NEW YORK – February 19, 2025 – Lightpath, an all-fiber infrastructure-based connectivity provider that is revolutionizing how organizations connect to their digital destinations, announced its entrance into the Phoenix market with a new 230-route mile, high-fiber count network throughout the region, anchored by multiple hyperscaler customers. 

The Phoenix network build will encompass 230-route miles of underground, multi-conduit systems with capacity for 20,000 fibers, connecting 8 data center campuses and carrier hotel locations, with an additional 30+ data center campuses near the planned routes. The network will connect emerging data center ecosystems in Goodyear, Buckeye, Chandler, Glendale, Mesa, and Tempe, with additional connectivity to major carrier hotels throughout Phoenix Metro. 

Construction of the network has already commenced with priority routes targeted for completion in Q2 of 2025. Subsequent routes will be service-ready on a phased basis with overall completion in 2026.   

Lightpath will be offering a full range of infrastructure and connectivity services on its Phoenix network, including high-count dark fiber, conduit services, wavelengths up to 800 Gbps, Ethernet, Internet, and more. In addition to hyperscalers, the Lightpath Phoenix network will be available to enterprises, educators, governments, carriers, and wireless providers. 

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with our hyperscale customers to develop the next generation of fiber infrastructure in greater metropolitan Phoenix,” explained Chris Morley, CEO of Lightpath. “Phoenix represents the fifth largest data center ecosystem globally with 1.6GW of operational capacity and an additional 1+GW planned by 2027.”

Phoenix Network Designed to Support Massive AI-Driven Connectivity Requirements 

The massive fiber-density and overall capacity of the network design are direct reflections of the unprecedented connectivity demand the company is seeing from hyperscalers planning for AI-related initiatives. Lightpath previously announced $110 million of AI-related bookings in 2024 with a remaining demand pipeline of approximately $1 billion. 

“The incredible fiber density in our Phoenix network is designed to support AI workload requirements that are estimated to be 10x those required to serve today’s multi-cloud network architectures,” explained Tim Haverkate, EVP of Major Infrastructure Solutions, Lightpath. “Add to that more capacity for other market segments and customers, and this is the densest network we have ever brought to market, by far.”

Rural ISP Quickline, which is deploying their own gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) and fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband network across rural parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England, has launched a new discount that offers their top 1000Mbps package for just £32 per month on a 24-month term to new customers (it’s normally £49).

The promotion, which is only available to the first 2,000 customers who take it, also attaches Quickline’s Price Promise (i.e. you’ll “never face mid-contract price hikes“) and some other things (e.g. symmetric speeds, 24/7 support, a free router, free installation and a 30-day money-back guarantee).

Quickline is supported by funding of c.£500m from Northleaf Capital Partners, as well as c.£296.4m of public subsidies from four Government Project Gigabit contracts (here, here and here), plus c.£225m in term loans and debt guarantees from the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) and a £25m term loan from NatWest.

News

The Innovation Centre is supported by a grant from the Spanish Space Agency and will allow partners to test solutions combining satellite and mobile connectivity

Vodafone has this week announced the creation of a new innovation centre in Málaga, Spain, aimed at better integrating satellite and terrestrial mobile communications.

The centre’s creation is partially financed by a grant from the Spanish Space Agency and includes AST SpaceMobile and the University of Málaga as its key initial partners.

According to Vodafone, the centre “will specifically focus on the design, testing and validation of new open-source hardware, software, and processing chips that can work interchangeably in both space and terrestrial networks”, according to a joint press release.

More specifically, the centre will house a space-to-land gateway, allowing third parties to test services using AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird satellites.

AST SpaceMobile launched its first five commercial low Earth orbit satellites in September last year. These satellites are designed to integrate with mobile networks, allowing regular smartphone users to access satellite connectivity whenever terrestrial connectivity is lost.

These initial five satellites are set to cover the US, while subsequent launches set to increase coverage across the globe.

AST SpaceMobile already has agreements with 45 mobile network operators worldwide, including Vodafone.

“As society becomes more digital, the need to close coverage gaps increases. Vodafone, together with AST SpaceMobile and the University of Málaga, will forge partnerships with like-minded organisations to build harmonious space and earth networks to meet Europe’s ambitious targets for ubiquitous digital connectivity,” said Alberto Ripepi, Vodafone Group’s Chief Network Officer.

