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Telecoms’ global revenue regains pre-pandemic levels in 2021

Annie Turner
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Telecoms’ global revenue regains pre-pandemic levels in 2021

But it looks like telcos are still caught on the horns of the digital dilemma – enabling everyone else to profit rather than raking it in themselves.

IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Telecom Services Tracker found revenues from telecoms services and pay TV amounted to $1.53 trillion in 2020, reflecting no growth over the previous year.

However, it expects to see growth of 0.7% in 2021, to reach a total of $1.54 trillion, but as the graph shows, the analyst house is not expecting to see the jump that so many hope 5G will deliver between now and 2025 – the time it used to take the ITU to deliver a new set of global telecoms standards, but a long time in modern telecoms.

Consider what the hyperscale cloud market looked like four years ago – and the level of debt most European telcos are mired in now.

Short-term pandemic effects

Obviously, the pandemic is blamed for the lack of growth in 2020 as the number of subscribers fell and people spent less on some services as a result of lockdowns and people cutting back on spending.

In the second half of 2020, demand improved due to economic stimulus measures and the progress of vaccines boosted optimism. Hence the second half saw revenues close to those of the previous year for the same period.

IDC says that although the revenue outcome in 2020 was neutral, the pandemic drastically changed the trends that have shaped the global telco market for a long time.

Consumer fixed data services suddenly became the most important type of connectivity, enabling home-bound people to work and entertain.

Business fixed data services temporarily lost momentum due to the migration of traffic to the consumer segment, but most of these connections were preserved as they were protected by long-term contracts.

Fixed voice services dropped a little due to bankruptcies among small businesses and some residential clients gave up connections to save money.

Mobile services spending also declined slightly due to slower renewals of contract, reduced out-of-bundle spending, and a sharp decrease in roaming revenues due to travel restrictions.

In the Pay TV segment, the migration from traditional Pay TV to Over the Top (OTT) services accelerated during the COVID-19 crisis, driven by increased consumption of video content and new OTT services.

What now?

IDC believes that connectivity will become an even more critical asset for households and businesses after the pandemic, as some of the habits adopted during the crisis (remote working, collaboration, online media consumption) are expected to become part of everyday life.

The migration toward FTTP is expected to accelerate in many country markets, while the business fixed data market will recover in the longer term as the economic recovery drives increased investments in the cloudification of enterprise business activities.

Mobile revenue growth will be buoyed to a degree by 5G adoption, which will invite users to deploy more advanced data capabilities and take up content and services dependent on high-speed data connectivity.

“The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the resilience and value of the telecoms industry,” said Chris Barnard, VP, European Infrastructure and Telecoms.

“New ways of working will persist beyond the pandemic, shaping future revenue opportunities, while the network-centricity of consumers will drive bandwidth requirements in that segment as well.”

 

Telefónica Tech, Microsoft offer industry private 5G and edge computing

Annie Turner
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Telefónica Tech, Microsoft offer industry private 5G and edge computing

The two have signed a collaboration agreement to integrate private 5G connectivity and Azure Private Edge Zone.

Telefónica Tech, Telefónica’s digital business holding company, signed a collaboration agreement with Microsoft for the operator to install private 5G connectivity and Microsoft’s edge computing capabilities at customers’ premises.

Their aim is to drive customers’ digital transformation, and enable automation and control of industrial processes as part of their joint vision for Industry 4.0. through an integrated architecture.

New model

They say their model will accelerate the adoption of new business processes as part of the move to becoming smart factories which involves digitisation of equipment, intensive use of computing and AI to facilitate business decisions and secure data on customers’ premises.

The architecture expands the ecosystem of solutions and creates a reference model for the industrial market, migrating traditional services to a single model, incorporating new technologies and solutions.

The aim is to provide end-to-end visibility, and guarantee the highest possible levels of security, efficiency to run business and mission-critical applications.

Simple, replicable, scalable

“This framework responds to the needs of those companies that want to deploy demanding industrial use cases on high-performance and secure private connectivity, focusing on simplicity, replicability and scalability “, says Gonzalo Martín-Villa, CEO of IoT and Big Data from Telefónica Tech.

Yousef Khalidi, Azure Corporate Vice President for Operators at Microsoft. “Partners like Telefónica Tech are essential in helping us meet the local needs of our industrial clients. We look forward to working together to help our clients take advantage of this platform to drive the transformation of their businesses and that of the industry as a whole in the future”.

Leaving the MEC to others?

