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e& is now Vodafone’s apex stakeholder

Nick Booth
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e& is now Vodafone’s apex stakeholder

Former Etisalat is most valuable telco MEA 

Vodafone Group has lost activist investors and granted more controls to Etisalat, with UAE’s biggest telecoms operator upping its stake to 12%. Abu Dhabi-listed e&, formerly known as Etisalat, has raised its stakes in the UK telecoms group to 3.272 billion n shares, it has told regulators. Vodafone issued a statement saying that Emirates Investment Authority was now its Apex investment, up from 11% before. 

The UAE telecoms company said it bought the extra shares at an “attractive valuation”, with its investment rationale unchanged since May, when it bought a near 10% stake in Vodafone for $4.4bn. At the time it said it wanted “significant exposure to a global leader” in order to “leverage potential commercial partnership and realise future return on our investment”. In December 2022 it added more shares to own 11% and the new purchase of stock makes it the top investor.

Earlier this month activist investor Coast Capital relinquished its holding as it could no longer see “an attractive business model”, following in the wake of fellow activist Cevian which sold some stock in October and exited this week. Meanwhile e&’s existing portfolio of brands, worth over $14 billion, has made it the most valuable portfolio of telecom brands in the Middle East and Africa (MEA). According to the 2023 Brand Finance Global 500 Report released at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, e& has transformed into a global technology and investment conglomerate, achieving remarkable business growth and unwavering stakeholder confidence in 2022, according to Trade Arabia. Improvements in customer service, more people-focused products and new digital services across its specialist business verticals were attributed as factors in its resurgence.

Etisalat by e&, the group’s largest telecom brand, also retained its position as the strongest telecom brand across all categories in the MEA region, achieving a score of 89.1 out of 100 and a AAA rating, according to the report. It was also rated one of the top three telecom brands in the world, due to its market reach, operational capabilities and outstanding customer service record. “We will continue to earn trust by developing and innovating cutting-edge products and services that meet the needs of our 162 million subscribers in 16 countries across the Middle East, Asia and Africa,” said Hatem Dowidar, GCEO of e&.

Dowidar said that e& had made significant strides in Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and technologies supporting the emergence of the metaverse. “The group’s efforts were recently crowned by the declaration of e&’s net zero targets by 2030, marking a further step in confirming our commitment to reduce carbon emissions across our business and to step up our efforts for global climate action,” said Dowidar. Etisalat Group changed its brand identity to e& in February 2022, as part of a wider strategy to raise its brand profile globally. “As the telecommunication industry faces commoditisation, e& has taken bold steps to reposition its brand identity to unlock new opportunities,” said David Haigh, CEO and Chairman of Brand Finance.

The monetising of minors has got us Teched-Off say campaigners

Nick Booth
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The monetising of minors has got us Teched-Off say campaigners

Online Safety Bill latest 

The government agreed to toughen a proposed law with an amendment to the long-delayed Online Safety Bill which proposes jail sentences of up to two years for tech bosses for failing to protect children from content such as child abuse and self- harm. Technology executives could be jailed if they “consent or connive” to ignoring the new rules, according to a report in Reuters.

Child safety activist Teched-Off has stepped up the pressure on Online Abuse legislators, releasing YouGov research that indicates that most parents (78%) aren’t fully confident they’ve set adequate controls on their children’s devices, with 11% failing set any controls at all. Of the parents who haven’t set controls, 38% haven’t done so because they find them too confusing.

With children receiving their first phone at increasingly young ages, they are being lured into a world in which premature sexualisation is a danger. A parallel study by Teched Off found that 80% of parents are worried that their child/children is/are addicted to a device. “We’ve let tech organisations monetise our children’s attention and [they] are paying a profound price,” said Teched-Off founder Miranda Wilson, “TikTok, Instagram, SnapChat and YouTube revenues are all in the billions in no small part thanks to us parents losing control.”

