Mobile operator O2 (VMO2) has today confirmed that they’ve so far deployed “reliable” 4G based mobile broadband coverage across a total of 50 rural sites in the United Kingdom, which forms part of their commitment under the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) project with the Government. In case you forgot, the SRN – supported […]

The Shropshire Council in England has confirmed the completion of their final contract under the £36m (state aid) “Superfast Broadband” (30Mbps+) rollout programme, which over the last 10 years has signed deals with various operators (e.g. Openreach, Airband) and extended coverage from 24% to 98.5% of premises. Just to clarify, much of that increase in […]

Alternative network provider Country Connect, which since 2021 has been building a new gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in South Wales (here), has confirmed that their relatively small and rural-focused network now covers 3,709 premises (up from 2,750 in April 2022). The ISP first started building across the village of Ponthir and town of […]

News

Swedish infrastructure fund EQT will own 60% of the newly formed company, with the remaining 40% held by Wind Tre’s owner, CK Hutchison

Today, private equity firm EQT have announced a new deal that will see them acquire a 60% stake in a newly formed company, set to own and operate Italian operator Wind Tre’s fixed and mobile network assets.

The new company will take ownership of all Wind Tre’s radio antennas, base stations, transport network, and associated contracts, offering the network to customers on an independent wholesale basis. Wind Tre will retain access to the infrastucture as an anchor tenant of the new business.

Estimates suggest the deal’s enterprise value is around €3.4 billion.

According to Wind Tre, this deal will allow them to focus on serving their retail customers, as well as generating new revenue streams beyond their core fixed and mobile offerngs.

“This is part of our Group’s ‘asset light strategy’ for us to recoup the cost of our network investment. At the same time, Wind Tre will benefit from having a partner to own and maintain a state-of-the-art network which will benefit our customers while having certainty on its cost base for OPEX and CAPEX,” explained Canning Fok, Group Co-Managing Director of CK Hutchison. “Our partner EQT is a renowned investor in this infrastructure investment space, and we look forward to working with them for a very long time.”

As always, this deal will be subject to regulatory approvals, with the company’s hoping to close around the end of the year.

Italy has been a highly competitive telecoms market for many years now, with the introduction of Iliad Italia to the market in 2018 causing an aggressive price war in the mobile sector that still rumbled on to this day. Since then, the operators have been struggling to produce sustainable growth, particularly given their expensive network rollouts and the punishing global economic landscape.

Indeed, Italy’s largest operator TIM has been attempting to similarly monetise its network assets for many months now, with new CEO Pietro Labriola penning a plan to spin off the company’s infrastructure unit into a separate business.

Currently, TIM has received offers from both KKR and a partnership of the CDP Equity and Macquarie for a stake in this spun-off NetCo, with TIM announcing a formal competitive bidding process back in March.

The bidders have until June 9 to submit improved offers.

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Also in the news:
Vodafone and Three UK closing in on merger
Bell partners with Air Canada for in-flight Wi-Fi
Virgin Media O2 and Good Things Foundation launch apprenticeship scheme

Press Release

KDDI Corporation, Okinawa Cellular Telephone Company and Rakuten Mobile, Inc. today announced that the three companies have concluded a new roaming agreement as of April 2023

In order to contribute to the promotion of fair competition among mobile network operators in Japan, KDDI committed to providing roaming services through its au network to Rakuten Mobile from the launch of fourth generation (4G) mobile communication service until the end of March 2026. As Rakuten Mobile has expanded its own 4G network area to achieve 98% population coverage since its full-scale commercial launch in April 2020, KDDI and Rakuten Mobile came together to review their roaming agreement.

Under the new agreement, KDDI will provide roaming services to Rakuten Mobile in areas not covered by the previous roaming agreement including select high-traffic shopping districts in Tokyo’s 23 wards and the cities of Osaka and Nagoya, as well as continue to provide roaming services for select indoor locations (subways, underground shopping centers, tunnels and other indoor facilities) and rural areas. The new roaming agreement comes into effect in June 2023 and extends to September 2026.

