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Italian government wants more time to consider KKR netco bid

Annie Turner
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Italian government wants more time to consider KKR netco bid

The deadline has been moved to 24 March

The Italian government has asked the private equity firm KKR to give it four more weeks to consider the investor’s offer for Telecom Italia’s (TIM’s) netco

KKR has agreed and the deadline has been moved from 24 February to 24 March. TIM said in statement that the government wants to “carry out an analysis of the public aspects of the transaction concerning the powers exercisable by the government in the sector,” noted TIM in an announcement.

TIM’s planned board meeting on 24 February will go ahead to “discuss KKR’s non-binding offer and take the appropriate decisions”. No official value has been set for KKR’s bid but it rumoured to be about €20 billion. 

Previously the government has said it wants what it describes as critical infrastructure to pass into public ownership, while there are a number of other interested parties and shareholders involved.

Strategic imperative

Although she did not make any direct comment about TIM, last week at Capital Markets Day, Orange’s CEO, Christel Heydemann, probably spoke for many in Europe when shestressed the importance of regulation and the strategic value of telecoms infrastructure.

She said, “People are realising what’s happening, which is that some traditional operators cannot [afford to] invest in infrastructure anymore… So many infrastructure firms are coming to invest, to acquire the infrastructure.

“Obviously tech players are capturing some value, but what’s going to happen in five to 10 years if we actually don’t know who owns the infrastructure that is so critical for the security and resilience of Europe? This is a political debate. This is not for us as companies to decide, but this is where we all have a strong voice – as European leaders we need to change something.”

Like many others in the industry, she is pinning her hopes on the European Commission’s imminent consultation on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and the possibility of Big Tech contributing to telecoms capex. She added, “Again, the objective is to make sure we can, for the long term, continue to invest in our infrastructure and understand who owns the infrastructure”.

It remains to be seen if the Italian government will plump for euros now instead of control of one potentially of the biggest drivers of its economy and security.

Orange, Vodafone to share Open RAN networks in rural areas

Annie Turner
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Orange, Vodafone to share Open RAN networks in rural areas

Cooperation will be in within European countries where both have networks

Orange and Vodafone have agreed to build an Open RAN with RAN sharing it in rural parts of Europe where they both have mobile networks. This is the first such agreement between the two.

The first commercial sites to be deployed under this agreement are scheduled for this year in a rural area of Romania, near Bucharest. They will provide “an initial real-life experience of this new operational model” based on the integration of multi-vendor hardware and software, paving the way for wider scale deployments, according to their joint statement.

Orange and Vodafone are individually selecting strategic vendors for this initial build phase. Testing the Open RAN solution on a live network will continue throughout 2023, allowing a like-for-like comparison with legacy networks. The aim is to confirm the feature and performance parity between Open RAN and traditional RAN solutions, before expanding the Open RAN sharing blueprint to other markets. 

Commitment to being open

Today’s announcement reinforces the companies’ commitment to Open RAN as the technology of choice for future mobile networks across Europe. Both were also involved in the pledge to build their support for Open RAN this year with a focus on the areas of maturity, security and power efficiency, along with Deutsche Telekom, TIM and Telefónica.

The five also published a white paper on those topics, available from here.

Last year the five signed a Memorandum of Understanding MoU in support of Open RAN in Europe back in January 2021. The companies’ commitment to Open RAN also supports the European Commission’s ambitious target to have 5G in all populated areas by 2030.

The agreement between Vodafone and Orange should give each greater flexibility when adding new radio sites or upgrading existing ones, while keeping the cost and energy consumption low. This model will serve as a blueprint to extend 4G and 5G networks to rural communities across Europe. 

Michaël Trabbia, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Orange, said: “Romania…is a significant milestone on the road to wide-scale open RAN adoption across Europe. It is a major step towards agile and fully-automated networks, unleashing the potential of virtualisation and AI to boost performance while driving both infrastructure and operational costs down.

