Kingston, Jamaica – Tuesday, June 4, 2024: Digicel Group is thrilled to announce the activation of its subsea fibre cable, Deep Blue One. This significant investment in international submarine capacity will supercharge connectivity across the Caribbean and South America, particularly benefiting French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago.

Digicel’s advanced fibre cable network will provide seamless connectivity to the countries it serves, facilitating uninterrupted communication and real-time data transmission. Deep Blue One also presents an invaluable opportunity to connect offshore oil and gas rigs, supporting the growing energy sector in the region and fostering collaboration among key stakeholders in the oil and gas industry.

Marcelo Cataldo, Digicel Group’s Chief Executive Officer said, “Subsea fibre has long been the backbone of global connectivity, and Deep Blue One is set to serve as a catalyst for the next wave of economic development in the region. At Digicel, our focus has always been on keeping our customers connected to the people and things that matter most; driving economic development in the countries we serve is a key part of that. This is an exciting milestone for us, and we are committed to unlocking new opportunities for growth and innovation across the region.”

Deep Blue One’s redundant pathways and cutting-edge technology ensures reliability, optimal operational efficiency and minimal downtime even in challenging environments. Leveraging the latest technology, this subsea cable network is also designed to accommodate future growth and evolving technological requirements, offering scalability and flexibility to meet industry demands. Additionally, as part of Digicel’s commitment to minimising its environmental impact, the build out of Deep Blue One prioritised sustainable practices, while supporting the transition towards a greener future.

In addition to connectivity, Deep Blue One will bring a full economic ecosystem for the benefit of all. The link between increased connectivity and improved economic outcomes has long been proven, with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) reporting that a 10% increase in fixed broadband penetration can result in up to 2.3% increase in GDP per capita, while a 10% increase in mobile broadband penetration can result in up to 2.8% increase in GDP per capita.

ENDS

About Digicel

Enabling customers to live, work, play and flourish in a connected world, Digicel’s world class LTE and fibre networks deliver state-of-the-art mobile, home and business solutions.

Serving 10 million consumer and business customers in 25 markets in the Caribbean and Central America, its investments of over US$5 billion and a commitment to its communities through its Digicel Foundations in Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago have contributed to positive outcomes for over 2 million people to date.

With the Better Connected ethos at the heart of everything, its 5,000 employees worldwide work together to make that a powerful reality for customers, communities and countries day in, day out.

Digicel also delivers news, sports broadcasting, digital media and financial services in several of its markets.

Visit www.digicelgroup.com for more.

News

Cisco has made over 20 AI-focused investments and acquisitions in the last several years 

Cisco has announced that it has launched a $1 billion fund to invest in AI startups in a push to become more dominant in the AI sphere. 

At the company’s “Cisco Live” event in Las Vegas, CEO Chuck Robbins said that despite a billion-dollar investment being considered small in the AI world, “part of our investment thesis is that there are unique co-development activities that we can enter into with [startups] to bring you more innovative solutions and help you navigate the AI transition.”  

The firm also say that the investment aligns with the company strategy “to connect and protect the AI era.” 

According to the press release, related investments in more established AI companies have already begun, with almost $200 having been invested in companies including: 

– Mistral AI, which specialises in generative artificial intelligence 

– Scale AI, which provides end-to-end platform providing training and validation for AI applications 

– Cohere, which provides security-focused frontier large language models (LLMs) for businesses 

“At Cisco, we believe we are well positioned to be the best strategic partner for our customers in the AI era as they look to build, secure, and power AI,” said Mark Patterson, Cisco’s Chief Strategy Officer. 

“In addition to building essential technology to connect, secure and advance AI, Cisco is committed to investing in the broader AI ecosystem to more effectively meet our customers’ needs,” he continued. 

The company are not just investing in startups, but partnering with larger firms too. Again at the “Cisco Live” event in Las Vegas, the two companies announced an AI cluster solution the data center that “transforms how customers build, manage and optimize infrastructure and software.” 

The companies say that it is designed so that customers can focus on AI innivationsinnovations and new revenue streams instead of IT management. 

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

Also in the news:
KPN forms new JV to monetise tower assets
Swisscom’s Fastweb sells FiberCop stake for €439m
General election over, India’s 5G auction facing further delays

The UK has no shortage of retail broadband providers, but today another one has been officially launched in the shape of Fareham-based Beebu (BeeBu Telecom Limited), which like a lot of newer entrants appears to be harnessing several of the market’s alternative full fibre (FTTP) network operators.

