Last month we reported that TalkTalk had become the latest UK ISP to adopt Strategic Imperatives’ new Fibre Café connectivity aggregation platform (here), and today BT Wholesale has also been added to the growing list of providers available via the platform. The platform is essentially designed to tackle the significant integration and automation challenges for […]

A new BT (EE) trial, which deployed new mobile network infrastructure in order to help Yorkshire Water connect with smart IoT sensors to remotely monitor the water courses that feed Scar House reservoir, has also helped up to 1,000 homes, businesses and visitors in Nidderdale to access a 4G based mobile broadband network. The project […]

Kent-based broadband ISP Trooli, which aims to deploy a full fibre (FTTP) network to 1 million UK premises by the end of 2024 (in August they reported 275,000 completed), has attracted fresh rumours of a possible sale after they reportedly appointed a business sale and restructuring specialist, David Duggins, to their Board. At present the […]

The CEO of network operator Upp, Drew Ritchie, which is deploying a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in the East of England, has told ISPreview.co.uk that discussions over the forced sale of their business by the Government are “progressing well” and that in the meantime their “build is continuing at pace.” Just to recap. Upp […]

Popular business and residential broadband ISP iDNET appears to have suddenly stopped selling packages based off CityFibre’s new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network. The exact reason for this decision remains unclear, but we understand that some “admin issues” need to be “resolved” before they can return. Until recently iDNET only sold broadband packages via Openreach’s national […]

Sky (Sky Broadband, Sky TV etc.) has begun to rollout a new firmware update (aka – Entertainment OS 1.1) for the operating system software that underpins their broadband-based Sky Glass and Sky Stream TV services, which adds a number of new features (e.g. Personalised Playlists and enhanced Bluetooth features). The update was confirmed last week, […]

News

The telco has converted around $2 billion in interest into new shares owned by the Indian government

This week, the Indian government has agree to convert the interest owed to it by Vi into equity, offering the struggling telco some momentary relief as it continued to haemorrhage subscribers to its rivals, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.

Vi has been a precarious position almost since its founded (as Vodafone Idea) back in 2018 by Vodafone Group and Aditya Birla Group, having immediately struggled to compete against Reliance Jio’s aggressive pricing strategy.

To make matters worse, back in 2019, after over a decade of regulatory conflict, the Indian government announced that it would be redefining the way in which it measures mobile network operators’ adjusted gross revenue (AGR). As a result of this recalculation, the nation’s mobile operators were deemed to owe roughly $13 billion to the government, with Vi liable for almost $7 billion of this total.

Naturally, such enormous repayments quickly caused chaos in a sector already struggling to remain competitive due to the price war initiated by the arrival of relative newcomer Reliance Jio. Arguments for reducing the AGR dues or extending the repayment periods largely fell on deaf ears, leading Vi to suggest that it could be forced into insolvency.

At that time, Vi’s parent companies, Vodafone and Aditya Birla Group, said repeatedly that they would not invest more funds in the business, which was viewed by many as a sinking ship.

However, in 2021, the Indian government finally offered the telecoms sector some much needed relief in the form of a bailout package, which modified AGR repayment terms and removed spectrum usage charges, amongst other modifications.

Crucially, these emergency measures also offered Vi the opportunity to convert the interest it owes the government into equity – a plan the operator was immediately receptive too.

Now, around a year later, the conversion has been formally agreed, with Vi converting around $2 billion in debt into new shares owned by the Indian government. This will give the government a roughly 33% stake in the business.

The deal was finally announced at the end of last week, with Telecommunications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw noting that the government decision had been largely dependent on Aditya Birla Group making a ‘firm commitment’ to inject fresh capital into the business.

The deal will give Vi the cash flow it requires to clear dues owed to companies like Indus Towers, as well as to expand its 4G and 5G mobile networks. It is also hoped that it will give Vi additional scope to refinance their existing debts.

The news of this equity conversion saw Vi’s share prices soar by almost 25%, but the question of Vi’s future is still far from certain.

