Page 98 – Mobile Europe

Telecom Egypt and EXA leverage WeConnect for intercontinental traffic

Annie Turner

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21 March 2024

Telecom Egypt and EXA leverage WeConnect for intercontinental traffic

The two promise to change the face of subsea infrastructure in the region, as subsea cables are increasingly attacked

Telecom Egypt and EXA Infrastructure have formed a partnership to “reshape East-to-West traffic flows entering the Mediterranean, and reinforce Egypt’s role as a pivotal hub for global telecommunications”.

Telecom Egypt is one of the largest subsea cable operators in the region, and EXA Infrastructure is a European fibre backbone and transatlantic subsea cable infrastructure provider.

In recent months, subsea cables have been attacked including in the Red Sea and the waters of Northern Europe. The impact has been made worse by outages off Western Africa, and the fact at least nine of the countries affected rely on a single subsea cable.

In February, ETNO warned that vulnerable subsea cables are a risk to the European Union’s security.

ETNO said, “We strongly advocate…comprehensive reforms in the permitting procedures. This includes clear identification, simplification, and unification of the process for installation, repair, and decommissioning of submarine cables. These processes should be harmonized throughout Member States as much as possible, including the introduction of a one-stop-shop approach in every country.

It envisages this process would establish a single point of contact for operators and public agencies. It cites the example of a recent order from the Portuguese government [document in Portuguese] as a model for best practice in the EU. The order outlines measures to simplify the installation of submarine cables, such as setting up a single licensing portal.

Building multiple diverse routes is also seen as essential ensure services are not disrupted if a cable is damaged.

Telecom Egypt and EXA

At a signing ceremony between Telecom Egypt and EXA Infrastructure, executives committed to a new era of cooperation to support digital infrastructure initiatives.

EXA Infrastructure says that through the partnership, it will become a one-stop-shop for traffic from the Middle East and Asia into Europe. It will combe multi-route solutions and “protected capacity” solutions from Egypt via Telecom Egypt’s WeConnect infrastructure which has hundreds of endpoints in Europe and North America.

Telecom Egypt unveiled WeConnect in September 2023 as an ecosystem offering access to Egypt’s extensive subsea cables. WeConnect enables users to navigate between subsea cable systems in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, on an open and neutral basis.

Now, as part of the partnership, EXA Infrastructure will serve as the European and North American-based service provider to access WeConnect.

Egypt’s role as hub

Telecom Egypt handles more than 90% of the international Eurasian traffic, accounting for more than 200Tbps of international traffic across Egypt. The company is establishing new landing stations on the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts, which are connected via diverse terrestrial and subsea routes.

Dr Amr Talaat, Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, commented, “This agreement is an important milestone in the series of partnerships forged with major international telecommunications service providers to expand the reach of the international digital infrastructure globally, keeping pace with the growing demand for Internet services worldwide and in line with the government’s strategy to position Egypt as a global digital corridor for data.

“The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is keen to maintain Egypt’s distinctive edge in the field of international subsea cables infrastructure, capitalising on its unparalleled geographical location as a unique hub for submarine cables worldwide.”

Links to anywhere

Mohamed Nasr, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at Telecom Egypt, said the new partnership allows “our customers to pick their traffic from Egypt to any point of presence (PoP) in Europe via Telecom Egypt’s Mediterranean cable landing stations.”

He added, “Using WeConnect ecosystem, 19 subsea systems can easily and seamlessly scale-up and extend their reach to major PoPs in Europe hopping on EXA Infrastructure’s well-established network.”

Nick Read, Executive Chairman at EXA Infrastructure, added, “Partnerships are a cornerstone of how this industry will scale to support the huge growth in data traffic in the coming years.”

Portugal’s MEO expands global partnership for voice and mobile

Annie Turner

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20 March 2024

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Portugal’s MEO expands global partnership for voice and mobile

Through its Altice Wholesale Solutions business, MEO has again chosen iBASIS as its preferred partner including for outbound SMS and 5G traffic

Portugal’s largest converged operator, MEO (formerly Portugal Telecom) has renewed its outsourcing agreement with iBASIS as its preferred partner for international voice and mobile services. MEO is part of the Altice Group and the contract is between MEO’s subsidiary Altice Wholesale Solutions and iBASIS.

