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Orange Polska offers 8Gbps in 39 cities plus Wi-Fi 7

Simon Dux
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Orange Polska offers 8Gbps in 39 cities plus Wi-Fi 7


Operator is the first to offer Wi-Fi 7 in the country and can reach 2.5 million households with new service

Orange said it is the first operator in Poland to provide a device with Wi-Fi 7. The operator has rolled out an improved Funbox 10 supporting Wi-Fi 7 for customers taking ultra-fast home internet – with a speed of up to 8Gbps – which is available in 39 cities, reaching around 2.5 million homes and businesses.

The Funbox 10 is equipped with a port with a speed of up to 10Gbps, as well as 4 ports with a speed of up to 1Gbps. The operator said Wi-Fi 7 is also a response to the growing requirements for the performance or capacity of the home wi-fi network, in which the number of connected devices, including smart home solutions, is growing dynamically. 

Funbox 10, supporting Wi-Fi 7, can be obtained when purchasing an Orange Światłowód offer – for home or business – and choosing a speed of up to 8Gbps. This applies to both a standalone service and package offers. The monthly fee for the equipment is PLN 4.99 including VAT. As part of the winter promotion for individual customers, which has just started, choosing Orange Światłowód up to 8 Gbps with television – in addition to the Funbox 10 – users get six months of subscription for PLN 0, Netflix up to six months for PLN 0 and the Eleven film package for 2 years as a gift. 

Going after market share

The operator, which is due to unveil a three year strategy soon, has seen its shares drop to their lowest in 12 months this January. The market seems to be spooked by a combination of improving bond yields issued by the Polish government, doubts over future dividend levels and a cautious approach to Orange’s incoming strategy. 

One response to boost earnings is to chase further market share. In addition to buying three cable operators to gain access to a further 105,000 households for fibre recently, Orange has pulled together new offers for customers looking to port onto its network with their numbers. In addition to a 5G mobile subscription and a 5G smartphone together from PLN 60 per month with discounts, for home, the operator is recommending ultra-fast fibre with a half-year subscription for free, Netflix for six months as a gift and the Eleven Package for free for two years. 

This offer provides film, series and sports entertainment for users of all ages. Orange said the promotion also applies to packages with fibre with a speed of up to 600Mbps and higher (up to 1Gbps, up to 2Gbps). 

When signing a new subscription contract in Plan XS for 24 months, users receive access to 5G internet (5GB package in the country and roaming in the EU) and unlimited calls, SMS and MMS from PLN 45/month. Orange recently made 5G available to individual customers using mobile subscriptions and prepaid offers, who previously did not have such an option in their tariff plans.

New business offer

As part of Orange’s new business offer, firms can save up to PLN 1,665 + VAT – with the XL Business Plan. They receive discounts: PLN 720 + VAT on the subscription (for new and transferring the number), up to PLN 540 + VAT discount for a smartphone (value for Samsung Galaxy S24 FE 5G) and a PLN 405 discount on the Premium Smartphone Protection service.

A new and cheaper solution is the S Business Plan with Xiaomi Redmi 13C 5G – at the promotional price of PLN 61 + VAT/month. The contract and instalments are for 36 months. A new edition of Price smart deals for companies is also starting, according to Orange. 

GlobalConnect joins proposed Polar Connect to avoid Red Sea routes

Annie Turner
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0
GlobalConnect joins proposed Polar Connect to avoid Red Sea routes

Nordic consortium aims to link Europe, Asia and the US with new subsea cable that is expected to come online in 2030

A Nordic consortium is exploring the possibility of building one of the largest ever European digital infrastructure projects – a subsea cable linking Northern Europe, East Asia and the US via the Arctic. The Project, Polar Connect, has been granted €4 million from the European Commission to fund the project phase: Polar Connect Step 1.

Today, 90% of all data communication between Europe and Asia passes through the Red Sea which is “a route increasingly impacted by geopolitical challenges”. Polar Connect proposes to take a safer and shorter route via the Arctic to reduce latency and improve resilience.

