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Ofcom has this morning announced that it will NOT block Openreach’s proposed “Equinox 2” discount scheme for their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP products from being introduced, which came after rival networks raised competition concerns over the plans. Just to recap. Openreach announced in December 2022 that it would introduce another round of wholesale discounts […]

Broadband ISP and mobile operator VMO2 (Virgin Media and O2) has today issued a progress update on their ongoing efforts to reduce their environmental emissions, which among other things reveals that they’ve now cut their carbon by 29% against the 2020 baseline. The operator currently plans to cut carbon and to achieve Net Zero across […]

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News

The international telecoms group owned by French billionaire Patrick Drahi said the increased stake indicated support for BT’s strategy and was not step towards a potential takeover

Today, Altice UK has revealed that it has increased its stake in BT to 24.5%.

Altice UK, owned by French billionaire Patrick Drahi, was already the UK operator’s largest stakeholder, having grown its stake to 18% over the past 18 months.

Drahi formed Altice UK back in 2021 with the express purpose taking a 12.1% stake in BT for around £2 billion. At the time, Altice assured BT that it had no intention of presenting the telco with a takeover offer.

Later that year, 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.

Indeed, even with the latest stake increase today, Altice says that it is not considering a takeover, with Drahi noting that he will not seek a seat on BT’s board. In a short statement from Altice, the company said it “continues to hold [BT’s] management in high regard and remains fully supportive of their strategy”.

The timing of this stake increase is interesting, arriving just days after BT announced it would be cutting 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade as part of broader cost-cutting measures. According to the operator, around a quarter of these roles will be subsumed by rapidly advancing technologies like AI and automation, allowing for increased agility and efficiencies.

The news, which was delivered alongside BT’s latest financial results, saw shares fell over 7%, perhaps making them a more attractive prospect for Altice to invest.

It is worth noting that the new stake is just below 25% is no coincidence, with the UK’s National Security and Investment Act (NSIA) automatically requiring an investigation into any foreign company that holds a 25% or greater stake in a business deemed critical to national security, such as BT.

In fact, Altice’s stake in BT already faced a probe via the NSIA last year, though this was later called off by the Secretary of State.

How is the UK’s telecoms ecosystem changing in 2023? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s live Connected Britain conference

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Broadband giant BT Group is facing renewed fears of a possible takeover attempt by French billionaire Patrick Drahi’s Altice UK today, which has once again increased its stake in the telecoms giant from 18% to 24.5% – just a shade under the level that might typically spark an investigation (another one). Alice UK has been […]

Press Release

KPN has successfully tested the latest 5G standard in its network; 5G Standalone. This makes the promise of even higher speeds, improved latency and new technologies such as network slicing a reality.

Halfway through 2020, KPN introduced 5G via the 700 MHz frequency band. This is now available throughout the Netherlands and KPN’s network has been tested as the best 5G network in the Netherlands. To date, however, 5G still works together with 4G, for example, smartphones combine 5G and 4G frequency bands and the core network does not yet work according to the latest 5G standards.

“With the introduction of 5G standalone (SA), 5G will become a independent technology for both radio and core, says Erik Brands, director of Mobile Networks at KPN. This means smartphones will only use 5G frequency bands and the core network is fully dedicate to this new 5G standard. This is important because many future functionalities of 5G will be driven from the heart of the network. The arrival of 5G standalone will bring the next evolution of 5G with higher speeds and improved latency. In addition, it enables network slicing with which part of the network (a “slice”) can be optimized for a particular use case.”

Thanks to a test license of the 3.5 GHz spectrum in combination with 5G standalone, KPN demonstrated a cloud gaming application in Breda together with technology partner Ericsson, whereby a video game can be played remotely via the mobile network. Multiple antenna sites in the area were used for this. During the test, all data was exchanged in real time between the player and the gaming platform that runs in a data center. For gaming, speed and response times (latency) are critical factors, that could make the difference between winning and losing. During the test, a download speed of almost 1 Gbps and a latency of only 14 milliseconds were achieved, considerably better than with the current 5G non-standalone standard.

5G and the combination of 3.5 GHz and the new 5G standalone standard enable new applications. For consumers, this means increased network capacity and higher throughput, but also improved latency, which is beneficial for cloud gaming applications. The applications for business customers are very diverse, ranging from  intelligent transport systems to precision agriculture or applications in logistics and manufacturing, where robots are controlled using 5G technology.

The 3.5 GHz frequency is scheduled to become available in the Netherlands at the end of this year. 5G standalone will be gradually introduced by KPN in 2024.

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