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The company currently has shared ownership of 16 subsea cables worldwide 

Meta is planning a $10 billion subsea cable project spanning 40,000 kilometres around the world, according to a new report from TechCrunch, citing two confirmed sources close to the company.  

Known for now as “W” in reference to its shape, this new system will be Meta’s first fully owned global subsea cable, connecting the east coast of the US to South Africa, India, Australia, and ultimately the west coast of America.  

Importantly, Meta will be the sole owner and user of this subsea cable — a first for the company, which is already a partner in 16 existing submarine cables around the world. 

The project aims to provide Meta with its own dedicated internet backbone to support the growth of its services globally, particularly given the rapid growth of AI.  

According to the report, Meta Platforms, which include WhatsApp and Instagram, account for 10% of all fixed mobile traffic and 22% of all mobile traffic. 

A key feature of the new route is that it is designed to avoid high-risk geopolitical regions like the Red Sea, South China Sea, and Straits of Malacca, addressing concerns about sabotage and vulnerabilities in existing global subsea infrastructure.  

Exactly how quickly the cable can be deployed, however, remains to be seen. Submarine cable ships capable of fulfilling the project are few and often booked years in advance. AS a result, it seems likely that the cable will be deployed in stages and will not be fully operational for multiple years.  

Speaking to TechCrunch, submarine cable expert Sunil Tagare explained that the plan is to begin with a $2 billion initial budget, but this will likely swell to $10 billion over the course of the project. 

Meta has confirmed the existence of the plan but has not provided further details. A formal update on the project’s planned route, capacity, and purpose is expected early next year. 

Representatives from Meta will be speaking on stage at next year’s Submarine Networks EMEA event! Get discounted tickets here! 

Also in the news:
Telefónica’s sale of Peruvian fibre network to KKR collapses
New European Commissioners set sights on bloc’s international competitiveness
China Unicom and Huawei showcase 5G-Advanced with new Beijing deployment 

Mobile network operator Vodafone UK has today announced that they’ve signed a new partnership with eSIM Go, which will allow the latter to offer connectivity on Vodafone’s network in the UK to their business customers and thus remove MVNO (virtual operator) barriers to entry for organisations of all sizes.

In case you haven’t heard of them, eSIM Go enables organisations of any scale, or sector – including alternative broadband networks, fintechs, energy utilities, retailers, charities and football clubs – to offer their own virtual mobile products and services to customers. The company already works with various partners, such as Western Union, Lufthansa, Uswitch, Wizz Air, and Confused.com, along with various travel eSIM stores worldwide.

The new agreement with Vodafone aims to open up the UK domestic mobile market to existing partners and a wide array of B2B and B2C telecom and non-telecom distribution channels. Businesses will thus be able to allow customers to simply select connectivity as a package or bolt-on from their sites or apps, through eSIM Go’s technology platform.

Maria Grazia Pecorari, Director of Wholesale and Strategy at Vodafone UK, said:

“This partnership with eSIM Go highlights our commitment at Vodafone UK to innovation and growing customer choice. MVNOs play a crucial role in the UK, allowing people to experience our reliable connectivity through different platforms. eSIM is the next evolution, allowing businesses and consumers to enjoy Vodafone’s network with more flexibility.”

Zacc Couldrick, CEO of eSIM Go, said:

“We’re very pleased to sign this contract with Vodafone UK and open up MVNO opportunities for everyone. And I do mean everyone – any business with subscribers, customers, employees or followers will be able to offer a variety of UK mobile phone services under their own brand and gain almost as much control as if they were full MVNOs.”

Hampshire-based network builder and ISP toob, which has deployed a gigabit speed full fibre (FTTP) network across parts of South England, have today announced that they’ve expanded the availability of their services – under a strategic partnership with CityFibre – to include Lincoln, Loughborough, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Peterborough and Derby.

Just to recap. Toob is currently being financed through equity from funds managed and advised by the Amber Infrastructure Group, as well as a huge amount of debt financing provided by Ares Management’s Infrastructure Debt (here). At the end of 2023 this mix of equity and debt reflected a total commitment of £395m.

However, as mentioned earlier, toob both builds their own Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure and holds a complementary network partnership with CityFibre to help expand their coverage (CF also gains reciprocal access to harness toob’s network). The announcement of an expansion into Lincoln, Loughborough, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Peterborough and Derby thus reflects that partnership, rather than toob’s own network build.