Interesting to reflect, as Dean Bubley writes in a recent blog,”Telcos’ MEC edge-compute was supposed to take centre-stage against hyperscale cloud providers. Instead, MEC’s main use is to host internal NFV or vRAN functions that run the network itself. Or enable some hyperscalers’ own edge platforms on a wholesale basis, where they don’t have other options.

“Meanwhile, edge-compute evolves in many other (non-telco) domains much faster, including on-device / gateway, or linked to non-3GPP technologies such as Wi-Fi and fibre.”

 

 

 

 

 

5G prospects stay strong despite pandemic drag

Annie Turner
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5G prospects stay strong despite pandemic drag

CCS Insight finds worldwide connections to 5G networks will triple in 2021 to 670 million, and reach 3.6 billion in 2025.

A new report by CCS Insight predicts strong 5G adoption is expected in the next 18 to 24 months as part of the global macroeconomic recovery. This will include accelerating network deployments and the price of 5G-capable phones plummeting, combined with a greater appreciation for high-quality connectivity among consumers and businesses in the wake of the pandemic.

“Although our near-term expectations have been dented, we remain optimistic that the global mobile industry will overcome these temporary challenges and will achieve 3.6 billion 5G connections worldwide in 2025”, notes Marina Koytcheva, VP of Forecasting at CCS Insight.

Global recovery

By the middle of the decade, more than 75% of mobile phones in the advanced markets of North America, Western Europe and Asia–Pacific will have transitioned to 5G networks.


“In some pioneering countries, 5G is on the verge of hitting the mass market,” explains Kester Mann, Director of Consumer and Connectivity at CCS Insight. “Consumers’ thirst for connectivity is stronger than ever, and accelerating network roll-outs and affordable smartphones are making 5G increasingly accessible”.

South Korea and China lead in 5G deployment of 5G: a fifth of mobile phones in South Korea are on 5G networks, and China is on course to achieve this milestone in 2021, where seven out of 10 smartphones sold in the first three months of 2021 had 5G capabilities.

US to regain status

The US was first to launch 5G but only promoted it only tentatively for almost two years. In the last six months, though, carriers have started pushing it hard, particularly since 5G iPhones became available.

This push will see the US regain its status of a 5G front runner in 2021.

Patchy progress in Europe

Progress in Western Europe has been mixed. Delays to spectrum auctions during the pandemic have held up network deployment in some markets such as France, and government posturing over the role afforded to Huawei has brought uncertainty.

However, these delays were not as lengthy as many feared, and some operators have moved quickly to sign agreements with alternative providers of network infrastructure.

As a result of spectrum allocation, network progress and the growing prevalence of 5G phones, which will account for more than half of phone sales in the region in 2021, most Western European countries are now not too far behind the region’s pioneers in Switzerland, the UK, Finland and Germany.

“We have to give a nod to the role that smartphone-makers are playing in getting 5G handsets into people’s hands, with prices set to drop as low as $150 in 2022”, continues Koytcheva.

Pandemic impact in 2020

The global mobile phone market was dealt a significant blow by the pandemic and shrank by 13% in 2020. Although its growth will remain sluggish in 2021 at just 6%, suppressed by volatile demand and short supply of major components, the 5G segment will flourish and one in three mobile phones sold worldwide in 2021 will feature 5G.

Importantly, 5G growth won’t be confined to the most advanced markets in the next five years, even if less developed economies are slower to launch 5G as they continue to reap the benefits of 4G. India is one such country, where fierce competition between mobile operators and ambitions for home-grown solutions have the potential to lead the adoption of 5G.

Two other areas of growth for 5G have received plenty of attention but will have limited effect in the next five years. The Internet of things is set to benefit from 5G, but the pandemic has caused delays to standards and commercial deployment, so the number of connections in this space will remain unimpressive until at least 2025.

Additionally, 5G fixed wireless access is likely to remain a niche technology, confined to a supporting role alongside traditional fixed-line networks in many markets.

Risks remain

Risks to the exact mode and speed of 5G adoption remain, ranging from the unpredictable nature of the global pandemic and the high uncertainties facing the world economy, to the short supply of components for smartphones and other smart devices.

However, the mobile industry has firmly stepped on the path of upgrade to 5G and short-term challenges will do little to hinder its long-term progress.

A summary of CCS Insight’s new forecast for 5G connections is presented in the chart below.

at https://www.ccsinsight.com/research-areas/5g-networks

Juniper reckons telemedicine to save healthcare industry €17.3bn by 2025

Annie Turner
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0
Juniper reckons telemedicine to save healthcare industry €17.3bn by 2025

This is up from from $11 billion in 2021 – a growth rate of over 80% in the next four years.

