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Vodafone group reports organic revenue growth of 3.3% for Q2

Annie Turner
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Vodafone group reports organic revenue growth of 3.3% for Q2

The UK-based group noted improvement in the business and consumer sectors in most of its markets.

Vodafone Group has reported organic group service revenue growth of 3.3% for the quarter ended 30 June 2021, with improvements in consumer and business segments.

In the Q1 of the group’s current fiscal year (ending 31 March 2022), the company generated service revenues totalling €9.390 billion with its Vodafone Germany business accounting for more than 30% of the total – €2.872 billion, up marginally from €2.840 million in Q1 FY21.

Mobile service revenue represented the largest portion of total service revenues at €6.291 billion, up from €6.055 billion a year earlier.

Sales derived from fixed services was €3.099 billion (compared with €3.055 billion in Q1 of this yeara).

Total turnover was up by 5.6% year-on-year in organic terms, at €11.101 billion. Vodafone said this was due to service revenue growth in Europe and Africa, aand recovery in handset sales which were disrupted by the pandemic in the corresponding quarter a year earlier.

Growth in subscribers

Vodafone Group reported a mobile subscriber base totalling 272.401 million at 30 June 2021, up from 261.344 million a year earlier. The group’s fixed broadband accesses rose by 3.1% year on year to 24.575 million.

The compoany claimed to be a “leading converged connectivity provider: in Europe, with 7.9 million converged customers and 142 million ‘marketable’ (that is premises passed) broadband homes.

It also claims to cover 98% of the population with 4G in the European markets it which it operates and has launched 5G in 243 cities across ten markets.

In Africa, meanwhile, Vodafone Group claims to now cover 67% of the population with its 4G signal in the markets in which it operates.

Vodafone Group’s CEO Nick Read (pictured) stated, “I am pleased to report that we are back to service revenue growth in Europe, as well as Africa. This growth was broad based within both Consumer and Business segments, with the vast majority of our markets contributing.

“This is a result of our commercial and operating momentum built over the past three years as part of our strategic transformation.”

House hunters willing to pay up to £10k more for strong mobile connectivity at a property

Annie Turner
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0

That includes me, writes Annie Turner. Customer experience is nothing without a network that works, every time – and there’s a long way to go.

On Monday morning on my daily newsletter deadline, my broadband packed up. I phoned the supplier – I live in a rural area where there is only the choice of one.

My 900Mbps fibre link in the hall is plugged into my iMac in my office at the other end of the building via a heavy-duty Ethernet cable: thick flint walls aren’t helpful for Wi-Fi, even with a mesh network.

I called tech support and under instruction, heaved the dresser out to access the fibre modem, crawled about on the floor to relay which lights were on, take the fibre modem off the wall, unplug cables in the modem and the router, put them back in the right order and fire them back up, all while talking to tech support.

It involved quite a lot of running from one end of the building to the other which improved my temper no end.

Having been on my mobile phone for at least half an hour by the time everything had been put back together and powered up, it still didn’t work.

Not enough capacity?

At this critical juncture, the mobile call dropped. I was stationary at the time. In fairness, the tech person tried to call me back several times but couldn’t get through – no signal.

I sometimes get voicemail when the mobile next to me on my desk hasn’t rung, which also suggests network congestion.

I left my last mobile supplier – which makes much of its superior network – because in pre-pandemic days I got so fed up of NEVER being able to get online at Kings Cross station in London, regardless of time of day.

When I complained via Twitter, the reply was “It’s a very busy place”. Once I got over the surprise, the question is, why isn’t there enough capacity? Yes I know one of the motivations for 5G is greater capacity but good luck with that in rural areas before 2028.

Back to my broaband crisis. I had to go through the whole palaver twice more with two different people at my fibre supplier (the first time I got put through to billing as the tech dept was swamped).

The mobile provider I chased later reckons rotten signal is due to the fabric of my house. I am not so convinced: in the past I have got my computer online by tethering my iPhone.

I pay almost £100 a month for my mobile and fibre broadband combined. At work I hear so much about fancy customer experience stuff. The bottom line is customers want reliable coverage at a good enough speed to do whatever they want to do. Everything else – free tickets or any other ‘perks’ are of zero value.

