News

Despite declines in other key markets, Vodafone UK reported an increase in sales in its quarterly results this morning 

Vodafone reported a 3.7% rise in organic revenue growth to €10.7 billion in the first quarter of this year, although reported growth fell by 4.8%. 

In the UK, service revenue rose by 5.7% to £1.2 billion, due in part to price rises that came into effect in April, which saw mobile contracts increase by around £3 annually.  

Strong performance in the UK will help the firm to offset declines in its largest market, Germany, along with Italy and Spain, where revenues continue to decrease.

In Germany, revenue dropped by 1.3%, which the firm says reflects “the cumulative impact of customer losses over the past 18 months”. Vodafone Germany has lost over 121,000 cost-conscious broadband consumers to rivals in the past 18 months, though this reduction in revenue was partially offset by newly introduced price rises. 

Italy and Spain also saw reductions in service revenue of 1.6% and 3%, respectively. 

The news comes as Vodafone announced today that Luca Mušić will join the firm as Chief Financial Officer in September. He will succeed Margarita Della Valle, who became CEO following the departure of Nick Read at the end of last year. 

Vodafone’s £15 billion merger deal with Three, which was unveiled last month, is set to be completed late next year and, if approved, will make the merged company the UK’s largest mobile operator. Despite facing scrutiny similar to that of 2016’s blocked O2–Three merger, CEO Margherita Della Valle said that engagement with the Competition and Markets authority is already underway, and the company expects to file the draft merger notice “in the next few weeks”. 

Vodafone’s share price rose 4.5% this morning. 

How would the merger of Vodafone and Three impact the UK’s telecoms industry?  Join the ecosystem in discussion at this year’s live Connected Britain conference 

Also in the news:
Vodafone warns of investment cuts if Three merger is blocked
Vodafone and Three UK closing in on merger
Dish and EchoStar consider merger

News

The billionaire is reportedly considering increasing his stake to the maximum allowed before being obligated to make a mandatory takeover offer

Today, anonymous sources cited by This Is Money suggest that billionaire Patrick Drahi is once again looking to increase his stake in BT.

According to these insiders, Drahi is considering increasing his stake in the UK’s largest telecoms operator to 29.9% – the largest share possible without triggering a mandatory takeover offer for the business.

Drahi first acquired a stake in BT back in 2021, buying a 12.1% stake in the operator for around £2 billion via the newly formed Altice UK.

Less than a year later, Altice increased its stake by a further 6% to 18%, a move which set alarm bells ringing at BT and set in motion a number of defensive measures to shore up the company’s operations against a potential takeover. Despite this, Altice remained adamant that stake increase was merely a valuable investment opportunity rather than a precursor to a potential takeover.

Finally, earlier this year, Drahi again increased his stake in the business, this time to 24.5%.

At every juncture Drahi and Altice have insisted that they have no interest in taking over BT and this reportedly remains the case today.

However, it is worth noting here that if Drahi and Altice do intend to increase their stake in BT, it would trigger an investigation by the UK government under the National Security & Investment Act. This Act, made law at the start of 2022, gives the UK Business Secretary powers to veto foreign investments if an investigation finds they may represent a threat to national security.

Altice has faced such an investigation before, following its previous stake increase, and the government deemed no intervention to be necessary. Whether this would still be the case for this larger stake, however, remains to be seen.

This is especially poignant given the other headline Altice news over the past week – namely, that Altice’s co-founder and former COO, Armando Pereira, has arrested as part of a major three-year investigation into corporate corruption.

The sting operation, which took place last week, resulted in three men being arrested, roughly 90 premises searched, and around €20 million in property seized.

Authorities are currently questioning Pereira and others in relation to charges of corruption, tax fraud, and money laundering.

Altice says it is complying with the investigation and has suspended contracts with around 60 suppliers, as well as launching internal audits.

According to sources, the impact to the company’s supply chain could have significant repercussions for the company’s network rollout.

Yossi Benchetrit, Altice USA’s head of procurement and Pereira’s son-in-law, has also been suspended.