“In particular, Open RAN is a great opportunity to take network sharing to a whole new dimension, with even higher operator differentiation thanks to the ability for each of the partners to tune its network more independently according to its promises towards its own customers.”

New software on old hardware

Alberto Ripepi, Chief Network Officer of Vodafone, said: “By combining resources, we will reduce the cost of hardware, minimise fuel consumption and the need for duplicate sites whilst eradicating coverage not-spots. 

“Open RAN also means we can more quickly add new software features without necessarily replacing the hardware components, which is often the case today. This minimises any disruption to service and ensures customers in rural areas receive the same upgrades as those in the cities.” 

Under existing sharing agreements one operator is typically responsible for all the component parts of a shared site, with both operators using the same RAN vendor or software release, and life cycle management. 

Each company can tailor services and capacity to their specific customers’ needs, while ensuring strong and secure isolation between each operator’s data. This is in line with the priorities that have been developed under the MoU signed in early 2021, referenced above.

MVNO of the Year Awards 2023

Annie Turner
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MVNO of the Year Awards 2023

Submission deadline – 1st September 2023
Winners announced – 4th October 2023

The Mobile Europe MVNO of the Year Awards look to reward leading mobile virtual network operators based in Europe & MEA, across two Awards: Consumers’ Champion MVNO of the Year and Business Innovation MVNO of the Year.

The inaugural Awards will build on the success of Mobile Europe’s CTO of the Year Awards spanning the last decade, which are renowned across the telecoms industry.

The Awards will recognise one of the most dynamic and innovative sectors in telecommunications: according to Future Market Insights (FMI), the global MVNO market is valued at $70.3 billion in 2022 and likely to reach $147.7 billion by 2032. Prescient & Strategic Intelligence predicts the European MVNO market generated $27,748.1 million revenue in 2020 and will grow at a CAGR of 5.8% during 2020–2030 to $48,762.8 million.

The European MVNO market suffered a slight downturn during the pandemic, but now is growing by supporting disruptive digital services like mobile money, cloud services and machine-to-machine transactions, leveraging technologies like 5G, AI, machine learning and IoT.

The Consumers’ Champion MVNO of the Year Award will be given to the European, Middle Eastern or African MVNO that is deemed always to put the best interests and superior experience of its consumers customers’ first. This could range from simple pricing models and/or enabling customers to switch packages easily to self-service customer care, fostering communities, a creative approach to loyalty or bringing extra value to families or other tightly-knit groups.

The MVNO landscape is becoming more complex with some platform-based providers offering services to B2B to MVNOs, as well as to the B2B MVNOs themselves.

The Business Innovation MVNO of the Year Award will be given who are innovating to bring additional value to the B2B MVNO ecosystem.

To submit your entry

Download and fill in the entry form and  send to Tiffany Amorós tiffanya@sjpbusinessmedia.com by 1 September 2023.

We will notify you in September once the shortlist has been selected by the panel of judges. Those shortlisted will be invited to a virtual roundtable discussion on 4 October 2023, after which we will announce and celebrate the winners. Trophies will be dispatched shortly afterwards

Contact us with queries – we are here to help you make your entry as good as it can possibly be.

Pivotal accelerates WaveScape development with Intellias

Kent R. Lundgren
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Pivotal accelerates WaveScape development with Intellias

Sponsored: Wavescape boosts lower frequency planning while Intellias helps doubles development output

Pivotal Commware followers know that its Holographic Beam Forming (HBF) technology was a breakthrough in electro-magnetic physics with, yes, order-of-magnitude advantages over legacy beam forming systems in Cost, Size, Weight, and Power consumption (C-SWaP). HBF became the technology kernel of the world’s first product ecosystem dedicated to solving millimeter wave’s most vexing challenges for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). 

Inventing five products from scratch – Echo 5G subscriber repeater, Pivot 5G network repeater, Intelligent Beam Management System (IBMS), WaveScape™ network planning tool, and Pivotal Turnkey, an end-to-end deployment solution – can stretch company resources to the breaking point.  This is why Pivotal outsources some WaveScape development to Intellias, a global engineering company founded in Ukraine and operating in 14 countries in the world.

