Alternative network provider Airband, which aims to cover 600,000 UK premises in rural areas via a mix of their wireless (FWA) and full fibre (FTTP) broadband networks by the end of 2025, has reportedly appointed restructuring firms AlixPartners and Houlihan Lokey to help find additional funding amid difficult conditions. The operator, which is supported by […]

The Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron, has once again gone to bat for UK broadband ISP B4RN after the Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency unexpectedly pulled the rug out from under one of their rural gigabit voucher based full fibre builds in Cumbria (i.e. the project for Warcop, Sandford, Coupland Beck, […]

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Reports suggest the European Commission is likely to object to the $19 billion merger unless certain conditions are met

In March last year, Orange and Masmovil signed a binding agreement to merge their Spanish businesses, with the combined entity expected to have a market value of roughly $19 billion.

The new business, set to be equally owned by both Orange and Masmovil, would have roughly 7.2 million fixed broadband customers and over 20.2 million subscribers, making it a new market leader in both segments.

At the time, the operators said that they hoped to close to deal by the second half of this year.

However, the road to completion is set to be a difficult one, with the tie-up of such major players drawing significant scrutiny from European regulatory bodies.

The European Commission launched an in-depth probe into the deal in April, seeking to explore whether the merger would reduce competition in the market. In particular, the Commission feared that the move, which would reduce the number of mobile players in the market from four to three, would lead to higher prices for customers and restricted access for virtual operators.

Now, according to sources speaking to Bloomberg, the Commission is preparing to issue a ‘statement of objections’ to the operators, explaining reasons that they may yet veto the tie-up. According to the report, the statement will also offer remedies for these issues.

What these solutions to competition concerns might be was not revealed, but typically these include divestiture of key assets and assurances that other market players will have access to the operator’s combined network at reasonable prices.

The European Commission must make its final decision on the merger by 4 September.

Spain is one of the most crowded and competitive telecoms markets in Europe, driven largely by laws requiring operators to share their networks at regulated prices. Over the past decade, this high level of competition has devolved into a vicious price war that wrought havoc with operators’ revenues.

As a result, rumours of M&A have swirled for years, often with Masmovil at their centre. Indeed, Vodafone Spain has long argued that it should be the merger partner for Masmovil, arguing that their networks were more complimentary and that their combination would present less of a headache to regulators.

Nonetheless, Vodafone has been broadly supportive of Masmovil’s decision to ultimately tie-up with Orange, suggesting that this would still be beneficial for the nation’s telecoms market.

Whether the regulators ultimately agree with this sentiment, however, remains to be seen.

Is Europe’s attitude towards telecoms mergers softening in 2023? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s Total Telecom Congress live from Amsterdam

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Broadband ISP BT has this morning confirmed that they’ve begun the expected region-by-region roll out of their Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) based home phone service, Digital Voice, in the East Midlands of England. Once completed, the deployment will next be extended to Yorkshire & Humberside, and then Northern Ireland. Customers will be contacted at least four weeks […]

Broadband ISP and mobile operator Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2), which is known to employ around 16,000 people across the United Kingdom, has confirmed to ISPreview UK that an unspecified number of their workers were notified this week that they were likely to be made redundant in the near future. The event was noticed after […]

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The operator becomes the third in the country to launch 5G, following in the footsteps of market leader MTN and newcomer Mafab Communications.

This week, Airtel Nigeria has announced the commercial launch of its 5G services, with its initial deployment focussed on the major cities of Abuja, Lagos, and Port Harcourt.

According to the operator, users with a 5G-capable handset or router will now be able to access improved services, featuring lower latency, higher speeds, and increased capacity.

Airtel Nigeria firstacquired 5G spectrum in January this year, winning 100MHz of 3.5GHz spectrum as the sole bidder in the Nigerian Communication Commission’s second 5G spectrum auction. They soon followed up by winning two blocks of 10MHZ spectrum in the 2.6GHz band the following month.

Initial 5G services will be provided over the 3.5GHz band, with the 2.6GHz spectrum being used to boost capacity on the network.

It is worth noting here that Airtel is actually somewhat late to the 5G party in Nigeria. The operator missed out on securing 5G spectrum in the nation’s first 5G auction back in 2021, having been outbid for the two spectrum licences available by the country’s largest mobile operator MTN Nigeria and newcomer Mafab Communications.

Both operators secured 100MHz of 3.5GHz spectrum for roughly $273.6 million.

MTN subsequently launched commercial 5G services in September last year, doing so on a larger scale than Airtel, covering Ibadan, Kano, Owerri, and Maiduguri, in addition to Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt.

Mafab Communications’ 5G launch was somewhat delayed by licencing issues, but the company nonetheless launched its commercial offering in January this year. However, the greenfield mobile operator’s 5G deployment is considerably smaller than its larger rivals, only covering parts of the capital, Abuja, at least for now.

Thus, with three operators all launching 5G services in the capital and beyond, it would seem that the race to deploy 5G across the Nigeria has officially begun. But to what extent the operators will prioritise this rollout remains to be seen.

4G services were only introduced to the country in 2017 and, since then, the operators have focussed heavily on expanding coverage of this older technology. Around 20,000 additional base stations have been deployed over the past three years, allowing 4G coverage to top three-quarters of the country of last year.

Couple this with the fact that very few customers will have 5G capable phones and it is clear that 5G adoption is unlikely to boom in Nigeria for a few years at least.

Nonetheless, Airtel’s 5G launch lays a much-needed foundation for the country’s more connected future and ensures that Africa’s largest economy will remain a technological leader on the continent.