The provider’s current partners are said to include CityFibre, MS3, Freedom Fibre, FullFibre and F&W Networks, although they’re eyeing more partnerships for the near future. “BeeBu full-fibre is accessible to 14.8 million homes in the UK and is on track to be available in 16 million homes by August 2024“, states the announcement, which quietly reflects the fact that they’re also available via Openreach’s national network.

Behind the scenes, BeeBu is also said to be supported by Vantage Cloud, which is facilitating their ISP automation platform to help provide customer experience and support. In addition, the provider is preparing several forthcoming announcements about initiatives like ‘Switch & Save’ and a “significant” UK sponsorship.

David Kilby, CEO of BeeBu, said:

“Over the past 18 months, we have witnessed multiple broadband companies entering the market, some catering to niche communities, specific regions, or localities. However, a recurring trend is that customer service and reliability are somewhat lacking, failing to meet consumer expectations.

BeeBu approaches this differently. Since the inception of this project, we have aimed to stand out, providing ultrafast full-fibre broadband access to more UK homes than any other provider, all the while ensuring it is highly dependable and cost-effective.”

The challenge for Beebu is that various other ISPs in the market often make similar claims and standing out in such a busy crowd remains an incredibly difficult task.

News

The deal will see around 60% of KPN’s tower and rooftop assets passed over to the new joint venture with ABP

This week, incumbent Dutch telecoms operator KPN has announced the creation of a new joint venture with Dutch pension fund ABP to manage tower infrastructure across the country.

The deal will see KPN contribute around 60% of its existing tower and rooftop base station portfolio to the joint venture, with a further 800 sites being added from ABP’s tower subsidiary Open Tower Company (OTC).

The deal will also see KPN take over Novec, a passive infrastructure operator owned by energy grid operator TenneT, which also has a minority stake in OTC. Novec

Once combined, the new TowerCo will manage and operate around 3,800 mobile towers ad rooftop sites.

In total, KPN will pay €120 million to Novec and OTC shareholders to balance the scales in the deal. KPN will hold a 51% stake in the business, with the remaining 49% owed by ABP.

This is the second joint venture between KPN and ABP, the first being a €1 billion open access wholesale fibre network operator Glaspoort created back in 2021.

KPN says the deal to monetise its passive infrastructure assets is crucial to its ongoing strategic focus on flexibility, growth, and technological development.

“We have built up a very good position with our mobile network in recent years. We want to maintain and further expand this in the future, also in view of the ever-growing data traffic,” said KPN chief exec Joost Farwerck in a translated statement. “With this collaboration we gain more control and flexibility at a large number of locations of our mobile infrastructure and at the same time we realise a more sustainable cost model.”

As part of the deal, KPN has agreed to a 20-year master services agreement with the new TowerCo, as well as a 10-year build-to-suit programme that will see the TowerCo build additional towers as necessary.

The deal is subject to all typical regulatory approvals.

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

Also in the news:
German government sells $2.7 billion stake in Deutsche Telekom
News in Brief: Cable updates from Submarine Networks EMEA
STC joins e& in eying up United Group 

News 

The deal is subject to the completion of KKR’s takeover of TIM’s fixed infrastructure business NetCo, which includes FiberCop 

Swisscom has announced that its Italian subsidiary FastWeb has sold its 4.5% share of FiberCop to KKR’s subsidiary Optics BidCo for €439 million. 

FiberCop is an infrastructure operator established in 2021 by Telecom Italia (TIM), KKR and Fastweb to manage TIM’s ‘last mile’ fibre network, the passive fibre-to-the-home infrastructure that links homes to the cabinet at the end of the street. 

The transaction is subject to the completion of TIM’s sale of its fixed network operations (i.e., NetCo) to KKR, which is expected to be completed next quarter. 

In the announcement’s short press release, Fastweb confirmed that it “remains fully committed to its mission of driving innovation and connectivity in the country through investments in key telecommunications infrastructures.” 

Therefore, it will continue to invest in its own fibre network and remain a provider of wholesale services to third parties. 