Nick Parbutt, CEO of toob, said:

“I am delighted to bring toob’s full-fibre broadband service to the residents of Lincoln, Loughborough, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Peterborough and Derby . For too long customers have been taken for granted by their broadband suppliers, with poor service and above inflationary price increases.

toob is focused on what customers really need, fast, reliable broadband at an affordable price. toob provides customers all the benefits of ultrafast broadband with speeds of 900 Mbps for only £29 per month. Our service is delivered through our partnership with CityFibre using the latest full-fibre technology, which is the most reliable technology available.”

The announcement, which will see toob’s availability being expanded to reach “tens of thousands of [additional] homes“, comes shortly after they published their latest annual accounts to the end of 2023, which among other things revealed that they’re aiming to “largely complete the current phase of expansion of its network to 300,000 premises … during 2024.” But it’s unclear whether this reflects their own network build or the combined reach with CityFibre.

Toob’s accounts also reported an operating loss of £19.48m (2022: £13.57m), capex of £38.68m (2022: £26.39m), revenue of £5.5m (2022: £2.16m) and total liabilities of £214.7m (2022: £139.6m).

Insight

The operator says the new 5G-A Innovation Centre will allow the company to develop “innovative applications that meet the diverse needs of customer

The UAE-based operator du has announced the launch of a new 5G-Advanced (5G-A) Commercial Innovation Centre, aimed at exploring how the capabilities of 5G-A can create innovative new services. 

The Innovation Centre, based in Dubai, will work to develop new services in the consumer, home, and enterprise segments, leveraging 5G-A’s improved capabilities over traditional 5G, including speeds of up to 5Gbps, lower latency, and greater capacities. 

For consumers, 5G-A will offer significant improvements to traditional mobile experiences, offering faster and smoother live-streaming of high-quality video or ultra-low latency mobile gaming. These benefits will be particularly notable in locations where the mobile network is usually congested, such as on commuter trains or during live sporting events, with 5G-A’s greater capacity allowing customers to continue to enjoy high quality services despite the pressure on the network.  

5G-A will also present a major upgrade for 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) services, making the user experience for consumers at home even more fibre-like, with gigabit-level speeds and improved reliability. 

Finally, the new Innovation Centre will also explore the deployment of 5G-A in enterprise and industrial settings, supporting smart manufacturing, remote collaboration, and intelligent logistics. 

All of these novel and enhanced services will be increasingly integrated with AI, making them more personalised and intelligent. 

du’s customer-centric approach drives to unparalleled user experiences, leveraging the advanced capabilities of 5G-A to introduce innovative applications that meet the diverse needs of consumers, households, and enterprises, accelerating the UAE’s digital transformation and ushering in a new era of intelligent, connected, AI-powered mobility. 

The UAE – and, indeed, the wider Middle East region – has been a strong supporter of 5G’s continued development towards 5G-A. At a 5G-Advanced Leaders’ Forum event this year, the Emirati government announced a new national strategy for 5G-A, with the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) planning already planning for nationwide coverage. Achieving this goal, however, will require the collaborative efforts of all the nation’s telcos, as well as the wider telecom ecosystem. 

For du, the opening of this new Innovation Centre supports this national strategy. The operator says it aims to establish high-quality and leading 5G-A network in the world, seeking to deploy the technology at thousands of sites by the end of this year.  

This network will use du’s 300MHz of commercial TDD spectrum and include an upgrade to from two component carrier aggregation (2CC) to three (3CC). du says it expects this upgrade improve the user network experience and the actual commercial deployment has produced even greater improvements than estimated. 

The first phase of the network project will cover key cities, with nationwide expansion in the near future. 

London-based alternative broadband ISP Pulse Fibre, which over the next few years aspires to complete over 250,000 unique UK “full fibre” (FTTP) connections into new build homes and MDUs (here), has today announced that holders of the Blue Light Card (i.e. price cuts for workers in the emergency services and veterans) will be able to get a special discount.

Essentially, Pulse Fibre have launched a new tariff (Blue Light Discount) for holders of the card. Eligible customers will now be able to access a 100Mbps (symmetric speed) broadband package for just £18 per month with free setup and no long contract terms (just a standard monthly term).

“At Pulse Fibre, we value the hard work and commitment of our emergency services, NHS workers, and veterans. The Blue Light Discount is our way of giving back, ensuring these committed individuals and their families have access to affordable, reliable connectivity,” said Reece Dopson, Finance Director at Pulse Fibre.

To sign up for the Blue Light Discount, eligible customers simply need to provide proof of their Blue Light Card by emailing help@pulsefibre.co.uk.

Network operator CityFibre, which has so far extended their 2.5Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover around 4 million UK premises, have today confirmed the completion of their “primary” £21m build in the large port town of Hartlepool in County Durham (England).