How is the African telecommunications market evolving in 2023? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s Total Telecom Congress live from Amsterdam

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Customers of UK ISP Virgin Media’s (VMO2) internet service, specifically those that still use their email platform, appear to be experiencing an outage that seems to have started late on Sunday evening. But the majority of people only began to notice it earlier this morning, and the situation is currently ongoing. At the time of […]

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The three-year partnership will see Nokia provide the operator with its latest RAN solutions, as well as the potential for Open RAN and Cloud RAN pilots

This week, Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) have announced that they will expand their partnership with Finnish vendor Nokia in a new three-year deal.

The agreement covers various parts of Nokia’s Airspan portfolio, which allows a single base station to deliver 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G services simultaneously.

More specifically, Nokia will supply VMO2 with its latest Habrok Massive MIMO radios and AirScale Baseband and Interleaved Passive Active Antennas (IPAA). This will deliver improved 5G performance to customers, as well as a 30% reduction in power consumption and 40% weight and volume reduction compared to existing solutions, thanks to its energy efficient ReefShark System-on-Chip (SoC) technology.

Naturally, Nokia will also provide various optimisation and technical support alongside the solutions themselves.

The deal itself is regional, spanning southern parts of the UK, including London.

“We continue to invest in our network upgrading and expanding our 4G and 5G networks to customers across the country. This is delivering superior connected experiences and supporting the UK’s digital transformation that will drive long-term growth. Continuing our partnership with Nokia will help us to deliver even better 5G with higher speeds and lower latency, as well as ensuring we are set up for future growth in line with our customers’ ever-evolving demands and needs,” said VMO2’s Chief Technology Officer, Jeanie York.

In addition to Nokia’s Single RAN and massive MIMO solutions, the deal will also allow VMO2 to launch pilots with Nokia’s 5G Cloud RAN and commercial RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) technology.

VMO2 first launched an Open RAN pilot in August last year in partnership with Rakuten Symphony and has since announced a significant Open RAN partnership with Mavenir earlier this year. The scope of this partnership has yet to be revealed, but Neil Geary, the VMO2’s director of technical strategy and architecture, says the move encompasses the company’s “biggest Open RAN deployment to date”.

But while commercial Open RAN deployments across the UK remain few and far between, conventional 5G deployments are continuing to accelerate rapidly. Earlier this year, VMO2 said that they had achieved 50% outdoor population coverage in 2,100 towns and cities and were now aiming for 50% of the whole of the UK by the end of 2023.

Is the UK’s 5G rollout progressing fast enough? Will Open RAN live up to the hype? Answer these questions and more at this year’s Connected Britain conference

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VIEWPOINT

The declaration of Chinese telecommunications giants Huawei and ZTE as high-risk vendors (HRV) is revealing a split between EU member states. Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Internal Markets made the announcement at a recent news conference on 15 June. Several telecom executives and government ministers in Germany and Austria are questioning the EU’s conclusions regarding cybersecurity risks and have publicly voiced their opposition to the restrictions. This could have far reaching implications for the future of 5G development and international relations.

Huawei, in its official statement, “strongly opposes and disagrees” with the European Commission’s decision, asserting the move lacks a “verified, transparent, objective and technical assessment of 5G networks.” The tech giant warns that such restrictions could “pose serious economic and social risks,” possibly stifling innovation and distorting the EU market. Huawei also argued that the ‘High-Risk Vendor’ designation goes against free trade principles. They cite an Oxford Economics report that suggests excluding Huawei could inflate 5G investment costs by billions of euros, an expense that they say will end up being borne by European consumers.

Huawei says cybersecurity is a top priority and to assuage concerns about its products, once again invited customers and independent third-party testing organizations to its Cyber Security Transparency Centre in Brussels. Here customers and government standards bodies can perform security tests on all its equipment and code for verification against industry-recognized cyber security standards and best practices.

While the European Commission’s decision resonates with some, others have publicly rejected the security concerns raised about Huawei. Stephan Broszio, a spokesperson for Deutsche Telekom, asserts that China can’t shut down the 5G network, refuting the claim that manufacturers have remote access. Broszio states that “no update will be installed in live systems that have not previously been extensively tested for functionality and security.” He clarified that “The systems for network management are completely separated from the Internet and Deutsche Telekom’s office communication networks in their own high-security network. Access to this network is only available to a few specially checked employees, remote access for manufacturers is not possible.”

Research by Denmark’s Strand Consult showed that as much as 50% of 4G and 5G equipment in Germany is supplied by Huawei. This could run to as many as 46,000 sites across the country. According to a research note prepared by Barclays and seen by Lightreading, Deutsche Telekom could face a bill of around $1.2 billion, with Telefonica and Vodafone having to spend at least $750,000 each to remove their network equipment supplied by Huawei.

Similar support came from Austria, where Klaus M. Steinmaurer, the Managing Director of the Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Telecommunications (RTR), expressed no security concerns regarding Chinese telecom firms. He sees “no reason for this (naming them as high-risk vendors).”

Austrian Digitization State Secretary Florian Tursky also confirmed that EU network security guidelines had already been implemented in the country, but since there is still no formal ban network operators are still free to use components from Huawei or ZTE for 5G network expansion.

It’s not just industry insiders; Chinese officials too have thrown their weight behind Huawei. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs refuted the European Commission’s claims of security risks, urging the EU to abide by “international economic and trade rules.” Ambassador Fu Cong, Head of the Chinese Mission to the EU, echoed these sentiments, stating that the ban violates WTO rules and could seriously impact the business communities in both regions.

While the European Commission is trying to shut Chinese vendors out of European markets, China appears to be moving in the opposite direction. European network operators Nokia and Ericsson were recently awarded around 16 percent of a large China Mobile contract. This is double the previous market share held by European telecoms operators in China.

The future of 5G development in Europe hangs in the balance, as does the EU’s trade and political relations with China. It’s a scenario that stakeholders around the world will be monitoring closely.