Hull-based ISP and network operator KCOM, which is building a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England, today claims to have made progress on the thorny issue of infrastructure sharing after sending a feasibility study on PIA (cable duct and pole access) to rival Connexin. In case anybody has forgotten. Connexin […]

The UK Digital Infrastructure Minister, Julia Lopez, has published a new letter to “telecoms firms” (Virgin Media, Openreach and KCOM etc.) that calls for them to “limit installation of telegraph poles” when deploying new fibre broadband networks because they risk upsetting communities by “inappropriately or unnecessarily throwing up new infrastructure.” Network operators like poles because […]

In a move set to accelerate its nationwide full-fibre rollout, CityFibre, the UK’s leading independent network operator, has announced the acquisition of full fibre altnet Lit Fibre from Newlight Partners. This strategic acquisition is poised to extend CityFibre’s reach by up to 300,000 premises as part of its ambitious 8 million premises rollout program. The agreement, structured on a share-based acquisition model, will see Newlight Partners assume a minority stake in CityFibre. The completion of the transaction is anticipated in the second quarter of 2024.

Lit Fibre, a vertically integrated altnet, is both a network builder and Internet Service Provider (ISP). As of now, they cover 200,000 premises spanning across more than 20 towns in various regions including Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Worcestershire, Essex, and Suffolk. With a rapidly expanding subscriber base exceeding 9,000 retail customers, Lit Fibre brings significant operational value to CityFibre’s growth strategy.

This acquisition marks CityFibre’s initial move in a series of anticipated deals over the next two years, aligning with its vision to leverage altnet acquisitions as a key driver for growth. By integrating Lit Fibre into its network infrastructure, CityFibre aims to solidify its position as the primary wholesale competitor to BT Openreach in the UK.

The integration process, slated for completion later this year, will enable ISPs to access a consistent range of market-leading products, pricing, and service offerings across the network. CityFibre plans to seamlessly integrate Lit Fibre’s assets into its carrier-grade network, encompassing passive, active, and operational support systems.

The acquisition also includes Lit Fibre’s ongoing deployment initiatives, aiming to cover up to an additional 100,000 premises by early 2025. Leveraging existing poles and ducts, Lit Fibre’s network demonstrates an attractive build cost per premises. Lit Fibre also uses high standard and compatible 10Gbps XGS-PON network architecture which will be a boon to CityFibre’s integration process by allowing them to maintain high-quality services to customers.

CityFibre assures Lit Fibre customers of uninterrupted full-fibre broadband services throughout the integration process. As a wholesale-only operator, CityFibre remains committed to exploring retail ISP options post-integration to enhance service offerings.

With a proven track record of successful acquisitions including KCOM, Redcentric, Entanet, and FibreNation, CityFibre is well-equipped to integrate Lit Fibre into its commercial strategy.

NEWS

A damaged subsea cable has brought major disruption to West Africa, with internet services down or barely accessible across large parts of the region, with Ivory Coast, Liberia and Benin the worst effected.

While the cause of the damage has yet to be confirmed, reports from NetBlocks, an internet watchdog have classified the incident impact in these three countries as being severe to high, while outages were being experienced across large swathes of the region, as well as in South Africa, where thousands of users have reported disruption.

Both MTN and Vodacom, two of the continent’s largest operators have confimed that subsea cable failures were the cause, with a Vodacom spokesman stating “Multiple undersea cable failures between South Africa and Europe are currently impacting South Africa’s network providers, including Vodacom.” While the cable break has yet to be pinpointed, the disruption couldn’t have come at a worse time, with the Seacom cable that connects South Africa with Europe via East Africa and the Red Sea having been recently severed, with repairs being delayed due to the delicate geopolitical situation within the region.

The outage has caused widespread disruption, and marks the second time in seven months than an undersea cable issue has brought chaos to Africa’s internet infrastructure. While it’s unclear how long it will take to repair the damage, with the location of the break not yet pinpointed, this latest outage will no doubt bring further headaches to the industry and broader region.

