 94MW of capacity delivered to the nine smaller, secondary markets of Europe tracked by CBRE in 2023. Securing available power and appropriate land are the top challenges data centre providers are faced with when trying to meet the considerable demand from their largest customers in Europe. 

Take-up is increasing 

In Q4, there was 252MW of take-up in the FLAPD markets, a 41% increase compared to the third quarter (179MW). Demand for capacity primarily from hyperscalers in Europe remains strong, as does demand from enterprises, according to the report. Proof positive is the 511MW of take-up recorded in the FLAPD markets last year, which is around a third more than the 2022 total. 

Take-up should soar to new heights in years to come, given expected strong demand from hyperscalers. Artificial intelligence requirements from organisations should also drive additional demand. However, data centre providers are largely unable to accommodate those with AI-specific needs in the meantime, due to a lack of AI-ready facilities, a shortage of necessary chipsets, and little available power across Europe. 

Last year, over half of take-up was represented by prior-year pre-lets in FLAPD. This is a sign of continued strong demand for leased data centre capacity in the largest markets of Europe, as well as the need by data centre providers to ensure the space is filled because of the need to deliver promised returns to investors despite the surge in build costs. 

As a result, data centre capacity is increasingly difficult to source. The supply in FLAPD has almost doubled over the past four years, yet there was less lettable space (30MW) in the top five markets by the end of the year than there was in the same period in 2019. 

No room at the inn 

CBRE said the vacancy rate of the top five markets finished the year at an all-time low of 10.6%. This was only slightly higher when compared to the previous quarter (10.4%). However, the vacancy rate of the secondary markets (19%) was nearly double than that of the primary markets at the end of 2023. 

Hyperscalers are largely responsible for the drop in vacancy. Some of the largest American technology companies need ever-greater amounts of data centre space to house their equipment that enables the delivery of their digital services. As such, vacancy rates have plummeted almost 10 percentage points over the past four years in the 14 European markets tracked by CBRE. 

Vacancy, over the past four years, has fallen even more dramatically in smaller but faster-growing data centre markets such as Berlin, Milan, and Warsaw. In Warsaw, for example, vacancy is less than half (16%) of what it was in 2019 (37%). 

Nokia and Nvidia partner to bring AI into cloud RAN 

Simon Dux
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0
Nokia and Nvidia partner to bring AI into cloud RAN 

Nokia is using the partnership to extend its anyRAN concept by embedding AI into its mobile network portfolio

Nokia has announced a partnership with Nvidia to integrate AI and Cloud RAN. The Finnish vendor said the tie-up is part of its anyRAN approach, which seeks to position AI as a core element within the company’s mobile network product portfolio. 

Nokia’s collaboration with Nvidia will predominantly focus on Cloud RAN solutions, where the vendor will use Nvidia’s Grace CPU Superchip for Layer 2+ processing, combined with its own energy-efficient In-Line Layer 1 accelerator technology and Cloud RAN software. Nokia will also use Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) for AI applications, vRAN acceleration which the vendor said paves the way for yet another acronym, AI-RAN.  

The partnership is a further sign of Nvidia’s intent to enter the telco-specific semiconductor market and the timing of the announcement comes just ahead of the semiconductor giant’s results. Earlier this month Ericsson emerged as a wireless chip partner that would include the chip designer’s GPU technology. Nvidia wants to build a custom chip unit to design bespoke AI processors for cloud computing firms, data centre operators and service providers. 

The Nvidia Grace CPU – which is targeted at the data centre AI market – is based on the “latest and most advanced Arm Neoverse V2 CPU reference architecture”. Nokia said its customers will benefit from diversity and choice in selecting CPUs for Cloud RAN networks – the philosophy behind its anyRAN approach, launched at last year’s MWC.  

All part of anyRAN 

With anyRAN, operators can choose a hybrid or cloud native RAN and Nokia has enabled its software and In-Line acceleration architecture to run on any partner’s cloud and server infrastructure in addition to Nokia AirScale base stations and Nokia AirFrame servers – the latter is moving to Dell servers as part of a separate agreement. Nokia said it has successfully performed end-to-end 5G data calls (Layer 3 calls) in multi-vendor setups with several partners.  