There is no other service I pay for that is delivered on the basis of best effort, which is what mobile coverage amounts to and the fibre isn’t as reliable as expected either.

Back to the research

Virgin Media O2 found that 70% of house-hunters would be prepared to walk away from their dream home if mobile connectivity wasn’t up to par.

The shift to remote working means that nearly a third (31%) of Brits looking to buy would now be willing to pay more for a property with strong indoor and outdoor mobile phone signal.

One in five (20%) of house-hunters also admitted they would be willing to pay up to £10,000 more for a property with good mobile signal.

Good broadband connectivity is also crucial, with Brits now ranking this higher than good transport links when it comes to choosing a home to buy or rent – my FTTH is fab when it works, but I have to reboot the router a few times a week.

Overall, 60% of house-hunters said that the strength of the mobile and broadband network would be a top consideration when looking at properties to buy or rent.

That could or might not work in my favour here if i were selling my house – just depends when the buyer turned up.

 

Orange’s handling of June outage criticised in government report

Annie Turner
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0
Orange’s handling of June outage criticised in government report

Orange censured in a new report for not informing authorities quickly enough about the extent of its network failure on 2 June.

The outage on Orange’s network, the biggest in France, affected calls to emergency services for several hours last month.

Orange is part-owned by the French government and the report finds that the operator put lives at risk when thousands of calls across the country could not get through to emergency services.

“It’s clear from the report that there were shortcomings on the part of the company,” France’s Minister for Digital Affairs Cédric O told journalists on a call, Reuters reports.

Lack of oversight

In the report, led by France’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI, investigators highlighted the lack of national oversight by Orange of emergency calls, which it is compelled by law to centralise and route to emergency services in the country.

They also pointed to the company’s slowness in communicating information early in the crisis, as well as a lack of technical support to authorities during the crisis.

The government report agreed with Orange’s own internal audit that the outage was caused by a bug in the call server software in equipment supplied by Italtel.

Better measures

The government will now call on telecoms regulator Arcep to look into Orange’s shortcomings over the next few days, the Minister said. Also, the regulatory framework for emergency calls will be more stringent and Orange will be obliged to carry our regular crisis exercises the Mminister said.

“Orange is committed to reviewing its processes and organisation, in collaboration with state services, over the management of emergency phone numbers,” the company said.

Ericsson, Three and Glanbia launch Ireland’s first indoor 5G campus net

Annie Turner
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0
Ericsson, Three and Glanbia launch Ireland’s first indoor 5G campus net

The network is inside the multi-purpose dairy processing plant at Glanbia Ireland’s facility in Ballyragget, County Kilkenny.

Ericsson has partnered Three Ireland and Glanbia, a global leader in agriculture and nutrition, to launch Ireland’s first indoor 5G campus network in a live manufacturing environment.

The indoor 5G network, inside the multi-purpose dairy processing plant at Glanbia Ireland’s facility in Ballyragget, County Kilkenny, will bring low latency and better data security across Glanbia’s largest Irish plant.

High maintenance

The idea is to enable faster and more accurate maintenance tasks and provide richer analysis of plant processes, helping reduce manual administration and boost efficiency.

The coverage will be provided by the Ericsson Radio Dot System and combined with Three Ireland’s 5G spectrum.

Glanbia will trial bespoke 5G use cases, including augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications, and test how 5G can provide enhanced indoor connectivity for their wider production facilities.

Karl Duffy, Head of Enterprise and Public Sector at Three Ireland, commented, “The bespoke opportunities and insights which 5G can provide to organisations and sectors is really exciting to us at Three Ireland, delivering a real step-change from 4G.”

He added, “This is the first indoor 5G network of its kind in Ireland and will deliver real efficiencies for Glanbia. The opportunity is there for companies of all sizes to create a pilot and scale over time. The companies that act now will achieve first mover advantage within their sector which can’t be underestimated.”

Beyond the Horizon

Brian Farrell, Engineering Manager at Glanbia Ireland, Ballyragget, commented,  “We’re delighted to be involved in this ground-breaking initiative with Three Ireland and Ericsson. It’s allowing us to bring to life some of the early learnings from our participation in an EU funded Horizon 2020 5G project.