Britain, like the European Union, has been grappling to protect social media users, and in particular children, from harmful content without damaging free speech. The UK bill was originally designed to create one of the toughest regimes for regulating platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. It aimed to make companies stamp out illegal content on their sites, such as revenge pornography and encouraging suicide.

Industry body techUK said threatening executives with jail would not help deliver an effective regime to protect children, but it would damage Britain’s digital economy. The bill’s ‘teeth’ will ensure compliance, it said, but the significant legal jeopardy for firms would make Britain a less attractive destination for investors.

Mavenir packs Open Beam and Open RAN and sends them on their FWA to the country

Nick Booth
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Mavenir packs Open Beam and Open RAN and sends them on their FWA to the country

Fixed wireless access set to ‘go rural’

Cloud software specialist Mavenir has blended its Open Virtualized RAN, Converged Packet Core and OpenBeam portfolio of radio units into a Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) system that could extend their remit enormously. The integration gives mobile network operators and broadband providers the chance to please consumers and businesses in urban and suburban areas with more options to select the best service that covers their needs at affordable prices, it claims. The Mavenir offering creates a low-footprint installation that straddles the public and private clouds.

The new technology blend promises to give mobile operators high throughput, the power to vary the quality of service, geo-restriction, home-zoning, discretionary charging and advanced power savings among other features. For rural areas, FWA provides higher downlink speeds than DSL and lower packet latency than most satellite internet service providers. This creates new use cases that were not possible in rural areas before, such as telemedicine, online education and working from home.

Mavenir’s FWA system supports 4G, 5G NSA (non-standalone) and 5G SA deployment. It works with massive MIMO radio technology and 5G millimeter wave frequency bands to create gigabit downlink speeds for multiple users in the same coverage area. This positions 5G FWA as a competitive alternative, according to Mavenir. “5G and Open RAN make it easier and more feasible to connect the unconnected and foster much needed competition,” said BG Kumar, Mavenir’s president of access networks and platforms.

Fixed wireless access in combination with radio formats like LTE and 5G give a much more stable performance than the 802.11-based links that are popular today, according to Joe Madden, chief analyst for Mobile Experts. In Madden’s tests, the packet loss of FWA with LTE was one eightieth of that from the wi-fi based link. “Four years ago, higher packet loss may have been acceptable, but not in my home environment,” said Madden. “For that reason, our forecasting anticipates a strong trend toward 3GPP technology in FWA,” said Madden, “Open RAN solutions will be popular for their low cost.”

Mavenir’s FWA is already used by Quickline in the United Kingdom.

EIB loans Iliad another €300m to expand FTTH in France

Annie Turner
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EIB loans Iliad another €300m to expand FTTH in France

This is the sixth loan granted to Iliad by the European Investment Bank – a total of over €1.4 billion

Iliad will use the latest loan of €300 million from the European Investment Bank (EIC) to take fibre into less densely populated and rural areas. The EIB describes Iliad as France’s main alternative fibre network provider.

In this tough economic climate, the EIB loan is a boon: the bank says its triple-A rating means, “this loan comes with very attractive financial terms and a long maturity of up to six years, which is particularly suited to the length and nature of the investments.”

In a statement the EIB said that the loan, “strengthens digital transformation, competitiveness and innovation across the French regions and supports both French and European connectivity objectives, which aim to provide every household with access to ultra-fast broadband by 2025”.

Grand total

The new loan brings the total amount of financing provided to Iliad by the EIB to more than €1.4 billion since 2009. Earlier this month, the bank loan Polish mobile operator Play, owned by the Iliad Group, PLN 470 million (€100.2 million) to “strengthen its ultra-fast mobile network”.

Iliad Group became Europe’s sixth-largest mobile operator in November 2022 by subscribers, excluding M2M, with more than 45 million subscribers.