GlobalConnect has decided to join the consortium whose other members are Vetenskapsrådet via Sunet, NORDUnet, Polarforskningssekretariatet and Danmarks Tekniske Universitet. GlobalConnect is a leading digital infrastructure and data communication provider in the Nordic region, carrying more than half of all data traffic in and out of the Nordics.

GlobalConnect delivers fibre-based broadband services to more than 830,000 private consumers and end-to-end connectivity to 30,000 B2B customers via its 243,000 km fibre network across Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Finland. GlobalConnect employs about 2,000 people and had a turnover of SEK 7.6 billion (€661 million) in 2023.

GlobalConnect has several years of experience in deploying subsea cables in Scandinavia, recently completing the largest digital infrastructure project in the Nordics for the last decade, a 2,600km cable from Northern Sweden to Berlin, capable of transporting all data in the Nordics.

An ambitious long-term project
Polar Connect Step 1 starts in 2025, with bottom surveys of the optimal route and other preparations being made. The Swedish government is discussing the build of a brand-new ice breaker vessel, capable of breaking through ice 4m thick and unexplored Arctic ice. When the cable is laid, the new vessel will be used alongside the Swedish ice breaker Oden (pictured, in the Artic Ocean). The cable will be deployed at a depth of 4,000m in the Arctic Ocean and is scheduled for use in 2030.

In December, Meta also announced it would build its own subsea cable to avoid trouble spots, including the Red Sea. The route will form a rough W starting from the US’ east coast, to Cape Town in South Africa, then Mumbai in India, with an offshoot to the Indian city of Chennai, before landing at Darwin in northern Australia and the last leg back to the the US west coast.





Alvarez-Pallete ousted at Telefonica board meeting

Annie Turner
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0
Alvarez-Pallete ousted at Telefonica board meeting

His replacement, Marc Murtra, has links with the public sector and government – last year the state acquired a 10% stake in the operator group

Telefonica’s long-standing Chair and Group CEO, Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete (pictured) was asked to resign as at a board meeting on Sunday and complied. He will be replaced by Indra’s Marc Murtra as Executive Chair of the company, subject to shareholders’ approval. Already it seems some unions are expressing their concern at what is seen in some quarters as a boardroom coup by the state.

The press release says, the board meeting adopted a resolution for “termination of the contract signed with Mr. José María Álvarez-Pallete as Executive Chairman of Telefónica’s Board of Directors, and to request him, in accordance with the provisions of Article 12.2.a) of the Regulations of the Board of Directors, the resignation from his position as Director”.

Uneasy state

Apparently the state, which owns 10%, or thereabouts, of the operator was keen to replace Alvarez-Pallete as chair. He has served as Chair and Group CEO since 2016, meaning a great deal of executive power was concentrated in one individual’s hands. It seems that Alvarez-Pallete was only informed the day before about the board’s desire to terminate his contract.

The state’s holding was bought in response to Saudi Arabia’s stc acquiring a stake of approximately 10% in 2023. Operator stc is owned by the Saudi sovereign fund. Although a substantial shareholder, it has no formal representation on the board. The press statement said the change was appropriate, “in view of the company’s new shareholding structure” and the desire of some shareholders for a “new stage” in leadership.

Álvarez-Pallete was elected for another two-year stint as chair of the GSMA last October. Much of the day-to-day running of Telefonica has long been delegated to COO Ángel Vilá and CFO Laura Abasolo who assumed those roles in 2017.

The Spanish information technology company Indra said on Sunday that Angel Escribano Ruiz will replace Murtra as company director and chairman of the board.

More about Murtra

Murtra is an Industrial Engineer from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyers Industrials de Barcelona (ETSEIB), of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. He also holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Leonard School of Business at New York University.

He is an independent Director of Ebro Foods and member of its Executive Committee and Audit and Control Committee, plus a director of Industria de Turbo Propulsores and trustee of the Fundación Bancaria Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona, known as La Caixa. La Caixa also owns a stake in Telefonica.

Murtra began his career at British Nuclear Fuels then worked for the Management Consultancy DiamondCluster, engaging with large technology companies.

Here’s what seems to be the kicker though: Murtra has held public responsibilities for several years, where he was a specialist in Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation and Public-Private Partnerships. In this role he served as general manager of Red.es, as well as the chief of staff for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Commerce of the Government of Spain. 