“This is an important collaboration with Nvidia that will explore how artificial intelligence can play a transformative role in the future of our industry,” said Nokia president of mobile networks Tommi Uitto. “It is a further example of our anyRAN approach that is helping to make Cloud RAN a commercial reality. The strength of our industry collaborations means we can drive efficiency, innovation, openness, and scale by delivering competitive advantage to operators and enterprises.” 

“Bringing the power of Nvidia’s advanced computing to Nokia’s platform will deliver more performant and energy-efficient Cloud RAN solutions,” said Nvidia SVP of telecom Ronnie Vasishta. “Plus, as AI creates unprecedented transformational opportunities across industries, our collaboration with Nokia deepens AI-enabled innovation in radio access networks for improved operational efficiency in telecommunications.” 

Microsoft commits $2.1bn for AI investment in Spain 

Simon Dux
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0
Microsoft commits $2.1bn for AI investment in Spain 

After Germany gets €3.3 billion, Microsoft spreads its AI largesse to Spain

Microsoft has announced it will spend $2.1bn to expand its AI and cloud infrastructure in Spain over the next two years. The investment was revealed after Microsoft chair and vice president Brad Smith (above, left) met with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (above, right) and follows the US software giant’s commitment to spend €3.3 billion in Germany by the end of 2025 to massively expand its data centre capacity for artificial intelligence applications.

Sánchez added they had together analysed “cooperation opportunities to strengthen cybersecurity and promote artificial intelligence in Public Administration.”

“Our investment is beyond just building data centres, it’s a testament to our 37-year commitment to Spain, its security, and development and digital transformation of its government, businesses, and people,” Smith said on X.

On the German investment, Smith said the company was planning to double AI infrastructure capacity in the country and help boost skills in using AI. Microsoft’s investment programme also includes a training and professional development campaign, which aims to familiarise up to 1.2 million people with the potential of AI.

While in Spain at the Microsoft AI & Innovation Summit, which saw more than 3000 customers and partners attending – Smith launched the Responsible AI Innovation Centre (RAIIC) to help Spanish organisations in the deployment of Artificial Intelligence projects.

Accenture, Avanade, Capgemini, DXC Technology, Encamina, EY, Insight, KPMG, Minsait, NTT DATA, Plain Concepts, PwC, SEIDOR, SoftwareOne, Telefónica Tech and Tokiota were announced as Microsoft business partners that will collaborate in the Responsible AI Innovation Center (RAIIC) in Spain. Partners will have exclusive access to materials and strategic information about the development of Microsoft technologies and solutions based on Responsible AI, as well as training and certification in the company’s AI technologies.

The centre will offer specialised services to Spanish companies and public administrations, including: workshops for the definition and development of AI use cases; technical technological architecture design sessions; rapid prototyping workshops; strategy planning for AI use cases; responsible AI development frameworks; and specific training programs in AI development and implementation.

Spain is no slouch in AI but needs a boost

According to IDC data, 62% of large companies and public organisations in Spain already use AI and 25% plan to do so in the next 24 months. Among the objectives or results they hope to achieve with their investments in AI, the most common is an improvement in operational efficiency, followed by cost savings and an improvement in business agility.

Spanish organisations have substantially accelerated their intensity of use of Generative AI in 2023, which has multiplied by 5.7 between the third and fourth quarters of last year, according to Microsoft data, placing Spain in fourth place in Europe. The proportion of people with AI skills is lower in Spain than in other countries (14th position in Europe) according to LinkedIn data. Although this figure has improved significantly (51%) in 2023, Microsoft said it highlights the need to invest more in AI training. Finally, Spain occupies 15th position in Europe in terms of the number of AI software developers, according to data from GitHub.

Vodafone deploys UK Open RAN model in Romania 

Simon Dux
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0
Vodafone deploys UK Open RAN model in Romania 

The operator likes the Samsung, Dell and Wind River combination so much it is taking them on tour

Vodafone is installing new Open RAN sites in 20 cities across Romania, following successful tests it started with Samsung and other partners last year in the country. The operator is working with several partners on the deployment, including Samsung for 2G, 4G and 5G radio and baseband units, Dell PowerEdge servers designed for cloud-based Open RAN workloads and Containers as a Service (CaaS) software from Wind River – all partners in its commercial rollout of Open RAN to 2,500 sites in the UK, which started in August 2023. 

