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Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and UScellular have sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announcing voluntary commitments to meet aviation safety concerns

At the start of 2021, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon spent nearly $80 billion on C-band spectrum at the FCC’s 5G auction. This spectrum was pegged to be the focal point of the trio’s respective 5G networks, offering the ideal balance of high speed, low latency, and broad coverage.

By the start of 2022, however, a storm was brewing within the US aviation industry, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) fearing that the new 5G spectrum could interfere with sensitive flight instrumentation, such as altimeters.

While most of the telecoms industry ­– and, indeed, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency – believes these fears to be largely unfounded, it did not stop the US mobile operators from initially delaying their initial 5G rollouts and limiting their deployments near airports.

The FAA, meanwhile, said that it would begin requiring updated altimeters that are unaffected by the C-band spectrum to be fitted in its commercial aircraft.

Since then, discussions between the aviation and telecoms industries have been ongoing. In February 2023, the FAA said that it was now formally engaged in discussions with the nation’s leading wireless providers, saying they hoped to reach an amiable solution by July.

Now, it appears that just such a conclusion has been reached, with the mobile operators sending a joint letter to the FCC, having agreed voluntary concessions with the FAA to allay aviation safety worries.

“These voluntary commitments will support full-power deployments across C-Band, and are crafted to minimize the operational impact on our C-Band operations,” said the letter, signed by Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and UScellular.

Exactly what these commitments are is unclear, but sources suggest that they may last until 2028, with the FAA having initially sought concessions up to 2033.

In a statement, Verizon explained that the decision would ensure they were able to “fully use our C-band spectrum for 5G by the previously agreed to deadline of July 1.”

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According to reports, the deal could be worth over $4 billion

Vodafone has long lamented the highly competitive nature of the Spanish telecoms market, in which they compete fiercely with Movistar, Orange, and MasMovil in an ongoing price war.

For some time, the company had hoped that market consolidation would be the solution to their woes, with rumours of a potential merger with MasMovil rising and falling repeatedly in recent years.

Indeed, this focus on consolidation in competitive markets quickly became something of a bugbear for the multinational mobile operator. Championed by then CEO Nick Read, Vodafone explored numerous tie-ups in markets including Italy, Belgium, and the UK.

But while discussions with Three UK appear to now be bearing fruit, a dearth of other merger deals meant that this news came too late for Read, who resigned at the end of last year.

In Spain specifically, Vodafone’s dreams of consolidation were ultimately quashed when MasMovil instead signed a deal to merge with rival telco giant Orange last year.

As a result, it now appears that Vodafone may be looking to exit the Spanish market entirely, with sources speaking to Bloomberg suggesting that the company has been presented with takeover offers from various suitors, including  Apollo Global Management Inc.

The details of such offers have yet to be revealed, though the sources suggest that Vodafone Spain could be valued at over $4 billion.

Vodafone has not announced any formal intention to sell its Spanish unit, but the sources suggest that the operator will consider offers if the price is right.

The fact that Vodafone Spain is receiving unsolicited takeover offers should not come as too great a surprise given the unit’s perceived vulnerability.

Since the departure of Nick Read, interim CEO Margherita Della Valle has moved to reduce Vodafone Spain’s independence by aggregating it with the company’s wider European Cluster, a group that contains numerous smaller European units like Ireland and Greece. Della Valle says that this move will help to further simplify the Group’s management and revitalise business growth in Spain, with the Cluster under the direct leadership of CEO Serpil Timuray.

As a result of this strategic rebalance, Vodafone Spain’s CEO, Colman Deegan, resigned from his post at the start of this year.

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Also in the news:
NTT and Microsoft collaborate to enhance corporate cyber resilience
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Ofcom raise automatic compensation payments for UK ISP connectivity failures

Stellium Data Centres and CBRE have released The North of England Data Centres Market Report. The free report, which was commissioned by Stellium Data Centres, can be downloaded here.

Focusing on the economic growth and data centre capacity available in the North of England, the report notes the UK’s Northeast as having the lowest carbon intensity of any UK transmission area – a crucial requirement it says for a cloud service provider or hyperscaler – and which will benefit further with the development of large-scale renewable power from Dogger Bank, the largest off-shore wind farm in Europe.

CBRE cites Stellium 1, the Newcastle-based data centre operator’s scalable 80MW, 4,264 square metres colocation facility, as the largest in the region and one of the few capable of offering hyperscalers and large enterprises a viable alternative wholesale solution to London/Southern England. CBRE also highlighted Stellium’s campus as suitable for meeting wholesale requirements.