Juniper Research’s new study, Telemedicine: Emerging Technologies, Regional Readiness & Market Forecasts 2021-2025, says the concept of telemedicine involves the remote provision of healthcare services and includes technologies such as teleconsultations, remote patient monitoring and chatbots.

The research identified teleconsultations – a service that enables patients and physicians to interact remotely – as a key service that will enable these huge savings.

However, savings are restricted to nations with where the necessary devices and internet connectivity are prevalent. On that basis, it predicts that more than 80% of savings will be harvested in North America and Europe by 2025.

Deregulation needed

The new report estimates that over 280 million teleconsultations were performed in 2019. However, this rose to 348 million in 2020, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. It anticipated that the activities of third party healthcare service developers will be crucial in accelerating the deployment of emerging telemedicine services, and increasing the uptake amongst healthcare providers.

However, the report predicted that the considerable investment needed to integrate telemedicine services, and data protection requirements, such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) in the US, will discourage adoption amongst smaller healthcare providers.

To foster the adoption of telemedicine services, the report recommended that healthcare regulatory bodies continue to deregulate telemedicine services to minimise any remaining barriers to entry for smaller healthcare providers.

For more insights, download Juniper’s free whitepaper: The Doctor is Always in: How Teleconsultations Improve Patient Care

Ericsson and Samsung replace patents dispute with global licences

Annie Turner
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0
Ericsson and Samsung replace patents dispute with global licences

The two companies filed complaints against each other at the US International Trade Commission (USITC) and had lawsuits running in several countries.

Ericsson and Samsung reached a multi-year agreement on global patent licences between them, including patents relating to all cellular technologies. The cross-licence agreement covers sales of network infrastructure and handsets from 1 January, 2021. 

They have also agreed on technology cooperation projects to advance open mobile standards and solutions for consumers and enterprises.

As they are both seeking to make them most of Huawei’s enforced absence from many markets, it seems sensible to stop squabbling between themselves.

End of lawsuits

This settlement ends complaints filed by both companies before the USITC as well as the ongoing lawsuits in other countries.

They did not disclose any details of the agreement, but said it “confirms the value of the strong patent portfolios of both companies”.

Ericsson said its IPR licensing revenues continue to be affected by several factors, mainly expired patent license agreements pending renewal, geopolitical impact on the handset market, technology shift from 4G to 5G, and could include possible currency effects.

In the second quarter 2021, IPR licensing revenues, including the new agreement covering sales from January 1, 2021, are expected to be SEK 2.0 billion (€198 million) to SEK2.5 billion.

Fair and reasonable

Christina Petersson, Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Ericsson says: “We are delighted to sign a mutually beneficial agreement with Samsung. This important deal confirms the value of our patent portfolio and further illustrates Ericsson’s commitment to fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) principles.”

Over several decades, Ericsson has made significant investments in R&D and in developing global mobile standards and is committed to licensing its standard-essential patents on FRAND terms for the benefit of consumers and enterprises everywhere. The FRAND system allows access to technology and intellectual property, developed by inventors like Ericsson, and also rewards those inventors for their major up-front investment in R&D in each mobile generation.

The value of Ericsson’s IP portfolio extends to more than 57,000 granted patents and is added to by an annual investment in R&D of about SEK 40 billion

Nokia wins exclusive deal for Swisscom’s optical transport network

Annie Turner
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Nokia wins exclusive deal for Swisscom’s optical transport network

The upgraded optical transport network should be easier to scale, enabling faster services delivery and innovation.

Swisscom has chosen Nokia to update its infrastructure to become a fully automated, high capacity optical transport network.

Nokia is the sole supplier to build the end-to-end wavelength division multiplexing/optical transport network (WDM/OTN) nationwide. It is intended to meet the surging demand for bandwidth driven by the increase in remote working and learning, video streaming, gaming and cloud computing.

Transport all traffic

The modernised optical network will transport all of Swisscom’s fixed and wireless traffic from customer-provided equipment to metro access to the backbone, and will support client services from 1G to 400G.

This requires a scalable and upgraded infrastructure that can improve capacity, performance and resilience.

The plan is that Swisscom will benefit from reduced operating expenses and optimised capital expenditures due to simplified, streamlined end-to-end service operations, that make more efficient use of network resources through automation.
 
Nokia’s broad portfolio of optical networking hardware, software and professional services will be applied. This includes Nokia WaveFabric, based on the 1830 family of WDM/OTN platforms powered by the Nokia PSE-V coherent digital signal processor (DSP), and the Nokia WaveSuite portfolio of networking applications for network commissioning, service enablement, and network health and analytics.