The original network deployment, which began with the help of civil engineering contractor Granemore Group, first entered the construction phase around September 2022 (here) and was due to complete by 2025. The good news is that CityFibre has now covered “over” 33,000 homes (RFS) or “around 80% of the town’s homes and most businesses“.

Hartlepool is the latest town in CityFibre’s nationwide rollout. But while the primary-build is now complete, CityFibre said they would continue to explore opportunities to connect more homes and businesses, including flats, new-build homes and business parks.

As usual, CityFibre aren’t the only gigabit-capable broadband network present in the town. For example, both Virgin Media (nexfibre) and Openreach’s networks are already widely available across the location, with Grain (Grain Connect) also having significant FTTP coverage. In addition, both OFNL and Hyperoptic have a small presence.

Steph Carter-Smith, Partnership Manager at CityFibre, said:

“The completion of our primary-build marks a pivotal moment in boosting Hartlepool’s digital capabilities. With state-of-the-art infrastructure now embedded throughout the town, Hartlepool’s residents, businesses and public institutions stand to reap the benefits of full fibre for now and for future generations.”

As full fibre becomes increasingly crucial for the UK’s economic landscape, we are eager to support Hartlepool’s continued progress and drive its future prosperity.”

The alternative network operator currently still aspires to cover up to 8 million UK premises with their new full fibre network (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity, c.£4.9bn debt and c.£800m of BDUK / public subsidy) – representing c.30% of the UK. But quite when they’ll reach that point is unclear, and they’re known to be in need of fresh funding (here).

Internet benchmarking firm Ookla, which runs the popular broadband ISP performance testing service Speedtest.net and the real-time outage monitoring Downdetector site, has used data gathered from the latter to reveal which online services suffered the largest outages during 2024 – Facebook’s outage on 5th March tops the table.

The Downdetector service typically identifies and monitors when various popular online websites and mobile or broadband ISPs are suffering from network problems, which it achieves by gathering feedback from end-users – both collected via their own website and the Speedtest.net App.

Admittedly, we would have preferred to see a list filtered by outages on UK broadband ISPs and mobile operators, but no such luck this time. Instead, Ookla has put together a top 10 table of the largest global outages to hit online services during 2024, although we do get a second list for Europe-only that may get a little bit closer to reflecting the experience of UK users.

The eagle-eyed among you will no doubt notice that the 5th March outage at Facebook, Instagram and Facebook Messenger are all linked, although they’ve been given their own separate entries below as most tend to be treated like separate services. But if taken together as a single outage, that would have dwarfed everything else by several times.

World’s Largest Internet Service Outages (Q1-Q3 2024)

Facebook (March 5th) – 11.1 million user reports
Crowdstrike (July 19th) – 5m
AT&T (February 22nd) – 3.4m
Instagram (March 5th) – 3.3m
Verizon (September 30th) – 2.4m
WhatsApp (April 3rd) – 2m
Xbox Live (July 2nd) – 1.2m
PlayStation Network (September 30th) – 1.1m
Facebook Messenger (March 5th) – 0.76m
Roblox (June 20th) – 0.62m

Europe’s Largest Internet Service Outages (Q1-Q3 2024)

Facebook (March 5th) – 3.4m
WhatsApp (April 3rd) – 1.1m
Instagram (March 5th) – 1m
Xbox Live (July 2nd) – 0.466m
Facebook Messenger (March 5th) – 0.406m
Yahoo Mail (February 27th) – 0.357m
1&1 (Germany – May 27) – 0.218m
Deutsche Telekom (Germany – May 21) – 0.209m
Fortnite (March 8th) – 0.197m
Discord (April 26th) – 0.192m

In order to ensure users’ know when an outage is happening, as soon as possible, Downdetecor has also introduced push notifications to the Speedtest® app to give users real-time alerts about the services that are most important to them.

Rome, 26 November 2024

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, announces the opening of an IP node in Genoa to meet the growing demand for internet transit driven by new technologies, multimedia platforms, and cloud-based services requiring highly efficient internet connectivity.

The IP node is located at Sparkle’s Genoa Landing Hub data center in Lagaccio, an open and neutral colocation facility serving as an interconnection point for Internet Exchange Points such as Ge-DIX (already operational at the site) as well as terrestrial and international submarine cable networks. These include the Blue & Raman Submarine Cable Systems – which will connect Milan and Marseille via Genoa with East Africa, the Middle East, and India – and the associated BlueMed system with its Mediterranean branches in Marseille, Bastia, Golfo Aranci, Rome, Palermo, Chania, and Tel Aviv.

