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Juniper ranks Vodafone Business as leading IoT roaming vendor globally

Annie Turner
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Juniper ranks Vodafone Business as leading IoT roaming vendor globally

Report suggests operator looking to offload its IoT division

A new study from Juniper Research  ranked Vodafone Business as the leading IoT roaming vendor in its new report, IoT Roaming Strategies: Key Opportunities, Competitor Leaderboard & Market Forecasts 2022-2027. The report also predicted that the number of roaming IoT connections globally will increase from 300 million in 2022 to 1.8 billion by 2027; representing 500% growth. 

This is a long way from the 2010 prediction by the then CEO of Ericsson who reckoned there would be 50 billion IoT devices by 2020.

According to its annual report, Vodafone Business made only €900 million in the last full financial year accounting for 2% service revenues with just over 150 million connected devices. Vodafone also estimates it has 9% market share globally.

IoT unit to be spun off?

Iain Morris of Lightreading noticed in Vodafone Group’s annual report that IoT it being groomed to be spun off as this will “help to accelerate the platform’s growth and attractiveness to both new customers and connectivity partners”. Not to mention raise some badly needed cash – Vodafone has angry investors breathing down its neck, most notably Cevian Capital.

Juniper Research’s report assesses each vendor against a set of key indicators to derive their relative positioning in the matrix. These include a vendor’s capacity and capability, their product positioning, size of their operations, financial performance and the sophistication of their IoT roaming solution. 

Tata Communications, was ranked seconf, followed followed by TNS, BICS, Syniverse then iBasis.

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Annie Turner
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Ofcom announces plans for commercial drones

Annie Turner
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Ofcom announces plans for commercial drones

The UK telecoms regulator proposed a new spectrum licensing regime today.

Ofcom said it had been working with the government and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to develop a new approach for authorising the radio equipment needed onboard drones.

The statement said, “We are proposing to introduce new spectrum licences that allow operators to use mobile and satellite networks to achieve this.”

It explained that drones are increasingly large and complex, and flying over ever longer distances, sometimes out of sight of the operator. This has opened many commercial opportunities across industry sector, from doorstep deliveries to machinery maintenance.

Nevertheless, long-distance, high-altitude drones still must be controlled from the ground and send back data or video to the operator. 

Current regime

Ofcom currently allows drones to use airwaves designated for model aircraft or for Wi-Fi, which does not require a licence, but is unsuitable for the services offered by the latest generation of drones. 

Ofcom has been involved in trials innovative to research, develop and test new types of wireless equipment on drones, including: 

  • Royal Mail exploring ‘postal drone routes’ to make deliveries to remote communities, with test flights for the new service covering an almost 100-mile round trip in rural Scotland;  
  • a transport link between Southampton Hospital and St Mary’s Hospital on the Isle of Wight for delivery of urgent medical supplies during the coronavirus pandemic; and  
  • the deployment of drones in industrial settings to inspect, monitor and maintain machinery. 

As a result, the regulator proposes to authorise various technologies to support drones being used in ways that are not permitted now.

CAA steps in

The CAA is setting rules governing how and where commercial drones can be flown safely, and working with the government to develop a framework to integrate them into UK airspace. 

Ofcom’s new licences would also authorise the use of safety equipment to enable drones to operate safely in UK airspace, enabling the CAA and Department for Transport to advance their wider airspace policy proposals.   

Helen Hearn, Ofcom’s Spectrum Interim Group Director, said, “Commercial drones have the potential to bring a whole host of benefits, such as delivering vital supplies or assisting search and rescue operations in remote locations. We want to ensure that businesses pioneering these projects can access the spectrum they need to harness the full potential of the latest drone technology.”     

SEC investigating Ericsson’s alleged Iraq embezzlement

Nick Booth
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SEC investigating Ericsson’s alleged Iraq embezzlement

Serious breach of business ethics could be expensive  

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened an investigation into Ericsson’s business practices following the revelations in the Iraq corruption report. In a statement, Ericsson said it is “fully cooperating with the SEC”, but said it’s “too early to determine or predict the outcome of the investigation.”