The latter describes itself as “the leading provider of communications solutions for operators and digital players worldwide”.

iBASIS will also open an IPX Point of Presence (PoP) in MEO’s newly established Linda-a-Velha (LdV) data centre. The carrier-neutral facility will enable iBASIS to leverage Lisbon’s strategic European location. It has one of the closest proximities to the Americas and Western Africa, and is becoming an increasingly important submarine cable landing hub.

Alexander Freese, COO at Altice, commented, “We have been working very closely with iBASIS for many years and, together, we have forged strong relationships across multiple teams to better address our business requirements. We aim to continue our growth momentum to provide fast and reliable services to millions of roamers.”

“We have expanded the collaboration to provide our full range of global services – voice, data, signaling, SMS, and 5G – and leverage our IPX network to support their impressive growth,” said Edwin van Ierland, CEO of Voice and Mobile Data at iBASIS. “It’s truly a win-win partnership, leveraging our distinct capabilities and know-how to create new revenue opportunities.”

Alexander Pébereau added, “We are thrilled with the opportunity to bring iBASIS into the Linda-a-Velha data centre, allowing more diversity and connection opportunities to our network…Together we invest, we evolve, and we strengthen the international communications ecosystem.”

MEO – or possibly a stake in it – is up for sale as the Altice Group continues to sell off assets in an effort to reduce its €60 billion debt. It is though stc is the frontrunner after the consortium led by Antonio Horta-Osorio dropped out.

AI-supported attacks are biggest cyber threat to German firms

Annie Turner

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20 March 2024

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AI-supported attacks are biggest cyber threat to German firms

New survey by Capterra reveals strengths and weaknesses of using AI to fight cyber attacks

AI-supported attacks are currently the biggest cyber threat to German companies. The software evaluation platform Capterra has examined [in German] which areas companies use AI-supported security systems and what advantages and challenges they encounter.

Capterra asked 670 professionals involved in German companies’ cybersecurity efforts how AI helps protect the business?

The study found that there are three main reasons companies are investing in AI-supported defences. Phishing and social engineering attacks scored 41%. Internal threats caused by unintentional or malicious employee actions scored 32 and ransomware attacks 29%.

Capterra says that to address risks from phishing or unintentional employee actions, there priorities are using AI to improve cloud security (56% score), 55% for email security and 47% for better network security.

AI-powered cybersecurity

According to Capterra, traditional tools against cyberthreats are based on static protection, responding to known threats to the system. As AI tools take a dynamic approach to detection, picking up patterns or anomalous activity related to threats, they offer better protection.

Respondents said the three most important benefits of AI-supported protection are:

• Behavioural analysis to identify anomalies and patterns that indicate threats (49%);

• Real-time monitoring to detect threats as they occur (48%); and

• Automating routine security tasks such as prioritising alerts, responding to incidents and managing patches (40%).

Challenges of AI in cybersecurity

AI in cybersecurity also has challenges. Lack of analytical accuracy and the amount of information generated scored 43% from respondents.

The second most serious challenges, both with a score of 40% are that AI algorithms can process large amounts of data and recognise patterns, their analytical abilities depend on the information they have been trained on.

Also, AI systems are not independent and must be monitored by qualified professionals. Additional manual review is required to draw accurate conclusions.

The third and fourth biggest challenges respondents identified were, respectively, false negatives (32%) and false positives (28%) results. This means the AI sometimes reports harmless activities in a company as suspicious (false positives) or, conversely, ignores real threats (false positives).

AI needs human expertise

According to study participants, human expertise is particularly needed during training. Human oversight of AI decisions and contextual understanding of outputs is also very important.

Ines Bahr, Senior Content Analyst at Capterra, commented, “While AI-powered cybersecurity brings automation, speed and scalability, employees’ critical thinking, contextual understanding and ethical considerations ensure effective cybersecurity defences.”

