News 

The investment will be spread over the next ten years  

Microsoft is set to invest €6.7billion ($7.16 bn) in data centre development in Aragon, Northeastern Spain. 

According to a report from local Spanish newspaper El Heraldo, Microsoft has applied for a construction permit to build its data centres near Zaragoza, in the Northeast of the country.  

“Microsoft’s new data centre region will provide cutting-edge, sustainable, and secure AI solutions for Spain and the rest of Europe,” said Spanish Minister for Digital Transformation, José Luis Escrivá. 

“It is a great satisfaction that Microsoft is once again betting on Spain for the deployment of state-of-the-art infrastructure and services, thus contributing to the positioning of our country at the forefront of digital transformation,” he continued. 

The particular area of Spain has become a recent hotbed for data centre investment, in part due to the area’s renewable energy capacity to power their facilities with. Last month, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced plans to invest €15.7 billion in the region, two years after opening its AWS Europe (Spain) hub in three locations in the area. AWS has said that its recent investment in the region will support 17,500 full-time equivalent jobs in local businesses on an annual average basis, and will contribute an estimated €21.6 billion to Spain’s GDP until 2033. 

In a near region of Spain, Microsoft has opened its first cloud region of data centres in the Community de Madrid, which will provide AI, cloud services and solutions to European companies, offering them “reliability, security, privacy, and data residency,” says Microsoft. The deployment is part of the company’s commitment to invest $2.1 billion in Spain before the end of next year. 

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Also in the news:
Vietnam suffers three subsea cable outages
South Korea revokes Stage X’s mobile license  
Brsk and Netomnia merge as UK alnet consolidation continues 

The Powys County Council (Cyngor Sir Powys) in mid-Wales has this afternoon announced that they’ve awarded a broadband roll-out contract to the BT Group (Openreach), which will connect 24 “hard to reach sites” to a new full fibre network and will also benefit at least 78 more that are on route to them (possibly rising to as many as 119).

The project, which is part of the council’s Digital Powys transformation programme and being funded by public funding from the Welsh Government’s (WG) Local Broadband Fund (LBF), has already entered the surveying and planning phase. Construction is due to start at most sites “soon” and the aim is to have the network “completed by the end of March 2025.”

The announcement doesn’t actually clarify what sort of “sites” Openreach’s new fibre will be connecting, although contracts like this have, in the past, often tended to be more focused on linking up remote public sector sites via Dark Fibre style connections.

The areas of Powys benefitting from the full-fibre internet build are:

Forest Coal Pit (NP7 7LY) – six hard to reach sites.
Builth Wells (LD2 3YR) – three hard to reach sites.
Guilsfield (SY21 9DB) – one hard to reach site.
Newbridge-on-Wye (LD1 6HB, LD1 6LN & LD1 6LS) – four hard to reach sites.
Llandrindod Wells (LD1 6SY & LD1 6SP) – two hard to reach sites.
Llanfyllin (SY22 5LZ) – one hard to reach site.
Erwood (LD2 3EQ, LD2 3EZ, LD2 3PQ & LD2 3EX) – seven hard to reach sites.

Ellen Sullivan, Powys County Council’s Head of Digital Services, said:

“We know access to fast and reliable broadband is important for our businesses and residents. And, while the number of sites that will benefit from this project is relatively low, they are all in areas that are never likely to get full-fibre internet without the help of grant funding.

Having better connectivity can really help level the playing field for some of our most rural communities.”

Susi Marston, BT Group’s Head of Local Government and Education in Wales, said:

“Access to high speed, reliable broadband is vital in the modern world and underpins so much of our daily lives. From helping to improve public services like healthcare, to helping businesses and residents access the latest technology, good connectivity is now so important for all communities. That goes whether you’re in a busy city centre, or in a rural location.

We’re pleased to be working with Powys Council to bring fast broadband to some of the most remote parts of the county.”

We have asked the local authority for a bit more detail on the project’s funding and the specific sites being targeted. We hope to update again soon.

News 

The partnership aims to empower developers, drive innovation, and enhance 5G adoption

Nokia has expanded its partnership with Google Cloud to help developers create new 5G applications more quickly. This collaboration will use Google Cloud’s AI tools, including Vertex AI and Gemini 1.5 Pro, to enhance Nokia’s Network as Code platform. 