Utilizing these roaming services allows Rakuten Mobile to provide subscribers with a more convenient service by improving network connectivity rapidly and efficiently, while at the same time limiting its financial burden. Additionally, by promoting the shared use of its infrastructure, KDDI will drive both the effective use of its 4G infrastructure and the rollout of its 5G network.

Want to keep up to date with all of the latest international telecoms news? Click here to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter direct to your inbox!

Also in the news:
Vodafone and Three UK closing in on merger
Bell partners with Air Canada for in-flight Wi-Fi
Virgin Media O2 and Good Things Foundation launch apprenticeship scheme

News

The UK competition regulator said that the $7.3 billion acquisition will not substantially reduce competition in the satellite communications sector

This week, Viasat has moved one step closer to completing its acquisition of fellow satellite communications specialist Inmarsat, with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) granting unconditional approval for the deal on Tuesday.

The deal, first announced back in November 2021, would see the companies combine their satellite assets, which currently include around 20 geostationary devices providing services in the Ka-, L- and S-bands. An additional ten geostationary spacecraft are planned for launch until by 2024, with Inmarsat also seeking to deploy 150–175 low Earth orbit satellites as part of its ORCHESTRA project.

The scale of the merger immediately set alarm bells ringing for regulators around the world, many of whom quickly launched probes into the deal’s impact on market competition. The CMA was particularly concerned that the deal would lead to pricier in-flight Wi-Fi services, launching an in-depth investigation in October last year.

By March 2023, the CMA had provisionally cleared the takeover, pending the results of its Phase 2 investigation.

Now, this Phase 2 probe is complete, with the CAM finding that the merger should not have a negative impact on market competition, due largely to the expanding nature of the satellite communications sector and the emergence of new players.

““The satellite communications sector is evolving at rapid pace – new companies are entering the market, more satellites are being launched into space, and firms are exploring and entering into new commercial deals. All the evidence has shown that the sector will continue to grow as the demand for satellite connectivity increases,” said the CMA’s Richard Feasey, who chaired the investigation into the merger. “After carefully scrutinising the deal, we are now satisfied that, following the merger, these developments will ensure that both airlines and their UK customers will continue to benefit from strong competition.”

This marks the latest in a number of hurdles for the deal to clear, including permissions to proceed from both the Foreign Investment Review Board of Australia and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US.

However, even larger hurdles are still to come, most notably from the European Commission and the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which are both currently conducting their own independent investigations into the merger.

The European Commission is expected to announced its decision on June 29, but the FCC’s investigation could take longer still, following complaints by rival satellite players, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Want to keep up to date with all of the latest international telecoms news? Click here to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter direct to your inbox!

Also in the news:
Vodafone and Three UK closing in on merger
Bell partners with Air Canada for in-flight Wi-Fi
Virgin Media O2 and Good Things Foundation launch apprenticeship scheme

The UK telecoms and media regulator, Ofcom, has today proposed to update their Earth Station Networks (ESN) licence so that the new generation of Non-Geostationary Satellite Orbit (NGSO) platforms (e.g. Starlink and OneWeb) can be used at sea to “deliver improved maritime connectivity.” Every network operator delivering Fixed Satellite Services (broadband) to UK based satellite […]

CityFibre has confirmed that they’ve started the national UK rollout programme for the XGS-PON technology upgrade to their existing GPON based full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network, which among other things will enable them to support symmetric broadband speeds of up to 10Gbps (9.953Gbps to be exact). The work forms part of CityFibre’s wider effort […]

The Local Government Association, which represents councils from across England and Wales, has published a “new” report that warns of how poorer households are being left behind in the “broadband slow lane“, with access to fixed broadband being 15 percentage points lower in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived. The study, which […]

A new report from telecoms analyst firm Umlaut, which analysed geographic 5G mobile coverage across the UK’s Combined Authority areas, has identified the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) region as being the best connected in the UK, with 65% of locations having access from at least one operator. The figure for the West Midlands also […]