Pivotal developed WaveScape in-house after determining that existing lower frequency RF planning tools were inadequate for modeling more deterministic and line-of-sight-based mmWave frequencies.

Pivotal looked to Intellias for its experience with high resolution data sets because WaveScape ingests the highest-resolution GIS data available to perform accurate line-of-sight calculations and raytracing to qualify individual residential units for fixed wireless access (FWA). WaveScape ingests other data as well, like candidate locations of gNodeBs as well as sites that can host Pivot 5G repeaters like utility poles, lamp posts, and private building corners that a carrier may have access to.  All this accumulated data requires cloud-computing skills, which is another strength of Intellias.

As expected, Intellias has helped Pivotal double its development output since the relationship began in early February 2022.  When Russia invaded Ukraine a week later, Pivotal expected a hit to business continuity, but it never occurred. Intellias has developed a relocation policy across the country and accelerated the globalization pace by opening new offices in Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Spain, India, Colombia, and UK. These steps ensure Intellias’  continued contribution to the new WaveScape features like MDU Optimizer™ and 3D visualization.

About Pivotal Commware, Inc.

Pivotal Commware created the world’s first product ecosystem dedicated to solving millimeter wave’s most vexing challenges: WaveScape® network planning tool for optimizing the placement of network elements, Pivot 5G network repeaters for navigating signals around obstacles, Echo 5G subscriber repeaters for penetrating signals indoors through window glass, and Intelligent Beam Management System platform for managing and optimizing the repeater network. Pivotal repeaters use its patented antenna technology, Holographic Beam Forming® for lowest cost, size, weight, and power consumption (C-SWaP). Pivotal Turnkey Services is an end-to-end solution for planning and deploying fixed wireless access (FWA) for Mobile Network Operators. The company is privately held and headquartered in Kirkland, Washington. For more information, visit www.pivotalcommware.com.

About Intellias

Intellias is a global technology partner to Fortune 500 enterprises and top-tier organizations, helping them accelerate their pace of sustainable digitalization. Intellias empowers businesses operating in Europe and the US, as well as the MENA and APAC regions, to embrace innovation at scale. The company has been featured in the Global Outsourcing 100 list by IAOP, recognized by Inc. 5000, and acknowledged in Forbes and the GSA UK Awards. With two decades of experience, Intellias is geared towards ensuring the sustained success of clients on their value journey. For more information, visit www.intellias.com.

The author

Kent R. Lundgren is VP Marketing, Pivotal Commware

Ooredoo Qatar announces plan to sell towers, build data centres

Nick Booth
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Ooredoo Qatar announces plan to sell towers, build data centres

Passive assets for sale, active assets to scale

Qatari telecom operator Ooredoo is busy planning to sell off its telecoms towers and other passive property in an auction to be held later this year, CEO Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo told Bloomberg TV. The prospect of investing in tower companies has excited interest among a number of infrastructure equity investors, as well as Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund and specialists such as American Tower Corp.

The firm has already been contacted by at least 50 regional and international bidders and is currently in the final round of talks, said Fakhroo, who said the company is hoping to announce something “before the end of the first half of this year.”  

In September Ooredoo announced a plan to shift to an asset-light model, which would involve divestment of its portfolio of almost 20,000 towers. The state-controlled operator last year sold its Myanmar business for an enterprise value of $576 million and is also considering carving out its data centre unit.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, American Tower, IHS Holding Ltd. and Helios Towers Plc were among suitors weighing a bid for the tower assets, which could be valued at $3 billion to $5 billion.

Ooredoo is committed to investing up to $1 billion in its data centres over the next five years to grow its capacity, Fakhroo said. “We’re bringing in investors to help us accelerate this catalyst of growth.” 

Data centres typically attract strong interest from investors as they are seen to generate stable returns and growth amid increasing reliance on technology. Unlike the potential towers sale, Ooredoo plans to invest in the data centres by potentially bringing in external investors, Bloomberg reported in October.