According to Rohan Dhamija, Head of India & Middle East at Analysys Mason, Vi will require around $5 billion in fresh investment in order to boost its existing 4G network and begin the rollout of 5G at a scale large enough to remain competitive with rivals.

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are already racing ahead with their own 5G rollouts, with the former having already covered around 225 cities.

Vi, meanwhile, has yet to announce an official launch date for its own 5G network but is expected to do so later this year.

Thus, while this deal with the government will surely serve as something of a solution to the company’s short term cash flow problems, it is far from a panacea for the businesses larger challenges. With Vi’s market share continuing to diminish, far larger investments will need to be made to keep the telco viable in the longer term.

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Also in the news:
Bouygues Telecom lays out 2G and 3G sunsetting plans
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Nokia: The new Metaverse and our 2030 Vision

Press Release

With the expanded footprint, Oracle will operate six cloud regions in the Middle East

To meet the rapidly growing demand for its cloud services, Oracle today announced plans to open a third public cloud region in Saudi Arabia. Located in Riyadh, the new cloud region will be part of a planned US $1.5 billion investment from Oracle to expand cloud infrastructure capabilities in the Kingdom. The Oracle Cloud Riyadh Region will join the existing Oracle Cloud Jeddah Region and the planned Oracle Cloud Region to be located in the futuristic city of NEOM.

This investment is included in an MoU that Oracle has signed with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) to help Saudi Arabian businesses take advantage of the latest innovations in the cloud. The MoU was signed during Oracle CEO, Safra Catz’s recent visit to Riyadh in the presence of His Excellency Eng. Haitham AlOhali, Vice Minister, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).

To quickly meet the requirements of its growing cloud business in Saudi Arabia, Oracle will also expand the capacity of the Oracle Cloud Jeddah Region.

“In the last century, Saudi Arabia transformed its economy by developing the infrastructure needed to produce, refine, process and transport hydrocarbons. This century we are committed to creating the digital infrastructure that will underpin future economies,” said His Excellency Khalid Al-Falih, Minister of Investment. “Oracle’s decision to expand its cloud computing capacity in the Kingdom will play a key role in unlocking the opportunities that rapid technological advancements are creating. MISA will continue in its quest to enable the building of a robust digital infrastructure, by creating an attractive environment for these investments – for example, by establishing special economic zones that are tailored to particular industries such as cloud computing and digital transformation.”

As part of the MoU, Oracle will also work with MCIT and the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) to establish a commercial and operational model for an additional cloud region in Saudi Arabia that is aligned with Saudi government requirements and local data residency regulations. Oracle will also work with MCIT to help foster the development of Saudi Arabia’s cloud industry.

Unique among hyperscale providers, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) offers customer choice to deploy OCI based on regulations, data residency, or latency requirements. OCI distributed cloud includes its public regions, Dedicated Region, Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer, multicloud offerings, and recently-announced Oracle Alloy.

“Oracle’s investment will rapidly accelerate the cloud transformation across Saudi Arabia’s business and public sector,” said Richard Smith, Executive Vice President, Technology – EMEA, Oracle. “Oracle Cloud delivers pioneering innovation in technologies like AI, Machine Learning, and IoT, and it will help fuel the economic growth and digital transformation that is an integral part of the Saudi Vision 2030.”

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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

Viewpoint Article

Steven Moore, Head of Climate Action at GSMA and Mobile Sector Lead for the UN’s Climate Champions, talks about the three Cs at the heart of COP27, and how the mobile industry is contributing to the fight against climate change

In my role as Head of Climate Action at GSMA, last year I was privileged to attend the recent COP27 climate conference in Egypt, joining conversations with global impact, and hear talks from some of the brightest minds on the planet. As we look ahead to COP28 this year, I’m keen to discuss the output of COP27, examining the important role the mobile industry must play in helping to enable the change that’s needed to protect our climate.