Nokia’s WavePrime Digital Twin as a Service will also be used to provide a cloud-hosted digital simulation of the physical network.

Network expansion strategy

Christoph Aeschlimann, CIO and CTO, Swisscom, said, “Swisscom has set out its network expansion strategy [to] the end of 2025, which is to equip the network for the new decade.

“This strategic partnership with Nokia highlights Swisscom’s commitment to delivering a high capacity, fully automated nationwide optical backbone for Switzerland.

“This next-generation transport network can quickly adapt to changes and provide superior services and connectivity experiences to our customers. Nokia has proven to be a trusted partner and has been the preferred choice to transform our optical network.”

US collaboration gives fixed wireless access a serious boost

Annie Turner
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0
US collaboration gives fixed wireless access a serious boost

Partners in the trial say they achieved a 7km range for FWA over millimeter wave (mmWave) on a commercial network.

Ericsson, Inseego, Qualcomm Technologies and UScellular announced they reached a milestone of 7km for a fixed wireless access (FWA) 5G link over mmWave.

The trial sustained average downlink speeds of 1Gbps and uplink speeds of 55Mbps. The instantaneous peak downlink speeds was recorded at greater than 2Gbps.

Also, the companies achieved sustained average downlink speeds of 730 Mbps and sustained average uplink speeds of ~38 Mbps at a distance of 1.75 km with no line of sight.

Who did what

The trial was carried out at Janesville, Wisconsin (pictured), on UScellular’s commercial network by applying:
• Ericsson’s extended-range functionality to Ericsson commercial hardware Antenna Integrated Radio (AIR) 5322 antenna; and
• an Inseego Wavemaker 5G outdoor CPE FW2010 with the Qualcomm 5G Fixed Wireless Access Platform gen 1.
This incorporates a Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System and a Qualcomm QTM527 mmWave antenna module.
They say the trial demonstrates the range and connectivity speeds 5G mmWave could provide to homes and businesses everywhere.

Almost a third (29.1%) of Europe’s population lives in rural areas which are typically the worst served by broadband providers and the hardest to reach. FWA is becoming a viable option.

High throughput, long distance

Ashish Sharma, president of IoT and mobile solutions, Inseego. “We’re delivering exceptionally high throughput at a very long distance with millimeter wave technology. In addition to bringing 5G to enterprise and home broadband customers almost anywhere, we see a great market with the FW2010 for infrastructure backhaul applications. This is truly a game-changer for the FWA market.”

Is Italy’s plan to create a national broadband network in ruins?

Annie Turner
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Is Italy’s plan to create a national broadband network in ruins?

A government intervention in the long-running saga reportedly could prevent a single broadband infrastructure.

Reuters reports that the plan to create a single unified fixed broadband access network in Italy by merging the assets of Telecom Italia and state-backed wholesaler Open Fiber appears to be doomed.

There have been many twists and turns in this epic, but a government intervention looks set to block the plan. The government is now led by Mario Draghi and looks set to abandon the plan proposed by its predecessor.

Further, the recovery plan that Italy submitted to the European Commission refers to broadband networks, not a network.

TIM is to file a complaint with market watchdog Consob, adding that interpretations in the press were “entirely inappropriate and unsubstantiated”. Its share fell 9% when the story broke.

In a clarification statement, operator said that the link between Italy’s recovery plan and possible aggregations between companies operating in the broadband network industry “is not understood”.

The Italian government declined to comment.

Previously…

Under the previous government’s plan, TIM could initially own more than 50% of the new single network, depending on the value of its assets contributed, and in return it would make access available to all market players on an equal footing.

Under that plan, the new entity, called AccessCo, could be eligible for billions of euros from the EU Recovery Fund money to upgrade the country’s network.

The decision about the network strategy would lie with the state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP). It is TIM’s second largest shareholder and was set to take control of Open Fiber later this year.

TIM has consistntly refused to countenance any deal that would result in it owning less than 50% of any combined entity with Open Fiber.

Consortium option?

Sources have told Reuters the government was looking at alternatives to speed up the broadband rollout, including a less ambitious plan to merge Open Fiber with FiberCop.

FibreCop is a vehicle controlled by TIM that runs the group’s infrastructure between street cabinets and premises.

Italy’s ruling parties are also discussing a plan to pull together all the country’s telecom operators in a consortium to speed up the rollout of ultra-fast infrastructure nationwide, a document seen by Reuters showed.