Despite the Open RAN fanfare, Vodafone’s Romanian deployment is relatively modest given that two weeks ago it signed a six-year deal with Ericsson to replace mostly Huawei kit with the Swedish vendor’s 5G RAN portfolio including Massive MIMO, Antenna System and latest generation of radios and basebands – and no mention of Open RAN kit. 

Vodafone said the commercial rollout in Romania builds on other European Open RAN trials and its UK commercial rollout, which started in August 2023. However, critics may claim that current Open RAN deployments by any operator are not strictly multi-vendor across all interfaces. Samsung for example has made great strides – and success – in virtualised RAN deployments but vRAN is not Open RAN. On the other hand, why should operators replace working 5G technology with Open RAN tech without a business case screaming revenue uplift? 

Vodafone said its Open RAN initiatives prove that its performance is either on a par or exceeds that of the legacy equipment in most measurements, including 4G and 5G call success rate, as well as download and upload speeds across multiple spectrum frequencies. Whether that sounds like the Open RAN business case arriving, it is harder to tell. Progress continues though. Last week, Vodafone, Samsung and AMD successfully demonstrated an end-to-end call with the latest AMD processors enabling Open RAN. And last October, Orange and Vodafone completed a 4G call on a group of shared sites – integrated into their commercial networks – running Open RAN in a rural area near Bucharest.  

Nevertheless, Vodafone’s chief network officer said the momentum behind Open RAN technologies is building, in Vodafone and amongst its partners. “As new technologies like generative AI take root and are embedded within businesses, factories, and every day online interactions, they will require intelligence-based networks powerful enough to support them. Open RAN is designed to do just that.” 

Rollout details 

Samsung will provide its fully virtualized RAN software supporting multiple mobile technologies, automation solutions and Open RAN-compliant triple-band radio antennas as well as 5G Massive MIMO radios. Samsung’s triple-band radio combines 700MHz, 800MHZ and 900MHz frequency bands into one compact radio supporting 2G (to support low-powered Internet of Things services), 4G and 5G coverage, enabling increased network capacity and greater flexibility using fewer physical masts. Samsung’s vRAN supports multi-RAT, automation solutions and Open RAN-compliant triple-band radios as well as 5G Massive MIMO radios.  

“As our collaboration with Vodafone continues to make strides across Europe, this rollout in Romania will mark a significant milestone that underscores our dedication to network innovation,” said Samsung Electronics president and head of networks business Woojune Kim. “Our pioneering network solutions will propel Vodafone Romania’s transformation journey, providing a flexible and powerful way to realize the full potential of Open RAN. We look forward to combining our diverse experiences together to reshape the future of connectivity.” 

This commercial rollout follows Samsung’s pilot project with Vodafone last year in Romania. The companies completed the first 4G calls over shared commercial Open RAN in Romania’s rural areas. Samsung is collaborating with Vodafone to support its Open RAN initiative in both rural and urban areas of Romania, helping the operator transition to an open network architecture. Vodafone plans to equip 30% of all its European sites with Open RAN by 2030. 

EU’s competition authority approves Orange Spain’s JV with MásMóvil

Annie Turner
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0
EU’s competition authority approves Orange Spain’s JV with MásMóvil

But there are conditions attached – selling spectrum to Romania’s Digi and providing it with national roaming if requested

The European Commission has approved the proposed joint venture of Orange’s Spanish business and the regional operator MásMóvil under the European Union Merger Regulation. The deal is subject to conditions, including the sale of certain spectrum to Romania’s Digi Communications, as discussed earlier this year. Also, Digi has the option of having a wholesale agreement with the new combined entity. Digi is already Spain’s largest MVNO.

Orange and MásMóvil to complete the deal by the end of the first quarter. They announced their intention to merge their Spanish assets and operations in summer 2022, creating a business worth about €18.6 billion.

In combination they should be a fearsome competitor to the leading operator, Telefonica, in a very tough market. Orange is a national mobile operator in Spain while MásMóvil is regional and offers fixed and mobile connectivity.