Vodafone says that it expects to commercially launch direct-to-device satellite connectivity services in parts of Europe later this year.

The Centre is expected to open for partners by summer this year.

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French energy giant EDF offers up land for data centre projects

Mobile network operator Vodafone UK has won a key court case against leasing firm AP Wireless (inc. the affiliated Icon Tower company). Some operators believe the firm could risk damaging their roll-out of 5G based mobile broadband technology, such as by pushing up their costs and threatening the viability of future deployments.

Mobile operators have historically tended to lease their land directly from landowners. But in recent years APW has been stepping in to buy mast leases from existing landowners and then attempting to charge mobile operators a premium to use the sites. APW has also won some tribunal cases that have raised the rentals for certain sites (example), which pleased landowners.

The above situation is unsurprising as many landowners have suffered a sharp decline in rental payments (i.e. for allowing telecoms infrastructure on their land) since the government updated their Electronic Communications Code (ECC) in 2017 to boost network expansion. This made it easier and cheaper for operators to access and build on both public and private land (here), but it’s taken several years to find a fair balance for rental payments (often achieved through tribunal rulings).

Last year the Telegraph (paywall) similarly reported on how APW’s sister company, Icon Tower, had been constructing brand new mobile masts, often close to its existing sites. “These new masts are not subject to rent protections owing to a loophole in the ECC regulations. Operators have accused the infrastructure group of attempting to force them on to these new masts when existing leases expire – a move they say will pave the way for sharp rent increases,” said the newspaper.

Mobile operators often complain that Icon Tower is planning to build many more sites in this way, which has them worried about the impact on their future network expansions and ability to meet targets for 5G coverage. On the flip side, APW claims that the entry of Icon Tower into the market will “lead to lower costs for mobile phone users by increasing competition” (very debatable) and complains that mobile operators are simply attempting to “shut out competition in the market for mobile telephone infrastructure and protect a monopolistic position.” Some might argue that APW’s approach isn’t much better.

Upper Tribunal Ruling

The above situation has spawned more than a few court cases over the past few years, one of which reflects a recent dispute in the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) – between Vodafone and APW/Icon – that focused on the ECC’s termination provisions for a mast site in Steps Hill. Vodafone had been seeking to renew their lease on the site, but then Icon (the effective landowner) sought to terminate the operator’s existing Code agreement without renewal, which would have required Vodafone to remove their apparatus.

As the landowner, Icon attempted to terminate the agreement based on three of four specific grounds allowed under the ECC (i.e. breach, redevelopment and public benefit). A second similar case between the parties also occurred in the County Court for a site at Pound Hill, which concerned Vodafone’s request to renew its existing lease of the site under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954.

According to a summary of the cases posted by Osborne Clarke, Icon’s grounds were as follows:

1. Breach. Icon alleged Vodafone had substantially breached the alienation provisions in its existing Code agreement due to its relationship with Cornerstone, an established infrastructure provider and a competitor of Icon, with which Vodafone has a longstanding relationship;
2. Redevelopment. Icon had recently constructed its own electronic communications mast near to Vodafone’s existing site. Icon argued this constituted redevelopment which could not reasonably be done without terminating Vodafone’s existing Code agreement; and
3. Public benefit. Icon sought to prove that Vodafone’s site caused prejudice to Icon (in relation to the potential future operation of Icon’s new site) which was not outweighed by the public benefit of Vodafone’s existing site remaining in situ.

This marked the first time that the Upper Tribunal had considered the termination grounds under the Code and both courts ultimately ruled in Vodafone’s favour. The courts found that, firstly, the public benefit of Vodafone’s existing mast site (and its lower rents) outweighed any such prejudice to Icon, which in any case could potentially be settled by other means (e.g. financial compensation).

On redevelopment, the courts determined that a number of works do NOT qualify as relevant redevelopment works, including, for example, works that will not be done by or on behalf of the landowner (i.e. “site provider”), such that it is not that site provider who intends to do the works. In short, the court made it much harder for Icon to pursue this sort of approach.

The court also determined that mast / telecoms sites fall within the types of land where day-to-day human activity is not particularly relevant to the question of business occupation, and found there was no breach of the alienation provisions.