The news comes just days after the European Commission gave KKR the green light for its planned takeover of TIM’s NetCo for €22 billion. Having completed a full investigation centred around competition concerns, the body decided that the acquisition “would not significantly reduce the level of competition in the market for wholesale broadband access services in Italy.” 

Swisscom’s involvement in the Italian telecoms sector does not end there. Last quarter, the company announced a binding deal with Vodafone Italia to acquire its local business unit for €8 billion. Once the deal is complete, the unit will be merged with Fastweb to create Italy’s second-largest fixed-line broadband operator behind TIM. 

This deal is expected to be finalised next year. 

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

Also in the news:
German government sells $2.7 billion stake in Deutsche Telekom
News in Brief: Cable updates from Submarine Networks EMEA
STC joins e& in eying up United Group 

Alternative UK broadband ISP Trooli, which is backed by Agnar UK Infrastructure (here) and has already extended their full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 334,000 premises (RFS) across England and Scotland (here), has started informing customers about both an unusual change of home “telecom equipment” and of their ownership structure.

Firstly, customers of the provider have informed ISPreview that Trooli recently sent out a new notice, which informed them about how they are “reorganising parts of the Trooli business“. This is said to involve moving all existing customers who have an agreement with Trooli Ltd – either within contract terms or monthly rolling out of contract terms – to a new “customer management system” with Hermod Retail Limited “for the provision of broadband services“.

The announcement states that Hermod Retail Limited is part of the same group as Trooli Ltd, and is trading as Trooli, and indeed a quick check via Companies House shows that both companies share the same address and two of the same French Directors (Maxime Buisson and Elie Nammar). Hermod Retail Limited was only incorporated in February 2024.

Customers are then told that the service currently provided by Trooli will “remain the same“, including their associated terms and conditions and policies (inc. privacy policy). “The only change to you is that your contract will be with Hermod Retail Limited, rather than Trooli Ltd,” added the announcement. Customer accounts are then expected to be migrated gradually “over the coming weeks“.

Generally speaking, broadband ISPs don’t need to migrate customers between different companies purely for the sake of adopting a customer management system, which makes us suspect that this might be more in the service of separating the business into a separate retail and wholesale (network) side. In theory, such a change might open up new opportunities for Trooli to pursue, while potentially also making the network easier to sell.

Replacing Customer Modems / CPE

In addition to the above, some of Trooli’s customers have also recently recieved another unusual notification, which informs them about an “upcoming scheduled maintenance activity that will involve changing the telecom equipment at your property” (we believe this will be taking place in a couple of months’ time). The change is described as being “essential to ensure the continued and uninterrupted service on which you rely.”

“To efficiently carry out this equipment upgrade, we have partnered with a trusted and experienced company, Fibre Optic Installation Ltd, which specialises in telecom installations. They will contact you shortly to arrange a convenient time to access your property and complete the necessary changes,” added the notice. The upgrade process itself is “expected” to take no more than a maximum of 45 minutes.

The notice includes no information about precisely what “telecom equipment” is being changed, which could impact either Trooli’s Optical Network Terminal (ONT) or their broadband router. But since generally ISPs don’t need to send out engineers for router replacements, then we rather suspect this relates to a change of ONT.

In full fibre networks, the ONT is an optical modem that gets installed on the wall, inside your home, and is then connected to your router. But such unexpected ONT swaps are extremely rare and normally only occur in very specific circumstances, such as during a key change of network platform, or to replace faulty / misconfigured kit or for security reasons. For example, Openreach will replace the ONT for ISP customers who upgrade to one of their new 1.2 or 1.8Gbps tiers, while Lit Fibre had to swap some ONTs after a software update went wrong (here).

Some of Trooli’s customers have asked the provider’s support agents about this and were told that it isn’t due to a fault, but relates more to an upgrade that allows the operator to harness better equipment. But clearly more context is needed to help explain both notifications, and we’ve asked Trooli to comment, although over the past year it’s often been hard to get them to respond to any of our queries – PR is perhaps not their strongest point.

News 

The new data centre will be built on the site of a former LCD panel factory owned by Foxconn, Sharp’s parent company 

Japan’s KDDI and Sharp have begun discussions with Super Micro Computer Inc. and Datasection to build an AI datacentre in Japan, which they say will be the largest in Asia. 

According to the press release, the companies have entered into discussions and aim to “start operations as early as possible.” 

The data centre will be built on the Sharp Sakai Plant in Osaka, which is set to close in September having become unprofitable. 