Keith Breed, Senior Research Analyst, Data Centres of CBRE said: “Selected Northern data centres such as Stellium 1 are becoming a strong proposition as a connectivity hub by providing access to fibre, dark fibre, Internet Exchanges (IXPs) and subsea cables – offering low latency local, national and international communications.”

He added: “The lower cost base compared with London and substantial reserves of available renewable power, positions the North as a potential alternative to the power constrained and relatively high-cost London region, where wholesale capacity has traditionally been based.” Stellium 1 is the only UK data centre with a secure landing station for housing the world’s latest subsea cable networks. These include AquaComms (to/from the US on the North Atlantic Loop) and Altibox (to/from the Nordics/Mainland Europe on NO-UK). Stellium also hosts the NCL-IX Exchange offering multiple peering opportunities to customers to minimise latency and transit costs.

Additionally, Stellium owns a 40 km carrier-neutral metropolitan area optical fibre network (MAN), complementing the Newcastle City high speed network and supporting the Northeast’s digital economy by enabling local full fibre network (LFFN) and 5G services.

Paul Mellon, Operations Director, Stellium Data Centres, commented: “CBRE’s research findings are well-aligned to our vision and strategy of making Stellium 1 the go-to wholesale data centre in the North of England for large enterprise, cloud and hyperscaler organisations. We are the only data centre operator offering a totally secure low latency UK alternative to London for internet traffic from the USA, Europe and Nordics.”

Stellium Data Centres will be joining Submarine Networks EMEA 2023 as a Gold Sponsor and will take part in a discussion on “Building the communications eco-system: from subsea, to the data centre, and beyond” on 31st May. To join Stellium and 800 senior leaders from the global subsea cable industry, head to the event website to book your ticket.

Mobile network operator O2 (VMO2) will later this morning be introducing some new offers on their Pay As You Go (PAYG) plans, which will see double data across all their ‘Big Bundle’ and selected ‘Rolling Plan’ tariffs for both new and existing customers. But this will only last for up to 3 months. Data allowances […]

Budget UK broadband ISP Plusnet, which until now has only tended to promote Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based packages with speeds of up to 500Mbps on Openreach’s network, appears as if it will finally start offering their top 900Mbps tier to new customers today – starting at £49.99 per month on a 24-month term. Just to be […]

News

CEO Tim Höttges announced the news at the company’s latest shareholder meeting, saying the German operator now owns 50.2% of the US giant

This week, Deutsche Telekom has announced that it has finally achieved it long-term goal of regaining a majority stake in the world’s most valuable mobile network operator, T-Mobile US.

According to Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges, the Group now owns a 50.2% stake in the business, finally achieving the majority ownership goal it first laid out during its 2021 Capital Markets Day

When T-Mobile acquired Sprint three years ago, DT’s stake in the operator stood at 43%,. Since then, Deutsche Telekom has gradually regrown its stake in the US business, reaching 49% in 2022, according to the company’s 2022 Annual Report.

Now, the company has taken the final step to increase this stake to a majority once again.

“We have the majority and are the largest shareholder of the world’s most valuable telecommunications company – T-Mobile U.S.,” announced Höttges in a shareholder meeting this week.

The cost of this increased share is reportedly less than $1 billion in 2023, with Deutsche Telekom estimating that the benefits of the transaction will be between $7.2 and $7.5 billion.

At the shareholders meeting, Höttges also highlighted the Group’s ongoing sustainability efforts, noting the progress that has been made in recent years.

“We emit 94 percent fewer CO2 emissions than in 2017. We aim to be fully climate neutral by 2025. Last year, we reduced our energy consumption in Germany by 278 gigawatt hours – that is 11 percent,” he said. “We want to achieve net zero emissions from the production of cell phones. Anyone who fails to achieve green production will eventually be removed from the line-up. We import devices. But we export our environmental protection standards.”

Deutsche Telekom is aiming for its entire value chain to be carbon neutral by 2040.

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Also in the news:
NTT and Microsoft collaborate to enhance corporate cyber resilience
Vodafone to cut around 1,300 jobs in Germany
Ofcom raise automatic compensation payments for UK ISP connectivity failures

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The operator says it is also leveraging AI, machine learning, and big data analytics to drive energy efficiencies across its network

This week, Vodafone UK has shed some light on the continued work the company is doing to improve its network’s energy efficiency, including installing solar panels at a mobile telephone exchange site in Gloucester.