This week the telco began clearing its debts in order to avoid being stung by interest rate hikes, repaying nearly $1 billion of bonds and $500 million of a revolving credit facility. This was the largest debt repayment in its history. “We have no major debt maturity until 2025, so we think we are extremely well-positioned to weather any future rate hikes,” said Fakhroo.

CTO of the Year Awards 2023

Annie Turner
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0
CTO of the Year Awards 2023

6th June 2023 @ Telecoms Europe LIVE, Central London

The annual CTO Awards and Roundtable is one of Mobile Europe’s flagship initiatives, started in 2014 and enjoying enthusiastic reception and engagement from operators ever since.

Over the years, we have enjoyed the participation and insights from CTOs or equivalent top-tier technical executives heading mobile operators from Europe as well as Middle East and Africa, including Telefonica, Orange, T-Mobile, Elisa, Telenor, Etisalat / e&, Tele2, A1 and many others.

We have also evolved the criteria in keeping with industry trends as well as world events – e.g. in 2022, the Judges have voted unanimously to give a special Above and Beyond Award to Volodymyr Lutchenko, CTO of Ukraine’s Kyivstar (who also joined the Roundtable).

The Mobile Europe CTO of the Year Awards 2023 will see leading network operators based in Europe and beyond, competing for two Awards:

  • THE TRAILBLAZER who can demonstrate that their company is offering services beyond connectivity – what additional services are on offer and to whom?  
  • THE GAMECHANGER is responsible for carrying out the core business but not as usual – creating efficient and effective infrastructure and operations and business models that make use of technologies such as AI, analytics, automation, open platforms and APIs.  

The winners will be unveiled at the conclusion of the CTO Roundtable taking place at our Telecoms Europe LIVE event on 6th June 2023 in Central London, to which all the shortlisted CTOs will be invited.

To qualify

If you are the CTO (or equivalent) of a fixed, mobile or converged network operator you can submit your own entry or enter on behalf of your CT(I)O.

To submit your entry

  • Download and fill in the entry form AND EMAIL TO US BY THE CLOSE OF BUSINESS ON 5TH MAY 2023 following these simple guidelines:
  • Make it personal: the entry must be about the individual and the particular attributes, experience and approach they bring to their role, rather than about the company per se. We want to understand this person’s contribution to the company, which of course is likely also to impact staff and the corporate culture, and customers as well as suppliers and partners.
  • Keep it short – 1200 words in total, please, choosing the boxes that are most appropriate for the nominee and adding others if necessary. You are welcome to include hyperlinks to brief supporting material.
  • Contact us with queries – we are here to help you make your entry as good as it can possibly be.

The judging panel

The judges (see below) will meet virtually in closed session(s) in May 2023, and draw up a shortlist and decide on the winners. Their decisions will be both impartial and final.

Virtual roundtable and Awards ceremony – 6th June 2023 in the Boardroom at Telecoms Europe LIVE in Central London.

All entrants who make the shortlist will be invited to attend a behind-closed-doors roundtable with their peers ahead of the Awards being presented at its conclusion.

     
  Kester Mann
Director, Consumer and Connectivity
CCS Insights
 

Bengt Nordström
Managing Director, Accenture Sweden
Founder & CEO, Northstream 

  Caroline Gabriel
Research Director, Networks
Analysys Mason
 

Annie Turner
Editor
Mobile Europe

Covering communications infrastructure and digital services in EMEA

Trustonic brings order where there is KaiOS

Nick Booth
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Trustonic brings order where there is KaiOS

Partners will protect revenue for MNOs

KaiOS the modernising operating system that converts 2G relics into smartphones, is to be fortified UK-based cybersecurity specialist Trustonic.  Under the terms of a new partnership the mobile operating system will be given a device locking feature supplied by Trustonic, to discourage losses by mobile operators. Trustonic’s Telecoms Platform uses the science of ‘nudge’, to encourage customers to adopt better payment habits by reminding them to pay outstanding bills on time. Should a customer not be able to pay what is owed, the platform can lock their device remotely until payment has been received.

