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BICS has crossed the line on 5G SA – say stc and Proximus

Nick Booth
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BICS has crossed the line on 5G SA – say stc and Proximus

Sets up world-first ‘roam’ between Belgium and Kuwait

Connectivity specialist BICS has created a roaming connection between 5G Standalone (SA) networks in Europe and the Middle East. It claims this is a world record, being the first time 5G SA has ever crossed continents outside of a lab. “Until now, operators around the world have only been delivering 5G Non-standalone (NSA) roaming that routes traffic through 4G/LTE core,’ said Mikaël Schachne, VP Telco Market at BICS, “this is the first time anyone has ever carried out a successful live connection across borders using 5G Standalone.

in the ground breaking exercise BICS linked the 5G SAs of Belgian mobile network operator (MNO) Proximus and Kuwait’s MNO stc. This marks a landmark moment for the readiness of international 5G SA services and use cases, BICS claims. Connectivity between the visited and home network was set up via secured gateways (SEPP) – a next-level security protocol mandated by roaming regulators GSMA. This can be hosted on the BICS IPX network for a faster and more efficient set up and beter management. “We’ve broken down the barriers to bring the power of this technology to international communications,” said Schachne.

Last year BICS announced a successful 5G lab trial and borderless 5G connection to its IoT SIM card system. As mobile network operators face the challenge of complex 5G roaming agreements and technologies. BICS said it is simplifying the path to 5G connectivity for industrial IoT operators, allowing them to benefit from one connection, one invoice and full managed service modules to reduce overhead on existing teams.

Geert Standaert, Chief Technology Officer at Proximus, the parent company of BICS, said this roaming test is a huge watershed moment for Proximus in its 5G roll-out and it will start rolling out the opportunities of 5G Standalone for the benefits of our customers and enterprises. “This new roaming connection with BICS and Proximus means it is now the first to offer 5G roaming spanning the widest coverage area across the world,” said Mohammed Al-Nusif, CEO of solutions by stc, “it’s going to bring stc customers exceptional connectivity at high-data speeds and offer them the same 4G and 5G data plans at no additional costs when abroad.”

Meta’s business model faces legal challenge in UK

Nick Booth
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Meta’s business model faces legal challenge in UK

Alleged refusal to respect privacy – despite GDPR laws

Facebook stands accused of disregarding mobile phone users’ rights in a UK court action that could have wider implications for Europe’s telecoms industry and publishers. UK legal campaigner Tanya O’Carroll launched a lawsuit on Monday against Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, alleging breaches of UK data laws by failing to respect her right to demand Facebook stop collecting and processing her data. O’Carroll has lodged a claim in the high court and is awaiting Meta’s acknowledgment of the claim and confirmation that the company intends to defend it, followed by a hearing and court judgment. O’Carroll is not seeking damages but a yes/no decision on whether she can opt out of being profiled for advertising purposes.

O’Carroll, a senior fellow at Foxglove, a UK legal campaign group that focuses on accountability in the technology industry, is claiming that Facebook has breached article 21 (2) of UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which gives individuals the right to protest against the processing of their personal data for marketing purposes. “We know that privacy is important to our users and we take this seriously,” said a spokesperson. Meta/Facebook claimed that software routines like its Privacy Check-up and Ads Preferences are there to help people, by showing them what data people have shared. Some critics say these are not user-friendly tools, but Meta claimed that they show how people can exercise control over the type of ads they see.

Tanya Carroll is challenging the entire basis of the Facebook business model., according to Jonathan Compton, partner at DMH Stallard. “If the court upholds her case, Ms O’Carroll may have significantly undermined Facebook’s operations in the UK and, I suspect, the EU. At first glance, it looks as if she has reasonable prospects of success,” said Compton.

After she discovered that Facebook used 700 tags to characterise her, allowing them to allocate ads relating to her O’Carroll tried to stop the profiling using the Facebook settings. Unsuccessfully, it turned out.  However, the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 provides safeguards to protect peoples’ data. One of these rights is to have personal data ‘used in a way that is limited to only what is necessary’. There is a right to have data erased. 