Kester Mann, Director, Consumer and Connectivity at analyst house CCS Insight, commented, “Approval of the Orange-MásMóvil deal will be cheered by the European telecoms sector, which has repeatedly made the case to be allowed to join forces. Attention will therefore quickly turn to other potential mergers, notably the tie-up between Vodafone and Three in the UK.”

Lost in translation?

“But they should be cautious,” Mann warns, “This deal will be reviewed by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) whose stubbornness last year…shows it won’t be won over easily.” Initially the CMA blocked the proposed tie-up between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.

He adds, “And while Ofcom has recently softened its stance on mergers since its vehement opposition to the doomed Three-O2 merger several years ago, it will still want to see evidence that a combined Vodafone and Three will lead to better outcomes for customers in a mobile market it believes is currently functioning reasonably well.”

Orange and MásMóvil got the deal over the line by promising to deliver a package of remedies with new market entrant Digi. Mann observes that if a similar approach proves necessary in the UK, “it may not be easy”.

TIGO Tanzania taps Globe Teleservices for A2P SMS firewall

Annie Turner
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0
TIGO Tanzania taps Globe Teleservices for A2P SMS firewall

The firewall will tackle SMS fraud, like smishing, SIM farming, grey routes, SMS pumping and others

Honora Tanzania (TIGO), a mobile network operator in Tanzania, has chosen Globe Teleservices to provide a firewall for application-to-person (A2P) SMS. TIGO Tanzania is part of the Axian Telecom Group.

The firewall will be instrumental in tackling revenue losses from various kinds of SMS fraud, like smishing, SIM farming, grey routes, SMS pumping and others.

SMS fraud is rife

A report published this month, co-authored by Enea and Mobilesquared, found that artificial inflation of traffic (AIT) is pervasive in the global messaging ecosystem. Between 19.8 billion and 35.7 billion fraudulent messages were sent in 2023.

The study stresses the substantial financial toll of AIT, with brands incurring costs of $1.16 billion (€1.16 billion) due to fraudulent messages. It also puts a strain on the messaging ecosystem, accounting for 4.8% of all Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS traffic.

Tanzania and beyond

Globe Teleservices and TIGO Tanzania say their collaboration demonstrates their commitment to delivering quality, secure and efficient communication solutions to customers within Tanzania and beyond.

Ashutosh Agrawal, CMD at Globe Teleservices, commented, “Our intelligent firewall solutions complement TIGO Tanzania’s vision for secure and efficient international A2P traffic delivery. We are proud to be a part of this journey, looking forward to the innovation and growth this exclusive partnership will bring to both companies.”

MWC 2024: Gen-up with exclusive interviews, deep dives into big trends

Annie Turner
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MWC 2024: Gen-up with exclusive interviews, deep dives into big trends

Be ready for Barcelona – download our special edition for MWC 2024 now

The cover story – the automation imperative. An exclusive interview with Amdocs GM intelligent OSS Eyal Shaked and VP, head of OSS and network product management Menny Konorty on automation and how operators can best leverage network investment.

Our CEO interview is with Keri Gilder, the multi-award winning leader of Colt Technology Services. She talks to Annie Turner about the company’s milestone year in 2023, AI and network architecture, NaaS, collaboration and much more.

Reliability is the key to success in consumer markets: as broadband providers grapple with low take-up rates in some countries, two surveys cast light on what consumers want and what operators are doing about it.

DOWNLOAD THE MWC SPECIAL EDITION FROM HERE

Unveiling valuable insights for business growth: Miguel Raposoof Celfocus, explains how data monetisation has become a critical strategy for CSPs to thrive in the digital age

Space race – competing LEO constellations are not helping mobile operators: The 5G non-terrestrial network (NTN) market must overcome some big challenges before mobile operators can embrace it, writes Enrico Ottolini

World Radio Conference 2023 – Defining the future for 6GHz, 6G, satellites and more WRC-2023: the conference concluded in December having made some promising steps in support of our wireless future

Telecoms’ tectonic plates: a dive into four big trends that are shaping telcos. The operators who emerge from this decade in a stronger position will be those who manage, somehow, to read and ride the political, policy and technology waves at the same time as running their businesses.