Want to keep up with all of the latest telecoms news from around the world? Sign up to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

Also in the news:
Vodafone warns of investment cuts if Three merger is blocked
Vodafone and Three UK closing in on merger
Dish and EchoStar consider merger

The ITS Technology Group, which operates 36 wholesale full fibre broadband and Ethernet networks (aka – Faster Britain) across urban parts of the United Kingdom for businesses and ISPs, has been approved as a supplier on the Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS) Network Services 3 (NS3) framework. NS3 is an update to previous Network Services 2 […]

Wireless infrastructure provider Freshwave has revealed that they’re working with the One Nine Elms (R&F Properties UK) site in London to deploy in-building mobile connectivity for all four mobile operators in the two towers – including in the lifts, which the company claims is somewhat of a first for a residential development. Freshwave typically specialises […]

CityFibre, which is rolling out a 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network across the UK, has published their annual accounts to the end of 2022 and revealed that their losses nearly doubled. But their network coverage also doubled to 2.2 million homes (RFS) and live consumer connections surged to 174k (up from 61k). […]

Vodafone UK has today published their latest Q1 FY24 results, which saw fixed line broadband ISP base grow to total 1.265 million customers (up by 42k in the quarter vs 65k in Q4 FY23), while their mobile base increased to 18.024 million (up by 104k vs 118k in the previous quarter). The biggest development over […]

Mobile network operator Vodafone UK has revealed that 532,651 tennis-fans attended The Championships 2023 and tracking shows that over 64 TeraBytes (up by 36.5% from 2022) of mobile broadband data were consumed by Wimbledon-goers during the two-week tournament, which was also one of their first roll-outs of 5G Standalone tech. Vodafone recorded its busiest day […]

Network builder CityFibre has given themselves a pat on the back after trials of an enhanced platform “capable of true proactive fault repair“, which involved several broadband ISPs on their UK full fibre (FTTP) infrastructure, delivered an impressive improvement. At present CityFibre aims to cover up to 8 million UK premises (funded by c.£2.4bn in […]

Press Release

Ericsson and O2 Telefónica in Germany have achieved a significant milestone in the development of 5G Cloud RAN technology in Europe

In their inaugural joint Proof of Concept (PoC) deployment at O2 Telefónica’s Wayra innovation hub in Munich, they showcased the capabilities of Ericsson’s first 5G Cloud RAN installation in Europe. The PoC utilized a centralized control unit (CU) and harnessed the power of mmWave frequency to achieve an impressive end-to-end speed of more than 4 gigabits per second.

This successful collaboration not only demonstrates the efficiency and performance of Ericsson’s 5G Cloud RAN solution but also validates the feasibility of Cloud RAN for enterprise and industry-specific use cases as well as fixed wireless access (FWA) use cases. One such use case is “Data Shower”, a new concept in the automotive industry that enables the efficient deployment of software updates to vehicles in production lines by using mmWave technology for high-bandwidth transfer.

The achievement of this PoC highlights the potential of Cloud RAN technology to deliver 5G connectivity and drive future innovations in the European telecommunications landscape. It serves as a crucial foundation for O2 Telefónica’s efforts to bring Cloud RAN technology to macro networks and demonstrates Ericsson’s commitment to Open RAN – paving the way for further advancements in cloud-native architecture and operation.

By implementing Ericsson’s cloud-native software solution for 5G Cloud RAN, O2 Telefónica in Germany will experience significant gains in flexibility, service delivery and improved network operations. This initiative also sets the stage for other communication service providers (CSPs) to leverage network automation and RAN programmability, thereby enhancing their overall network flexibility, scalability, and simplification.

Daniel Leimbach, Head of Customer Unit Western Europe at Ericsson, says: “The partnership between Ericsson and O2 Telefónica demonstrates our commitment to achieving significant breakthroughs on our path to build the networks of the future. It is a first for both companies in Europe and shows the potential of Cloud RAN for high performance use cases. It builds upon our work with the cloud-native 5G core we have deployed in O2 Telefónica Germany, enabling a full end-to-end cloud native network. We are very proud to be doing this together with O2  Telefónica.”