Every year in France, Iliad Group invests an average of more than 30% of its revenues in expanding its network; an investment of more than €7.6 billion over the last five years. It Group has 7 million fixed-line subscribers in France, including more than 4.5 million fibre subscribers and more than 30 million connectible sockets.

Clearly a fan

“With this new loan, the EIB is renewing its support for a very loyal partner that has established itself as a leading player in the rollout of fixed and mobile networks across France and Europe,” enthused EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle.

“This new investment will enable this European champion to accelerate its roll-out of fibre and strengthen connectivity infrastructure, which has become just as essential as water and electricity supply networks…As a public bank providing long-term financing for major European projects, it is our role to make an active contribution in this area.”

Nokia creates 20Gbps Fibre superhighway for Telefónica España

Nick Booth
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Nokia creates 20Gbps Fibre superhighway for Telefónica España

No latency Lastres, Realtime Madrid,

Nokia has announced major boosts to Telefónica España and VodafoneZiggo in the Netherlands. Millions of customers of Telefónica España will be celebrating at the prospect of 20 Gbps of entertainment being delivered along fibre to homes across Spain, after the telco successfully tested a new breakthrough for fibre to the home (FTTH) infrastructure. The telco has been conducting trials of Nokia’s 25G passive optical networks (PON) technology. The concluding trial, the first in Spain to show symmetric speeds of 20 Gbps in action, proved that the 25G PON can co-exist with Telefonica’s existing GPON solution, making the rollout out of services much easier.

Across its business units in Europe Telefónica has around 60 million FTTH homes. It claims that if GPON and XGS-PON can co-exist seamlessly on the same fibre, then the whole of its FTTH is 25G PON’s oyster. In a release Nokia claimed the high speeds and low latency could be used to prepare the world for the Metaverse. However, Gonzalo Garzón, Head of Fixed Access at Telefónica España, had some more practical business cases in mind. Virtual reality and gaming are the apps most likely to grab the available bandwidth, according to Garzón. “New FTTH technologies give us even more opportunities than home connectivity. With their massive uptick in capacity we’ll be able to offer new business services on the same network,” said Garzón.

In gaming terms, the Quillion chipset has played a blinder, according to Bjorn Capens, Nokia Fixed Networks’ European, VP. “This proof of concept with Telefónica has demonstrated that the huge bandwidth-capacity can be easily added to their existing networks, co-existing with their existing PON technologies.” This means customers on the same fibre line can be served with GPON, XGS-PON or 25G GPON, making it much easier for mobile operators to manage their upgrade cycles.

Dependent on the optics chosen, 25G PON supports symmetrical bitrates (25Gb/s in downstream and 25G in upstream) and asymmetrical bitrates (25/10). Though usually located in telecom central offices, Nokia’s high-capacity access nodes are deployed for huge fibre roll-outs. At the start of January Nokia upgraded VodafoneZiggo’s IP interconnect network in The Netherlands, by putting 7750 Service Routers (SR) into 350 sites. It means the 350-location network can pipe terabytes of comms and entertainment services delivered to VodafoneZiggo’s consumer and business customers.

“We can aggregate the traffic from cable, fibre and mobile access services now,” said Leo-Geert van den Berg, Director Fixed Network at VodafoneZiggo, “our IP network can keep base with demand for capacity from the customers.” VodafoneZiggo will handle the next 10 years of traffic growth while cutting the rate of energy consumption, said Rafael de Fermín, Senior Vice President of the Network Infrastructure business in Europe at Nokia. “It’s a real sustainable investment for the future.”

Vivendi’s CEO suddenly exits TIM’s board

Annie Turner
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0
<strong>Vivendi’s CEO suddenly exits TIM’s board</strong>

French media conglomerate is largest single shareholder in the Italian operator

Arnaud De Puyfontaine, CEO of Vivendi (pictured), has resigned from Telecom Italia’s (TIM) board with immediate effect. The French media conglomerate Vivendi is the largest single shareholder in the Italian operator with 23.75%.