Class action

The investigation puts more pressure on Ericsson, by empowering its legal opponents. The equipment maker is facing a class action from shareholders which is being led by Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, the US lawyers who won $7.2bn from Enron. The litigation specialist currently leads the league table of 2021 ISS Securities Class Action Services, by recovering nearly $2 billion for investors last year alone. Ericsson’s settlement could run into multiple billions, insiders say.

Disclosure

The trouble stems from 2018, when Ericsson allegedly made payments to ISIS to gain access to certain transport routes in Iraq. Ericsson’s CEO Börje Ekholm admitted that Ericsson had identified “unusual expenses dating back to 2018” but had not yet determined the final recipient of the funds for those expenses. In February 2022 Ericsson disclosed the results an internal investigation undertaken in 2019 into its activities in Iraq. It revealed serious breaches of the company’s business ethics policies, at the time Ericsson raised the possibility that payments may have been made to terrorist organisations. Ericsson found evidence of: staff making monetary donations without a clear beneficiary, paying a supplier for work without a defined scope and documentation, using suppliers to make cash payments, funding inappropriate travel and expenses and improper use of consultants and sales agents.

Full exposure

However, despite these disclosures, the pressure was raised on February 27, 2022, when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) went further and revealed more details of Ericsson’s alleged dealings with ISIS in Iraq, citing a leaked internal investigation that revealed that Ericsson had reportedly made “tens of millions of dollars in suspicious payments” over nearly a decade to keep its business in Iraq. The ICIJ report also alleged that “a spreadsheet lists company probes into possible bribery, money laundering and embezzlement by employees in Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brazil, China, Croatia, Libya, Morocco, the United States and South Africa,” which “have not been previously disclosed.

DoJ

In March 2022, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) informed Ericsson disclosures made about the Iraq investigation prior to entering into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement in late 2019 were insufficient. It also claimed the agreement had been breached by failing to make subsequent disclosures on its investigation.

Chinese agents plotting hack attacks on mobile operators – FBI

Nick Booth
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Chinese agents plotting hack attacks on mobile operators – FBI

Lock your interspaces or expect defenestration telcos told

State-sponsored Chinese attackers are amassing “a broad network of compromised infrastructure” from which they can attack mobile network operators (MNOs), according to the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The three US-based security agencies have urged telcos to patch systems, make multi-factor authentication obligatory, segment networks to restrict movement and disable any out of band management potential for all devices. In a joint advisory they have warned allied governments, critical infrastructure operators and private industry to close all the open apertures on their networks.

Close those windows

The security agencies have warned telcos that their network devices will be targeted. In response the agencies have identified the 16 most frequently used windows into a telco’s infrastructure that will be used by hackers, many of which have been left open a long time. Some have been neglected since 2017 and none are more recent than April 2021. The hackers are being encouraged to use open source tools like RouterSploit and RouterScan to find potentially vulnerable boxes which, The Register reports, are in abundance in the homes and small businesses networked by mobile operators. These are not easy to patch and the users are rarely advised on the need to update their firmware.

Update firmware

Mobile network operators in Europe, the Middle East and Africa have been warned that these compromised devices will be the doorway into their organisation after which the attackers will hunt for users with valuable privileges and infrastructure that manages authentication, authorization and accounting. In a typical attack a China-sponsored hacker identified a critical Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) server, then obtained the credentials to access the underlying SQL database and used SQL commands to dump the credentials, which contained both cleartext and hashed passwords for user and administrative accounts. The hackers then used their newly stolen credibility as part of automated scripts to authenticate access to a router via Secure Shell, then executed router commands and saved the output. Among the haul was all the configuration detail on each router attached to the telco’s network.

Stolen authentication

“The cyber actors likely used additional scripting to further automate the exploitation of medium to large victim networks, where routers and switches are numerous, to gather massive numbers of router configurations that would be necessary to successfully manipulate traffic within the network,” the joint agency security advice said. That manipulation included capture and exfiltration of traffic out of the network to actor-controlled infrastructure.