“It emphasises the importance of networks as an enabler for Digital Industrial Transformation and it will accelerate the trial and adoption of some innovative Industry 4.0 use cases for us.”

Ericsson and Three Ireland first launched 5G together in 2020 are working together to develop 5G consumer use cases through the global Ericsson Startup 5G programme.

GlobalData names Telefónica as global leader in IoT industrial services

Annie Turner
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0
GlobalData names Telefónica as global leader in IoT industrial services

Telefónica came out on top in GlobalData’s annual analysis of the global IoT industrial services market.

Telefónica’s rise is apparently due to its portfolio which integrates IoT services with AI, analytics and security, which has helped it gain “solid traction in the sector,” with more than 10,000 corporate customers and over 35 million IoT connections worldwide.

It was also cited for its strong experience in deploying solutions for large and small customers.

Moving  up

Of the seven areas evaluated, Telefónica maintained its position in five and improved in two, which are also considered by GlobalData as key in its considerations for potential IoT service customers. Specifically, it has improved in the areas of value services (capabilities in professional services, consulting, security and data analytics) and partnerships, where it was upgraded from strong to very strong.
 
Its commercial partners include its Partnership Programme for the resale channel and application partners – such as Geotab, edge solutions with Microsoft Azure, and its collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), among others.
 
GlobalData is keen on Telefónica’s vision of AI of Things, uniting ecosystems and capabilities to offer real end to end services that bring additonal value.

Telefónica was also upgraded for its progress in Industry 4.0, for working with specialist partners to offer services for complex use cases beyond connectivity.

Recognition

“We are very proud that GlobalData has evaluated us so positively and improved our position in its global benchmarking of industrial IoT services,” said Gonzalo Martín-Villa, CEO of IoT & Big Data at Telefónica Tech.

“It recognises our market vision, leadership within our broad footprint and the ability to adapt to what our customers expect from a company like Telefónica, regardless of their size, sector or previous technological capabilities thanks to a deep portfolio of IoT and Big Data solutions”.

Spain’s 700MHz auction for 5G concluded in a single day

Annie Turner
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0
Spain’s 700MHz auction for 5G concluded in a single day

Masmovil was a no-show; Vodafone, Telefónica (Movistar) and Orange, collectively paid just over €1 billion.

After 18 months’ delay, the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation (MINECO)’s auction of 700 MHz spectrum for 5G services was concluded in just one day.

The auction was due to take place in early 2020, but suffered a series of delays blamed on the pandemic, the need to ‘clean’ the band, which until last October was used for terrestrial digital TV service, and spats between the government and mobile operators regarding terms and conditions of the licences.

Lack of enthusiasm

The auction for spectrum in 3.4-3.6 GHz frequency range took place in February 2021 and had a lacklustre response. The government responded by dropping the reserve price by 15% and no longer insisting that operators would be obliged to share the spectrum they bid for. In return, they had to promise faster roll-outs.

Even so, there were no takers for the three blocks of 5MHz that were avaialble for downstream traffic only and Masmovil did not participate – it is busy with its acquisition of regional service provider Euskaltel.

Masmovil and other smaller mobile service providers have complained of discrimination via Spain’s National Association of Local Telecommunications Operators, claiming that the auction excluded alternative operators and to the detriment of certain sections of the population.

For now at least Masmovil will have to rely solely on its 3.5GHz spectrum for 5G services: Spain is planning its third and final 5G spectrum auction for spectrum in the 26GHz band (for mmWave services), before the end of the year.

What they got

Vodafone and Orange each paid €350 million for two blocks of 10MHz of spectrum, while Telefónica (Movistar) paid €310 million for its two blocks of 10 MHz of capacity.

The spectrum has initial holding rights until 2041, with an automatic renewal with no additional fees for a further 20 years (until 2061), subject to the licensees meeting their licence obligations.

Orange said it has consolidated its position as having the most spectrum in “the priority frequencies” for 5G, claiming this enables it to offer the fastest 5G services.