Overall, mobile operators are understood to be pleased with the decision and the Upper Tribunal’s strict interpretation of the Code termination grounds, with one industry source telling ISPreview this morning that it was an “important defeat for a cynical business model that’s focused on extracting money from – not improving coverage for – mobile networks.” But few expect this to be the end of APW’s efforts.

Edinburgh-based ISP GoFibre has secured a third contract under the UK government’s £5bn Project Gigabit scheme, which is worth £26.2m (state aid) and will see them expand their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover around 11,000 premises across hard-to-reach rural areas in the Scottish Borders and East Lothian regions.

Just to recap. The Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme is currently working to extend 1Gbps download speeds (200Mbps+ uploads) to reach “nationwide” coverage (c. 99%) by around 2030. As part of that, GoFibre has already secured two smaller ‘Local’ (Type A) deployment contracts for Teesdale (Lot 4.01) and North Northumberland (Lot 34.01) in North England.

The good news today is that they’ve now added a third ‘Local’ deployment contract, albeit this time in Scotland and covering 11,000 premises across poorly served parts of the Scottish Borders and East Lothian regions. The expansion of their FTTP network is expected to reach a number of remote rural communities, such as Athelstaneford and Innerwick in East Lothian, and St Abbs, Broughton and Ettrickbridge in the Scottish Borders.

Just to be clear, this deployment is targeted at premises that are not currently expected to be covered by gigabit broadband connectivity via either existing commercial projects or the Scottish Government’s £600m Reaching 100% (R100) project with Openreach (BT). Otherwise, detailed planning and surveying work on the new contract will begin immediately, with the first connections expected in the Autumn of 2025.

Chris Bryant, UK Government Minister for Telecoms and Data, said:

“As technological advancements race ahead and revolutionise our day-to-day lives, we cannot afford to leave anyone behind.

It is fantastic to see this UK Government-funded gigabit investment being delivered in Scotland for the first time, not only bringing thousands of people the fastest broadband networks on the market and levelling the playing field but also helping us realise our mission to boost economic growth and improve living standards across the whole country, under the PM’s Plan for Change.”

Neil Conaghan, CEO of GoFibre, said:

“As a Scottish company, born in the Borders, GoFibre is proud to be named as the delivery partner for the first Project Gigabit contract in Scotland, bringing transformative full fibre connectivity to thousands more homes and businesses across the region. This contract award marks a step-change in our ambition and footprint as a major Scottish telecommunications company.

We have a sterling track record of connecting communities across Scotland to our ultra-fast broadband network. Delivering this project will build on our successful delivery of Project Gigabit contracts in North Northumberland and Teesdale where we are delivering much-needed broadband in rural areas, ahead of schedule. We will bring all that expertise and GoFibre experience to this essential project for people in the Borders and East Lothian.”

Further Project Gigabit contracts for Scotland are due to be signed with other suppliers this year too, which will see gigabit broadband being delivered to tens of thousands more premises, including across rural parts of Aberdeenshire and the Morayshire Coast, Fife, Perth and Kinross, Orkney and Shetland.

Meanwhile, customers of the new GoFibre service can expect to pay from £25 per month for a 150Mbps (30Mbps upload) package on a 24-month term with an included wireless router, which rises to £39.50 for their top 1000Mbps (100Mbps upload) plan. The latter also comes with a bonus Wi-Fi extender (this can optionally be taken on other plans at extra cost).

News

The Indian billionaire made the sale following the company’s positive quarterly results

This week, Sunil Mittal has sold a 0.84% stake (51 million shares) in India’s second largest telco, Bharti Airtel, raising roughly $976 million.

The sale was made through the Mittal family’s investment company, Indian Continental Investment.

Roughly a quarter of these shares were sold to group firm Bharti Telecom, with the remaining three quarters sold to ‘key marquee long-only names, both global and domestic’, according to the filing.

A report from Bloomberg names some of the buyers additional buyers as GQG Partners LLC, Fidelity Investments, Lazard Inc, SBI Life Insurance Co., and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co.

“With this, Bharti Telecom now holds around 40.47 per cent of Airtel, reinforcing its previously stated intent of strengthening its position as the principal vehicle to have a controlling stake in Airtel, remaining focused on gradually increasing its stake while maintaining a prudent leverage profile as it does so,” read the filing.