He has been Managing Partner of the Board of Closa Investment Bankers, as well as Manager of CREA Inversión, and he boasts an extensive knowledge of the tech industry.

He is an Adjunct Professor of Financial Management and Financial Economics and the Master of Science in Finance and Banking at the Pompeu Fabra University, where he teaches Business Administration and Economics undergraduate students.

Telia Company makes changes to group executives

Annie Turner
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0
Telia Company makes changes to group executives

Holger Haljand becomes Head of Telia Finland; Giedrė Kaminskaitė-Salters gains extra responsibilities and the hunt for a new leader for Estonia is underway

Telia Company has announced that Heli Partanen, Senior Vice President, Head of Telia Finland and member of the Group Executive Management team, will leave her position to pursue external opportunities.

It has appointed Holger Haljand Senior Vice President, Head of Telia Finland and member of the company’s Group Executive Management team from 1 February. Haljand has held a range of positions since joining the Telia Estonia management team in 2014 and is currently Head of Telia Estonia.

At the same time, Giedrė Kaminskaitė-Salters (pictured) has been appointed Senior Vice President, Head of Telia Baltics and member of the Group Executive Management team as a representative for Lithuania and Estonia. She will continue her current role as Head of Telia Lithuania.

Telia is recruiting a new leader for Telia Estonia, who will report to Kaminskaitė-Salters. In the meantime, Andre Visse, CTO of Telia Estonia, is acting Head of Telia Estonia.

Haljand and Kaminskaitė-Salters report to Patrik Hofbauer, Telia Company’s President and CEO.

Hofbauer commented, “Holger’s business acumen, customer focus, and track record of building high-performing teams and delivering growth make him an ideal leader for Telia’s team in Finland – a market where we see opportunities to strengthen our position.

“Giedrė’s expertise and drive have been key in our ongoing Baltic success story, and will make a significant contribution to our Group Executive Management team.

“I want to thank Heli for being a valuable member of Telia’s leadership and for her many contributions during her extensive career in the company, and I wish her all the best in her next steps.”

More information on Telia’s Group Executive Management team can be found here.

EXA Infrastructure to acquire Aqua Comms for $54 million

Simon Dux
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EXA Infrastructure to acquire Aqua Comms for $54 million


The sale at a knockdown price is the latest of Digital 9 Infrastructure’s divestments but also bolsters EXA’s transatlantic routes

Digital 9 Infrastructure has entered into a definitive agreement to divest its subsea fibre business Aqua Comms to EXA Infrastructure, the portfolio company managed by I Squared Capital, for net proceeds of approximately $48 million. The sale price reflects a 28% discount to Aqua Comms’ $75 million valuation as of 30 June 2024, and a 36% discount post-transaction costs. And, unlike data centre valuations, marks a large decrease from the $283 million valuation reported on 31 December 2023.

The company put this down to a range of issues including the inability to fund growth projects in Asia and ongoing price compression in the global subsea fibre market. The latter is certainly a signal that further consolidation will be inevitable. The planned transaction is expected to complete in approximately 12 months, subject to customary closing conditions.

The divestiture follows the recent sale of the EMIC-1 subsea cable – with completion expected by March 2025 – and is part of Digital 9 Infrastructure’s managed wind-down strategy. That cable was sold at a 15% discount to its most recent valuation of $49.6m at at 30 June 2024. That project was impacted by ongoing war in the Red Sea area, which Digital 9 has said led to an indefinite delay to its final construction completion. 

Aqua Comms is an Ireland-based service provider specialising in operating submarine cable systems and supplying fibre pairs, spectrum and wholesale network capacity to the global content, cloud, carrier & enterprise markets.  It is the owner/operator of America Europe Connect-1 (AEC-1), America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2), CeltixConnect-1 (CC-1) and CeltixConnect-2 (CC-2) and is part of a consortium that owns/operates the Amitié cable system (AEC-3).

New owner EXA Infrastructure operates over 150,000km of digital infrastructure across 37 countries, including 20 cable landing stations. “The acquisition of Aqua Comms demonstrates EXA Infrastructure’s commitment to build a modern and diverse Transatlantic platform to fully serve AI, cloud and content demand, now and in the future. The combination will offer our customers more routes, more capacity and increased diversity, all on a scaled platform” said EXA Infrastructure chief executive Jim Fagan. 