The newly constructed data centre will be powered by Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72s, server racks specialised in training and running AI models. The site will host at last 1,000 servers.  

KDDI noted that there are three main challenges when building an AI data centre with a large scale computing platform: 

procuring state-of-the-art computing equipment;
developing a highly-efficient cooling system to manage heat generation;
and securing electric power and space.

The companies claim they can “effectively and efficiently” tackle these challenges by combining their assets and expertise. 

 “We expect that the former Sharp Sakai Plant will be able to provide adequate electric power and space to support the AI data center’s electricity needs,” explained KDDI in a statement. 

“Datasection will support the operation of AI data centre. KDDI will provide robust support to this project through the construction and operation of AI data centre and network infrastructure,” it continued. 

Japan has been a hotbed for AI and datacentre investment as the race for global dominance ramps up. In April, Microsoft announced a $2.9 billion investment over the next two years, focussing on cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. In January, AWS announced an investment of 2.2 trillion yen ($15.24 billion) in the country’s cloud computing infrastructure by 2027. The investment is in addition to the 1.51 trillion yen ($10.20 billion) it has already spent on increasing cloud capacity in Japan.  

Tadao Nagasaki, head of the Japan unit of AWS said during the announcement’s press conference that the company sees “Japan as a very important country,” 

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

Also in the news:
German government sells $2.7 billion stake in Deutsche Telekom
News in Brief: Cable updates from Submarine Networks EMEA
STC joins e& in eying up United Group 

News

The process has been pushed back to the end of the month, now set to take place on June 25

Earlier this year and after considerable delay, India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) announced that it had finalised the details for the country’s latest 5G spectrum auction, setting a date of May 20.

By April, however, it had become clear that the ongoing general election – the largest democratic vote ever to take place – could interfere with proceedings. As a result, the DoT delayed the auction to June 6, the day after the voting concluded.

Now, just a day before this revised deadline, the DoT is once again seeking to delay the process, with reports suggesting the auction will be pushed back to June 25.

No explanation has been given for this increased delay.

The auction is set to make additional spectrum available in the 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz, 2,500 MHz, 3,300 MHz, and 26 GHz bands, in total worth roughly $11 billion.

The broad range of low-band, mid-band, and high-band spectrum should represent a great opportunity for the operators to expand their spectrum portfolios in the areas they need to most. In reality, however, the spectrum auction is shaping up to be something of a disappointment. Initial deposits from the operators are reportedly 82% lower than they were for the 5G auction in 2022, indicating a general unwillingness to shell out for additional spectrum.

The reasoning behind this seems simple enough: demand remains too low.

India’s first 5G spectrum auction in 2022 saw Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (now Vi) all take home spectrum licences. Since then, both Jio and Airtel have been hard at work rolling out their 5G networks, while Vodafone Idea delayed the process due to its financial woes. Idea says it is aiming to launch commercial services in the second half of this year.

But despite swift rollouts from the country’s two largest operators, uptake has been slow to follow, with both operators reporting relatively little in the way of 5G revenues in their latest financials. As such, it makes sense that they are reticent to buy more spectrum just yet.

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

Also in the news:
German government sells $2.7 billion stake in Deutsche Telekom
News in Brief: Cable updates from Submarine Networks EMEA
STC joins e& in eying up United Group 

The Horsham-based Telecom Acquisitions Group (TAL), which is a holding company for several familiar UK residential ISP brands (Home Telecom, No One and Eclipse Broadband etc.), has today acquired yet another broadband customer base, this time from little known ISP brand Eze Talk Residential.

Just to be clear. Eze Talk is currently adopting more of a business focus, and TAL will acquire only Eze Talk Residential’s 2,750 strong base of residential customers. In the last 15 months to February 2024, TAL have grown to circa 100,000 customers, while returning a £40m turnover, and this latest acquisition adds to that.

The TAL Group added that it is continuing to negotiate with other prominent alternative networks and ISPs for further expansion during the course of 2024. The company is also supporting this via an ongoing marketing deal to help boost take-up and bring its brand to houses on the footprints of CityFibre’s full fibre network across the UK, which complements existing arrangements with other networks (e.g. MS3, FullFibre and Freedom Fibre).

