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Syria’s new operator, Wafa, has hidden links to Iran

Annie Turner
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Syria’s new operator, Wafa, has hidden links to Iran

The connection to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard was unearthed by two non-governmental organisations

Wafa Telecom, which was given a licence to operate in Syria in February has been found to have links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This is according to research carried out by the Organised Crime and Corruption and Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Observatory of Political and Economic Networks (OPENSyr).

The awarding of a third mobile operating licence for Syria was massively delayed by the civil war and was originally scheduled for 2011.

The main operator, Syriatel, has more than 11 million subscribers – the country’s population is around 17.5 million. The second operator, MTV Syria, has operated in the country for 15 years, but reportedly took the decision to pull out of the market last year after various regulatory shenanigans and demands for licence payments.

Wafa was set up in 2017, when the Syrian government said the firm was domestically owned, but little was made public about its ownership. Later it become known that Wafa was owned by a Syrian businessman with connections in the Assad government, and was allowed to buy kit from Iranian vendors, which are under an international trade embargo.

Formal partnership?

Now investigations by OCCRP and OPENSyr reveal that several international businesses linked to the IRGC are among Wafa’s shareholders. It quotes an anonymous source identified as a Syrian businessman and former government official claiming Wafa is “a partnership between the Syrian government and the Revolutionary Guard.”

The report says that 48% of shares in the state operator were held by Wafa Invest, a domestic firm co-founded by Yasar Ibrahim – a former aide to Assad who faces US and EU sanctions for acting as his financial proxy. At some time later, Wafa Invest’s stake in the operator fell to to 28%, with state-backed Syria Telecom gaining ownership of the 20%.

The majority (52%) shareholding in Wafa Telecom was held by Arab Business Company (ABC), which the Syrian government maintained was locally owned. The reports found that the Malaysian-registered Tioman Golden Treasure has substantial connections through both current and past owners and officials to both companies and individuals linked to the IRGC –many of which are subject to international sanctions.

Before Wafa was granted the operating licence, Iran was pressurising Syria to allow an Iranian-owned operator into Syria’s market as Tehran was keen to gain some return for its support of the Assad regime. It looks like maybe it succeeded.

Vodafone UK’s mobile network gains a digital twin

Annie Turner
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0
Vodafone UK’s mobile network gains a digital twin

The 3D network representation involved mapping more than 40 million features like buildings and trees

Vodafone has created a 3D digital twin of its UK mobile mast network so its engineers can visualise and plan network improvements or expansion. “It will allow them to make instant decisions to improve services to customers without leaving their desks,” the statement says.

In Ofcom’s Q2 report, published in October, concerning the most complained about operators, Vodafone’s score was average for mobile.

The digital twin was produced by mapping more than 40 million features like buildings, hills, valleys and trees, using software from Esri. It gives engineers a 360-degree virtual view of the network from their laptop or mobile device over a secure connection.

They can plan where to position new mobile sites more effectively and identify which ones need upgrading or repositioning to meet increases in customer demand, or to compensate for the construction of new buildings or tree growth.

De-cluttering

Dr Rebecca King, Geographic Information System (GIS) Lead at Vodafone, explained: “A customer’s mobile phone might cut out due to what we call clutter.

“This is usually down to the construction of new buildings or seasonal tree growth interfering with the signal strength. We like to visualise these in a digital format so that we can better plan the expansion of our network around them.”

Approximately 500,000 network features such as antennas, along with billions of rows of network performance data can be presented visually. Engineers can inspect a component of a mobile base station remotely before deciding if truck roll is necessary.

The company is looking to test a digital twin service in other markets, such as Germany and Turkey, and is exploring options for an intelligent online replica of both mobile and fixed broadband networks.

Minecraft for data scientists

Boris Pitchforth, Lead Architect at Vodafone, said: “The digital twin gives us an unprecedented understanding of our entire UK mobile network – it is like Minecraft for data scientists.

“We can be smarter and faster about how and where we add new 5G features, and target capacity increases with greater precision. There’s also the added benefit of being able to reduce our carbon footprint as our engineers won’t need to make as many site visits, especially to masts in remote areas.”

Working with the UK arm of Esri, a global leading Geographic Information System (GIS), location intelligence and mapping company, Vodafone used satellite data to map the terrain, including land use such as crops, transport links and height data of neighbouring objects.

“The digital twin doesn’t need to exactly replicate objects in the real world such as the individual bricks of a building, only its dimensions, so that we can angle the signal to give customers the best possible connection. The simpler the map is, the faster it loads,” added Boris Pitchforth.