Akur Capital and RBC Capital Markets are acting as financial advisors to EXA Infrastructure in connection with the transaction and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is serving as legal M&A advisor to EXA Infrastructure. Goldman Sachs is acting as financial advisor to D9 in connection with the transaction and Shoosmiths is serving as legal advisor to D9.

Three UK choses Ericsson to deploy 9Tbps dual core

Annie Turner
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0
Three UK choses Ericsson to deploy 9Tbps dual core

The parties claim this will be the largest mobile core in Europe

Three UK chose Ericsson to build its new cloud-native core network, which it says will be the largest in Europe. The new core will more than triple its current core capacity to 9 Tbps.

The cloud-native infrastructure and core network solution are already being installed in Three’s data centres and will be “partially operational by the end of this year with a careful migration of all traffic over the next few years”, according to the press statement.

Three UK is in the throes of merging with Vodafone UK, having received approval from the regulator last December. No mention of the implications regarding the integration and capacity of the two networks is mentioned in this announcement.

Biggest carrier of mobile data

Data traffic on Three’s network “has exploded in recent years surpassing 2Tbps in December 2024,” apparently, due to home broadband, streaming Premier League football on Amazon Prime and gaming updates (see graph above). This traffic peak occurred just over two years after reaching 1Tbps, which took almost two decades to reach.

According to Enders Analysis, Three UK’s customer consume more data than any other operator at 31.5GB per month throughout 2024. This was an 18% increase on the previous year and 2.4x the national average.

The new core

The new core network will run on Ericsson’s dual-mode, 5G Core supported by the vendor’s Cloud Native Infrastructure solution. It will sit on Three’s nationwide distributed data centre network, which brings its core network closer to customers to improve latency.

Ericsson claims its core network capabilities have a proven track record in markets around the world, delivering benefits that include:

  • Scalable capacity to support future needs
  • Better stability meaning less downtime
  • More network insights so operators can manage and match demand effectively
  • In-service software upgrades update infrastructure without taking traffic away from a data centre
  • Enhanced environmental performance.

Iain Milligan, Chief Network Officer at Three said, “Our new core network with Ericsson ensures we are able to support our customers’ data usage over the medium and long-term.”

Katherine Ainley, CEO of Ericsson UK & Ireland, added, “This project is a significant milestone in our collaboration, and we’re excited to help Three build a new Core network to meet the ever-growing data demands of their customers.”

Europe’s competitiveness “has one foot in the morgue”

Annie Turner
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0
Europe’s competitiveness “has one foot in the morgue”

CEOs of Ericsson and Nokia team up for conference, New Industrial Ambition for Europe, in Brussels

The CEOs of arch rivals Ericsson and Nokia, Börje Ekholm and Pekka Lundmark, hosted the New Industrial Ambition for Europe summit in Brussels. Their aim is to spur “momentum across the EU to implement the actions required to deliver future European digitalisation success – including a more supportive regulatory environment and making the region more attractive to investors.”

The conference’s purpose was to “discuss how Europe can act on the warnings from respected European technology CEOs and implement the Draghi and Letta reports.” The summit was supported by Germany’s software firm SAP and the Netherlands’ ASML, which specialises in chip manufacturing technology.

The Letta report on the Single Market was published last April, followed by Mario Draghi’s The future of European Competitiveness in September. Enrico Letta is a former Italian Prime Minister and was then Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.His report was intended as a blue print for the future Single Market.

Draghi is also a former Prime Minister of Italy and former Governor of the European Central Bank. Draghi’s report criticised the current EU policies concerning monopolies and mergers, and proposed some radical remedies. It has been widely cited and European operators hope it might help usher in the sort of regulatory changes they have long pushed for, including industry consolidation to gain greater scale.

Many European operators are staggering under the weight of enormous debts and seeing little if any revenue growth – typically 1-2%.