As the figurehead of a non-profit community interest group O’Carroll said a successful case could set a precedent for millions of Facebook, social media and search engine users. It would also have huge knock-on consequences for the telecoms industry and publishing groups in Europe, since the funding model of those industry’s most influential oligarchs would be severely disrupted.

“With this case, I’m really using this right that’s long been there on the law books, but has been up until now not been exercised, which is to simply say ‘I object’, and if we are successful in that then everybody will have that right,” O’Carroll told the BBC. “This case is really about us all being able to connect with social media on our own terms, and without having to essentially accept that we should be subjected to hugely invasive tracking surveillance profiling just to be able to access social media.”

Orange France in joint venture with Banque des Territoires

Nick Booth
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Orange France in joint venture with Banque des Territoires

Hexadone will get things done

Orange France has made a pact with regional development fund Banque des Territoires to help local authorities make wiser decisions over public policy with better intelligence. Hexadone, the name given to the cloud based system underpinning the project, has a brief to give local authorities wider context on every decision they have to make, from tourism to traffic management, libraries to leisure facilities, children’s playgrounds to climate change. It will do this by aggregating all data, standardising it and giving it greater liquidity. The duo have formally agreed on a joint venture, with work starting in the first half of 2023.

However, one analyst warned that the soaring ambition must be tempered with caution. Data must be both liberalised and protected said Nitesh Patel at Strategy Analytics. “Hexadone will enable local and regional authorities to use their data assets more effectively and efficiently,” said Patel, “but an ecosystem approach [must be] underpinned by strong privacy and data security infrastructure will be key to its success.”

The aim is to become each regions’ trusted intelligence partner, according to Orange, which promised ‘sovereign exploitation and valorisation’ of their data, in other words respect for privacy, integrity of information gathering and fair and efficient distribution to those who need to know. According to an Orange statement, local authorities are facing enormous difficulties getting accurate intelligence to the right people when they need to make decisions. This hampers them when assessing a range of issues they need to act on, such as purchasing, energy and environmental transformations and the aesthetics that affect the perceived attractiveness of each region.

The improvement of citizen’s well-being could involve the sourcing of contentious information that needs to be weighed up, it said. Then there are the more tangible areas in which there are large sources of information that need to be organised and prioritised, such as the ‘mutualisation and optimisation’ of infrastructure costs. With the digitisation of the economy and society comes a speeding deluge of information flows and regions must manage these, said Orange. The rising levels of complexity, quantity and insecurity of data forms and sources can undermine regional data management policy.

The Hexadone cloud platform will simplify all these challenges, claims Orange, since all partners must adhere to a single standard and a single system. Orange explained how Hexadone could help a council to control the entire waste management value chain of a town. By aggregating the data obtained by the geolocation of rubbish bins, communicated by the concession holder in charge of them, and cross referencing with the information about traffic conditions instantly available from another branch of the town’s services, the waste collection operator could organise its rounds more efficiently and optimise its route planning.

The key aspect of the mission is create a robust, simple, secure, and open tool according to Olivier Sichel, Director of Banque des Territoires. Hexadone will effectively blend all the data sources from an entire set of regional supply chains and create a coherent universal whole, according to Christel Heydemann, Chief Executive Officer of the Orange Group. “By developing this platform, Orange is once again committing to a responsible digital environment that is useful to everyone.”

Panzura saves telco cloud from ransom demand

Nick Booth
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Panzura saves telco cloud from ransom demand

Its snapshots show hostages up

Sensitive data protector Panzura has invented a backup plan for restoring telco clouds that could save mobile network operators from destruction by cyber criminals. The fall back plan renders ransomware specialists impotent, since the hostage takers have no leverage over a company that can spring back into action. It could prove an effective insurance to mobile network operators, who are becoming increasingly vulnerable as they rush to bulk up on hyper-scale services.