 

 

 

 

BT invests ‘multi-million pounds’ in Silicon Valley cyber security firm

Annie Turner
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0
BT invests ‘multi-million pounds’ in Silicon Valley cyber security firm

The UK’s incumbent operator looks to enterprise cyber security as a new source of global revenues and products.

BT has announced a multi-million pound investment in Safe Security, a cyber risk management firm with headquartered in Silicon Valley. Clearly, it sees security as good bet to generate new revenues.

The UK operator did not specify how much it had invested, but it led a funding round that raised a raised $33 million (€28 million). Some existing investors, including John Chambers, former CEO and Chair of Cisco Systems, participated too.

Riding the soonicorn…

Safe Security’s Co-founder and CEO Saket Modi quipped that the company would soon be a “soonicorn” according to the YourStory website.

Safe Security runs the Safe Security Assessment Framework for Enterprises (SAFE) platform designed to let organisations assess their defences and understand their likelihood of suffering a major cyber attack.

Industry analysis estimates that the cost of global cyber crime reached over US$1 trillion in 2020, as criminals exploited the big changes to everyday life, brought about by the pandemic, to target individuals and organisations of all sizes.

Recent attacks have affected energy infrastructure and medical care.

In the mix

BT will combine the SAFE platform with its managed security services to provide customers with a real-time view of how safe they are against an incredibly fast-moving cyber threat landscape.

BT claims that SAFE “is unique in calculating a financial cost to customers’ risks and giving actionable insight on the steps that can be taken to address them.

The platform ultimately enables organisations to surgically target gaps in their defences, and already protects multiple Fortune 500 companies and governments around the world.”

As part of this investment, BT will have exclusive rights to use and sell SAFE to businesses and public sector bodies in the UK, and will incorporate the platform within its wider global portfolio.

BT will also be designated as the recommended global partner for improving a customer’s SAFE score and will collaborative with Safe Security to develop products.

BT’s ambitions

Philip Jansen, CEO of BT, said, “Adding SAFE to BT’s proactive, predictive security services will give customers an enhanced view of their threat level, and rapidly pinpoint specific actions needed to strengthen their defences.

“Already one of the world’s leading providers in a highly fragmented security market, this investment is a clear sign of BT’s ambition to grow further.”

Nokia and Xantaro look to speed spread of fibre in GB with altnets

Annie Turner
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0
Nokia and Xantaro look to speed spread of fibre in GB with altnets

The two are to work with alternative fibre network providers (altnets) to provide connectivity of up to 10Gpbs to 2 million homes.

Nokia has expanded it relationship with Xantaro which is supplying more than 10 alternative service providers (AltNets). Their build-outs range from the south-west and north of England, to parts of London and Scotland and Wales.

Alternative service providers (AltNets) are building their businesses on full fiber deployments in areas with slow or no broadband availability, in urban and rural environments.

Nokia’s aim is to improve broadband speed and fibre penetration by offering GPON, XGS-PON and 25G PON in a single unit.

Case-by-case tech

This enables service providers to choose the most appropriate deployment model in each use case and provides protection of long-term investment. Xantaro also has access to Nokia’s IP and optical solutions, and devices for consumers and enterprises, delivering Wi-Fi 6 and mesh Wi-Fi coverage inside buildings.
 
Rob Hamnett, Sales Director at Xantaro, said, “Working with Nokia, we can offer AltNets the same leading technology that big nation-wide telcos around the globe are buiding their infrastructure on.

“While subscribers benefit from a reliable Gigabit broadband service, the AltNets get a solution which grows with demand and provides a clear path towards future evolution of their fiber network, from 1 Gigabit up to 25 Gigabit speed.”

Great Britain is lagging much of the rest of Europe in terms of fibre penetration, but altnets are attracting big investors, and the speed of deployment is also lagging behind France, Germany and Italy, according to the FTTH Council Europe’s figures.

In other words, there’s plenty to go for.
 

SAP rising as its cloud strategy pays off

Annie Turner
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0
SAP rising as its cloud strategy pays off

The firm has upped its outlook twice this year after launching a strategic push to help customers move IT to the cloud.