Integrated with Sparkle’s Tier-1 global backbone Seabone – the fifth-largest IP network worldwide – the new node will enable network operators, ISPs, OTTs, content delivery networks, and content and application providers to benefit from reliable, low-latency IP transit services in scalable multiples of 10 GB, 100 GB, and 400 GB. Additionally, customers have access to a comprehensive suite of IP solutions, including DDoS Protection services, which safeguard networks against cyberattacks, and Virtual NAP, providing virtual access to leading Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) without the need for proprietary infrastructure development.

“Already a strategic hub for submarine cables, this new activation further reinforces Genoa’s role as digital port for Internet traffic between Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia,” said Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle.

About Sparkle

Sparkle is TIM Group’s Global Operator, first international service provider in Italy and among the top worldwide, offering a full range of infrastructure and global connectivity services – capacity, IP, SD-WAN, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming and voice – to national and international Carriers, OTTs, ISPs, Media/Content Providers, and multinational enterprises. A major player in the submarine cable industry, Sparkle owns and manages a network of more than 600,000 km of fiber spanning from Europe to Africa and the Middle East, the Americas and Asia. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed over 33 countries.

Find out more about Sparkle following its X and LinkedIn profiles or visiting the website tisparkle.com

Media Contacts:

sparkle.communication@tisparkle.com

X: @TISparkle

Network analyst firm Streetwave has been contracted to conduct a huge survey of mobile broadband network (4G, 5G) coverage, using bin lorries, which will this time focus on 8 council areas within Scotland’s Glasgow City Region – including North Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, South Lanarkshire, Glasgow, East Dunbartonshire, and East Renfrewshire.

The past year has seen Streetwave harnessing waste (bin / refuse) collection lorries to map mobile network / broadband coverage and speeds across various parts of the UK, particularly Wales (here, here, here, here and here) and some other parts of Scotland (here). In this setup, refuse trucks are installed with several off-the-shelf Smartphones using software from Streetwave on top, which run continuous network tests (once every 20 metres in rural areas and 5m in urban areas) as the vehicles go about their routes.

The approach is rapidly proving to be quite a cost-effective and accurate way of examining localised mobile network coverage and performance, which is often more useful than the vague estimates of network coverage produced by the mobile operators themselves. Portable data collection units will also be used in Glasgow during foot surveys in the city centre and at key stadiums (both at peak times and during major events).

However, as well as providing a general performance map for residents and businesses to check (due to be rolled out at a later date, after the data is collected), the study can also be used to identify any areas that might require additional intervention in order to improve. On top of that, it can show how mobile broadband performance changes over time in specific areas, which helps to identify seasonal weak spots (e.g. tourism).

Kevin Rush, Director of Regional Economic Growth, said:

“This is the biggest network mapping project of its kind in Scotland – so it goes without saying that it’s a hugely exciting one to be part of.

The data collected will serve a dual purpose. Firstly, it will help businesses identify the most effective connectivity solutions for their operations, empowering them to make informed decisions that enhance their productivity and competitiveness.

Secondly, it will enable the partnership to lobby mobile operators more effectively, advocating for necessary improvements in digitally excluded communities to benefit residents and businesses alike.

Being connected has never been more important and this project will give the partnership and, most importantly, the people and businesses throughout the City Region the tools they need to ensure they are getting the best possible service.”

The initiative has already begun in Inverclyde and is due to be rolled out, on a rotational basis (over the coming weeks and months), to North Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, South Lanarkshire, Glasgow, East Dunbartonshire, and East Renfrewshire. Inverclyde Councillor, Paul Cassidy, said: “It’s exciting for Inverclyde to be leading the way with this initiative by becoming the first Glasgow City Region council to install the data gathering equipment in our bin lorries and we look forward to seeing the results and feeding into the wider project.”

The work itself is part of the Glasgow City Region Smart and Connected Social Places programme. It is funded through the UK Government Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) 5G Innovation Regions programme and is being delivered by connectivity solutions providers Streetwave and Commsworld.

Mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today announced that they’ve completed a project to upgrade the capacity of their 4G and 5G based mobile services across “over” 600 postcodes in the port city of Aberdeen (Scotland), which should mean “faster” mobile broadband speeds and greater reliability.

The work, which began at the start of 2024, forms part of O2’s ongoing effort to invest £2m a day into their mobile network, which enables them to deploy new technologies and keep up with increasing customer demand. All mobile operators have to conduct similar work. This comes against a backdrop of rising demand, with the amount of mobile data consumed by O2 customers increasing 26% in 2023.

Steven Verigotta, Director of Mobile Delivery at VMO2, said: “With customers using more data than ever before, the improvements we’ve made at over 600 postcodes in Aberdeen will ensure local people and businesses can access reliable connectivity that is so essential in the modern world. We are continuing to invest in our network with future upgrades planned to ensure that we can continue to support our customers both now and in future.”