Panzura’s new service takes snapshots of data blocks and can rapidly reassemble uninfected files, which in effect renders the data immutable, according to its press statement. The Panzura global file system would, logically, enable mobile operators to shrug off any attempts to hold them by the data assets, because the data managers who mastermind the telco cloud could then wriggle free from the kidnapper’s grasp.

With the help of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Panzura can restore the telco cloud of the affected mobile network operator within minutes. With the trend for cloud-native strategies among mobile network operators rushing to complete their digital transformation, the risk of ransomware attacks is becoming a worrying prospect. Panzura cut its teeth for companies like this, developing data safety strategies for public and private enterprises that needed to move their workloads into the cloud.

It says its distinctive design would allow even the most sensitive agencies, such as telcos with a cloud native strategy, to develop a plan of action to combat ransomware or internal threats. The system revolves around a Panzura global file system that can revert to seconds-old data blocks to rebuild itself. “We’ve never lost a file, and we share a common goal to make the world safe for data,” said Jill Stelfox, Panzura CEO. “We are building a system that will make ransomware obsolete.”

Researcher Gartner predicts that 85% of globalists will embrace a cloud strategy by 2025, committing to plans that force them to use perilous cloud-native designs and technologies. Panzura is one of the first companies to recognise this fatal flaw which the digital transformation evangelists don’t warn people about.

Satellite telecoms companies could be at risk since rocket data is highly regulated and highly sensitive, warned Brent Bradbury, Head of Software for Stoke Space Technologies. Bradbury briefed AWS GovCloud and Panzura to neutralise the risk of ransomware. “We’re trying to outpace our competition, so we can’t go hours without data due to attacks or infrastructure interruptions.”

“Security continues to be paramount for us,” said Howard Wright, VP and Global Head of Startups AWS. Panzura is for those who require this level of data protection, according to Wright, as cloud security is set to be a talking point at its annual show AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas on November 28.

Telenor suffers more delay in Thai merger of dtac and True

Annie Turner
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Telenor suffers more delay in Thai merger of dtac and True

Goalposts moved again as revised year-end deadline disappears

The planned merger of Thai operators dtac, which is the third-largest mobile operator with Telenor as its the majority shareholder, and True is again delayed. True is the country’s second largest operator – it overtook dtac in May 2017 – and is more than 50% owned by the Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group. China Mobile has an 18% stake.

The proposed $8.6 billion (€8.37 billion) merger was announced in November 2022: one analyst commented this was hardly surprising given Telenor’s exit/consolidation strategy from many ASEAN markets, and given the fact that, “Dtac has little hope of beating its rivals, or even surviving in the long run”.

Original and revised deadlines

The original proposal specified that the deal was to be concluded within a year and the boards of both companies agreed to the merger in February. However, it was subjected to scrutiny due to concerns about competition – the merger would leave just two mobile operators in the Thai market with True/dtac as the bigger player.

Despite this, in October, Thailand’s regulator, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission (NBTC) gave permission for the deal to go ahead, subject to certain conditions.

Reasons for the latest delay were not given in a statement put out by Telenor which read: “On 22 November 2021, Telenor and CP Group announced their intention to support the amalgamation of dtac and True in Thailand,” and continued, the two parties will “continue to target an equal ownership share of around 30% of the merged company”. It concluded, “The parties aim to complete the transaction within the first quarter of 2023”.

EE’s new Christmas add – 150 5G locations and festive market connections

Nick Booth
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EE’s new Christmas add – 150 5G locations and festive market connections

Story makes John Lewis ad look like a Greek tragedy

UK mobile network operator EE has added 150 new UK locations to its 5G network, with major cities like Birmingham, Belfast and Edinburgh among existing locations to benefit from new masts, street furniture and other broadcasting equipment. The operator said it has concentrated in time with the arrival of the festive shopping period and it has targeted areas which now run European style outdoor markets.

The mobile operator referenced a listing of festive market in the Radio Times to plan additions to coverage in towns such as Nottingham, home to the Winter Wonderland and Manchester, home to a diverse range of holiday season fare). Other market town beneficiaries include Bath, Newcastle, Padstow and Lincoln.