Large-scale digital twin
Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise platform combines web mapping, image exploitation, real-time data handling, large-volume batch analysis and spatial data science.

“Using ArcGIS Enterprise has allowed us to add the spatial dimension to a lot of data we were already working with, resulting in new levels of location intelligence,” continued Dr Rebecca King. “Through our digital twin, data can now be visualised in 3D and shared easily with multiple teams.”

In addition to introducing the digital twin to other countries, Vodafone also plans to use it to support the rollout of new network features such as Massive MIMO – providing more capacity at a single cell site – to meet the proliferation of connected devices, which are predicted to grow globally to 30 billion by 2025.

“A few years ago, a national digital twin of this type simply wasn’t possible,” said Boris Pitchforth. “But the combination of ArcGIS Enterprise in AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud means large-scale digital twins can be a reality, providing a secure, scalable cloud option for enterprise data visualisation and geospatial analytics.

“Similar projects in the utilities sector, for example, traditionally focus on smaller areas but we wanted a national model in line with our network.”

Vodafone Tech 2025 strategy

The move forms part of Vodafone’s Tech 2025 strategy to automate large parts of its pan-European network to be able to rapidly respond to customer demand where it is needed most. About 70% of the company’s core European network runs on Vodafone’s own, on-premise cloud.

This will increase to 100% by 2025 and give Vodafone a software-driven platform from which to launch universal products in many markets at the same time, as well as predict and dynamically meet future demand.

A common data ocean connecting all Vodafone markets uses advanced AI and Machine Learning to empower tens of thousands of its employees. They can plan and operate the networks, intelligently manage data centre cooling, and dial-down the power at mobile sites during off-peak times.

Italy’s government eyes state-control of Sparkle

Annie Turner
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0
Italy’s government eyes state-control of Sparkle

The international arm of Telecom Italia had managed to stay out of on-going wrangles group wrangles so far

Reuters reports that the Italian government wants to bring Sparkle back into state control.

The plan emerged after the government started talks last week with leading TIM investors Vivendi and state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) to identify “the best market-friendly options” for the phone group by the end of the year.

TIM also gained a prominent new board member in the form of Massimo Sarmi, the head of the national telecoms lobby, two other sources said.

Sarmi’s appointment was originally promoted by Vivendi but latterly was endorsed by Giancarlo Giorgetti, the Minister for the Economy. The two are said to be close.

Sarmi could help scupper the plans of TIM’s CEO, Pietro Labriola, the central plank of which was to sell its national network to CDP to create a single network champion, bringing its smaller broadband unit, Open Fiber, into the fold with it.

This has got tangled up in issues about valuation and regulation and was parked on the back burner by the government in November.

Sarmi, is said to be connected to ruling centre-right party in power. He is not a fan of the single network plan, wanting the government to address the fundamental problems that bedevil TIM first.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s administration is trying to gain control of TIM’s fixed network to create a wholesale-only player to boost broadband roll-out and speeds for Italians.

All that glisters…

Now it seems the new government wants Sparkle in state hands because of sensitivity of the data it carries, apparently, oh yes, and to raise money from it.

Sparkle is 100% owned by TIM. It manages half a million kilometers of  undersea fibre cables stretching between countries in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Americas.

Industry sources indicate Sparkle is worth almost €1 billion.

Meanwhile, back with Labriola

Labriola meanwhile has had meetings with representatives of Global Infrastructure Partners to discuss potential investment in its broadband infrastructure.

KKR already owns a stake in TIM’s local loop network. Its attempt to acquire control of TIM was rebuffed earlier this year, but it is still interested in gaining a tighter grip on the fibre broadband infrastructure.

The government owns what the Brits call a golden share, meaning that it can approve or veto any transaction. Apparently there will be at least three more government-sponsored meetings with TIM’s stakeholders this week.

BT Global and BT Enterprise to be ‘reduced’ to BT Business

Annie Turner
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0
BT Global and BT Enterprise to be ‘reduced’ to BT Business

How much longer can BT retain full ownership of its access division and tower estate?

BT is to consolidate its BT Global and BT Enterprise divisions into a single BT Business unit. The head of BT Global, Bas Burger (pictured), will lead the new entity; Rob Shuter CEO of BT Enterprise will leave the operator after a two-year stint in that role. Burger has been Global CEO since 2017.