Nokia’s platform, now running on Google Cloud, will provide developers with the tools they need to build 5G apps. These tools include software development kits (SDKs), network API documentation, a sandbox for testing code, and code snippets. The platform operates on a revenue-sharing model among developers, operators, and Nokia. 

Initially, the partnership will focus on the healthcare industry, aiming to improve telehealth services for better and safer customer experiences. The two companies plan to extend this focus to other industries in the future. 

“Through this important collaboration with Nokia, we are enabling our global developer community to tap into the greenfield opportunity that 5G networks provide,” said Ankur Jain, Vice President, Google Distributed Cloud and Global Telco Industry at Google Cloud in the announcement’s press release.

“Our developer community is a strong innovation driver globally, and we believe the telecom space offers significant value creation opportunities through new applications,” he continued. 

“We are excited to expand our collaboration with Google Cloud, enabling thousands of Google Cloud developers to tap into our network capabilities so that they can create value for their customers faster,” said Raghav Sahgal, President of Cloud and Network Services at Nokia. 

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

Also in the news:
Freshwave to deploy small cells in Manchester for VMO2
SGP.32: A reality check on the latest remote SIM provisioning standard
Vodafone Germany partners with FlyNex on industrial drone platform  

Network operator nexfibre has today confirmed that they’ve expanded their 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband network, alongside partner UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2), to cover an additional 25,000 premises in the seaside town of Lowestof in Suffolk (England).

The development marks a significant change in the town from what we saw in 2020, when there was hardly any gigabit-capable broadband coverage in Lowestof. But since then we’ve seen a big expansion of full fibre coverage by nexfibre, as well as rivals Openreach (BT) and CityFibre. OFNL also has a small patch in the odd new build homes site.

Nexfibre has already covered 1 million premises across the UK with their new full fibre network, and they’re currently in the process of investing a further £1bn during 2024, which should enable them to cover an additional 1 million UK premises on top of that. Both Virgin Media and nexfibre share some of the same parentage in Telefónica and Liberty Global, while nexfibre also harnesses Virgin’s existing build engine to aid their roll-out.

Just for some context. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners originally set up the new £4.5bn nexfibre joint venture in 2022 (here), which aims to deploy an open access fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT currently served by Virgin Media’s separate network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.

The result of all this is that both nexfibre and VMO2 combined should cover up to 23 million premises, or around 80% of the UK, by around the end of 2028.

News

The cause of the outages is currently unknown 

Three out of five of Vietnam’s international undersea cables are down, the country’s state media has confirmed. 

The impacted cables include the Intra Asia (IA) connection to Singapore, the Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) link, and the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) pipeline. 

According to the Vietnam News Agency, it is especially difficult for internet users to access services that have servers located abroad, as the three cables connect Vietnam with the US, Europe and Asia. The problems have “significantly affected Vietnam’s internet connection with the world,” the news agency said. 

It also reported that there has been no given timeframe for the cable repairs, which are notoriously slow to fix. A global shortage of repair ships and time spent identifying the damaged area(s) contribute to the delays. 

Early last year, all five of the country’s submarine cables went down simultaneously. The cause of this still remains unclear, but the country was able to maintain most of its connectivity through terrestrial connections. This demonstrates the importance of having diversified connectivity routes. 

In February, the country announced plans to invest in up to four more international telecommunications cables with a data capacity of 60 Tbps by 2025. Assuming all five of Vietnam’s existing cables are operational by the plan’s 2025 deadline, they will almost double the country’s undersea bandwidth to 122Tbps. 

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

Also in the news:
Brsk and Netomnia merge as UK alnet consolidation continues
Vodafone looks to sell $2.3 billion Indus Towers stake
BT pushes back against Vodafone–Three merger 

A new Censuswide survey of 2,004 UK respondents, which was commissioned by Broadband Genie, has claimed that 7.09% of respondents would be willing to live in or around somewhere with “coastal erosion” if it was for their dream home, but only 5.34% were willing to live with “poor broadband“.

The survey, which was conducted between 20th to 22nd May 2024, found that 95% of respondents said they couldn’t live in an area with poor broadband (falling only slightly to 93% for poor mobile reception), even if it was otherwise their dream property.