WBA completes public trial of Wi-Fi OpenRoaming in London

Annie Turner

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20 March 2024

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WBA completes public trial of Wi-Fi OpenRoaming in London

CIN, Colt Technology Services and GlobalReach Technology participated

The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) completed a public Wi-Fi OpenRoaming proof-of-concept (PoC) in Shoreditch in east London.

The tech was first piloted in June 2021 and allows users to connect to Wi-Fi securely and automatically without signing in and move seamlessly between Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity.

The WBA had three partners in the Shoreditch trial: CIN which provides streetside telecoms infrastructure assets; Colt Technology Services, the B2B digital infrastructure company; and GlobalReach Technology, which offers wireless ISP services and solutions.

Tech spec

WBA OpenRoaming is an open connectivity framework designed to automatically and securely connect billions of users and things to millions of Wi-Fi networks globally through its roaming federation service.

Users select a profile of their choice on their device. Mobile carriers can opt to offload their traffic to Wi-Fi ensuring their users always have the best connection.

The PoC was based on CIN’s Street Arc; streetside infrastructure that supports mobile and Wi-Fi networks, the edge and IoT networks.

Street Arc was originally developed to help operators densify cellular coverage but has been updated to integrate OpenRoaming capabilities. The claim is it provides seamless, secure offloading of cellular traffic to Wi-Fi in high traffic areas if the signal is poor or networks are congested due to local events, for instance.

Contributors

The Street Arc installations used Cisco’s Meraki MR36 access point and GlobalReach’s GlobalRo.am app to enable users to connect to the Wi-Fi network via the OpenRoaming standard. The fibre and network connectivity were provided by Colt.

Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance, noted that, “Cities and municipalities seek to provide automatic, quality, and secure Wi-Fi connectivity, this is exactly what OpenRoaming delivers.

“This is the kind of initiative our organisation endorses; it supports our mission to enable collaboration between service providers, technology companies, cities, regulators and organisations.

“We look forward to the widespread deployment of these services after the successful conclusion of this live proof of concept.”

Building the telco edge

Nathan Blom, Chief Commercial Officer, Iceotope

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20 March 2024

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Partner content: With the growing migration of data to the edge, telcos are facing new challenges in the race to net zero

Applications like IoT and 5G require ultra-low latency and high scalability to process large volumes of data close to where the data is generated, often in remote locations. Mitigating power constraints, simplifying serviceability and significantly driving down maintenance costs are rapidly becoming top priorities.

Operators are tasked with navigating these changes in a sustainable and cost-effective manner while working towards their net-zero objectives. Liquid cooling is one solution able to help them do just that.

Challenges facing operators

The major challenges confronting telco operators can be distilled into three fundamental aspects: power constraints, increased density, and rising costs.

The limitations of available power in the grid pose a significant challenge. Both urban areas and the extreme edge have concerns about diverting power from other essential activities. As telcos demand more data processing, increased computational power, and GPUs, power consumption becomes a critical bottleneck. This constraint pushes operators to find innovative solutions to reduce power consumption.

Telco operators also face the dual challenge of increasing the number of towers while also enhancing the capacity of each tower. This requirement to boost compute power at each node and increase the number of nodes strains both power budgets and computational capabilities. The pursuit of maximizing the value of each location becomes critical.

Finally, the combination of increased density, heightened service costs per site, and a surge in operational expenses (OPEX) due to the need for service and maintenance leads to rising costs, particularly at the extreme edge. The logistics and expenses of servicing remote sites drive up OPEX, making it a pressing concern for telco operators.

Liquid cooling as a solution

One promising avenue to address these challenges is liquid cooling. Cooling is a vital aspect of data center operations, consuming approximately 40% of the total electricity used. Liquid cooling is rapidly becoming the solution of choice to efficiently and cost-effectively accommodate today’s compute requirements. However, not all liquid cooling solutions are the same.