The move follows Airtel posting solid Q3 financial results earlier this month, including a 460.9% boost in net profit year-on-year. The company attributed this largely to the strengthening of its Indian mobile business, currency expansion in its African markets, and the consolidation of Indus Towers.

For Mittal, the move will help free up funds for the group’s continued investments in global markets. Sources suggest that some of this funding will be use to refinance the loans taken out by Bharti Enterprises when they bought a 24.5% stake in BT Group last year.

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom newsletter

Also in the news:
Navigating the depths: Strategies for delivering successful subsea cable projects
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French energy giant EDF offers up land for data centre projects

The CEO of Liberty Global, Mike Fries, has said they’ve made “significant progress” on their plan for opening up Virgin Media’s existing UK fixed line broadband network to wholesale (rival ISPs) via a new business (NetCo) during the first half of 2025 (here). Fries also confirmed they had received “proposals from a handful of the strongest infrastructure investors” for a stake in the biz.

Just to recap. The merged business of Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2), which is backed by parents Telefónica and Liberty Global, published their latest quarterly results yesterday (here), although this included very little detail on their NetCo plans, except to say that it was “on track” to “support the long-term underpinning of fibre upgrade activity and take up“. But we’ve since got a bit more detail as part of a related investor call.

At present, Virgin Media’s existing fixed line broadband network, which covers just over 16 million premises via a mix of Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) and FTTP (RFOG and XGS-PON) lines, is a closed platform that does NOT allow rival ISPs full access via a wholesale product (although there are some limited / niche arrangements with OFNL and Home Telecom etc.).

As a complement to the above, VMO2’s parents – Telefónica and Liberty Global (inc. support from InfraVia Capital Partners) – also setup a £4.5bn joint venture called nexfibre in 2022 (here), which is deploying an open access wholesale full fibre (FTTP) network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT served by Virgin Media’s own network of 16m+ premises. Virgin Media is currently the only official ISP on this network (here) and nexfibre has already covered over 2 million premises.

However, in February 2024 VMO2’s parents finally confirmed the long-awaited announcement that they would be opening up Virgin Media’s closed network to wholesale via a new NetCo business, which they said was expected to go live during the first half of 2025.

Recent media reports have indicated that VMO2 may have made progress on their efforts to raise an additional investment of £1bn to support the NetCo project (here), which is understood to have recently received several non-binding offers from investors (potentially including BlackRock and CPP Investments etc.). The effort could hand such investors up to a 40% stake in the NetCo business. The CEO of Liberty Global, Mike Fries, has now confirmed those reports and provided a small update to investors.

Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global, said:

“We also announced last year our intention to create a fixed NetCo in the UK market to accelerate and fund a portion of our fibre [FTTP] build out and to provide a vehicle for what we expect will be a rapidly consolidating infrastructure market. And I’m happy to report that we are making significant progress on this front.

The operational and financial perimeters of the UK NetCo have been established. They represent around 16 million homes and over £1 billion of EBITDA. But more importantly, as of last week, we are in receipt of proposals from a handful of the strongest infrastructure investors in the business who have indicated an interest in participating with us in what will be, I think, the only viable long-term competitor to BT’s Openreach, so more on that to come.”

At present, the combined FTTP base of both nexfibre and Virgin Media is 6.4 million premises passed, which will of course rise rapidly as their HFC + RFOG areas are upgraded to FTTP and nexfibre continues its network expansion efforts. This is already a significantly larger potential wholesale base of FTTP lines than their closest altnet rival CityFibre can muster (4.3m), albeit still well below Openreach’s 17m+. But by 2028 the combined group could reach up to 23 million premises, which would be hard for even consolidated altnets to reach, albeit still below where Openreach will be (c.27m, rising up to 30m by 2030).

The big challenge for such a NetCo will be in its ability to attract significant ISP support, at least beyond those already owned by the wider group (i.e. O2, Virgin Media, Giffgaff). Potential ISP partners will be looking to be treated fairly (wholesale agreements), which is always a tricky thing to balance vs the desire by some for exclusivity agreements. One benefit of Openreach’s heavily regulated business is that it affords ISPs some protection against unfair practices, and competing with that is a challenge.