Singapore based Kaios was created in order to ‘close the digital divide’ by allowing phone users in developing countries to upgrade their 2G phones into smartphones as their national infrastructure is modernised. By bringing the best of smart feature phones with affordable prices and smartphone-like experiences, KaiOS has gained massive popularity in emerging market countries over the last 5 years, where affordability prevents millions of people from accessing smart features phones.

UK-based Trustonic embeds cybersecurity into smart devices and connected vehicles to secure revenue and invent new options for power savings, while ensuring reliability. Its telecoms systems help mobile operators, retailers and financiers grow revenues without incurring additional commercial risks.

In forming this new Pan African partnership with Trustonic, KaiOS will now come with locking options as standard. This enables mobile operators and retailers to increase their customer base, without the risk of smartphone delinquency or bad debt. As a result, millions of consumers across emerging markets, like Africa, will be able to access and afford 3G/4G-enabled devices, increasing smartphone penetration while reducing the digital divide. 

“Trustonic’s Telecoms Platform is an innovative technology solution to wider smartphone affordability while shielding mobile operators from the financial burden of late or missed payments through its remote device locking capability,” said Trustonic sales VP Craige Fischer. “Mobile operators and retailers can say Yes to more customers and overcome the growing smartphone accessibility challenge.”

When margins are tight, device financing programmes like this are invaluable to operators, said Dale Strydom, Business Development Director MEA of KaiOS.  “Through this partnership, KaiOS and Trustonic will offer consumers Smart Feature Phones at affordable monthly instalments. This initiative enables new & 2G users to migrate to 4G enabled devices, thereby providing access to data rich services like social media, messaging, educational and banking service.”

Trustonic was initially created from a joint venture between ARM, Thales and G&D. Today, it counts the world’s leading car makers, financial institutions and mobile operators as customers, as well as every tier-one Android handset maker. 

KaiOS Technologies powers an ecosystem of affordable digital products and services and exists to empower people around the world through technology. Kai’s mission is to open new possibilities for individuals, organisations, and society by bringing mobile connectivity to the billions of people without internet in emerging markets, as well as providing those in established markets with an alternative to smartphones.

Nokia and Bosch position the factory of the future

Nick Booth
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Nokia and Bosch position the factory of the future

Networks go beyond comms

As Bosch and Nokia Bell Labs enter their sixth year of collaborating their complementary skills have given them also mystical skills, according to Peter Vetter, President of Bell Labs Core Research at Nokia, who has foreseen a future where networks do far more than communicate. Soon, 5G will track connected devices more precisely than satellites, in places satellites can’t reach. “In the next decade, 6G will be capable of sensing all objects in their coverage areas regardless of whether they contain active radios,” said Vetter, “We are creating networks that will endow humans with a digital sixth sense.”

Vetter’s declaration came as Nokia and Bosch announced progress in their jointly developed 5G-based precision positioning technology, which was originally intended for new Industry 4.0 use cases. The two have deployed the proof of concept in a Bosch production plant in Germany, where extensive tests under realistic manufacturing conditions have shown an accuracy within 50 cm in 90% of the factory footprint. The positioning technology tracks mobile and portable devices connected to the 5G network, accurately determining their positions in places where no global navigation satellite service coverage is available, such as factories, warehouses or mines. As part of the factory test, an new improved private 5G network pinpointed the precise position of assets such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs), mobile robots and mobile control panels – tracking their movements throughout the plant in real time.

Traditionally, 5G positioning works by measuring the time it takes for mobile signals to travel from a mobile device to different base stations and anchor nodes in the network. As signals take longer to reach nodes that are further away, the positioning system can triangulate its source. Nokia and Bosch have built on that premis by equipping 5G nodes with multiple receive antennas, by which the network can detect the incoming angles of signals. Advanced Nokia Bell Labs algorithms interpret this time-delay and angle-of-arrival information to determine the most probable position of the mobile device. Their proof-of-concept achieves a level of accuracy well beyond the current cellular position state-of-the-art, providing a sneak peek at what 5G networks, both public and private, will be capable of in the future.