Potential buyers said they would expect a discount of 18% if they discovered the broadband was unreliable, which equates to knocking more than £67,000 off the average UK house price (Right Move puts the average UK house price at £375,131). But in reality, you’re unlikely to ever get such a discount, particularly during a period where the market has returned to some stability (i.e. the seller will just wait for another buyer) and there are often other connectivity solutions that can be tried.

The research broadly investigated which unpopular ‘blights’ Brits were most willing to compromise on when choosing somewhere to live.

Which, if any, of the following would you live in or around if it was your dream property or the only property you could afford?

➤ 3.1% said they would live near a rubbish tip or waste disposal centre, the lowest of the different blights

➤ 5.34% said they would live with poor broadband

➤ 4.9% said they would live near a power station

➤ 7.09% said they would live next to somewhere with coastal erosion

➤ 14.9% said they would live next to a wind turbine

➤ 72% of people living in Cardiff said they would be willing to live next to at least one of the undesirable features, the highest of any city in the UK.

However, this is a very simplistic way of looking at such things, which doesn’t tell us the whole story about any other differences that may exist between the areas. For example, there could be significant differences in terms of council tax bands, school catchments, quality or size of housing, availability of gas, crime rates etc.

Ultimately, the decision about how much you pay and what house you pick will always come down to a matter of personal choice / budget, which is of course different for everybody and thus very hard to quantify. But clearly most people do seek good quality broadband and mobile services.

Press Release

Amdocs now leverages Google Cloud’s unified AI-ready data platform to help service providers evolve with cost effective, scalable, and impactful business insights 

JERSEY CITY, NJ – June 18, 2024 – Amdocs, a leading provider of software and services to communications and media companies, today announced a collaboration with Google Cloud to accelerate successful data transformations for communications service providers (CSPs) and better provide impactful real-time business insights. 

Amdocs’ AI and Data Platform (previously DataOne) now leverages Google Cloud’s unified AI-ready data platform to help CSPs better leverage data to make business decisions. Further, the platform also uses Google Cloud Architecture Framework to create a layered and service-based architecture that leverages best practices for operational excellence, reliability, cost optimization, performance optimization, security, privacy and compliance. The result is a unified, telecom-specific real-time data source that integrates information from various systems across the business. 

By combining Amdocs’ data insights with Google Cloud’s AI capabilities and BigQuery’s data assets, service providers can unlock new opportunities for innovation and efficiency, transforming customer experiences, business operations and revenue performance, helping CSPs evolve into true AI-driven service providers.  

“Our collaboration streamlines the integration of diverse data sources, enabling real-time decision-making and personalized customer experiences,” said Vivek Gupta, Director, Telco Industry, Google Cloud. “This joint approach empowers CSPs to accelerate new revenue possibilities aligned with significant insights coming from their business.”   

“Data is the foundation of any AI-powered experience, including the burgeoning world of generative AI experiences,” said Anthony Goonetilleke, Group President of Technology and Head of Strategy, Amdocs. “Yet, data is complex, and accessing it in a scalable, performant way that enables high-value insights is challenging.  We are therefore excited about our collaboration with Google Cloud to simplify the process for service providers, helping them develop a competitive edge and deliver real-time, AI-driven outcomes based on enterprise-scale data readiness.”

Amdocs will be demonstrating its Google Cloud supported AI and Data Platform capabilities at TM Forum’s Digital Transformation World, June 18-20, Copenhagen, Denmark. 

The Scottish National Party (Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba) yesterday offered a preview of their forthcoming 2024 Manifesto for the UK General Election, which among other things promised to extend their idea of a social tariff for energy providers to also include broadband and mobile services. But the latter already exists.

Social tariffs are typically cheaper packages that are usually only available to those on state benefits (sometimes only certain state benefits). The good news is that, in recent years, Ofcom and the UK government have been reasonably successful in encouraging a wide array of mobile and broadband operators to launch social tariffs for consumers. Most of those hover around or upwards of the £15 per month mark.

The fact that such tariffs already exist created some confusion yesterday after the SNP’s Leader, John Swinney, announced that their forthcoming “manifesto will set out a social tariff to reduce energy, broadband, and mobile bills for hard-pressed consumers.”