Mallik Rao, Chief Technology & Information Officer of O2 Telefónica, says: ” O2  Telefónica is a pioneer in deploying new network technologies such as Cloud RAN. With the introduction of a cloud-based, standardized architecture, we are able to respond quickly to customer needs, introduce new products and services even more flexibly and scale our O2 network better. With Cloud RAN, we combine the benefits of open interfaces with the expertise and product quality of European network equipment supplier Ericsson, whose technology we already use for our high-performance 5G core network.”

Cloud-native deployment plays a pivotal role in the transformation of the telecommunications industry, and the integration of cloud-native architecture into the radio access network (RAN) presents an exceptional opportunity to foster innovation and enhance network efficiency. By virtualizing the RAN and adopting a cloud-native, standardized architecture, O2 Telefónica will gain the ability to respond rapidly to customer needs, introduce new products and services with greater flexibility and agility, and realize benefits such as faster service delivery, improved scalability and enhanced cost efficiency.

Ericsson’s commitment to advancing telecommunications networks is underscored by this collaboration and builds upon the company’s successful Cloud RAN deployments with other leading CSPs in North America and Australia.

The incorporation of Cloud RAN extends the foundation of the ongoing network cloudification efforts by Ericsson and O2 Telefónica in Germany.

Want to keep up with all of the latest telecoms news from around the world? Sign up to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

Also in the news:
EU and Japan sign deals for subsea cables and semiconductors
Home Office lambasted over Emergency Services Network delays
Ofcom probes VMO2 as customers complain about contract cancellation

News

BT hailed the deployment as a ‘significant milestone’, potentially opening the door for further deployments in the near future

Lundy Island is a small island off the north coast of Devon. Spanning less than 5km2, the island is home to 28 permanent residents, but is perhaps best known for its status as a Marine Conservation Zone and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Now, the island is set to benefit from low latency connectivity delivered courtesy of a partnership between BT and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite operator OneWeb.

Connectivity across the island will reportedly be delivered by an Intellian dual parabolic terminal deployed on the island, which connects to OneWeb’s LEO satellite constellation orbiting above. The connection then travels from a User Terminal (UT) to Satellite Network Portal (SNP) via the satellites, where it is backhauled across OneWeb’s Wide Area Network to BT’s core network.

“It’s brilliant to be bringing high-speed, low-latency connectivity to Lundy Island in partnership with OneWeb and DSIT. The installation will not only have a transformative impact on the island and its residents but is also a significant milestone in demonstrating the value of satellite communications and the crucial role such solutions will play in enabling digital connectivity across the entirety of the UK and beyond,” said BT’s chief networks officer Greg McCall.

BT first partnered with OneWeb back in 2021, with BT CEO Philip Jansen promising the company would “put OneWeb’s technology through its paces” at BT’s labs before beginning live trials in 2022.

However, these field trials seemingly became delayed, with no further announcements made until April this year, when BT and OneWeb revealed they were planning this trial on Lundy Island as part of the government’s Very Hard to Reach Premises connectivity programme.

BT currently aims to provide high-speed connectivity to the entirety of the UK by 2028, saying that OneWeb will play a critical role in achieving this goal. Beyond connecting remote locations, BT says they are also exploring using OneWeb’s services to support eco-tourism, search and rescue, and temporary deployments like festivals.

OneWeb’s LEO constellation has grown significantly in scale in recent years, with its most recent launch in May bringing its total to 634 satellites. The company says just a handful more satellites are a required to reach global coverage, a feat that is expected to be achieved later this year.

Want to keep up with all of the latest telecoms news from around the world? Sign up to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

Also in the news:
EU and Japan sign deals for subsea cables and semiconductors
Home Office lambasted over Emergency Services Network delays
Ofcom probes VMO2 as customers complain about contract cancellation