Direct-to-chip appears to offer the highest cooling performance at chip levels, but because it still requires air cooling, it adds inefficiencies at the system level. It is a nice interim solution to cool the hottest chips, but it does not address the longer-term goals of sustainability, serviceability, and scalability.

Meanwhile, tank immersion offers a more sustainable option at the system level but requires a complete rethink of data center design. This works counter to the goals of density, scalability, and most importantly, serviceability.

Facility and structural requirements mean brownfield data center space is essentially eliminated as an option for both of those solutions, not to mention special training is required to service the equipment.

Precision Liquid Cooling combines the best of both technologies by removing nearly 100% of the heat generated by the electronic components of a server and reducing energy use by up to 40% and water consumption by up to 100%.

It does this by using a small amount of dielectric coolant to precisely target and remove heat from the hottest components of the server, ensuring maximum efficiency and reliability. This eliminates the need for traditional air-cooling systems and allows for greater flexibility in designing IT solutions. There are no hotspots to slow down performance, no wasted physical space on unnecessary cooling infrastructure, and minimal need for water consumption.

Precision Liquid Cooling also reduces stress on chassis components, reducing component failures by 30% and extending server lifecycles. Servers can be hot swapped at both the data center and at remote locations. Service calls are simplified and eliminate exposure to environmental elements on-site, de-risking service operations.

Operating within standard rack-based chassis, Precision Liquid Cooling is also highly scalable. Telco operators can effortlessly expand their compute capacity from a single node to a full rack, adapting to evolving needs.

The telco industry is on the cusp of a transformative era. Telco operators are grappling with the challenges of power constraints, increased density, and rising costs, particularly at the extreme edge. Precision Liquid Cooling offers a sustainable solution to these challenges.

As the telecommunications landscape continues to evolve, embracing innovative cooling solutions becomes a strategic imperative for slashing energy and maintenance costs while driving toward sustainability goals. It’s going to be an exciting time for the future of compute.

Telenor invests in sovereign data centre company Skygard

Simon Dux

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20 March 2024

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Telenor invests in sovereign data centre company Skygard

The operator joins Hafslund and HitecVision with a NOK 2.4 billion investment in new Oslo data centre

Telenor, Hafslund and HitecVision have hired a security director from the Norwegian Communications Authority as the CEO of their new joint venture, called Skygard. The construction of Skygard’s first secure and energy efficient data centre in Oslo begins this month. The operator said the decision to invest was influenced by the current geopolitical situation and the AI revolution increases the need for secure data storage on Norwegian soil.

The first data centre will be built in Hovinbyen, Oslo. Telenor Norway is the anchor customer in the project and Skygard is already in dialogue with several potential customers for the project. The incoming head of Skygard is Elise Lindeberg, transitioning from the position of director of security at the Norwegian Communications Authority where she has led security and emergency preparedness work. Lindeberg has also been a member of the government’s emergency and preparedness commission.

“We are proud to be making an investment that will ensure that Norway gets much-needed data centres emphasising security and sustainability,” said Jannicke Hilland, chair of the board of Skygard and EVP for infrastructure at Telenor. “We have great ambitions for Skygard and the timing is highly appropriate: the current geopolitical situation increases the need for secure solutions, while we simultaneously see an increasingly pressured market when it comes to capacity.”

She added that Skygard stands out in the data centre market by having Norwegian owners, a strong focus on energy-efficient operations, and meeting the needs of customers with very high security requirements. “Skygard aims to be a Norwegian alternative in an international industry. Elise Lindeberg brings with her an impressive background in security and emergency preparedness,” said Hilland.

“There is extensive digitisation in all sectors of society, leading to an increasing number of important and critical services relying on good digital solutions and security. Data storage plays a significant role, and I look forward to contributing to building up Skygard,” said Elise Lindeberg.

She will replace interim CEO Nils-Petter Tetlie from Analysys Mason.

The data centre in Hovinbyen aims to be the most energy-efficient in Norway, according to the partners. Surplus heat will be utilized and fed into the district heating network. Telenor claims that modern data centres like Skygard will reduce between 50 to 70 per cent of the energy requirement, compared to old data centres.