So far, we’ve been unable to find an online copy of any transcripts or press releases from yesterday’s event that covered this. But various media reports have quoted John Swinney as stating that their social scheme for broadband/mobile would be better than what already exists because it would be more “comprehensive” and they’d “make sure that [it has] got the range and the scope to [reach] everybody that needs to be supported by such a tariff in our society“. This doesn’t tell us much.

John Swinney said:

“Fast broadband and good mobile phone connections are critical to modern life. In fact, in rural Scotland and the Isles, it is critical to the whole future of the economy. As more and more people work from home at least part of the week, often you literally cannot do your job without a decent internet connection.

That’s why, to help people get jobs, keep jobs and keep more of their hard-earned cash, there should be a social tariff for broadband and mobile charges too.”

The hope is that the imminent launch of the SNP’s Manifesto document this week may provide more in the way of actual details, such as in terms of how the tariffs will practically differ from what already exists. Not to mention the question of how the SNP will encourage ISPs to introduce something that sounds like it may only be available to people in Scotland. The latter would be particularly tedious for ISPs to juggle, especially around the border communities.

However, manifestos aren’t particularly well known for their ability to flesh new policies out, so we’re not holding out much hope for greater clarity as the week rolls on.

Bristol-based Blu Wireless, which makes mmWave (unlicensed 57-71GHz) radio networking technologies in the UK, has secured an investment boost from Maven Capital Partners (a fund manager for the British Business Bank’s South West Investment Fund) to help both promote and drive sustainable economic growth and support innovative.

Both organisations are said to have been in talks for over six months, and the opportunity to invest at this point in time is said to have “made perfect sense for both parties“. At this stage it’s unclear precisely how much investment has been secured, although Maven Equity Finance will often invest between £150,000 and £5 million into such companies.

The deal seems to be at least partly related to Blue’s new patented mmWave wireless solution for rail networks, which provides high bandwidth and low latency connectivity from trackside to train. The solution “delivers gigabit data throughput, increased security and cost-effective deployment” and is already being rolled out on the busy South Western Railway (SWR), as well as in the USA (e.g. the CALTRAIN commuter rail line running from San Francisco to San Jose).

Alexander Sleigh, Maven Investment Director, said:

“Blu Wireless has developed a highly defensible and scalable mmWave solution which has the potential to materially improve connectivity on high-speed rail transportation. This new investment will enable the company to further commercialise its market leading technology including through the creation of new high quality engineering jobs in the Bristol region. We are pleased to have partnered with Alan and his team, through the South West Investment Fund, and we look forward to supporting them over this next phase of growth.”

This investment will allow Blu Wireless to serve its growing international customer base and deliver commercial mmWave deployments worldwide. It will also fuel commercialisation of mmWave technology in the rail sector and pave the way for the ‘gigabit train’ in the UK and globally.

New data from broadband connection testing firm Ookla, which operates the popular online Speedtest.net service for internet users, has revealed the mobile data (4G, 5G) and WiFi performance results from some of the world’s busiest airports, including London Gatwick (LGW) and London Heathrow (LHR) in the UK.

The study found that the fastest airport for median average download speeds over Wi-Fi was San Francisco International Airport in the USA (173.55Mbps down, 233.29Mbps upload and 7.81ms latency), while the fastest for mobile broadband speeds was Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar (442.49Mbps down, 33.54Mbps upload and 34.43ms latency).

Network latency times (a lower figure is faster) on mobile were also found to be generally higher than on Wi-Fi, with some 46 airports showing a Wi-Fi latency lower than the lowest latency on mobile. Upload speeds were often also faster on WiFi than on mobile, while download performance tended to be much more variable. As for the only two UK airports included in the test..

Results for LGW and LHR in the UK

Heathrow Airport (WiFi)
Download: 58.44Mbps
Upload: 68.06Mbps
Latency: 6.43ms (milliseconds)

Heathrow Airport (Mobile)
Download: 38.12Mbps
Upload: 7.02Mbps
Latency: 50.1ms (milliseconds)

Gatwick Airport (WiFi)
Download: 49.46Mbps
Upload: 49.84Mbps
Latency: 11.71ms (milliseconds)

Gatwick Airport (Mobile)
Download: 86.82Mbps
Upload: 9.83Mbps
Latency: 43.49ms (milliseconds)

Sadly, Ookla’s full study wasn’t able to provide a simple results table, so it’s a bit tricky to show everything side-by-side.