Hard to spot

The attacks will be hard for telco security experts spot, the advisory said, because China’s hired hackers often mix their customised tools with publicly available ones, often choosing tools that are native to the network environment. This blends them into normal look and feel of a network and obscures their intent. The actors often change their tactics in response to published advisories, the published advisory said. 

Students say why telco AI is too dry

Nick Booth
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Students say why telco AI is too dry

Sell them the sizzle, not the SaaS-age

UK telco BT claims it has new insights on why students are not training for jobs in artificial intelligence (AI), despite the wealth of pay and opportunities it offers. However, the dry unimaginative scope of the study itself reveals more about why telecoms is regarded by many as a bloodless corporate ambition graveyard. BT commissioned Yonder Consultancy to find out why British industry is struggling to attract young talent for its AI roles. The findings are compiled in a report, AI skills: Motivation & AI careers myths debunked.

Who gets excited by data?

For an investigation into using technology that gets deep into the heart of data, the reports headline revelations were disappointing. The findings presented are an unoriginal mixture of soundbites and unimaginative opinion sampling that appears to be statistically meaningless. In BT’s study, 59% of higher education students said they were unaware of AI courses at the time of choosing their course. This is a missed opportunity, said BT, because 51% would have considered some type of AI study if they’d understood its potential and understood how the training courses could get them to that level.

Bring the subject alive

The study found that 38% of higher education students perceive a career in AI to be dull while 42% believe that AI qualifications wouldn’t give them the career they are looking for. This could be said for many occupations, where students are asked to consider the value of an unknown quantity. Despite the ‘bad perception’ of AI, 66% of higher education students believe the AI industry to be full of ambitious people, said the study. A huge majority (73%) believe it to be a career that would allow them to solve problems.

See AI from a human eye

The UK government’s national AI Strategy found that the gap between demand and supply of AI skills remains significant and growing, concluding that in order to meet demand, the UK needs a larger workforce with AI expertise. Could it be that students can’t relate to AI because the jobs are always talked about in terms of the machinery, rather than the people who use it and those who benefit from it? BT’s AI advocates enthused about disembodied aspects of the job, such as platforms, data and transformational technology. Humanity is not mentioned once in the eulogies below.  “If you are someone who likes solving problems at scale, building platforms, passionate about data and AI and crave diversity of thought, a rich and diverse set of career opportunities are waiting for you,” said Harmeen Mehta, BT’s chief innovation and digital officer.

Telcos need to attract talent

Adrian Joseph OBE, Managing Director, Data and AI, BT came close to mentioning the human motivation for working with AI. “AI will be the most transformational technology in the next 3-5 years and is one of the most exciting to be working in right now.  We need the right talent onboard, not just in the technology areas of AI but also in social sciences including ethics,” said Joseph.

Show them the money

Ashruti Rajesh, who studied English Literature at university but joined the BT enabled digital training programme FastFutures, could have revealed something interesting about the joy of analysing people or phone usage or other human dynamics. However, Rajesh described how she’d been led away from literature and into a world of data. “Working within Data & AI has enabled me to place my analytical lens away from academia and onto an area of work which is equally as broad as it is challenging and exciting,” said Rajesh, “I can see how the work I do contributes to the improvement of the business and makes a real difference to every-day processes at BT.”

EC criticised for considering charging Big Tech network costs by 34 civil rights organisations

Annie Turner
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EC criticised for considering charging Big Tech network costs by 34 civil rights organisations

The civil rights organisations from 17 countries have published an open letter protesting against any moves to overturn network neutrality.

They are voicing concerns about comments made byMargrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner about possible changes to the “the regulatory framework underpinning the free and open internet.” The letter is addressed to Vestager and the EU Internal Markets Commissioner, Thierry Breton, and argues against the so-called Sending Party Pays model which is under consideration by the Commissioners.

The 34 signatories said trying to force the like of Alphabet/Google, Apple, Netflix and Meta/Facebook et al to pay would undermine network neutrality, a somewhat ill-defined notion about all internet traffic being handled on a non-discriminatory basis by those who run networks.