In recent years, TIM’s board board has mostly been at loggerheads as waves of plans for consolidation and other strategies have ebbed and flowed, and board members including CEOs have been forced out.

Nationalisation not consolidation

Currently TIM is engaged in complex negotiations with the Italian government, investors and potential investors, about the future ownership of some parts of or the entire operator.

Mostly the conversation now is around merging FiberCop, the entity that owns TIM’s fixed access network, and its international infrastructure unit, Sparkle.

Previously FiberCop was supposed to merge with competitor Open Fiber but this fell apart last November when Italy elected a new government with different ideas. The government wants a state-owned, national, high-speed fibre infrastructure but is not of the opinion this must necessarily be supplied by a single, consolidated provider and network.

What’s the net worth?

There are disagreements about strategy and valuations. Vivendi thinks that FiberCop is worth €30 billion if it is sold off, whereas some board members and the state-backed lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), which is the second largest shareholder in TIM with just under 10%, reckons its value is a lot closer to €18 billion – rather a large difference of opinion which has resulted in yet another boardroom stalemate.

In a statement, TIM says, “in this phase of constructive dialogue between TIM’s main shareholders and the institutions, under the new government’s leadership, it is fundamental that all the relevant parties may be free to work in a constructive and transparent manner to the benefit of TIM and all its shareholders”.

Target is TIM’s growth

Also that De Puyfontaine “considers it appropriate to devote his effort, as chief executive officer of Vivendi, to re-establishing a growth path for TIM and see to it that the real value of the company and its unique network is properly recognised”.

Apparently De Puyfontaine confirmed that “TIM and Italy remain central to Vivendi’s investment plans”. This sounds like the start of an epic battle of wills over the future of TIM and the value assigned to its different operations.

There is little detail around De Puyfontaine’s abrupt departure. It could be he feels it could smooth the way in the negotiations – certainly the French company’s different priorities have long stoked resentment and dissent in TIM’s boardroom.

Quantum leap for fibre optic networks springs from Bath

Nick Booth
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Quantum leap for fibre optic networks springs from Bath

Study sheds new light on performance under stress

Physicists in Britain has done the maths on optical fibre and found a way to make it more fault tolerant and robust. Their topological work found a work around to a problem at the core of this fragile medium, the fact that fibre can get bent of shape at the slightest touch. Now they have a formula to make the popular backhaul technology deal with stress more easily and cope with bigger workloads in future.

Though optical fibre has massively improved on copper cable’s groundwork for mobile backhaul networks, its cables can’t cope with being twisted or bent. Scientists in England’s University of Bath have had an eureka moment and found a solution to this design flaw, reports Ioanna Lykiardopoulou in The Next Web. Their work looked at the three elements: the core, the cladding, and the coating. When installed in a network, the core of fibre, the pathway for light that is created inside the cladding, can get twisted and bent, said Physics PhD student Nathan Roberts who led the research.

The manufacture of fibre-optic cable inevitable leads to small variations in the physical structure of the fibre and these distortions darken the light’s optimum pathway, degrading the signal between sender and receiver. Roberts’ team counters the effect of variations and defects by building more robustness into the fibre design. In searching for a solution topology, the mathematical study of the properties of geometrical objects that remain unchanged despite deformation, twisting and stretching, was called for, Roberts said. It has already been applied to physics and light research, but the Bath study is pioneering its use in optical fibre.

The physicists created a fibre that borrows from the lessons of topology and adds several light-guiding cores in the fibre, linked together in a spiral. Light can still travel between these cores, but is now designed to be trapped within the edge. These edge states are shielded from disorder in the overall structure. “By adapting optical fibres with topological design, researchers will have the tools to pre-empt and forestall signal-degrading effects by building inherently robust photonic systems,” Dr Anton Souslov, co-author of the study, explained. Currently, the researchers are looking for industry partners to further develop their concept for improving today’s backhaul network. The study has shown that fibre manufacturers can make miles of their ‘topological fibre’ wound around a spool.