The move was flagged back in November, as neither has fared well for some years. BT is saying that synergies and deduplications will save it at least £100 million in gross annualised savings by the end of the financial year 2024-2025. This is part of the drive to make annual savings of £3 billion by that time. The target was raised from £2.5 billion in November.

Currently the two separate business divisions cost about £6.5 billion to run – or just over a third of BT Group’s total annual operational expenses.

Mergers are not silver bullets

Mergers whether between two internal divisions or as a result of two separate entities coming together can be extremely difficult to combine due to disparate cultures, processes, systems, products and services, developed over many years. More fail than succeed in delivering the expected synergies. No doubt more details will emerge on this front in due course.

The time, cost and effort required to integrate them successfully is frequently seriously underestimated and its challenging to ensure that customer experience and service doesn’t deteriorate in the process.

Also in this case, the hope it that two negatives will create a positive. This works in grammar and multiplication, but creating a successful business from two ailing ones is far less certain. And the main driver appears to be saving money rather than customer experience, for instance.

On the upside, the organisational chart will look neater with just three customer-facing units – business, consumer and Openreach. But as BT continues to thrash about in the shallows, you have to wonder how long it can retain full ownership of its access division and tower estate before being forced to sell at least a stake in them to raise funds and reduce debt.

* Reduce is term used in cooking to mean thickening of a soup or sauce or any other liquid to intensify the flavour and take up less room by heating it to evaporate excess liquid.

Spain’s Deputy PM resurrects ‘fair contribution’ debate

Annie Turner
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0
Spain’s Deputy PM resurrects ‘fair contribution’ debate

The topic looks likely to dominate the agenda and remain a highly divisive issue in 2023

Spain’s deputy prime minister, Nadia Calviño, is keeping the ‘fair contibution’ debate alive. Bloomberg reported her saying, “If we want to continue making the necessary investments in technological infrastructure, we need everyone who uses and benefits from them to contribute to financing that investment”. 

Spain is a fiercely competitive market with the highest fibre penetration among Europe’s larger countries.

Proponents

The subject looks like it will dominate the European Union’s agenda in 2023. It is propelled by industry associations such as the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association (ETNO), which kicked off its campaign in November 2021, and provided some controversial ‘evidence’ in March, and the GSMA and the operators themselves.

For example, four of Europe’s largest operator groups – Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone – made a public appeal to the European Union via an open letter published in the Financial Times [subscription required] for support in making Big Tech companies towards the cost of carrying the traffic they generate which was timed to coincide with MWC.

They also highlight action taken elsewhere, such as in South Korea which is suing Netflix for all but breaking the internet with consumers streaming its Squid Game at the end of 2021.

Opponents

Opponents, like Google, point to the principles of net neutrality while critics such as John Strand, founder and CEO of Strand Consult, says this is a red herring as the EU regulation on net neutrality has no bearing on the issue, and is being used as a “smoke screen”.

Strand believes the European telcos are not being unreasonable or asking for the impossible, adding, “Google has paid such fees to South Korean broadband providers for some time [and] this has not slowed the rate of adoption of FTTH subscriptions, which have increased for the last three years and now stand at 86.6% of total broadband connections, the highest in the OECD. This fact discredits Brittin’s statement [Matt Brittin is Google’s EMEA President] that transit fees reduced [operators’] welfare in South Korea.”

Others argue subscribers already pay the operators for the bandwidth they use while operators complain they are too heavily regulated (including what they can charge consumers) while the streaming services are hardly regulated at all.

Sitting on the fence

In October, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) raised the temperature when it stated it could find no merit in the operator’s argument after a preliminary assessment of their claims. However, some parties are less than impressed by BEREC’s modus operandi, reasoning and transparency – with Strand Consult being one of its most severe critics.

Previously the European Commission has resisted operators’ calls to force the handful of Big Tech companies which between them generate most of the internet’s traffic, but clearly it is feeling the heat.

Reuters reported Thierry Breton, European Union’s Internet Market Commissioner, that there would be a consultation on the matter in early 2023. Breton’s responsibilities include the digital economy and industry. He also ran France Télécom before it rebranded as Orange in 2006.

The consultation is expected to take five or six months. Whatever the outcome, one thing is guaranteed, somebody is going to be unhappy.

MTS and super-app aboya hit 20m monthly subscribers

Annie Turner
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0
MTS and super-app aboya hit 20m monthly subscribers

Bloomberg reports telecoms group considering sale of smaller opcos in West Africa

MTN, in partnership with ayoba, reached the milestone of 20 million monthly active users earlier this month ­– up from 10 million at the same time last year.