The need to deliver attractive pricing is another difficulty, particularly given Virgin Media’s own retail reputation for hefty post-contract (after discounts) pricing. Alternative networks in this space have been aggressive on price and associated ISPs are often able to offer promises of “no mid-contract price hikes“, which is something that the established giants tend to struggle with.

Lutz Schüler, CEO of VMO2, told investors:

“I mean, as you know, we are not publicly differentiating in our net add growth between our existing coverage and nexfibre. So therefore, you get the blended number. I think underlying, of course, it shouldn’t be a surprise for you that in the BAU coverage, we are losing customers, small amount, but we are losing it. And in nexfibre, we are growing because we are penetrating a new network.

Now what I can tell you is that our losses in our existing coverage are significantly less to other big market players. This is what we believe. But aggressive [alternative networks], yes, with very aggressive prices, are getting some customers also away from us.”

Nevertheless, over the longer-term, Virgin Media going wholesale is still a big deal for the market and one that will trigger plenty of disruption for everybody (retail ISPs, alternative networks, Openreach and even Virgin Media’s own retail base), while at the same time increasing market complexity for consumers (as if it wasn’t already confusing enough).

However, this approach will ultimately sink or swim based on whether or not it can get the core ingredients right, and ideally attract support from key ISPs, such as Vodafone, TalkTalk and Sky Broadband (all three already have agreements with Openreach and CityFibre). The market is likely to go through some big changes over the next few years as all of this plays out, so buckle up.

The CEO of Fern Networks Limited (Fern Trading) backed alternative broadband network operator AllPointsFibre (APFN), Jarlath Finnegan, has this week spoken of his “excitement” ahead of officially launching their new Aquila wholesale platform into the wider UK market, which is expected to take place on 14th May 2025.

Just to recap. APFN was originally formed through the consolidation of three alternative broadband networks and ISPs (here and here), including Giganet, Swish Fibre and Jurassic Fibre. All of the companies were backed by Fern Trading and had previously been deploying FTTP networks to premises across different parts of the UK.

As part of that change, the retail (customer) bases of those three networks have been slowly migrated to sibling broadband ISP Cuckoo. Last year also saw APFN acquire another retail ISP in the shape of Glasgow-based Brillband (here). On top of that, they’ve since made it possible for ISPs on their wholesale platform to harness services from rival networks too, such as CityFibre and Openreach.

According to Jarlath Finnegan, this means their new national full fibre wholesale platform, aquila, is now available to 18 million+ UK homes and businesses, “we are adding over 1m each quarter” (roughly in keeping with the respective network expansions of Openreach and CityFibre). But the big development will come later this spring, when they formally launch aquila alongside new solutions.

Jarlath Finnegan said (yesterday):

“What a start to the year!

Hats off to every single team member across the group, talk about hitting the ground running!

AllPoints Fibre Networks national full fibre wholesale platform, aquila, is now available to 18 million+ homes and businesses, we are adding over 1m each qtr. through our network partners Openreach and CityFibre, two fantastic companies to work with. We’ve started onboarding more customers to aquila, thanks Yappl & Meraki Communications, with more to follow shortly and the excitement is real. It’s the biggest and best in the UK, set to deliver outstanding service experiences at the lowest cost to serve.

Our big launch event is in May, and we can’t wait to showcase its full potential. Key milestones ahead, but the team is on fire, keep pushing, Team APFN!

…

As Group CEO, I couldn’t be prouder of how we’ve taken five individual businesses and built something truly special which hasn’t been done before. We can, and we will, and we’re proving it every day through action, not just words.”

At present, it’s not clear precisely what APFN will be announcing in May that we didn’t already know about, although they’ve been promising to “rip up the rule book” in the way full fibre services are delivered across the UK “without having to build or buy to every premises“. But in a recent interview, Jarlath did note to ISPreview that they were working on aquila’s new edge network deployment (here), which could bring new services.

The challenge for APFN is that they aren’t the only wholesale operator with a focus on network aggregation (e.g. PlatformX Communications – formerly TalkTalk Wholesale) and it will be interesting to see if they’re able to innovate beyond the more established players. Scaling up such things can take time and delivering them at a competitive price is another matter, but APFN are clearly readying themselves to make a big push.