In total, 720 solar panels will be deployed at the site, producing 240,000kWh of energy every year. According to the operator, this should account for around 12% of the exchange’s energy consumption.

This site is expected to be the first of many, with Vodafone suggesting it will deploy solar panels at similar locations around the UK over the next two years.

Alongside this deployment, Vodafone has outlined a number of other energy saving initiatives it has initiated in recent years, largely based around the use of AI, machine learning, and big data analytics. This includes using the technology to identify parts of the network that are consuming more energy than typically expected, allowing them to be proactively targeted for correction.

In addition, Vodafone says its Smart Sites programme, first announced back in 2021, has been combining IoT sensors with AI, allowing sites to be monitored remotely and remove the need for engineering visits. The programme currently covers 1,300 of Vodafone’s most energy-hungry mobile sites.

As a result of these combined energy saving measures, Vodafone notes that although the data carried over its UK network has increased 300% since 2019, the network’s energy usage remains flat.

“We all recognise the need to drive energy efficiencies – both from a financial and environmental perspective. The fact we’ve been able to decouple the link between data carried, energy consumption and carbon emissions is thanks to our laser-focus on energy efficiency – and nowhere is this more important than across our network,” explained Andrea Dona, UK Network Director at Vodafone.

“Using our own technologies to deliver brilliant programmes such as big data and Smart Sites is hugely impactful.  Onsite power generation is another important ambition, and I’m delighted we now have our first on-site solar up and running at our Gloucester MTX.”

Vodafone has been experimenting with on-site renewable energy solutions on their mobile network. Back in 2021, the company announced it was working with energy specialist Crossflow Energy to develop mobile Eco-Towers, powered by renewable energy generated on-site by both solar and wind. The operator says that, in future, this combined technology could allow some of its sites to function entirely independently of the national grid.

Vodafone Group has pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions for its UK operations by 2027, before reaching net-zero emissions across its entire value chain by 2040.

Find out what’s next on the journey to build sustainable networks at this year’s live Connected North conference

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Customers of Virgin Media and O2, specifically those who enjoy connecting to their public WiFi service on the London Underground, have been left confused after the operator suddenly closed the service on 31st March 2023. The move is not quite what many were expecting to occur. We recently reported that Virgin Media planned to retire […]

Press Release

One hundred policy makers and regulators across 19 African countries attended virtual workshops in emerging technologies over a three-month period

Ericsson and Smart Africa Digital Academy announce the digital upskilling of 100 policy makers and regulators across 19 African countries on the topics of emerging technologies to promote and boost digital transformation across Africa through education and capacity building.

Signed in September 2022, the collaboration aims at enhancing digital skills of a target group of senior officials from ministries and regulatory authorities, in charge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) by providing access to Ericsson’s global skills program – Ericsson Educate.

In addition to access to self-learning digital skills content, the Ericsson Educate program helped deliver a series of webinars led by 27 Subject Matter Experts from Ericsson. The collaboration ran from November 2022 to January 2023.

The specially curated virtual workshops covered topics related to emerging technologies part of the Fourth Industry Revolution (4IR) such as 5G networks, Internet of Things (IoT), Network Security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML).

Thelma Quaye, Director of Infrastructure, Skills and Empowerment at Smart Africa highlighted:” The Fourth Industrial Revolution is fueled by innovation and knowledge. Technology offers a great opportunity for Africa to embrace new opportunities to boost digital transformation and contribute to the global economy. We are glad to see our participants benefitting greatly from our collaboration with Ericsson, and we are looking forward to witnessing the positive advancements that will be brought about.”

Fida Kibbi, Vice President and Head of Marketing, Communications and Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility at Ericsson Middle East and Africa says: “We are happy to see the fruitful outcome of our collaboration with Smart Africa Digital Academy within such a short time period. Equipped with a deeper understanding on how existing and emerging technologies work and how these can be best used, the policy makers and regulators can enable the digital transformation of the continent by creating the best conditions for citizens, consumers, and businesses.”

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Also in the news:
NTT and Microsoft collaborate to enhance corporate cyber resilience
Vodafone to cut around 1,300 jobs in Germany
Ofcom raise automatic compensation payments for UK ISP connectivity failures

Benchmarking firm Opensignal has their latest Mobile Network Experience Report for Q1 2023, which examines the 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) services of all four primary network operators – EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three UK – to find which delivers the best performance. Once again, Three UK and EE continued to sweep the awards. The […]