 

The UK Government’s Digital Infrastructure Minister, Julia Lopez, has revealed that she will next week hold a roundtable with colleagues, as well as Ofcom, to discuss rising community complaints against the use of broadband poles and wireless masts to deliver digital infrastructure. But this time, some action may follow. Despite being a common sight across […]

Network operator CityFibre, which has made no secret of its desire to boost the growth of their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network through consolidation (example), will today reportedly announce the £80m acquisition of alternative network provider Lit Fibre. At present CityFibre’s wider ambition remains to cover up to 8 million UK premises […]

Telecoms provider Vodafone UK will today launch “The Great British Telecoms Switch” campaign, which encourages those on Openreach’s wider fixed broadband and phone network – with different ISPs – to save money by switching to their service. New customers who take their top 900Mbps FTTP plan will also get up to £100 to cover any […]

Broadband and mobile provider VMO2 (Virgin Media and O2) has today announced an expansion of their O2 Recycle scheme, which enables UK people to trade-in unwanted devices for cash, to include popular video gaming consoles from Sony (PlayStation), Microsoft (Xbox), Meta (Oculus) and Nintendo. The initiative, which is now also accepting MacBooks, alongside smartphones, tablets, […]

Stockholm and Madrid, 12 March, 2024 – Arelion and Telxius are collaborating to provide fully diverse, multi-terabit connectivity into Telxius’ landing stations in Boca Raton and Jacksonville, Florida. This fiber network expansion establishes Arelion Points-of-Presence (PoPs) at each Telxius landing station. For Telxius, it empowers customers with resilient Tier-1 optical transport and high-speed access to Arelion’s North American network. Together, Arelion and Telxius are making a significant investment in the Florida Peninsula to connect Latin American customers to North America through submarine and terrestrial systems.

 

The collaboration benefits both Arelion and Telxius’ customers in North America and Latin America with enhanced access to the companies’ global Internet backbones. Customers also benefit from Telxius’ portfolio of leading submarine and terrestrial backhauls, and Arelion’s resilient terrestrial connectivity services, including high-capacity wavelengths for service providers, content providers and enterprises.

 

Arelion’s PoPs enable resilient 400G Wavelengths services over open line systems supporting the latest coherent technology, seamlessly connecting Internet carriers and content providers to Arelion’s network in the United States. This network expansion complements Arelion’s existing presence at Telxius’ Virginia Beach landing station and further cements Arelion as a key terrestrial connectivity provider in North America. Telxius’ Virginia Beach landing station is the landing point for three next-generation subsea systems connecting to Latin America and Europe: Brusa, Marea and Dunant. Telxius’ Boca Raton landing station is the terminal point for Telxius’ South America-1 (SAm-1) and upcoming Tikal submarine cable system, while Telxius’ Jacksonville landing station connects to the Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS). Both landing stations provide diverse, high-capacity connectivity to the United States from Panama, South America and the Caribbean.

 

“Arelion’s new PoPs at Telxius’ landing stations along the Florida Peninsula will provide Latin American markets with high-capacity gateway access to the North American connectivity ecosystem,” said Edison De Leon, Regional Director Latam & Caribbean at Arelion. “Through this investment in the Florida Peninsula, Arelion continues our established partnership with Telxius to serve the technological needs of Internet carriers and content providers through complete, collaborative connectivity solutions.”

 

Florida’s technology industry recently ranked fourth in the United States for tech growth, adding 2,715 tech businesses last year and outpacing established hubs, including California and Texas. Arelion and Telxius’ partnership establishes key interconnection points for Latin American companies requiring access to major cloud regions, content applications and network infrastructure supporting Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) applications in North America.

 

“We at Telxius are committed to expanding our high-capacity terrestrial backhauls in combination with our next-generation subsea cable networks to connect the world’s digital hubs and better serve our customers across the Americas”, said Carlos Casado, VP of Sales, Telxius, Northern Region. “Our continued collaboration will provide ultra-high capacity, low latency and robust access to Latin America and transatlantic markets for Arelion and its customers. For Telxius, it secures 400G transmission services in our Boca Raton and Jacksonville landing stations, enabling resilient Tier-1 optical transport and high-speed access to Arelion’s North American network for customers.”

