News

Nearly five months after previous CEO Nick Read’s departure, Vodafone says it has been “impressed” by Margherita Della Valle’s efforts to steady the ship

Today, Vodafone Group has announced that it has appointed the company’s interim CEO and Chief Financial Officer, Margherita Della Valle, to serve as Group CEO.

Della Valle took over the reins at Vodafone as interim CEO at the start of 2023, following the departure of previous CEO Nick Read, who had held the position for four years.

Vodafone had been facing increasing pressure from activist investors, such as Cevian Capital, to make management changes after Read had failed to put the brakes on the telecom giant’s sliding share price.

Since her appointment, Della Valle has been at the heart of a company-wide strategic shift aiming to reverse this trend, including a greater focus on core markets and various cost-cutting measures.

Her approach has seemingly garnered her much support from investors, particularly from the company’s largest shareholder, Emirati-based e&, which has been gradually increasing its stake in Vodafone for a number of months, seemingly enticed by its depressed share price. Indeed, just earlier this week, e& announced that it had increased its stake from 14% to 14.6% for an undisclosed sum, as well as having entered into discussions with the company over its non-executive directors.

“On behalf of the Board, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Margherita as Group Chief Executive, following a rigorous internal and external search,” said Jean-François van Boxmeer, Vodafone Group Chairman. “Margherita has a strong track record during her long career at Vodafone in marketing, operational, commercial and financial positions. Over the last few months as interim Group Chief Executive, the Board and I have been impressed with her pace and decisiveness to begin the necessary transformation of Vodafone. Margherita has the full support of myself and the Board for her plans for Vodafone to provide better customer experience, become a simpler business and accelerate growth.”

In accepting the role, Della Valle acknowledged that there is still much work to be done to turn Vodafone’s fortunes around.

“I am honoured to have been appointed as Group Chief Executive. Vodafone has a unique position in Europe and Africa with strong customer relationships, networks and people,” said Della Valle. “To realise our potential Vodafone needs to change. We know we can do better. My focus will be to improve the service for our customers, simplify our business and grow.”

Della Valle will continue to also hold the role of Chief Financial Officer until a replacement can be found.

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UK-based global mobile operator Vodafone has today confirmed that their Interim Group CEO, Margherita Della Valle, has just been appointed as their permanent group CEO. She will also continue on as Group Chief Financial Officer until an external search for a new CFO is complete. In case anybody has forgotten, the Vodafone Group announced the […]

Press Release

Ericsson continues to drive the Open RAN and Cloud RAN ecosystem forward, adding Dell Technologies as a Cloud RAN infrastructure collaborator.

Expanding the ecosystem with new collaborators and technologies is one of the key drivers in Open RAN and Cloud RAN architectures. Ericsson is partnering with Dell as a supplier of Dell PowerEdge servers for its Cloud RAN offering.

The Ericsson and Dell collaboration will further enable open cloud networks that allow customers to choose their own infrastructure while ensuring telco-grade performance at the far edge. Adding Dell PowerEdge servers to Ericsson’s Cloud RAN solution, including the PowerEdge XR8000 and XR5610, which are specifically designed for telecom, Open RAN and mobile edge-computing workloads, brings even more choice and flexibility for Cloud RAN customers. Dell PowerEdge servers help facilitate the Cloud RAN journey due to their high performance, small form factors, resilience and interconnectivity with the larger network.

Freddie Södergren, Head of Technology and Strategy for Networks, Ericsson, says: “Collaborating with Dell exemplifies our commitment to deliver added flexibility for our Cloud RAN customers, allowing them to choose their own infrastructure while ensuring telco-grade performance at the far edge. This collaboration will further enable open cloud infrastructures while supporting Dell’s high-performing server offerings.”

“To accelerate the adoption of open and cloud RAN network architectures, it’s important to collaborate with partners such as Ericsson,” says Kyle Dufresne, Global SVP and GM, OEM Solutions, Dell Technologies. “With Dell PowerEdge servers supporting Ericsson’s Cloud RAN solution, network operators have the option of using the world’s leading server platform to realize the value of open technologies, and quickly bring innovative and revenue generating solutions to market.”

Ericsson’s highly portable Cloud RAN application is truly independent of the underlying processing technologies and server, bringing added flexibility and lowering the barriers to entry. This ensures that Cloud RAN is available to any provider that wishes to deploy it. This collaboration lays the foundations for communications service providers (CSPs) to have the broadest possible choice of infrastructure, while offering a high level of performance and resilience.