The ayoba super-app was developed in partnership with MTN and is available globally to all networks, but focuses on Africa. The platform is part of MTN’s Ambition 2025 strategy and targets 100 million monthly active users by 2025, and was launched to rival WhatsApp, owned by the company formerly known as Facebook.

Ayoba supports call, chat and share, and offersmore than 150 free content channels, covering sports, fashion, beauty, news, comedy, health, entertainment, education, empowerment and more. Users receive free daily data in participating markets: content is updated daily and available in English, French, Arabic and select local languages including isiZulu, Kinyarwanda and others.

Looking for growth

ayoba says growth was led by its music streaming service with the number of streaming session up 174% in 2022. In early December, year-on-year growth for messaging was 125%, games were up 208%, while micro-app sessions increased 322%, with 85-million stories posted by users to their networks. 

Ayoba isn’t the only game in town: Vodacom launched the VodaPay wannabe super-app in late 2021 and reports more than 3.5-million downloads, 2.2 million of which were by registered users.

The key markets in MTN’s footprint, which are also key to ayoba, include Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda and the Republic of Congo.

Separately, Bloomberg reports MTN is considering selling off some of its smaller opcos in West Africa, but not its key markets of Nigeria and Ghana, to focus on core markets with higher growth potential – such as from mobile money and data sales – according to unidentified sources.

It has a presence is West African countries including Benin, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Liberia. MTN has been refocusing on Africa and withdrawing from the Middle East since 2020. Last month it sold its Afghanistan business to Beirut-based M1 New Ventures for $35 million.

2Africa lands in South Africa

Also this week, MTN South Africa and MTN GlobalConnect, in partnership with a consortium, landed a 45,000km subsea cable in South Africa. This is part of its plans to build a subsea network to connect African countries to Europe and the Middle East.

MTN says that Africa’s big economies have a fast-growing population of internet users, with growth fuelled by rapidly expanding mobile broadband networks and affordable smartphones, but the continent still lags behind the rest of the world in internet connectivity.

“Data traffic across African markets is expected to grow between four and five fold over the next five years, so we need infrastructure and capacity to meet that level of growth and demand,” MTN Group Chief Executive Ralph Mupita said in a statement.

The subsea cable project, called 2Africa, will support the western and eastern sides of Africa once complete in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

Mobile roaming urgently needs some TLC

Dario Betti
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Mobile roaming urgently needs some TLC

Roaming is falling apart as operators decommission older networks, deliver poor customer experience and uncertainty about charges

Roaming – one of the great liberations of the mobile age – requires the complex organisation of mobile operators, phone manufacturers, masts, and regulatory bodies working together seamlessly. It should be one of mobile’s greatest technical achievements but many travellers are finding their phones don’t always work abroad – even in areas that were perfectly covered before – and bills are far from worry free.

When I landed at an airport in Las Vegas, I received an SMS from my mobile operator: Please note, major operators in the US have closed their 3G networks so your services might be impacted. This vague message was followed by a link to a website that was not working.

Another mobile operator (I have several phones) informed me that most probably I would not be able to make phone calls or send/receive SMS within the US, but I could still get data, depending on which phone I had. A follow up SMS confirmed prices of $6 per MB, or about $1200 to watch a Netflix video in low quality for 90 minutes (equivalent to my phone bill for the next 10 years).

A third mobile operator was little better: the gist was that I was lucky to get an SMS in the first place, and perhaps I’d be better off using a messaging app over Wi-Fi.

This is not a unique experience – mobile operators are allowing roaming fall to pieces.

Eradicating older networks

Many mobile operators are in the process of decommissioning their older networks (2G and 3G), in favour of more efficient 4G and 5G networks, but the newer networks are not yet fully supported for roaming by all operators.

Hence we appear to be going backwards, not forwards, to the point I’m wondering if roaming can survive.

More work is needed from mobile operators to protect one of the true successes of the mobile revolution. Here’s my list of what they need to do for roaming to thrive again:

Supporting VoLTE roaming is a must

A lack of international roaming has multiple effects for high-value customers: not receiving an SMS can block a bank transaction or a payment, and phone calls are still an important part of business and private communications. Patchy or non-existent coverage while roaming is unacceptable.

Mobile operators are reducing their value by not providing a consistent connection. Support for 4G and 5G roaming is essential – or customers will go elsewhere.