We can’t continue as we are

At the summit the CEOs reiterated their positions, with Ekholm stating, “The unique coming together of four technology leaders highlights the urgency facing Europe’s economy to decision-makers in member states. Companies like Ericsson already invest disproportionally more in R&D in Europe. If other regions continue to race ahead, this model cannot survive.

“Those regions are embracing opportunity through investment, policy, and regulatory support. Europe is not. Yet the solution is well known. The EU must implement the Draghi and Letta Report recommendations to enable the technology sector to play our part in delivering future European prosperity.”

Nokia’s Lundmark said, “European competitiveness already has one foot in the morgue. Our real GDP is 30% less than the US’s, the EU’s share of the Fortune Global 500 is still falling and our digital future looks less certain than ever. The good news is that we can still turn this tanker around. Europe must create an environment in which businesses want to invest, especially on technologies such as AI, cloud and advanced connectivity.

“This cannot be a decade-long endeavour. Europe must act right now on issues like the 5G Toolbox and telco mergers. If Europe gets this right, it’s a massive opportunity. Draghi and Letta already provided the framework. So, let’s act.”

Here is a summary of their calls to action.

GlasfaserPlus in row with German municipality

Simon Dux
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GlasfaserPlus in row with German municipality


Mayor accuses German fibreco of “targeted interference” and suggests to its rollout footprint was incomplete

Deep in the north of Baden-Württemberg, the regional centre of Mosbach would not be the first place you would expect a fibre row brewing. However, GlasfaserPlus GmbH just announced is putting its expansion plans for the municipality of Morsbach on hold. And the local mayor is not happy, which is a reminder that rolling out fibre is not always smiling officials with shovels and hardhats. 

The joint venture between Deutsche Telekom and IFM Investors, an Australian fund manager, said is unable to implement the expansion due to a lack of cooperation from the local authority and the operator criticised the unnecessary use of taxpayers’ money. GlasfaserPlus had originally announced that it would supply more than 5,550 households in Morsbach with fibre on its own account – without using taxpayers’ money.

Since the expansion plans were announced, GlasfaserPlus said it has been met with a “negative attitude” from the municipality. From the outset, it said, the local authority made it clear that it preferred the subsidised expansion by competitor Muenet and rejected the expansion by GlasfaserPlus. It also argued that the approvals it requested to lay the network were not granted, while the competitor was able to start the expansion. 

From GlasfaserPlus’ point of view, the question arises whether this behaviour is “compatible with the principle of competitive neutrality and the requirements of the Telecommunications Act”. As a result, the operator has decided not to pursue the expansion plans for Morsbach any further – even though it claims a large number of customers have already opted for a product on the GlasfaserPlus network. It added the contracts of customers who have already purchased a product on the GlasfaserPlus network will be cancelled.

Wallet appeal

GlasfaserPlus also argued that a self-financing expansion would have saved considerable tax money. It said although the municipality was already informed in 2022 of the intention to expand on its own and this intention was repeatedly reaffirmed in the following period, said municipality preferred to apply for federal and state funding for a not insignificant part of the addresses, which are now being used for the expansion. 

In addition to these supra-regional funding pots, the municipalities contribute 10% of the funding amount, so that from GlasfaserPlus’s point of view “the budget of the municipality of Morsbach was unnecessarily burdened”.

No binding offer

Morsbach’s mayor Jörg Bukowski has hit bit at the operator, telling Radio Berg there was never a binding offer and that what Glasfaserplus is accusing the municipality of is simply not true. He said the operator never submitted plans to supply the entire Morsbach municipal area with fibre on its own. It was only about 2,000 households in the center at most. Otherwise, the municipality would have “signed immediately”.

His argument is that the aim of getting fibre is to expand the entire municipal area, not just central towns. In Morsbach, the fibre expansion is currently underway with the company Muenet and is expected to be completed this year. Bukowski said the criticism from the company GlasfaserPlus was “targeted interference”, adding that GlasfaserPlus had also confronted the town of Waldbröl with similar accusations.

Getting on with it

For its part, GlasfaserPlus, which recently appointed GVG Glasfaser’s COO Thomas Müller as its new chief technology officer, is getting on with its network rollout and Morsbach is more of a speed bump on its fibre highway. 