Vestager made the comments in response to a study, Europe’s internet ecosystem: socio-economic benefits of a fairer balance between tech giants and telecom operators, commissioned and published in May by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO). The study generated a lot of publicity, controversially stating that a handful of Big Tech companies generate a huge proportion of all network traffic in Europe which costs the operators tens of billions of euros to carry it and keep building out more capacity.

The study had already received criticism from several quarters. The 34 signatories said Vestager should not be swayed by “the short-sighted and self-interested demands of the telecom industry and to ensure a free and open internet.” The open letter points out that the current regulatory framework enables Europeans to use the bandwidth they pay for however they wish.

The letter closes with, “European telecom companies are already compensated by their own internet service customers for transporting this data over their access networks; they simply want to be paid twice for the same service”.

The letter was coordinated by epicenter.works of Austria, with signatories including European Digital Rights, Civil Liberties Union for Europe, Electronic Frontier Foundation and more.

Telefonica is working “to ensure innovation finds its breeding ground in telecoms networks”

Annie Turner
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Telefonica is working “to ensure innovation finds its breeding ground in telecoms networks”

So said the operator group’s chairman, José María Álvarez-Pallete, at the South Summit yesterday.

He added that the company is moving towards this end by opening network APIs to developers and continuing with projects such as Wayra, its innovation fund for a digital ecosystem of which Telefonica itself is part.

Álvarez-Pallete warned of the risks of inequality that the profound changes brought about by technology, as people do not have the same access to the opportunities. He said, “It is key to manage the transition and not leave anyone behind”, he warned.

He highlighted that the metaverse would move people deeper into the digital world and will be, “the most profound change the Internet has undergone since its birth…It is time to give a concrete purpose to all this technology, because it is people who give meaning to technology and not the other way around.”

Álvarez-Pallete continued, “None of this can exist without the super connectivity provided by 5G and fibre networks, and with key technologies such as edge computing, the cloud and of course cybersecurity, essential for the new digital world”.

He was recently appointed chair of the ERT’s Employability, Skills and Impact Committee. He noted, “Reskilling is one of the biggest challenges we face…We have one of the largest retraining programmes in Europe (Skillsbank) for our employees.”

Telefónica’s commitment toinnovation is reflected in the creation of the Global Innovation and Talent Hub, which aims to turn the Group’s headquarters into a large, interconnected centre for 5G, AI, fibre, Edge Computing, Deep Learning, IoT, Cloud, Cybersecurity, Blockchain and video, according to Álvarez-Pallete.

It comprises Universitas, the corporate university, the Digital Operations Centre (DOC) for cybersecurity and cloud to serve Telefónica’s business customers. Other elements include the guidance and training initiatives of Fundación Telefónica such as EnlightED, promoted with South Summit, plus initiatives like Wayra, Open Future or Telefónica Ventures, have recently been inaugurated in its facilities.

South Summit is an annual gathering of investors, entrepreneurs and start-ups in Madrid.

African MNOs set to leapfrog legacy

Nick Booth
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African MNOs set to leapfrog legacy

Rakuten Symphony is priming 44 operators to overtake

Mobile operators in Africa could use Open RAN to leap frog their European peers who are bent over fiddling with their legacy equipment, according to Geoff Hollingworth, chief marketing officer for mobile systems integrator Rakuten Symphony. Hollingworth answered critics who have claimed that O-RAN will be impractical since it involves an over complicated and expensive integration process.

Slow RAN

In May, telecom analyst John Strand claimed that the policy of keeping radio access networks (RANs) open to contributions from every equipment manufacturer, while laudable, would slow down progress because it’s too laborious. “O-RAN will impede Africa’s progress,” Strand said. Hollingworth disagreed. These markets are more likely to adopt faster something new that can help them become technology leaders, Hollingworth told Telecom TV, since new working practices are easier to adopt if there is no emotional attachment to the old ones. It is easier to take risks and advance down new routes, and retreat if necessary, when you are not pulling a legacy ball and chain.

