CityFibre has announced that their £46m project to deploy a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based UK broadband ISP network across Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough in North Yorkshire has now gone live for “thousands of premises“, including in Bilton, Woodlands, Rossett Green, Pannal, Valley Gardens and New Park. The rollout in Harrogate is currently expected to “reach […]

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With revenue growth slowing and profits falling, Zoom says it is taking proactive measures to ensure the future viability of the business

This week, video conferencing company Zoom has become the latest in a string of major tech firms to announce major job cuts, citing the pressure of the global economy post-pandemic.

Zoom is laying off around 15% of its staff – roughly 1,300 people – as part of a wider restructure aimed designed at eliminating duplicative roles.

“As the world transitions to life post-pandemic, we are seeing that people and businesses continue to rely on Zoom,” CEO Eric Yuan wrote in a message to staff. “But the uncertainty of the global economy, and its effect on our customers, means we need to take a hard – yet important – look inward to reset ourselves so we can weather the economic environment, deliver for our customers and achieve Zoom’s long-term vision.”

Yuan said that the company has “worked tirelessly” but admits that it had made “mistakes”, particularly with regards to scaling up sustainably.

He announced he would take a pay cut of 98% for the next fiscal year and forgo his bonus.

Bloomberg suggests that Yuan’s base salary for the last financial year was $301,731, though his total compensation was reportedly closer to $1.1 million.

Other executive staff will also take a 20% pay cut and lose bonuses.

The covid pandemic jettisoned Zoom into the public zeitgeist back in 2020, with the rapid shift to home working quickly making the brand a household name. That year, the company saw its revenues triple, further increasing in 2021 by an additional 55%. Over this period, the company’s workforce also increased three-fold to meet the soaring demand.

By 2022, however, the pandemic was rapidly becoming a thing of the past for many markets around the world and work habits were reverting accordingly. Zoom saw its revenue growth slow to a single-digit crawl, with profits falling by 38%.

With share prices having similarly fallen around 80% from their mid-pandemic high, it should come as no surprise that the company is taking drastic measures to restructure.

It should be noted, however, that Zoom is not the only company looking to streamline its operations in recent months in the wake of the economic downturn. According to tracking data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, over 100,000 tech workers have been laid off this year, with Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce

Indeed, earlier this week Dell announced that it was following suit, revealing plans to lay off around 5% of its global workforce, around 6,650 people.

How is the global economic downturn affecting the US telecoms industry? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s live Connected America conference

Also in the news:
Comcast signs deals worth $50m with State of Indiana for rural fibre expansion
Verizon records 5G upload speeds of over 1Gbps
Yorkshire Water partners with BT for smart water project

The UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, yesterday initiated yet another cabinet reshuffle and this time there was another significant change. Responsibility for digital infrastructure (e.g. broadband and mobile) has now shifted to the newly formed Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). Until yesterday the Building Digital UK (BDKU) executive agency, as well as the […]

Press release

WIOCC, Africa’s digital backbone, has landed 2Africa – the world’s largest subsea cable system – into world-class, carrier-neutral data centre OADC Durban, owned and operated by WIOCC Group company, Open Access Data Centres (OADC), in KZN, South Africa. This offers the province and country a huge increase in international capacity and the promise of more reliable internet and other connectivity services.

WIOCC Group Chief Executive Officer, Chris Wood, commented: “This latest major international cable landing is another example of WIOCC Group playing a key role in building Africa’s digital infrastructure and accelerating the continent’s digital transformation through the delivery of converged open digital infrastructure.

“We are pleased to be working with our partners in the 2Africa project, bringing faster, more reliable internet to local businesses and consumers, and making an enduring contribution to communications in Africa. The subsea cable system is enabling more communities to access transformative online resources, from education and healthcare to jobs and financial services, and experience the economic and social benefits of seamless connectivity.”

Economic benefits

The 2Africa cable project was launched in May 2020 to significantly increase the capacity, quality and availability of internet connectivity between Africa and the rest of the world, and a recent study by RTI International predicts that within two to three years of becoming operational, 2Africa will spur economic impact worth US$26.2 billion to US$36.9 billion, equivalent to 0.42-0.58% of Africa’s GDP.

The arrival of the 45,000km, 180 Terabits per second (Tbps) 2Africa cable system in Amanzimtoti, 25km south of Durban, will bring much-needed additional international capacity for internet and other services, support high-speed internet delivery and provide greater diversity, which will benefit businesses and individuals throughout South Africa.

Benefits of Amanzimtoti landing

This landing, into OADC’s 4MW-capable open access OADC Durban facility in Amanzimtoti, is 2Africa’s fourth on the coast of South Africa – two in the Western Cape (Yzerfontein and Duynefontein) and one in the Eastern Cape (Gqeberha).

Service uptime can be maximised by utilising this new OADC Durban-2Africa route for international traffic because, apart from the METISS system, no other international cable lands in Amanzimtoti.
Organisations can quickly and easily access 2Africa’s international connectivity to extend their operations in KZN and elsewhere in South Africa, as OADC Durban is open access and carrier-neutral.
The cable system’s landing in Amanzimtoti also offers the potential for increased regional job creation in sectors that rely on direct international connectivity, such as data centres, call centres and software development, which can help contribute to both local and national socio-economic development.