“Our expansion in rural areas of Germany is progressing in great strides, and we are working flat out to reach four million households by 2030. We are committed to open access on our network, which conserves valuable resources and offers citizens a greater choice of providers and products,” said GlasfaserPlus CEO Ralf Gresselmeyer last week. He was speaking after the operator has signed a deal that would see VSE Net market the GlasfaserPlus network to its white-label partners.

EWR AG is the first company to have made a binding announcement that it will use this new partnership. Preparations are underway behind the scenes so that the company can also offer its ‘Herznet Fiber’ fibre tariffs in its supply area via the GlasfaserPlus network in the future.

GSMA says Europe is falling behind on 5G

Simon Dux
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GSMA says Europe is falling behind on 5G


Despite some bright spots in its latest report, the mobile group warns “urgent policy reforms” are needed to secure critical network investment

The GSMA’s latest Mobile Economy Europe report has revealed that Europe continues to lag behind other advanced regions such as North America, East Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council states in 5G adoption, where many operators are now shifting their attention to the next generation of networks. 

In Europe, operators are beginning to deploy 5G SA, providing opportunities for new applications like network slicing – provided customers want it. As of September 2024, 18 European operators had launched 5G SA services, including recent launches from EE in the UK and Free in France. In addition, 5G-Advanced is set to deliver new solutions for enterprises, enabling uplink and multicast services at better latency, provided enterprises want that, too.

At the end of Q3 2024, only around 15% of operators in Europe with live 5G networks had launched 5G SA, compared to over 30% in Asia Pacific and North America. This is indicative of the difficult operating conditions facing European operators. The speed of rollouts remains slower than many industry players anticipated a few years ago.

GSMA’s Connectivity Index (5GI), which ranks operators on 17 indicators has the majority of European operators sitting mid-table. Leading the way are developed economies in the Middle East, Scandinavia, Asia Pacific and North America. Most European countries included in the index have scores between 40 and 50, scoring well on spectrum and affordability but lagging behind leading markets in multiple indicators across the network, experience, adoption and market development pillars.

Europe’s score on the network pillar highlights the need to accelerate the deployment of 5G base stations (with 11 of the 15 European countries included in the 5GI scoring lower than 30 on this indicator). Europe fares better on coverage: 24 European countries reported over 90% 5G population coverage by the end of 2024. A combination of low- and mid-band spectrum has been deployed by operators to accomplish this. Extending the deployment of mid-band spectrum, particularly in the 3.5GHz range, is vital for delivering the network performance necessary for advanced applications. 

Do something

The GSMA warns that unless key regulatory challenges that restrict investment capacity in the European sector are resolved, the increased adoption of these technologies in Europe will progress more slowly. Digital infrastructure will be key to helping Europe sustain global competitiveness, laying the foundations for advanced technologies but also supporting the expected three-fold rise in mobile data traffic by 2030.

“Europe is at a crossroads in its development of the digital infrastructure that its businesses and citizens will need to succeed. It is concerning to see it falling further and further behind other large markets around the world,” said GSMA chief regulatory officer, John Giusti. 

“Urgent action is needed from the European Commission and other authorities within the European Union to deliver the policy reforms that Europe’s digital economy needs to support strong, sustained network innovation and to re-establish a leadership position in the global technology marketplace by 2030,” he added.

By page 26, GSMA gets to the crux of the issue for MNOs. Europe’s highly competitive mobile market has restricted prospects for revenue growth, leaving mobile ARPUs significantly lower than those in other advanced regions. This constrains the ability of operators in the region to invest, with Europe’s revenue weakness mirrored by lower mobile capex per capita. These financial challenges underscore the need for strong policy actions to drive a turnaround in Europe.

GSMA’s suggested measures to reverse these trends include completing the Digital Single Market to allow the mobile industry to develop and deploy services on a cross-border or pan-EU basis, initiating a review of the EU Merger Regulation and taking a more long-term view on investment and innovation effects and establishing a pro-investment and more predictable approach to EU spectrum policy. Somewhat more controversially, the GSMA also suggests implementing additional measures to ensure fairness in the internet value chain. 