“There is nothing like a Christmas market and the connectivity is crucial for customers and traders alike,” said Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer, BT Group. “As we continue to invest in and expand our 5G network, we’re thrilled to be powering Christmas market destinations across more of the UK.” 

The EE mobile network coverage checker gives a full list of the new additions, but some of the telco’s most creative work goes unrecognised. In Lincoln, the BT Group (owner of EE) will disguise broadcasting equipment as six foot (1.8m) screens showing adverts, according to the BCC’s according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. BT Group said the hubs would boost broadband and 5G connectivity in the area and would offer free phone calls to anywhere in the UK. The company has applied to the City of Lincoln Council for permission to install the hubs. Documents seen by the council describe the street hubs as “the next evolution of public connectivity”.

As well as advertisements the screens would also include a digital version of the BT phonebook, local weather information, maps and a dedicated 999 call button. A report to the council said modern cities required digital connectivity provision “both for residents and visitors, to enable their day to day living and enjoyment of recreational activities”.

The report said to enable the service to be provided without a fee, advertisements on either side of the units would be required and were “an intrinsic part of the development”. Local councils would be given around 438 hours a year to share their messages, it added.

CityFibre and toob to expand reach via each other’s footprints

Annie Turner
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CityFibre and toob to expand reach via each other’s footprints

BT’s biggest wholesale access rival teams up with regional fibre altnet

CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full-fibre rival to BT’s semi-detached wholesale access arm Openreach, has signed an agreement with toob. The latter is also a fibre-network builder and broadband provider, based in the south of England. Through the agreement, toob can expand its footprint across CityFibre’s national network and CityFibre can wholesale toob’s infrastructure.

CityFibre has network projects in more than 60 towns and cities, and has said it expects to have “substantially completed” its build-out by 2025 which is expected to pass up to 8 million homes, 800,000 businesses, 400,000 public sector sites and 250,000 5G access points.

CityFibre was acquired by Goldman Sachs for £750 million in 2018 and after its latest round of fund raising – in June it secured £4.9 billion debt package comprising committed facilities of £3.9 billon and an accordion facility of £1 billion – says it now has enough to complete its planned network construction.

Source: CityFibre – shows proposed build-out

toob was launched in 2019, by Nick Parbutt (CEO) and Mike Banwell (CFO), former directors at Vodafone UK, and raised £75 million to fund its initial build. toob offers a symmetrical 900Mbps product for the highly competitive price of £25 a month within its footprint, and from today will increasingly use CityFibre’s infrastructure to extend its offer, first going live in Portsmouth before launching in areas adjacent to its own roll-out.

The companies have also agreed Heads of Terms for a wholesale aggregation partnership: toob’s current and future network builds will be incorporated into CityFibre’s ready for service footprint, expanding the addressable market for all CityFibre’s internet service provider (ISP) partners.

Technical matters

The technical integration of toob’s footprint is expected to be completed by summer 2023 and will provide CityFibre’s ISP partners access to over 100,000 homes across Southampton and Camberley. toob plans to build a network to more than 1 million premises across the south of England over the next five years, all of which will be made available to CityFibre’s ISP partners at the same service levels as CityFibre’s own network.

Greg Mesch, CEO at CityFibre said, “We are delighted to welcome toob on board as a service provider partner on our networks. They’ve had great success driving take-up of their services and we look forward to helping them extend their exciting service proposition to millions of new homes over our network.

“This deal also represents the UK’s first major partnership between infrastructure builders, establishing a new model of wholesale aggregation that significantly accelerates and expands the addressable footprint available to our wholesale ISP partners.

“For smaller fibre network builders which currently only offer their own retail broadband services across their footprint, it also establishes an opportunity to expand their retail offering, opening a lucrative wholesale revenue stream and maximising take-up over their network.”

Nick Parbutt, CEO & Founder at toob said: “toob is delighted to be partnering with CityFibre. Opening our own network to other ISPs has been part of our strategy from the outset, and partnering with CityFibre allows ISPs to access the toob full fibre network.