OADC Durban went live in April 2022 and will ultimately deliver 4,200m2 of flexible space, supporting 2,000m² of IT white space, as well as A-Grade tech park office space. It delivers the location, scale and client focus required to maximise opportunities for carriers, content providers, fixed and mobile network operators, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to host their equipment and applications, and to increase the speed and reliability of the connectivity and services they provide to their customers.

Landing 2Africa into carrier-neutral OADC Durban ensures that service providers are able to access international capacity and onward, domestic and intra-Africa connectivity on a fair and equitable basis, which will encourage and support the development of a healthy internet ecosystem. Once the system has been fully deployed, businesses and consumers will benefit from improved quality, reliability and lower latency for internet services, including telecommuting, high-definition video streaming and advanced multimedia and mobile video applications.

The 2Africa project underpins further growth of 4G, the continued roll-out of 5G and fixed broadband access, by providing improved connectivity to underserved and rural areas; and network resilience between KZN and the rest of South Africa. As a gateway to international connectivity, the cable’s landing in Amanzimtoti will also help to drive the upgrade and expansion of telecommunications networks in KZN and surrounding provinces.

Wood concluded: “As a fibre pair investor in the 2Africa systems, we are greatly expanding and diversifying WIOCC’s capacity inventory to ensure that we continue to serve the evolving needs of our content provider and cloud operator clients, as well as those of the wider wholesale community.”

WIOCC’s CMO Mike Last will be speaking at Submarine Networks EMEA 2023 on May 31st. Mike will join a panel on “Strategies for accelerating digital infrastructure development in Africa”. Head to the event website for more information on how to join Mike and 800 senior attendees from the subsea cable market.

Broadband ISP Wildanet, which is building a new gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across rural parts of Cornwall and Devon in South West England (here), has confirmed that they will be working with AssetHUB to make their infrastructure and services available on a “fair and neutral wholesale basis” for other ISPs. The operator, which is […]

The question of what is and is not a marketing communication cropped up again after the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned an Instagram post and story linked to mobile and broadband provider Vodafone, which is despite the operator claiming they did not believe that the posts were advertorials. Both the post and story, as […]

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The move will see the operator take aim at Indiana’s digital divide, seeking to connect some of the state’s most remote communities with fibre broadband

This week, Comcast has announced that it has signed a number of contracts with Indiana’s Office of Community & Rural Affairs (OCRA), aiming to deliver fibre services to rural locations throughout the state.

The deals are part of Indiana’s Next Level Connections Broadband Grant Program, with Comcast partnering with both state and local governments to deploy around 1,200 miles of fibre. These fibre deployments will impact over 10,000 homes and businesses in 19 counties within Indiana.

In total, the deals are worth roughly $50 million, with Comcast investing $36 million and the state of Indiana investing $13.6 million.

“Next Level Connections is used as a model by other states to deliver the best tech infrastructure to rural areas,” explained Indiana’s lieutenant governor Suzanne Crouch, who also serves as Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development. “The investments made by Comcast and other partners will not only benefit residents and businesses but also contribute to Indiana’s rural economic engine.”

According to Comcast, the network expansion will be completed within two years.

Comcast notes that it has already invested around $500 million in Indiana over the past three years to expand and upgrade its existing broadband networks.

Are US operators doing enough to reach rural customers with high-quality connectivity? Join the discussion at this year’s Connected America conference

Also in the news:
Bouygues Telecom lays out 2G and 3G sunsetting plans
Ofcom leans towards permitting Openreach’s Equinox 2 price cuts
Nokia: The new Metaverse and our 2030 Vision

Press Release

Verizon engineers continue to drive the evolution of 5G Ultra Wideband technology achieving 1.26 Gbps in upload speed. With uploading data becoming increasingly important for video chats, uploading large files or live streaming video, this significant accomplishment is yet another milestone in Verizon’s commitment to provide a genuinely differentiated service for customers.

“We have achieved remarkable speed in downloading using various combinations of spectrum in our world-class spectrum portfolio,” said Adam Koeppe, Senior Vice President of Technology Planning at Verizon. “This new achievement indicates how much additional performance we can unleash for our customers on the uplink as we aggregate different combinations of spectrum.”

The lab work and trials in the field focused on optimizing the customer experience, and used 20 MHz of LTE spectrum and 400 MHz of mmWave spectrum from the 28 GHz band. The trials used devices currently commercially available and were completed in a live network test environment.

Past trials have shown extraordinary download speeds with various combinations of spectrum reaching a remarkable 4.3 Gbps download speeds by aggregating Verizon’s mid-band C-band spectrum with high band mmWave spectrum. As more C-band spectrum becomes available and deployed, customers will continue to see increases in both download and upload speeds.