The German software SAP lifted its outlook for the second time this year as its strategy to help customers move IT operations to the cloud propelled the company in Q2.

Indeed demand is rising so fast that a report from UBS said the lack of the right skills in helping companies move to the cloud could eventually jeopardise the growth of the Big Three cloud companies.

Sid Nag, Gartner’s Deputy said about 40% of companies moving to the cloud turned to specialist firms for help. SAP offers software to run finance, human resources and supply-chains.

Strength to strength

Jefferies analyst Julian Serafini noted the strength in SAP’s subscription-based services and the cloud version of its S/4HANA database.

SAP’s value rose 2.8% as it met the demand from enterprises that are increasingly turning to cloud to support new ways of working, such as from home, due to the pandemic.

SAP says it now expects cloud revenue to grow by 15% to 18% this year, driving its total cloud and software revenue up by 2%to 3%. Even so, the firm’s forecast concerning its operating profit is unchanged – down 4% for 2021 as a whole.

CEO Christian Klein said, “We’re seeing strong adoption of our cloud portfolio as customers select SAP for their business transformation. Our strategy is working”.

Subscriptions beat up-front fees

Last October Klein hitched the company’s fortunes to cloud services’ subscription model, that pays revenue regular recurring revenue in preference to its former model of software licences with heavy up-front fees.

Rise with SAP is a complete digital transformation package, launched the start of this year. Its success a helped drive 20% growth in the current cloud backlog, which is also an encouraging measure of a healthy pipeline.

The S/4HANA cloud backlog was up 48%, confirming progress on Rise with SAP. The company said it was seeing momentum, particularly in the US, where it predicted an acceleration in cloud revenue growth in the second half.

More information here.
 

 

 

Vodafone and Nokia develop ML to pick up mobile net anomalies

Annie Turner
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0
Vodafone and Nokia develop ML to pick up mobile net anomalies

The machine learning algorithm (ML) will be applied to Vodafone’s pan-European networks.

Vodafone, in partnership with Nokia, is introducing a new ML algorithm to its pan-European mobile networks to detect and correct anomalies before they impact customers.
 
This is part of Vodafone’s strategy to deliver customers a ‘best on Vodafone’ experience through the introduction of new, more reliable and energy efficient digital technologies. Earlier this month, Vodafone switched its entire pan-European fixed and mobile networks over to electricity from 100% renewable sources.

Anomalies autonomously

Based on Nokia Bell Labs’ technology, the Anomaly Detection Service autonomously detects any mobile cell that shows unusual behaviour which, if undetected for an extended period, could impact the customers’ quality of service.

Vodafone engineers can address issues faster, such as congestion at a mobile site, interference, unexpected latency, difficulty in handing calls between different cells or call setup failures.
 
The algorithm also identifies patterns of change to allow Vodafone’s operating companies to address issues before they impact the customer. Once active, Vodafone expects the new service to support its ambition to automatically detect and address 80% of all anomalous mobile network issues and capacity demands.

Test and roll-out

With support from Vodafone, Nokia’s Bell Labs algorithm has been tested on the live network to demonstrate its accuracy and to ensure that it works with equipment from all network vendors.

Following the initial deployment in Italy on more than 60,000 4G cells, Vodafone will extend the service to all its European markets by early 2022.
 
Johan Wibergh, Chief Technology Officer for Vodafone (pictured), said, “We are building an automated and programmable network that can respond quickly to our customers’ needs. As we extend 5G across Europe, it is important to match the speed and responsiveness of this new technology with a great service.

“With machine learning, we can ensure a consistently high-quality performance that is as smart as the technology behind it.”
 
Nokia’s Anomaly Detection Service is being deployed on Vodafone’s Cloud platform to enable engineers to make fast and informed decisions based on secure and reliable data analytics, such as being able to boost capacity where customers need it most.
 
Raghav Sahgal, Nokia’s President of Cloud and Network Services, said: “We are pleased to celebrate the first commercial deployment of our solution with Vodafone, running on the public cloud. By analyzing network data our machine-learning algorithms can detect anomalies impacting network operations and performance, helping Vodafone engineers to pre-empt and rapidly resolve issues.”
 

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