BT Digital’s engineers accept 37% of AWS’ suggested GenAI coding

Annie Turner
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BT Digital’s engineers accept 37% of AWS’ suggested GenAI coding

Operator says in first four months, Amazon CodeWhisperer has helped to automate 12% of tedious, repetitive, time-consuming tasks in product development

BT Group’s Digital Unit has deployed a GenAI coding companion, Amazon CodeWhisperer to help software engineers with coding. The companion is provided by AWS.

The operator says this is the first of a suite of GenAI tools to improve product development processes across the business. It is part of its drive for modernisation, efficiency and superior tooling for its workforce. 

Amazon CodeWhisperer suggests code in real time, ranging from snippets to full functions, in multiple integrated development environments (IDEs). The suggestions are based on natural-language comments and existing code across 15 coding languages.

First four months

The code companion provides 15 to 20 suggestions of code per active user per day, with an acceptance rate of 37% by software engineers using the platform.

In its first four months, Amazon CodeWhisperer generated more than 100,000 lines of code and automated around 12% of the tedious, repetitive and time-consuming tasks done by an initial group of volunteers.

BT Group has now made the solution more widely available to 1,200 of its engineers across the business.

In addition to wanting to boost productivity, BT claims “developers code more responsibly and securely” using Amazon CodeWhisperer which filters out suggestions that could be biased or unfair. The code companion also flags suggestions with a possible resemblance to specific open-source training data.

Amazon CodeWhisperer scans for hard-to-detect vulnerabilities and proposes code to remediate them.

Guardrails and training

The group says “a comprehensive set of guardrails have been put in place for the business’ software engineering community to ensure transparency, accountability, intellectual property compliance and data privacy are prioritised with Amazon CodeWhisperer in place”.

The roll-out has been accompanied by a custom pathway on BT Group’s Digital Campus learning platform, as well as a number of onboarding sessions.

The idea is to simplify employees’ working routine, while ensuring adherence to the guardrails and safeguarding policies as part of the business’ investment in its people, the operator says.

BT Group’s decision to implement Amazon CodeWhisperer has also been driven by the controls and openness it provides regarding training data, helping to manage risks around intellectual property claims.  

GenAI at scale

Deepika Adusumilli, Chief Data and AI Officer, Digital, BT Group said, “The adoption of generative AI solutions on this scale is not just a major milestone for BT Group, but for industry as a whole. It will equip our colleagues for a world of work that is transforming overnight, in turn delivering solutions for our customers quicker than ever before.

“Implementing coding assistance is step one in a wider enablement move for our digital colleagues in AI-supported product lifecycle management.” 

Fabio Cerone, Director, Telco Industry, EMEA at AWS added, “Building software applications needs developers to spend a lot of time writing lines of code that aren’t directly related to the core problem that they’re trying to solve.

“Amazon CodeWhisperer changes that. For BT Group, it helps the engineering community to finish coding tasks faster, allowing them to focus on the bigger picture of how they deliver the very best solutions for the business and their customers.”

Nokia trials multi-access edge slicing with e& 

Simon Dux
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0
Nokia trials multi-access edge slicing with e& 

The UAE operator will be able to use it to offer new premium slicing services across 5G, fixed wireless and fixed access on all devices

Long-time network partners Nokia and e& have announced they have trialled multi-access edge slicing which, when deployed, will offer the same subscriber experience across fixed and mobile access technologies. Using the tech, e& can offer premium slicing services across 4G/5G, fixed wireless access (FWA) and fixed access that can support several use cases and applications simultaneously. 

Although the tech hasn’t been productised – or tested on user’s willingness to pay more – the operator could activate the slicing to achieve several interesting user cases. For example, a 4G/5G smartphone user could send business-sensitive information using a secure and high-performing network slice while also participating in a video call using another slice at the same time. 

With a multi-sliced FWA or fixed network, a family could use one slice to access services such as HDTV streaming or cloud gaming while another slice could be used for home working via a laptop. Both slices could be tailored to have different network characteristics depending on their specific requirements such as routing, bit rate, QoS, latency and security. 