In the meantime, TIM has committed to closing the digital divide in Italy this year – a big challenge given how far down the league European league table Italy is for fibre penetration  – and has announced two 100% connected regions (Apulia and Friuli Venezia Giulia) this year.

WBA and TIP move to enable a single, giant Wi-Fi network

Annie Turner
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0
WBA and TIP move to enable a single, giant Wi-Fi network

Open Wi-Fi is a Telecom Infra Project (TIP) initiative which will be formally launched on 12 May.

TIP announced it has adopted Wireless Broadband Alliance’s (WBA) OpenRoaming standard for its soon to be launched OpenWiFi initiative.

The WBA says this will accelerate the wide adoption of its standard which is designed to allow users to roam securely between Wi-Fi nteworks without the need for logins, registrations or passwords each time they move to a new network.

No more logins

The WBA hopes “the world will become a single, giant Wi-Fi network, allowing billions of people and their devices to connect automatically and securely to millions of Wi-Fi networks around the world”.

The standard was introduced in early 2020 and backers include AT&T, Boingo, Broadcom, Cisco, Commscope, Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Intel, Net Experience and Samsung.

A cross-industry survey announced in November 2020 showed that 79% of organisations planned to adopt OpenRoaming.

OpenWiFi will be officially launched on 12 May “will leverage open-source development and automated testing to allow Wi-Fi service providers to confidently deploy access points, cloud controllers and smart analytics from different vendors,” a WBA statement said.

“WBA OpenRoaming is a strong complement to OpenWiFi as both projects are designed to remove barriers to connectivity,” said Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of Wireless Broadband Alliance.

New UK infrastructure funds snaps up assets in Czechia and Norway

Annie Turner
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0
New UK infrastructure funds snaps up assets in Czechia and Norway

American Tower Corporation Europe recruits partner to help it swallow the €7.7 billion acquisition of Telefonica’s towers.

The infrastructure-investor rush into Europe continues. A new UK investment trust, Cordiant Digital Infrastructure, has made its first two investments: a mobile tower business in Czechia (the Czech Republic) and a fibre network in Norway.

Cordiant Digital Infrastructure is an offshoot of Cordiant Capital which has an established presence in the telecoms. It set up the new fund to address the infrastructure side of the business and the long-term, steady returns such assets are expected to provide.

First steps into Europe

Cordiant Digital Infrastructure paid £451 million (€522.23 million) for telecoms and TV towers firm České Radiokomunikace (CRA) and an anonymous Norwegian fibre network plus land.

Australian Macquarie Asset Management, which owned České Radiokomunikace for the last ten years, confirmed the deal without disclosing financial details.

České Radiokomunikace is the larger of the two deals. When both are completed, Cordiant will be the proud owner of 660 TV, radio and telecoms towers, about 300 microwave links, a 4,850km of fibre and six edge-based data centres.

Cordiant Digital Infrastructure had an initial public offering in February from which it raised £370 million and listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Growth opps

The said in a statement: “Growth opportunities for CRA exist in supporting the mobile operators with infrastructure as well as in expanding the size and reach of the data centre platforms.

“There is significant potential to expand CRA’s early, successful, network offerings in the Internet of Things. The network already offers smart metering for water, electricity and gas for companies including E.ON and RWE.”

Little is known as yet about the Norwegian fibre except they link the country to other Nordic and European countries and customers include utilities, industry and telcos.

The Cordiant Digital Infrastructure statement said, “Approximately half of the network’s fibres have currently been leased, offering significant potential to increase revenues with existing and new customers (such as data centre operators).

As the region offers a good supply of low-cost, environmentally-friendly electricity, it is expected to attract data centre operators, and excellent connectivity will be key to that.

America Tower partners up

Separately, American Tower’s stated strategy is to extend its European footprint rapidly. It agreed to pay €7.7 billion for Telefonica’s tower estates in Europe and Latin America in January.

To help it swallow that huge acquisition, it has brought a new investor onboard in the shape of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) which will acquire 30% of American Tower Corporation (ATC) Europe in a deal valued at more than €1.6 billion.

This suggests the value of ATC Europe is more than €8.8 billion. Once the huge deal goes through, they will have close to 30,000 towers in Europe.

A statement said, “The transaction will position American Tower and CDPQ to jointly benefit from sustainable, long-term secular wireless growth trends in select European markets as 5G deployments and demand for communications infrastructure accelerate”.

It is also issuing 8.5 million new shares to raise additional funds. For comparison, see Spain’s Cellnex telecom tower estate, which is expanding at a dizzying rate.

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