Precision localisation is important for many applications in heavy industry, such as robot navigation, asset tracking and worker safety. Achieving high-performance connectivity and high-accuracy positioning within a single private network’s infrastructure has many operational benefits. It can simplify IT infrastructure, cut the total cost of ownership (TCO) and bring higher returns on investments.

“Knowing the location of things is very valuable information in manufacturing,” said Andreas Mueller, the Chief Expert on 6G activities at Bosch. Usually there are separate systems for connecting and locating devices, but this may be done via an integrated private 5G solution in the future. The proof-of-concept where the future of the factory may lie.

Nokia and Bosch have worked together since 2017 when they developed industrial IoT and sensing systems. Nokia and Bosch have begun conducting joint research in the next generation of networking, investigating how future 6G networks could be used for both communications and sensing when they are commercially available by the end of the decade. While 5G has the potential to determine the location of devices connected to the network, 6G will have the ability to track the position of any object – whether connected or unconnected. This will allow 6G signals to function similarly to radar, giving users an awareness of their surroundings beyond their traditional senses.

Europe’s top telcos pledge support for Open RAN 

Nick Booth
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Europe’s top telcos pledge support for Open RAN 

Focus on three areas of maturity, security and power efficiency

Five major European telco groups have pledged to build their support for Open RAN communications on three major planks in the coming year. The telcos will adhere to three common disciplines that involve applying the standards defined by the O-RAN Alliance and 3GPP security specifications, adopting a universal zero trust approach and pledging to plug any security gaps reported by the O-RAN Alliance.

Meanwhile, a new whitepaper, Open RAN MoU Progress Update on Maturity, Security and Energy Efficiency, addresses questions and challenges raised by experts and decision makers within the industry. As global deployments numbered in tens of thousands Open RAN is matching traditional mobile radio networks for features and performance, claims a Vodafone release. Further pilots are planned this year and full-scale deployments will materialise across Europe in 2025.

Addressing standards

“Standards should address the challenges raised by Open RAN. With this White Paper we intend to help relevant industry communities to move closer together, avoiding fragmentations, in order to unlock the full O-RAN potential with great benefits for the customers,” said Elisabetta Romano, Chief Network, Operations & Wholesale Officer of TIM (pictured).

The report says the key areas of focus for the operators in 2023 will include assisting with wider use in highly populated towns and cities, strengthening cooperation with national authorities on security, including the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), and improving energy efficiency in all components, particularly radio transmitters and cloud infrastructure. 

This is the latest in a series of reports available to all vendors, operators and stakeholders of the new Open RAN ecosystem from Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, TIM and Vodafone. Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in early 2021, the operators individually committed to working with all industry players to make Open RAN the technology of choice for future mobile networks, and bring its substantial benefits to consumer and enterprise customers across Europe.

Three main aspects

Today’s report sets out the operators’ agenda for 2023 under the three main topics of maturity, security, and energy efficiency. In summary they are:

A key focus in 2023 will be around maturity of 5G for urban areas and minimising system integration overheads by maturing certification delivered through industry communities.

Advances in security are to be discussed at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, MWC23, after the telcos requested to formally include Open RAN as part of the GSMA security assurance scheme (NESAS) and the EU’s 5G certification scheme defined by ENISA.

 Reports such as the EU NIS Co-operation Group’s assessment of Open RAN security, published in June 2022, have helped to develop strong security controls for specification, development, procurement, system integration, testing and operations.

Meanwhile the availability of energy efficient hardware combined with ‘sleep modes’ is helping Open RAN at least match the energy efficiency of existing mobile sites. Open RAN MoU operators are collaborating with the industry to increase the energy efficiency of all the Open RAN components, with particular focus on radio transmitters and cloud infrastructure. 