Integrating C-band

Verizon won C-Band licenses for between 140-200 MHz in all available markets, and began in the first 46 areas deploying up to 60 MHz, quickly expanding to an additional 30 markets deploying up to 100 MHz in many of those. Over the next few years, as additional spectrum is cleared by satellite companies, Verizon will be able to deploy 5G Ultra Wideband on all available bandwidth that it has licensed, up to 200 MHz. Every piece of equipment being deployed today is capable of using the full 200 MHz of bandwidth.

When the full breadth of spectrum is accessed, customers can expect peak download speeds to reach 2.4 gigabits per second, up from the 900 megabits per second experienced with 60 megahertz deployed, all while supporting far more users and applications. At the same time, the 5G stand-alone core is being deployed. So by the end of the year, customers should see a network with incredible speeds, both downlink and uplink.

Best spectrum position, best spectrum efficiency

With the recent acquisition of C-band spectrum, Verizon now leads the industry with the strongest spectrum portfolio across low, mid and high band spectrum. Verizon holds a total of 2,035 MHz of spectrum – 294 MHz in Sub 6 GHz spectrum (low and mid band) and 1,741 MHz of mmWave spectrum (high band).

Low band: Verizon’s low band spectrum (nationwide 700 MHz licenses and 850 MHz spectrum) continues to provide the best 4G LTE experience in the industry and now also supports nationwide 5G service, giving customers in over 2,700 markets access to 5G. Low band signals travel great distances and penetrate through walls and dense foliage very effectively.

High band: Verizon’s mmWave build is a critical differentiator and the company continues to expand its mmWave footprint to deliver game changing experiences for the densest parts of the network. mmWave brings the benefits of highly predictable signal waves leading to greater efficiency and less interference for customers, and also boasts huge capacity. mmWave service is ideal to deliver 5G service in high-usage areas like cities, venues, and stadiums for years to come.

Mid-band: Verizon’s mid-band spectrum assets include AWS, PCS, CBRS and C-band spectrum. C-band provides a valuable middle ground between capacity and coverage for 5G networks, and is enabling greater speeds than 5G on low band spectrum and greater coverage than mmWave spectrum for both mobility and home broadband solutions. The addition of C-band spectrum paves the way for Verizon to provide its differentiated service of 5G Ultra Wideband service to millions of customers, now covering more than 175 million and growing quickly.

Verizon’s strong spectrum position is a result of multi-year strategic planning and investment. Having access to the strongest spectrum portfolio in the market is only half the battle, though. For many years, Verizon has been innovative and creative in its network build to use the spectrum in its portfolio in the most efficient way possible, providing the best experience for customers while carefully controlling deployment and operational costs and maximizing advanced technologies to maximizes every possible speed and capacity benefit from its spectrum resources.

Is the dust beginning to settle in the battle for 5G supremacy? Join the operators in discussion about the future of 5G at this year’s live Connected America conference 

Also in the news:
Bouygues Telecom lays out 2G and 3G sunsetting plans
Ofcom leans towards permitting Openreach’s Equinox 2 price cuts
Nokia: The new Metaverse and our 2030 Vision

News

A new 4G mast has been installed to not only help facilitate smart sensors deployed around the Scar House Reservoir but also to provide mobile coverage to around 1,000 local residents

This week, water utility firm Yorkshire Water have announced a new partnership with BT aiming to remotely monitor water quality using smart sensors.

The partnership has seen the duo deploy numerous IoT sensors on water courses feeding Scar House Reservoir in Upper Nidderdale, North Yorkshire.

These sensors will provide various measurements related to the water’s quality, including the temperature, weather, and condition of the surrounding moorland, all of which can impact the amount of peat in the water.

The data will be carried to Yorkshire Water via a purpose-built 4G mobile mast that BT has deployed for this purpose.

The mobile site will also provide mobile connectivity to around 1,000 residents, holiday homes, and local businesses.

The data collected will help direct Yorkshire Water to the best possible water sources to transfer to its water treatment plant. Higher quality water will require less processing, which Yorkshire Water notes is not only more efficient for the company but also produces less carbon emissions.

“Water coming out of customers taps will continue to be the high quality that it always has been – the key change here is that the water coming into the treatment works will be of higher quality, and therefore require less treatment,” explained Ted Rycroft, Yorkshire Water’s product and process manager. “That helps us to keep costs down for our customers and our operational emissions to a minimum, while maintaining our high standards of water quality.”

BT suggests that the sensors will also reduce the need for Yorkshire Water to deploy engineers to perform water testing, thereby freeing them up to perform other tasks.

How is the latest connectivity technologies transforming utility companies in the UK? Join the experts in discussion at this year’s Connected North conference in Manchester

Also in the news:
Bouygues Telecom lays out 2G and 3G sunsetting plans
Ofcom leans towards permitting Openreach’s Equinox 2 price cuts
Nokia: The new Metaverse and our 2030 Vision

BT (EE) has suspended doorstep selling on the Isle of Wight, which was being conducted on their behalf by a third-party firm ‘Money Expert‘, after rival broadband ISP WightFibre complained that the sellers had allegedly been making some very dishonest claims about the operator. Admittedly, most of us already know to avoid engaging with doorstep […]