Nigel Barnett, TAL’s CEO, said:

“More and more ISPs and network providers like Eze Talk have found that servicing residential connections is time consuming and a drain on resources. We have a formula that works, which is backed up by scores of 4.5 stars including 10,700 reviews on Trust Pilot.

Eze Talk Residential was part of the very successful Eze Talk Group that has been established 22 years and is serious player in the B2B space. Eze Talk Residential is a traditional telephony base including lines, calls, broadband and all the BT services that go with it.

Personally, this acquisition means a lot to me, as Eze Talk helped me with the residential sector when we first setup 13 years ago. The family have really established themselves in the B2B sector and their trust in us taking over their residential side means a lot. There are so many synergies between the companies our relationship will grow even stronger.”

Mike Walsh, Eze Talk Managing Director, said:

“Residential business in our early days was the main stay of our business, but as we are all aware markets change and many years ago, we decided B2B was a more sustainable route for the future. Nigel is a character in our industry and hats off to a man that has put circa 100,000 customers together in four short years and we feel comfortable that our customers will be in excellent hands.”

The announcement doesn’t mention much about the customer side of this deal, but TAL’s past migrations have tended to broadly respect existing package details and prices, albeit sometimes with the odd change.

The new CEO of BT Group (inc. EE, Plusnet, Openreach), Allison Kirkby, has told this week’s Deloitte and Enders Media & Telecoms 2024 Conference in London that any future UK government should look to boosting full fibre broadband and 5G mobile by making further changes to existing planning laws.

As it stands, EE’s latest 5G mobile network already covers 75% of the UK’s population (up from 72% in H1) and Openreach’s national gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network has reached 14 million premises. The latter is currently part of an investment (worth up to £15bn) that is expected to cover 25 million premises by December 2026 (80%+ of the UK) and then up to 30 million by 2030 (nearly universal coverage).

Suffice to say that the operator is making strong progress with its telecoms infrastructure and, over the past decade, the Government has already made a lot of changes to soften existing planning laws to help facilitate such work by network operators. Some examples include moving poles / street cabinets into more flexible Permitted Development (PD) rights and softening the rules on mobile mast upgrades etc.

However, with the 2024 General Election just around the corner, Allison Kirkby has signalled (The Guardian) that one way to support this ongoing work would be to improve “certainty” around regulatory and fiscal policy. Specifically, BT’s boss says the future government will “need to look at planning” (again).

Kirkby made this point at the same time as acknowledging something basic that anybody harbouring any familiarity with the sector has known for the best part of nearly two decades, which is that “Scandinavia is way ahead of the UK” and “part of that is very much driven by the regulatory environment, the planning environment and the general adoption of digital skills and digital services” (see the – 2023 EU Progress Report).

Admittedly, BT’s CEO does rather overlook the company’s own history of having spent many prior years being strongly opposed to investing in building FTTP at scale (something well documented by ISPreview), while instead preferring to focus on their ageing copper line infrastructure. This approach significantly contributed to today’s position, where the UK is playing catch-up with much of the EU. But on the flip side, it also helped to encourage plenty of alternative networks, which now threaten the incumbents.

Allison Kirkby, CEO of BT Group, said:

“It’s not necessarily market structure that stops the UK having the great networks that I saw in Sweden – a lot of it is restricted by planning. The Swedes, the Norwegians, the Finnish all expected their highways, their trains, to have great connectivity wherever you were, even when you were up in the northern part of the country. A lot of what is not working in the UK is the planning legislation.”

Sadly, the new CEO doesn’t elaborate on precisely what aspects of planning she would like to see changed or improved, which seems like a missed opportunity but does also limit any potential risk of fallout from such remarks during a General Election period.
For example, in recent months the news has been full of gripes about the deployment of new telecoms poles from multiple operators, which has grown to become somewhat of a political issue (here and here). Doing anything that might make such deployments even easier, right now, would thus risk being perceived as pushing too far in the wrong direction. BT’s CEO must this tread very carefully.

On the other hand, Openreach and rival operators are trying to find solutions to other problems, such as with the ongoing difficulties of deploying new fibre optic broadband lines into certain large residential buildings / MDUs (here). But that’s arguably more an issue of wayleave (access) agreements than planning, although it is an example of an area where there may still be room for improvement.

We have this morning asked both BT and Openreach if they might be able to elaborate on what sort of planning changes Allison had in mind and we’ll update if any specifics come our way.