“Likewise expanding our very successful brand and proposition in the region by using CityFibre’s Network provides a great opportunity to capitalise on our investment in the region, offer our proposition to more customers and ultimately grow the company.”

Infovista helps Botswana give painless berth to 5G

Nick Booth
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Infovista helps Botswana give painless berth to 5G

Customers must enjoy the experience

Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) has asked network life cycle automator Infovista to ease its transition from 4.5G into a full 5G operator. Infovista channel partner Mozark, a specialist reseller and systems integrator will use the TEMS Pocket, Paragon, Discovery and Planet systems to plan, test, optimise and benchmark each stage of the gradual system transformation.

The network building management packages work on several levels, from the mobile network layer to the subscriber level, smoothing the operation of connected services such as BTC Smega mobile money. Planet, Infovista’s RF planning software and optimisation system will fine tune BTC’s existing 4G and impose the same disciplines on future 5G networks.

One of Mozark’s specialities is improving digital customer experiences, which involves working with BTC’s crowdsourced data. The 5GMARK for Enterprise network testing system will gather data from BTC’s applications and network, which can be ingested and analysed by its data visualisation tool MAG-M. After synthetic testing, end-to-end automation and on-field infrastructure analysis it can report to a diagnostic platform to monitor and identify failure points in the BTC network’s metamorphosis.

Mozark’s crowdsourced data maps will help BTC engineers to visualise the network’s performance, helping it to plan its future network investments using the Planet system, which highlights areas that need to be drive tested. This is a job conducted using Infovista’s TEMS product suite which organises network testing and measurement. After using TEMS BTC can conduct drive testing and benchmarking of its entire nationwide mobile network, a process that is considerably faster and more accurate with the Infovista software. Pin point accuracy and planning are vital when drive by testers have a vast area of territory to cover, as is the case in a landmass as big as Botswana.

“Networking in Botswana is a huge logistical and operational challenge,” said Peter Olyn, General Manager Technology at BTC, “Infovista’s planning and network testing could make the quality of experience transit from 4.5 to 5G painless for us and seamless for the customers.”

Alliance says Wi-Fi 6E momentum proves need for whole 6GHz band

Annie Turner
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Alliance says Wi-Fi 6E momentum proves need for whole 6GHz band

Warns insufficient spectrum could harm Wi-Fi’s potential to contribute about $5 trillion to global economy by 2025

The Wi-Fi Alliance claims that the market for and the traction gained by its Wi-Fi 6E de facto industry standard means it urgently needs 6GHz spectrum globally.

There are now multiple devices that use the standard and it has applications in sectors as diverse as healthcare, education, and sports and entertainment. According to the Alliance, “the 6 GHz band is satisfying growing demand for higher-bandwidth services and more immersive experiences”.

It wants regulators and policymakers around the world to open the entire 1200MHz of spectrum in 6GHz for Wi-Fi to boost users’ experiences: Wi-Fi is expected to contribute almost $5 trillion to the global economy by 2025 and countries that make the entire band available for it should see greater socioeconomic benefits.

In Europe, Vodafone conducted a study of 4,000 people which showed four out of five households where someone works from home equated the importance of Wi-Fi access to that of electricity and gas.

The Federal Communications Commission in the US has recognised the importance of making the whole 1200MHz available for products and large-scale deployments whereas some countries have compromised, making just the lower 500MHz portion available. The Wi-Fi Alliance maintains an up-to-date list of the countries enabling Wi-Fi 6E.

TIP and its supporters are arguing that deriving the full benefits of Wi-Fi 6E depends on devices complying to its OpenWiFi standard, where the access point controller does not ‘lock’ the access point (AP) – rather components can be mixed and matched to drive down cost and foster innovation. TIP OpenWiFi also complies with the European Commission’s WiFi4EU which is all about providing Wi-Fi in Europe’s public outdoor spaces.

Extending applications

The Alliance says Wi-Fi 6E will also play a major role in innovations including Extended Reality (XR), augmented reality applications and holographic collaboration solutions.