As ever, the network’s transmitter (in this case the Open RAN radio units) consume the most power. Currently, their energy efficiency already falls within the typical range seen with traditional RAN, and will further improve thanks to dynamic sleep mode based on actual traffic needs, said Vodafone.

Better energy efficiency

The energy efficiency of cloud infrastructure is improving, thanks to advances in CPU and accelerator (special silicon chip) technologies, as well as cooling systems for servers. In addition, the operators are proposing a general framework for energy monitoring of all appropriate parts of the Open RAN system, including real-time reporting, tools and methodologies to achieve greater automation.

The aim is to present the resulting framework for standardisation in ETSI for a harmonised methodology to be used across the whole industry.  

“Any major proposed change to a vendor ecosystem that has been in place for decades will understandably raise questions,” Alberto Ripepi, Chief Network Officer (CNO) of Vodafone, “By publishing this report, we aim to allay any fears about Open RAN’s suitability as the technology of choice to foster greater vendor diversity and take Europe forward in the digital era.”

Open RAN MoU

Under the Open RAN MoU, the companies are preparing technical guidelines as inputs to industry bodies to help new and existing vendors develop software and hardware that is interoperable. The purpose is to foster a competitive Open RAN ecosystem, promoting openness and flexibility.

The Open RAN MoU group of signatories also agreed to further advance various aspects of the Open RAN ecosystem through a set of actions. These include: the participation in Open Ran-focused R&D projects; the support for edge computing initiatives in Europe; attention to compliance with evolving European security initiatives; and greater interworking between industry communities, such as TIP and the O-RAN Alliance, and standardisation bodies like 3GPP.

Buyers eye Trooli fibre altnet in UK

Annie Turner
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Buyers eye Trooli fibre altnet in UK

Potential acquirers include Virgin Media O2 and its parent companies

Trooli, a fibre altnet provider in the UK, is up for sale. A number of buyers are eyeing it up, including Virgin Media O2 and the two groups who own the joint venture, Liberty Global and Telefónica.

The price tag is expected to be more than £100 million, Sky News says.

Liberty Global, Telefónica and InfraVia Capital Partners set up Nextfibre as a fibre altnet the UK last year with the goal of passing 7 million premises. Virgin Media O2 is its anchor client.

Trooli’s aims are more modest – to pass 1 million premises in rural and semi-rural areas in south-east England by the end of 2024. Having failed to secure another round of funding last year, it has been seeking a new investor or buyer since.

The UK has more than 100 altnet fibre providers, consolidation is to be expected, and especially as tougher economic conditions begin to bite.

At the beginning of February, one of the largest, CityFibre, announced the loss of 400 jobs – about 20% of its workforce – as it seeks to cut costs The Telegraph reported.

Regulatory issues

Regulation is also having a big impact: Cityfibre, other alt-net providers and their backers have complained to regulator Ofcom that planned wholesale price cuts, by BT’s semi-detached access division, Openreach, will inhibit investment in fibre build-out to the tune of £20 billion. Openreach’s new pricing structure, known as Equinox 2, was announced last December.

Also in December, CityFibre lodged a Competition Act complaint with the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) and Ofcom that alleges, Openreach, BT’s wholesale access arm, “undertaking an aggressive strategy to foreclose infrastructure competition in the UK fibre broadband market.”

Previously CityFibre unsuccessfully appealed against Equinox 1 in December 2021, taking issue with Ofcom’s decision-making process – how it reached its conclusion regarding the fairness of the pricing.

Others weight in early in 2022, with BT and Sky Broadband supporting Ofcom’s decision on Equinox but smaller altnets like County Broadband, Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre and others taking CityFibre’s part.

Objectors to Equinox 2 must file them with Ofcom by 4 March Consultation: Openreach Proposed FTTP Offer starting 1 April 2023. Opinion seems to be that Ofcom will wave it through as it did Equinox 1. If that is the case, consolidation is likely to accelerate.

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