Build services

Operators must build a robust and reliable network to provide universal service and to sign commercial deals that will get customers connected overseas. If customers can reliably travel to any country and use their mobile phone for voice and SMS, they will likely be happy to pay the premium.

Alternatively, and this is better suited to low-cost operators, rather than spending time, money, and resources building a universal network, they could build packages of OTT services, such as free WhatsApp messaging and voice calling, so that users can use their data allowance (already carried via the 4G network).

Whichever option mobile operators take, their pricing strategy will be very important and must reflect the market, competition and the level of service customers can expect. If prices are too low, they could make the market unviable, but too high and customers will find workarounds.

Create easy to use international packages

In the age of apps, self-service and high customer expectations, some mobile operators are struggling to share information and build packages that allow users to feel in control during international trips. Daily passes, capped spending and many other tools have been created in the market to provide the transparency and worry-free billing that can make roaming easy and enjoyable. Operators should copy best practices.

While roaming is a premium service, don’t gouge customers

A few operators give roaming a bad name; it is every operator’s duty to control and manage their roaming prices. Prices are negotiated by the originating and the visited network and it must be a common goal to set a fair, affordable price for roaming.  Operators must ensure roaming services work effectively. If a customer is paying a premium, they had better receive the service they expect.

Keep it simple and be clear

One of the major challenges from the 2000s was the complexity of overlapping technologies consumers had to contend with. They needed the right handset with the correct signal banding for the destination country, the right mobile operator with the correct services enabled and the right products to provide the connection. These issues were ironed out more than 10 years ago. Today, people don’t want to deal with such complexity.

Whatever solution an operator chooses (building roaming networks, or putting together OTT packages for roaming customers), communicate with the customer and let them know what they need to do. For example, allow them to download configuration settings before they set off, tell them exactly what is included in the package or which services work in which countries. For example, some countries, like the UK, are dominated by WhatsApp while others have their own popular equivalent; in Korea the majority of people use KakaoTalk, commonly known as KaTalk.

Keeping pace with technology can be tricky and developments move at a different pace around the world. In South Africa, most mobile users use 3G, with a sizeable percentage still on 2G. In the US, on the other hand, 3G networks are largely decommissioned. 

Technology should not be an excuse for poor service. Customers can easily compare services across different operators to find one that works, is reasonably priced, and helps rather than hinders them while travelling.

Conclusion

Phone calls and SMS are seen by many as fundamental services that all operators should provide. Make it easy and seamless for customers and they’ll be happy; make it difficult and inconsistent and they’ll leave in search of greener pastures – and maybe ones from which operators make less or no money.

To help futureproof the mobile industry, it must give customers what they want and need in a way that is easy and accessible for them. By getting roaming right the industry can keep customers happy and stop them looking for alternatives when they travel and will help prevent them churning when they get home. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dario Betti is CEO of Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF), a global trade body established in 2000 and headquartered in the UK with members across the world. As the voice of the mobile ecosystem, it focuses on cross-industry best practices, anti-fraud and monetisation.

The Forum provides its members with global and cross-sector platforms for networking, collaboration and advancing industry solutions.

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Apple launches iPhone 14’s Emergency SOS service in four European countries

Annie Turner
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0
Apple launches iPhone 14’s Emergency SOS service in four European countries

The use of satellites to fill gaps in cellular and Wi-Fi coverage became a growing trend in 2022

Apple has launched its Emergency SOS service, available on iPhone 14 models, in France, Germany, Ireland and the UK, a month after the service started in the US.

Users of iPhone 14 can contact emergency services even when they do not have cellular or Wi-Fi coverage via satellite or use the service to reassure family, friends and colleagues via the Find My app by sharing their location.

Apple will provide the Emergency SOS service more countries next year.

The service is bundled with iPhone 14 models and free for two years. It is unclear what Apple will charge for the service at the end of those two years.

Minding the gaps

Filling gaps in mobile and Wi-Fi coverage with satellites from a smartphone, rather than needing a specialist satellite device, is something of a growing trend. In August, T-Mobile US and Space-X announced a Coverage and Beyond plan across the US and said that eventually they intend to extend the service internationally working with other mobile operators, for US customers roaming abroad.

In the first instance, the service is free of charge on T-Mobile’s “most popular” plans.

Earlier this month, AST Spacemobile announced it had secured a further $75 million in funding. It describes itself as “building the first and only global cellular broadband network in space to operate directly with standard, unmodified mobile devices based on our extensive IP and patent portfolio.