 

About Arelion

Arelion solves global connectivity challenges for multinational enterprises whose businesses rely on digital infrastructure. On top of the world’s #1 ranked IP backbone and a unique ecosystem of cloud and network service providers, we provide an award-winning customer experience to customers in more than 125 countries worldwide. Our global Internet services connect more than 700 cloud, security and content providers with low latency. For further resilience, our private Cloud Connect service connects directly to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and Oracle cloud across North America, Europe and Asia. Discover more at Arelion.com, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Telxius

As the world’s needs for uninterrupted global interconnectivity continue to rise, we are preparing the road ahead. Telxius is a leading global connectivity provider that combines subsea and terrestrial networks with data centers worldwide. Its extensive ecosystem includes eight next-generation fiber optic submarine cables and terrestrial backhauls together spanning 100,000+ km, almost 100 PoPs in 17 countries, plus 25 landing stations and data centers. Telxius provides a wide range of capacity, colocation and security services, as well as direct internet connectivity through its Tier-1 IP network. With ultra-high capacity, low latency and resilient networking, Telxius seamlessly connects customers across the Americas, Europe and beyond. For more information about Telxius visit www.telxius.com.

Contacts:

Arelion
Martin Sjögren, Senior Manager PR and Analyst Relations
+46 (0)707 770 522

martin.sjogren@arelion.com 

Media Contact

Jeannette Bitz, Engage PR

+1 510 295 4972

jbitz@engagepr.com

Telxius

comunicacion@telxius.com

WALTHAM, MA — March 12, 2024 — Netcracker Technology announced today that leading Croatian telecommunications provider Hrvatski Telekom will continue its long-term partnership by implementing Netcracker Revenue Management – part of Netcracker Digital BSS – to modernize its IT infrastructure and merge its mobile and fixed-line systems.

Hrvatski Telekom will upgrade to the latest version of Netcracker’s digital-first and cloud-native revenue management platform, which will deliver a number of key business benefits, including automation of the operator’s postpaid charging processes and the ability to integrate with internal and external revenue management functions such as accounts receivable, collections, revenue assurance, payment management and more for its lines of business. Netcracker will also continue to provide Support & Maintenance services, which include analytics-based tools that provide uninterrupted business continuity and the highest level of service quality.

“We are delighted to continue working with our strategic partner Netcracker for billing and revenue management due to our successful working relationship over the years,” said Suzana Vodicka Varga, Director of IT Enterprise Applications Department at Hrvatski Telekom. “The upgrade and support from Netcracker will allow us to automate our entire postpaid charging process and give us the flexibility to merge our fixed and mobile systems to provide the best possible customer experience.”

“Working with Hrvatski Telekom as a trusted, long-term partner is truly rewarding for us,” said Benedetto Spaziani, GM at Netcracker. “Continuing on this journey with our next-generation revenue management platform is very exciting, and I can’t wait to see the ongoing success we can accomplish going forward.”

 

 

 

About Netcracker Technology

Rapid digitization is disrupting the status quo of today’s communications markets. Constantly evolving customer needs and behaviors require service providers to adapt quickly and diversify their businesses to deliver the outcomes that their customers expect. Building digital ecosystems, anticipating customer requirements and delivering a digital-first experience are essential for service providers to accelerate innovation, expand into new markets and become the disruptors in the 5G era.

Netcracker Technology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation, has the expertise, culture and resources to help service providers around the world transform their businesses to thrive in a digital economy. Our innovative solutions – including our flagship cloud-native Netcracker Digital Platform – value-driven services and unbroken delivery track record of three decades help service providers to achieve their digital transformation goals, drive the telco to techco evolution within their organizations and realize business growth and profitability. For more information, visit www.netcracker.com.

Media Contact

Anita Karvé
Netcracker Technology
MediaGroup@Netcracker.com   

About Hrvatski Telekom

Hrvatski Telekom (HT) is one of the largest and strongest companies in Croatia. HT is the leading company on the market and provides a full range of telecommunications services – fixed and mobile telephony services, data transmission, TV services, internet and international communications. As the leading digital infrastructure investor in the country HT continuously invests in the country’s future economic and social development.  For more information, visit: www.t.ht.hr