More than 660 Wi-Fi 6E devices have been Wi-Fi CERTIFIED by Wi-Fi Alliance– the Wi-Fi 6E ecosystem includes smart TVs, smart phones, enterprise and residential access points (APs), and laptops. APs support faster speeds, smoother streaming and more reliable connections for enterprises and gamers alike.

APs include those from NETGEAR that support gigabit speeds and low latency for gamers. Extreme Networks offers a solution for outdoor venues which includes the Alliance’s WPA3 security, while Aruba specialises in solutions for campuses and classrooms coupled with Wi-Fi Location capabilities.

Cisco introduced Wi-Fi 6E APs enabling greater capacity for 4K and 8K videoconferencing, greater bandwidth for XR, and enhanced industrial IoT capabilities. Mesh systems like the Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro and Eero Pro 6E are also seeing high-bandwidth, Wi-Fi 6E upgrades.

Read more about applications and compliant devices here.

Vodafone deploys WWF for circular economy campaign

Nick Booth
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Vodafone deploys WWF for circular economy campaign

Charity donation aims to impress a million people

Vodafone has enrolled the help of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to encourage people to recycle their phones into a greener circular economy. Its new one million phones for the planet scheme is one gear in its drive to reach ‘net zero’ carbon emissions target by 2040 by ditching the burden of electronic equipment wastage (e-waste).

The one million phones for the planet campaign is a bid to energise and refine Vodafone’s circular economy strategy by increasing the number of traded-in, refurbished and recycled devices. Buying a refurbished smartphone saves around 50kg of CO2e (Carbon Dioxide Equivalent), according to Vodafone’s figures. Using an old phone is 87% less polluting than buying a newly manufactured model. By its own admission, the practice of not pushing customers to renew each contract with a smart phone would stop each mobile operator from consuming 76.9 Kg of raw materials, according to a lifetime assessment study commissioned by the Agence De la Transition Ecologique (ADAME) in France.

Vodafone claims the programme, which starts on November 22, will inspire its customers in Europe and Africa to donate their old devices to social causes as part of a trade in when they renew their contracts. Each phone collected will see WWF conservation projects across the world get around one pound’s worth of financial support from Vodafone. Vodafone will harness WWF’s global network of expertise in environmental issues and international capability for leading the fight against the climate and nature emergency.   

The One million phones for the planet scheme will run alongside existing device campaigns including Germany’s One For One appeal and the Vodafone UK’s Great British Tech Appeal. The new scheme is summarised under four headings: Trade in; refurbish and resell; repair; recycle. Vodafone said it will give easy access to competitively priced trade-in offers. The refurbished smartphones will go on offer to other customers. The life of existing devices will be prolonged by a ‘comprehensive’ programme of insurance and repairs and redundant devices will be recycled ‘to charity’.

Some critics might point out that mobile operators and phone makers have colluded for years in a ‘planned obsolescence’ economy. Now that we know the costings for each step of this supply chain, the public will be able to calculate the price that the industry’s e-waste has exacted on the environment. However, Vodafone says it now believes business success should not come at a cost to the environment and is committed to reducing the impact of its activities. Vodafone’s digital networks and technologies will be a key enabler in addressing climate change by saving energy, using natural resources more efficiently and creating a more circular economy.

“WWF and Vodafone strongly believe that we can all make greener choices about how we use technology,” said Vodafone CEO Nick Read, “Our partnership with WWF will create new initiatives to encourage our customers to take actions that reduce pressure on the planet’s natural resources.”

“Every one of us has a role to play in helping to bring our world back to life,” said Tanya Steele, Chief Executive of WWF-UK, “we will be exploring how everyone can reduce their environmental footprint while also using mobile technology to drive forward key WWF conservation projects around the world.” 

Vodafone’s three-year partnership with WWF will see initiatives launched across Vodafone markets in Europe and Africa. These will include apps to help Vodafone customers make more sustainable choices and projects in South Africa, Germany and the UK that address conservation and sustainability challenges. 

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