Telecoms giant BT has revealed that they’ve now deployed their Global Fabric Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform to “over” 30 Equinix data-centres across the UK and world, which will grow to over 40 in the next year – spanning the world’s top 30 business locations and covering 95% of the world’s cloud interconnection traffic.

Global Fabric is designed to simplify multi-cloud connectivity, security, and infrastructure for multinational organisations – providing visibility and control of both access and core networks. “It transforms the ease at which they can deploy and scale interconnectivity with third parties such as customers and suppliers across their full digital value chain,” said the operator. “With legacy networks, setting up or changing connectivity could take weeks. With Global Fabric, it happens in an instant.”

When fully built-out, Global Fabric should be available to customers internationally via 140 Points-of-Presence (PoPs) hosted in the world’s top cloud locations across 40 countries. It will offer 74% direct coverage of hyperscaler clouds and pre-provisioned high-bandwidth connectivity to over 700 data-centres.

Arun Dev, Global Interconnections at Equinix, said:

“Our partnership enables BT to offer its customers interconnectivity with the full Equinix global digital ecosystem of cloud and IT services, as well as hundreds of content and digital media services, and over 4,800 enterprises hosted at our datacentres globally.”

Matt Swinden, BT’s Director of Digital Connectivity, Business, said:

“The BT-Equinix partnership is a terrific example of our strategy to build the strongest digital foundations for our customers. Global Fabric combined with Equinix’s global ecosystem of infrastructure, cloud and digital service widens the choice we offer to customers of the best locations to interconnect their full business value chain. It will help make trading, partnering and operating a multinational business, better on BT.”

Equinix’s global platform interconnects multiple clouds hosting the apps, solutions and marketplaces. It provides access to approximately 2,000 network services, as well as 3,000 cloud and IT services, over 400 content and digital media services, and more than 4,800 enterprises.

Broadband ISP and mobile operator Vodafone has revealed that they’ve begun “piloting” (no pun intended, we think) a new type of done that is designed to help restore connectivity to mobile masts, such as when their underground data capacity cables are cut or damaged. The drones employ a special optical wireless link.

The drones, which could also be deployed as part of disaster recovery situations, are currently being tested in Seville (Spain) and use a “wireless optical connectivity” link that has been developed by the Taara Project as part of the Google X programme.

Readers might recall that we wrote about Taara’s ability to deliver data at speeds of up to 20Gbps (Gigabits per second) over distances of up to 20 kilometres back in 2021 (here), but that was when it was being deployed via fixed platforms (e.g. masts or buildings). Sticking the same technology on a drone is an order of magnitude more challenging.

“In a test earlier this month in Seville, Spain, Vodafone worked with Taara … to demonstrate how two industrial-grade drones equipped with Taara’s light beam terminals could be used to deliver a temporary connection. In the test, one drone was securely tethered to a mast, and the other to a nearby Vodafone data transport hub,” said the announcement.

The drones equipped with Taara “briefly established a two-way connection” over a distance of 3km, although it’s not clear how stable this was or what data speeds they were able to achieve. But the test demonstrated how novel combinations of new technologies could potentially be used in future to address infrastructure challenges.

The backhaul fibre optic cables that link their masts are usually buried in the ground, making them susceptible to damage by mechanical diggers and sometimes even vandalism. Across Europe, Vodafone on average deals with between 75 and 100 such cable breaks every year.

Weather Sensing

As a side note, Vodafone separately revealed that they were working with the European Space Agency (ESA), and other governmental departments in the UK, on a different project to “gather accurate rainfall measurements using data from the thousands of microwave links“, which are sometimes used, across Europe, to connect mobile masts (often has a backup or alternative to fibre).

Rain and other forms of precipitation in the atmosphere can absorb and scatter microwave radio signals, reducing their strength. The interference this creates is typically considered a negative thing, which often reduces the performance of such connections. But Vodafone has realised that the data they collect on this (checked every 15 minutes as part of network compensation changes) can be turned into a “giant weather gauge” for both urban and rural areas.

The data this delivers could be used to support the information that is already being collected via millions of Vodafone’s worldwide Internet of Things (IoT) environmental sensors. Clever stuff, particularly as their network often covers areas that are out of reach of existing weather observation posts.

Vodafone plans to showcase all this early next month at the Mobile World Congress (MWC25) event.