Nokia’s slicing supports laptops, tablets, game consoles, IoT devices as well as 4G/5G smartphones including new URSP (UE Route Selection Policy) capable multi-slice smartphones. It can also be used for on-demand network slicing. For example, a subscriber could order and activate a slice for a gaming application running at the edge cloud with an enhanced network performance, low latency, and sliced edge. 

“We are committed to driving the digital future by investing in new technologies and innovations and pave the way for revolutionising the industry,” said e& UAE CTIO Khalid Murshed. “We continuously focus on creating new value and multi-access edge slicing is an important step in providing innovative services for our customers.” 

“Working closely with e& UAE is very important in developing innovative solutions,” said Nokia head of strategy and technology, mobile networks, Ari Kynäslahti. “With this latest innovation we can enable operators to provide premium enterprise and consumer services that enhance the customer experience.” 

Multi-access edge slicing complements Nokia’s 5G edge slicing and recently announced edge cloud network slicing solution portfolio. Nokia has deepened its relationship with e& over a range of technologies. Last month the two announced they had successfully completed a cloud RAN trial with in-line acceleration over Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s ProLiant DL110 Gen11. That trial aimed to enable an enhanced 5G experience for end users and utilises e&’s existing mid-band carrier in the n78 (3.5GHz) band over its 5G standalone network. 

Unsurprisingly, Nokia and e& UAE will be showcasing multi-access edge slicing on a live network at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. 

Swiss Post partners Salt to spice up mobile market  

Simon Dux
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0
Swiss Post partners Salt to spice up mobile market  

However, the mobile market is crowded with MVNO offers so the plans may not shift consumers

Swiss Post has signed a strategic partnership with Salt to offer prepaid and postpaid “Post Mobile” services from its branches. Despite offering subscriptions, smartphones and telecom accessories from various providers in its branches for more than 20 years, Swiss Post has moved to a single partner.  

Featuring around 800 self-operated branches, Swiss Post has been opening up its premises and advisory services to major service providers from the health insurance, banking, insurance and healthcare sectors as well as to public authorities, enabling them to maintain their proximity to their customers – in effect creating new service centres across the country. 

Therefore, the step to prioritise a single mobile provider – Swiss Post is still tied to incumbent Swisscom for several ICT services – makes the sales advice simpler for branch owners, while Salt gets exposure to 350,000 potential customers every day.  

The two companies suggest the new plans will tempt “value-conscious” subscribers but as Moneyland.ch points out, while the subscriptions are considerably cheaper than the direct subscriptions from Swisscom, Salt and Sunrise, in many cases there are cheaper alternatives to the Swiss Post subscriptions, for example for smaller brands. 

Werberwoche lists the crowded market Post Mobile is entering. Offers from supermarkets Migros and Coop have been available since 2005. Today, the three mobile network operators work together with all major supermarket chains to sell mobile phone subscriptions under the brand names of Migros, Coop (both Swisscom), Aldi (Sunrise) and Lidl (Salt). The largest Swiss online retailer Digitec Galaxus also rents the Sunrise network for its subscriptions. 

Something different 

Swiss Post deputy CEO and head of PostalNetwork Thomas Baur still believes the branches will give the service something different to other MVNO offerings. “Our staff can provide our customers with targeted and personal advice on Post Mobile in Swiss Post branches,” he said. “And if you are browsing digitally, you can find the service online. This is fully in line with our efforts to make people’s everyday lives easy and uncomplicated.” 

Through the new subscription, Salt offers Swiss Post customers mobile access with a 5G network and 99.9 percent coverage. Salt is also the contractual partner when a subscription is taken out. “Thanks to the exclusive partnership between Salt and Swiss Post, we can combine our outstanding mobile network, our excellent customer service and four price plans with Swiss Post’s extensive distribution network,” said Salt CEO Max Nunziata. “This enables us to create nationwide access to the market for an attractive mobile service that provides an outstanding network experience.” 

The Start pack features free activation and “lifetime discounts”. It comes with 8GB in Switzerland and has unlimited calls and SMS in-country – all for CHF 9.95/month. The most expensive World plan offers free activation plus unlimited calls, SMS and Internet in Switzerland. It also features unlimited calls and SMS to Europe zone and 10 hours of calls to “Travel” zone, plus unlimited internet in Europe zone and “Travel zone” – all for CHF 49.95/month. 

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