Bright spots for 5G

The report is not all doom and gloom for Europe. It found 5G accounted for 30% of mobile connections in Europe at the end of 2024 – equivalent to 200 million connections – against a global average of 24%. It will become the dominant mobile technology on the continent by 2026 and already accounts for the majority of connections in Germany and Switzerland, while adoption rates in Denmark, Finland, Norway and the UK have exceeded 40%. 

By 2030, the GSMA claims it will provide an additional €164 billion boost to the overall economy, with 80% of the continent’s connections forecast to be 5G, compared to 4G’s 18%, by the end of this decade. These stats are always difficult to measure but it is undeniable there has been a positive impact to Europe’s economies from more 5G coverage and uptake. 

For example, 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) has emerged as an important use case in the consumer and enterprise segments, complementing operators enhanced mobile broadband offerings. To date, operators in 24 European countries have launched 5G FWA services.

Europe is also the leading player in the GSMA Open Gateway, with committed operators representing more than 20% of signatories despite accounting for only 10% of global mobile connections. Participating operators include BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, Telenor, Vodafone and more.

By 2030, there will be almost 550 million licensed cellular IoT connections in Europe. Germany will account for around a quarter of these, while the UK, France, Italy and Sweden will each account for around 10%.

Sparkle chooses Oceanic Environmental Cables to recycle subsea cables

Simon Dux
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0
Sparkle chooses Oceanic Environmental Cables to recycle subsea cables


The Mediterranean has several decommissioned subsea cables and TIM’s international division has decided to do something about it

TIM’s international wholesale provider Sparkle has signed an agreement with Hamburg-based Oceanic Environmental Cables (OEC) for the recovery and recycling of multiple unused subsea telecom cables.

Under the agreement, OEC will acquire from Sparkle more than 22,000km of telegraph – yes, that old – coaxial and fibre optic subsea cables laid in the Mediterranean. It is estimated this will save more than 35,000 tons of CO2e through secondary material manufacturing reuse.

Sparkle’s out-of-service submarine cables will be taken from the seabed and transported to the facilities of OEC and its partners. which will dismantle, separate, clean, and analyse the various components (optical fibre, copper, steel, aluminium, HDPE, and LDPE) until they are processed into high-quality “regranulates”. OEC will then return the materials to industrial use as secondary raw materials.

The company claims to have developed a unique method of dismantling them with approximately 1% waste, ensuring all materials are upcycled and fed back into industrial use as secondary raw materials.

Turnkey service

The service is fully managed. OEC takes over shore-end leases, permits and bonds, so owners do not have ongoing liabilities with a redundant system, such as shore-end manholes. The service includes desk top studies, permits and marine licences, environmental assessment reports and cable recovery plans. OEC clears spares depots too.

The company has its own vessels and in-house designed recovery equipment. It claims it can recover any submarine cable from any depth in any ocean or sea. The company also performs Pre-Lay Grapnel Runs (PLGR) and other cable maintenance services like end-seal solutions.

OEC’s vessels can transport new cable systems if rip and replace is required. The company said it has successfully recovered more than 25,000km of cable and recently acquired more than 80,000km of out-of-service cables from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and the Mediterranean sea.

Among the first

“We are proud to be among the first global operators to undertake such an innovative initiative, promoting circular economy practices and reducing environmental impact”, said Sparkle’s CEO Enrico Bagnasco (above, right). “The collaboration with OEC represents a concrete step toward a more sustainable future, where resources from the past can be recovered and transformed into opportunities for the present and the future.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Sparkle on this important initiative. By retrieving and recycling these redundant cables, we are not only reducing the congestion and waste on the Mediterranean seabed but also reducing the need for virgin materials in manufacturing. This process significantly lowers carbon emissions and embodies the principles of a circular economy’’, said OEC CEO Horst Brockmueller (above, left).

Crossing the Med

As of May 2023, the European Union had direct connections to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region via 27 undersea cables. Since then several more have been announced. The two current choke points are the Strait of Gibraltar and Egypt. Over the past decades, the Mediterranean has seen numerous cables installed, retired and replaced due to technological advances and the demands of data traffic.

In unrelated news, copper prices saw impressive gains in 2024, even breaking the $5 per pound mark in May (currently $4.35).

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