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Connected North 2023: The story in pictures
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The latest Ofcom study of UK consumer complaints for Q4 2022 has, once again, named and shamed Shell Energy for attracting the most consumer moans about both home broadband and landline phone services, while BT did the same for Pay Monthly Mobile services and Virgin Media for Pay TV. The regulator’s report only covers complaints […]

Planning is reportedly underway for the next phase of the UK Government’s £5bn rural Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme, which would see more public funding from the existing commitment being set aside to help reach digitally disadvantaged premises (remote and urban) that the initial scheme has so far been unable to tackle. On the off […]

Alternative network builder and UK ISP LightSpeed Broadband, which aspires to deploy a gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 1 million premises across the East of England by 2026, has confirmed to ISPreview that some of their staff have been notified of redundancies in the future. Just to recap. LightSpeed secured an investment of […]

Infracapital-backed broadband provider Ogi, which is investing £200m to build a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across 150,000 premises in rural parts of South Wales by 2025, has today added the communities of Tonyrefail and Tonypandy to their existing build plan in Rhondda Cynon Taff. The latest announcement brings access to the new full fibre […]

Press Release

Virgin Media O2 Business is bolstering its product line-up with a comprehensive range of market-leading cloud and security solutions, alongside network transformation services

It comes as Virgin Media O2 Business begins a new partnership with Telefónica Tech, the strategic digital business unit of Telefónica, to offer their cloud and security professional and managed services to enterprises and public sector organisations within the UK.

According to Gartner, worldwide public cloud spending is forecasted to grow 20.7% to total $591.8 billion in 2023, up from $490.3 billion in 2022. Recognising this trend and growing demand from business customers to securely migrate their data to the cloud, Virgin Media O2 Business is now offering a wide range of products and services to support businesses’ digital transformation. This includes Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) with leading Cloud Service Partners, alongside Private Cloud Hosting and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) security services. This is in addition to existing cloud networking Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) and cloud security Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solutions.

Customers will be supported by Telefónica Tech’s cloud professional and managed services team which is based in the UK. Telefónica Tech UK&I now has more than 1,000 highly qualified technology professionals following the acquisitions of CANCOM UK&I and Incremental.

Virgin Media O2 Business’ enhanced services offer a range of benefits to medium and large organisations. This ranges from local authorities that want to unify their data and processes; healthcare providers that want to migrate sensitive data to the cloud; and retail businesses looking to scale e-commerce opportunities in the cloud, powered by high-speed, low latency connectivity to support video conferencing and live chat services.

Jo Bertram, Managing Director, Business and Wholesale at Virgin Media O2 Business, said:

“Private businesses and public sector organisations are embracing digital transformation like never before and looking for ways to do this securely. To support this, we’re launching best-in-class cloud and security services for our customers to provide them with a comprehensive product line-up alongside our industry-leading fixed and mobile connectivity solutions.

“Our growing cloud networking expertise coupled with our new partnership with Telefónica Tech will help customers to migrate and manage their data and systems in the cloud, enabling them to be more efficient, productive and secure.”

María Jesús Almazor, CEO of Cyber Security & Cloud at Telefónica Tech, said:

“At Telefónica Tech we have a unified cyber security and cloud value proposition because we understand that migration to the cloud is the first step in the digital transformation of a business and that cyber security must be integrated from the beginning of any technological process.

“Our managed and professional cloud and cyber security services will enable Virgin Media O2 Business to offer its customers the most comprehensive threat prevention, detection and response techniques to ensure a secure digital transformation with the support of Telefónica Tech professionals in the UK and Ireland.”

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Smart lighting: Vodafone leans on IoT for energy savings

Mobile operator EE has successfully deployed two new 4G (mobile broadband) mobile masts at Rackwick (Hoy) and Stronsay on Orkney, one of north Scotland’s most remote island communities, as part of the Scottish Government’s £28.75m 4G Infill Programme (S4GI). The S4GI programme, which is also being supported by the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) and WHP […]

News

The deal, valued at 6.25 billion Danish crowns ($919.95 million), will allow Norlys to provide mobile connectivity to customers alongside its existing fixed broadband and electricity services

This week, Swedish multinational telecoms group Telia has announced its intention to sell its Danish unit to Norlys, Denmark’s largest integrated energy and telecommunications group.

The deal is valued at 6.25 billion Danish crowns ($919.95 million) and will see Norlys will directly inherit around 1.7 million mobile customers from Telia Denmark, as well as half of TT-Netvaerket, Telia Denmark’s infrastructure joint venture with Telenor.

Norlys currently has around 800,000 owner-members and has around 800,000 premises passed with fibre, as of 2022. It currently provides energy and broadband services to over a million households across Denmark.

With the acquisition of Telia Denmark, Norlys will now be able to provide mobile services as well as fibre broadband, thereby creating a converged operator with scale enough to take on the market leaders TDC and Telenor.

Norlys has had ambitions of becoming a converged telecoms operator for some time now, with the company having first expressed these ambitions back in the summer of 2020.

“Combining Telia’s mobile network with our fibre business will enable Norlys to provide a full-service solution in Denmark, paving the way for significant growth opportunities,” said Norlys CEO, Niels Duedahl.

The funds for the deal will presumably be provided, at least in part, by Norlys’ recent sale of 35% of its fibre business, Norlys Tele, to a consortium formed by Dutch pension fund PGGM and French energy group EDF’s investment arm, EDF Invest. The deal was first announced in March last year, though the financial details have been kept confidential.

For Telia, meanwhile, the sale will allow the operator to simplify its international portfolio, allowing it to “focus even more on markets where we can sustain or build a leading position,” according to company President and CEO Allison Kirkby.

As always, the deal is subject to the typical regulatory scrutiny from regulators, with the parties hoping to clos the deal in Q1 2024.

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Connected North 2023: The story in pictures
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Smart lighting: Vodafone leans on IoT for energy savings