The university is also keen to get the technology in front of the designers of tomorrow’s quantum networks where information could be transmitted across continents using the same topological principles, according to Roberts. The supporting networks for Quantum technology have to keep pace with a leap in storing and processing information but the quantum states of light with transfer information can be easily affected by the environment, which will present a massive. The study could be a design for preserving quantum information in optical fibres, the University claimed.

Semtech buys Sierra Wireless for $1.2 billion as storm brews in IoT

Nick Booth
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Semtech buys Sierra Wireless for $1.2 billion as storm brews in IoT

Positioning for ten billion dollar wave

Semtech Corporation has acquired Sierra Wireless for $1.2 billion, doubling its income with $100 million worth of high-margin IoT Cloud services revenues, it claimed in a release. Semtech expects the acquisition to be ‘immediately accretive to non-GAAP EPS’ and to generate $40 million of ‘run rate operational synergies’ within 18 months.

Semtech said it expects its IoT market to expand ten-fold into a ten-billion dollar bonanza by 2027. The combined company will have strong expertise in connectivity, be it high bandwidth cellular or ultra-low power LoR, according to Semtech CEO Mohan Maheswaran. This gives them expertise in IoT software and services, extensive knowledge of IoT hardware and software and the invaluable but under rated know how to negotiate the international sales channels and vertical markets. “We believe that Semtech is uniquely positioned to deliver a strong product portfolio and service model to customers across high growth IoT segments,” said Maheswaran.

Sierra Wireless has 30 years of leadership in cellular IoT and a strong and diverse device-to-Cloud IoT solutions portfolio, said Maheswaran. “Combine [that] with Semtech’s LoRa-enabled end nodes, and we are very well positioned to deliver a service that’s both differentiated and comprehensive.” Service providers need to offer detailed and yet all encompassing management before they can transform the world into a smarter, more sustainable planet, said Maheswaran, who is also Semtech’s president.

Former Sierra Wireless senior leaders join the Semtech leadership team in two newly formed business groups. Tom Mueller joins as executive vice president of the IoT System Products Group, which includes Semtech’s existing LoRa products business. Ross Gray joins as vice president of the IoT Connected Services Group. Pravin Desale also joins Semtech as the senior vice president of IoT Engineering driving product development of our new systems and solutions.

Zain Iraq towers are taken to Tasc

Nick Booth
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Zain Iraq towers are taken to Tasc

Sold for $180m, leased back

The Zain Group is to sell and leaseback its estate of 4,968 towers portfolio in Iraq to Dubai-based TASC Towers Iraq for $180 million. The 15-year lease agreement allows the telco to hand over the management of its passive infrastructure, while the tower specialist will use its know-how to sweat the assets and build at least 98 new tower sites being in the next year, a statement said. 

TASC Towers will take on the task of supporting Zain Iraq’s power generators, fuel tanks, shelters and other variable facilities in its ‘passive’ infrastructure. Zain Iraq will retain its active infrastructure, including wireless communication radios, antennas, intelligent software, transmission systems and intellectual property with respect to managing its telecom network.

TASC Towers is an international tower operator which specialises in buy-to-leaseback deals, builds new towers to order and makes tower related financing and investment deals in the MENEASA market (Middle East, North & East Africa and South Asia). As an independent tower operator, TASC Towers’ subsidiary in Iraq will optimise the co-location of mobile network sites with other telco operators in the country, making more profitable use of the mobile site infrastructure, making more efficient use of power, lessening the reliance on generators and lowering the industry’s carbon footprint, according to Bader Al-Kharafi, Zain Vice-Chairman of Group CEO .