Legacy over

Speaking to Telecom TV, Hollingsworth told how the spin-off from Japanese mobile network operator (MNO) Rakuten Mobile, can help the mobile network operators in the emerging markets can become leaders. The advantage of coming from behind is that there is no ‘legacy’ to be disentangled and MNOs in Africa can learn from the trials and tribulations of those who’ve been down this path before. When it comes to 5G, Africa has no reason to want to repeat the mistakes of Western Europe and it could enjoy “an advantage in being behind”, leapfrogging its peers in other markets. 

Digital gap

Rakuten Symphony aims to “destroy the digital gap for everybody” by connecting the 3 billion unconnected people in the world with the right cost efficiency and an operational scale, Hollingworth told Telecom TV’s Yanitsa Boyadzhieva. “It’s everybody’s right that connectivity should be available to allow people to be what they could be,” said Hollingworth. A lack of connectivity shouldn’t be the reason that you can’t take part in the society, he said.

MTN proving concept

At Mobile World Congress Rakuten Symphony announced that it would run proof of concept trials on Open RAN-enabled 4G and 5G with pan African mobile operator the MTN Group. It is currently running live trials in South Africa, Nigeria and Liberia. Rakuten Symphony (RS) is currently working on 44 Open RAN systems integration projects. The power of a tightly integrated O-RAN machine is in the ratios, Hollingworth told Mobile Europe. Since RS has cracked the challenges of automation it can maintain a huge global infrastructure with around 250 staff. Anyone who doubts the power of an O-RAN structured telco cloud should witness the process of one of these omnipotent intelligent systems booting itself up, enervating all points of the network and running itself, Hollingworth said.

And the winners of Mobile Europe’s CTOs of the Year Awards 2022 are…

Annie Turner
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And the winners of Mobile Europe’s CTOs of the Year Awards 2022 are…

Our congratulations to our three winners in what proved to be a very unsual contest.

The winners were announced after a virtual roundtable discussion (write-up to follow shortly) by Patrick Ostiguy, Executive Chairman of the Awards’ sponsor, Accedian. One thing remained constant – the high quality of the entries and the tough job of picking the winners by the judging panel.

Colleagues and winners

The first ‘first’ was that never before have we chosen two winners from the same group, but we felt that it would be unfair not to chose either one on the grounds that a colleague had won the other. After all, the Awards are about the individuals and the quality of their entries.

Therefore our hearty congratulations go to our Didier Clavero, Group Networks Operations Director at Vodafone Spain, who won the Gamechanger 2022 category. The Award is in recognition of achievements on Vodafone’s Spanish network as well as on fixed and mobile networks across 12 European markets to accelerate automation and more.

The judges also made special mention of the Gamechanging achievements of Alexander Stock of A1 Austria and Jari Collin of Telia Finland, from the shortlist.

The winner of the Trailblazer Award 2022 is Andrea Dona, Chief Network Officer and Network Development Director at Vodafone UK (who was absent). In addition to his pioneering work on Open RAN, the judges also liked the API-enabled Telecoms-as-a-Service designed to allow users to access and consume network services in new and innovative ways.

Above and beyond

In another first, this year the judges decided to create a new Award – Above and Beyond. It will be presented, at their discretion, to an Award entrant where appropriate rather than become a permanent category. The first ever Above & Beyond Award goes to Volodymyr Lutchenko, CTO, Kyivstar.

While this Award recognises of the extraordinary bravery and determination of Volodymyr and his colleagues in maintaining communications in Ukraine right now, the judges also want to stress how impressed they are by the network itself, which was built to be resilient and flexible. The quality of their network strategy, design, deployment and operation has been demonstrated in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances.

Our congratulations and thanks to everyone who submitted an entry. Stay tuned for announcements about next year’s Awards – submissions will open in just seven months.

Here is the complete shortlist. Our congratulations to them all.

Didier Clavero, Group Network Operations Director, Vodafone Spain

Jari Collin, CTO, Telia Finland

Andrea Donà, Chief Network Officer, Vodafone UK

Volodymyr Lutchenko, CTO, Kyivstar

Yogesh Malik, EVP, Tele2, Sweden

Monica Sala, CTO, Orange Spain

Gediz Sezgin, CTO, Chief Network Technologies Office, Turkcell

Alexander Stock, CTO, A1 Austria

Howard Watson, CTO, BT Group

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