“Our engineers and space scientists are on a mission to eliminate the connectivity gaps faced by today’s five billion mobile subscribers and finally bring broadband to the billions who remain unconnected.”

Omnispace and Lynk Global have similar plans. It’s getting mighty crowded up there.

Stargazing

Interestingly, one of CCS Insights’ predictions for 2025 is that a telecom provider will emerge that claims to offer global coverage, with the worldwide service mainly achieved through satellite connectivity which can cover extremely wide areas and is aimed at world travellers and high net-worth individuals.

It will be supported by the operator’s fixed line and mobile networks, cloud-edge infrastructure and extensive roaming partnerships. CCS Insights also predicts that any telecom provider making such a claim will face detractors that claim there are substantial caveats.

BT extends Nokia partnership with five-year analytics deal for fixed nets

Annie Turner
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0
BT extends Nokia partnership with five-year analytics deal for fixed nets

Data will be fed to front-line call centre agents dealing with customers’ complaints about their home Wi-Fi and other issues

BT Group has expanded its partnership with Nokia to include a five-year deal for the vendor’s AVA Analytics software for fixed networks. BT’s share price had a small filip as the news broke.

The software should improve BT’s network monitoring using AI, most notably, and in turn improve its subscribers’ experience, according to Nokia.

The deal will also improve Nokia’s dashboard solution, Homeview, to give BT call centre agents a real-time, full view of the operator’s network, from individual subscribers to devices, to help them quickly correct access and in-home issues, and “provide the best service across all its phone and digital channels”.

BT will use AVA Analytics to automate workflows with embedded analytics to improve operational efficiency and, BT hopes, to improve its net promoter scores (NPS).

The right home setting

AVA Analytics combined with Nokia’s Home Device Manager and Service Management Platform will enable BT’s 6,000 or so customer care agents to remotely manage over 10 million Wi-Fi connections, with more than 100 million actions taken each day to optimise customers’ home broadband experience.

Nick Lane, Managing Director for Consumer Customer Services at BT, said the move “is another demonstration of our commitment to providing the best customer experience by investing in AI, analytics, and other state-of the-art technology.

“Our partnership will help BT’s customer service agents provide the best service across all phone and digital channels and continue to make BT the only network to answer 100% of customer calls in the UK.”

Hamdy Farid, Senior Vice President, Business Applications at Nokia, said, “Nokia AVA Fixed Network Insights is a critical component to helping operators improve network diagnosis and troubleshooting processes, while reducing unnecessary manual fixes. We are very pleased to be taking our partnership with BT to the next level with this agreement.”

Vodafone Group tests Hazy future use of synthetic data

Annie Turner
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Vodafone Group tests Hazy future use of synthetic data

Synthetic data, created from real datasets using AI, speeds accessibility of production data

Hazy, which specialises in synthetic data, has carried out a proof of concept (PoC) with Vodafone Group R&D and Vodafone UK, trying out synthetic data for training and testing machine learning models to manage customer value.

Machine learning models were trained using large amounts of customers’ data. Vodafone Group R&D team used internal metrics and those built into Hazy’s software to evaluate the synthetic data they created. The team concluded the synthetic dataset preserved the performance of the machine learning model, saving the team time, cost and in some cases “even” improving the model’s performance.

The PoC went live in eight weeks, during which the Hazy team worked alongside Vodafone’s team so it could generate synthetic data itself. The complete training phase of the data generator took one minute: using established methods, it could take as long as several weeks to access production data or create a test dataset manually. 

After the PoC

After the PoC Vodafone Group is now considering the best ways to use synthetic data capabilities, identifying and and prioritising future use cases for various types of synthetic data.

Luke Ibbetson, Head of R&D at Vodafonesaid, “We are really excited about the potential of Hazy Synthetic Data. Our team was impressed with the quality, utility and usability of the generated datasets, as well as the software’s ease of deployment.

“We are keen to explore the power of a synthetic data platform for Vodafone teams to access useful synthetic data. This software could be a powerful, cross-function tool, saving time, increasing productivity of data science teams, accelerating project deliveries, and enabling us to operate more efficiently.”

Harry Keen, ​​CEO at Hazy,said “Thanks to the close working relationship developed with the Vodafone team and a great choice of data set for customer value management, we were able to rapidly develop a synthetic version that met the success criteria for privacy, speed and fidelity.

“We are looking forward to building on this success to operationalise the value of synthetic data across the group.”

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