“Skygard’s customers demand a high level of security and require environmentally friendly data storage. We have electricity and available capacity and adapt to specific customer needs related to volume and security,” said Martin S. Lundby, board member of Skygard and deputy CEO of Hafslund.

It was recently announced that Telenor is also entering into extensive cooperation in artificial intelligence with Nvidia.

“Through our collaboration with Nvidia, we will be able to establish independent and Norwegian-owned cloud platforms operated on Norwegian soil, where artificial intelligence is one of the central drivers. This will contribute to Skygard’s data centres delivering highly efficient, advanced, and secure solutions,” said Hilland.

The data centre in Hovinbyen will launch operations during the first half of 2025 and will be a co-location facility for multiple tenants. In addition to the first centre, Skygard aims to build two more data centres in the Oslo region. When fully developed, the three data centres are planned to have a combined capacity of 40MW.

Skygard is owned by Telenor (31.7%), Hafslund (31.7%), HitecVision (31.7%), and Analysys Mason Nordic (5.0%).

Pictured: Telenor’s Jannicke Hilland (above,left) together with Skygard’s newly announced CEO, Elise Lindeberg (above, right).

Romania updates digital services law

Simon Dux

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20 March 2024

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Regulator adopts European digital services law but the details on applying it are still under consultation

Romanian regulator, the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) has gazetted a new national digital services law – which applies EU regulations on digital services – that will come into force three days after publication.

The new law establishes the national measures necessary for the application of the digital; services regulation, designates the coordinator of digital services (ANCOM) and adopts the sanctioning regime applicable in case of non-compliance with the obligations established by the regulation on digital services or by law.

At the same time, the law also creates a mechanism through which public authorities or institutions that have “competences in certain sectors or fields of activity” can issue orders for the removal of certain content considered illegal under national rules.

Telco or “intermediary” service providers

The first part of the law covers off “intermediary service providers.” This basically includes transmission services like internet exchange points, wireless access points, virtual private networks, DNS services, first-level domain name registries, registrars for domains, the certification authorities that issue digital certificates, VoIP telephony and other interpersonal communication services.

It also includes caching services like CDNs, reverse proxies or content adaptation proxies and hosting services such as cloud services or web hosting, plus paid referral services or services that allow the sharing of information and content online, including file storage and sharing.

According to the law, intermediate service providers who have their main place of establishment or residence in Romania or their legal representative is established in Romania have the obligation to send ANCOM, within no more than 45 days from the date of starting to offer services, information which will include the identification data of the supplier and its contact data in order to communicate effectively with public authorities, announcing any changes as well.

ANCOM’s obligation to inform also applies to suppliers who offer intermediate services on the date of entry into force of the law, the 45-day term being calculated from this moment. The form, content and conditions under which the information will be provided are included in the draft decision on the information procedure for intermediate service providers, which are currently under public consultation.

The regulation on digital services establishes, for each category of intermediary service providers, the conditions under which the intermediary service provider is exempted from liability in relation to the information provided by the recipients of the service.

Illegal content to be blocked

Hosting service providers (including online platform providers) must implement notification and action mechanisms to allow any individual or entity to notify the presence of alleged illegal content within the service they offer. If such notifications enable a hosting service provider to identify the illegal nature of the relevant activity or information without a detailed legal examination, then, from the moment it becomes aware of these matters, the hosting service provider must act promptly to remove illegal content or to block access to it.

In addition, online platform providers must provide service recipients with internal complaint resolution systems regarding the decisions they make in relation to notifications of alleged illegal content. Following the receipt of the order to act against the illegal content, an intermediate service provider is obliged to inform the issuing authority about the way in which it complied with the order, and the issuing authority is obliged to send ANCOM a copy of the order, together with the supplier’s response on how it complied with that order.

“Illegal content” means any information which – in itself or in relation to an activity, including the sale of products or the provision of services – does not comply with European Union law or with the law of any Member State which is in conformity with Union law, irrespective of the precise subject matter or nature of that law.