Zain’s 4Sight strategy aims to create significant value for shareholders through the unlocking of capital and optimization, said Al-Kharafi, “The infrastructure assets will flourish under the management of an independent team.” The operational efficiencies will give Zain Iraq the power to invest in network upgrades and cutting-edge ICT technologies to keep pace with the surging demand for reliable and high-speed connectivity, said Al Kharafi “This landmark deal that will be instrumental in developing Iraq’s digital economy.”

This Iraq tower sale is the fourth tower transaction undertaken by Zain following similar pioneering deals including the transfer of 2,830 towers in Jordan, 1,620 towers in Kuwait and 8,100 towers in Saudi Arabia.  “Our independent operating model boosts the operational and carbon efficiency of passive tower infrastructure” said Iyad Mazhar, CEO of TASC Towers, “this encourages more mobile operators to in technology upgrades and connectivity speeds.”

FTI Capital Advisors acted as exclusive financial advisor to Zain Group on this transaction. 

Singtel showcases metaverse with SK Telecom

Annie Turner
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0
<strong>Singtel showcases metaverse with SK Telecom</strong>

The event is designed to “showcases capabilities of metaverse-ready network for consumer engagement”

On Monday, Singtel held its first metaverse event at the Singtel Comcentre in Singapore in partnership with SK Telecom, called Destination: ifland..

About 130 individuals, all winners of a contest that ran on Singtel’s Facebook and Instagram channels in December, took part in the showcase. They created avatars before entering the Singtel x ifland room where they met American singer-songwriter, Alec Benjamin, and had the option hanging out together in particpants’ own ‘rooms’.

This is the first public outcome the MoU the two operators signed December in which they agreed to work jointly on the metaverse. Singtel will provide 5G and other technology access to the metaverse initiative.

SK Telecom’s growth strategy

SK Telecom announced its strategy for global growth, in part via its ifland metaverse platform, in February 2022. It signed up Deutsche Telekom as its partner in Europe in May 2022 – the two have a long history of collaboration on technology.

In November 2022, SK Telecom launched the ifland platform in another 49 countries and now has at least some coverage in every region – Asia, the America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, although at the moment, it is only available in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

This surpasses the progress of Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, which put the metaverse at the centre of its growth strategy in October 2021. It has not been a notable success so far: in the first nine months of 2022, the besieged Meta lost a cool $9.4 billion on its metaverse subsidiary, Reality Labs, and has only launched its Horizon Worlds in seven countries.

Ifland is only available in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, but SKT plans to work with local partners on content relevant to each market. SK Telecom also intends to leverage k-pop to promote and boost the adoption of ifland, with a live k-pop concert every week, as well as putting on auditions for future stars and hosting virtual meetings with the stars and wannabes.

Will anyone use it?

SKT claims to have acquired a total of 12.8 million users of ifland since its launch in July 2021 although those figures do not give any indication of the degree of engagement and frequency of visits, usually expressed as monthly active users MAUs). However, MAUs are not made public by SK Telecom.

According to the Wall Street Journal report (paywall), Meta is believed to have set a target of 500,000 MAUs by the end of 2022, but that was reset to 280,000.

Internet as creator economy

On a more upbeat note, Anna Yip, CEO, Consumer Singapore, Singtel, commented, “The evolution of the internet is shifting towards a creator economy and immersive virtual worlds. This requires an ultra-low latency network with high-speed connectivity and higher bandwidth to enable the creation and delivery of an enhanced metaverse experience involving multiple users and augmented or virtual reality devices.”

She added, “In keeping with our focus of delivering unique and meaningful digital experiences to our customers, we’ll be working with our partners to develop and deliver more such use cases that demonstrate the capabilities of our metaverse-ready network.”

Destination: ifland is the first instalment in The Meta Guide, a series of metaverse-themed events Singtel plans to develop with SKT, to introduce new platforms and experiences in the metaverse for consumers to explore. More details anon.

Ifland’s availability

Ifland is now available in Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Rwanda, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, the US, Tunisia, Turkey and Vietnam.

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