One of the biggest messages to come out of COP27 was that there’s still a great deal to be done for the world to stand a chance at meeting any of its climate targets and, ultimately, to achieve the aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C. As the global industry body representing a very influential sector, the GSMA takes our role in helping the environment extremely seriously – bringing relevant parties together through collaboration, focusing activity on impactful action and clear measurement, and advising on the most innovative technologies to help solve some of the biggest climate challenges.

The mobile industry has always been at the forefront of climate action and the fight to reduce carbon emissions. Mobile was one of the first industries to commit to achieving Net Zero by 2025 and mobile operators – our members – are among the companies making the strongest progress in this arena; many are already using 100% renewable energy across their networks, whilst others are driving hard towards that goal.

So, what are the next steps for the mobile industry when it comes to tackling climate change? The conversations at this year’s conference largely boiled down to three things. I call them the three Cs: Carbon, Cost and Crisis. In this article, I’ll be looking at the way the GSMA and our mobile operator members have, and will, navigate the three Cs to challenge climate change head-on.

Carbon

Of course, one of the central discussions at COP27 was how businesses worldwide can come together to keep the 1.5C target alive. Meeting this goal requires all carbon emissions to be halved by 2030 and eliminated entirely by 2050. With emissions still rising year on year, there’s a lot to be done to change the trajectory.

The mobile industry is arguably leading the way in this area – maximising the use of renewable energy across their networks. Our latest stats show that mobile networks in 41 out of 86 countries worldwide are using more than 75% renewable energy. European networks were especially thriving in this space; they’re purchasing on average 71% renewable energy.

A strong example of this is Vodafone’s recently announced power purchasing agreement to buy renewable energy generated by three new solar farms in the UK. We know that, to hit net zero ambitions while meeting the scale of demand, there will need to be greater collaboration between the private and public sector to expand renewable energy infrastructure. Vodafone’s announcement shows that coordinated action with national policymakers and energy generators is possible to ensure that more renewable energy can be rapidly added to electricity grids over the next decade.

Cost

Another pressing matter at this year’s COP was the rapidly rising cost of energy. Many countries across Europe were dependent on the fossil fuels coming from Russia and, even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia was able to dictate the cost of energy, which had been rising exponentially since the pandemic. Since the invasion, energy prices have risen even more sharply, with imports from Russia thought to be costing Europe at least €1 billion a day.

Another argument for the use of renewable energy is cost. Renewables can be generated and managed in-country, providing energy security, and significantly reducing the reliance on fossil fuels from Russia. To achieve this, most countries need to invest in infrastructure, not only to generate enough renewable energy, but to store and distribute that energy – in the case of mobile, to far-reaching networks of cell towers.

Once again, success in this area requires collaboration. At the moment, the GSMA predicts that the mobile industry will require 64TW hours of renewable energy, above and beyond current supply, by 2030. That’s the equivalent of the annual energy use of country the size of Austria. It requires a considerable transition: shifting away from a global system that is currently 84% dependent on fossil fuels.

Crisis

With Russia the subject of international sanctions, and European gas supplies at risk, the region is facing its biggest energy crisis in decades.

We don’t know how long this crisis will last – it is unlikely to be a short-term issue. If more isn’t done to manage our energy use, we could be facing outages this winter. However, in the longer-term it’s a further sign that in a time of significant geopolitical tensions, we’re too reliant on fossil fuels and cross-border co-operation that may be a thing of the past.

Investment in on-shore renewable energy generation, as well as digitalisation of national grid networks – can help governments and energy companies identify, and respond to, any situations as they arise in the future, using national resources.

Investing in infrastructure – Smart Energy Systems

Switching to renewable energy can be the solution to all of the three Cs, but we need to modernise and digitalise national grid systems to ensure they are a success.

To date, a lot of discussions have focused on renewable technologies such as solar, wind, tidal and hydropower in their own right. But we’ll need to bring all of them together to create enough power to meet current levels of energy demand. Unlike with fossil fuels, it’s harder to dial up renewable energy into the grid to meet surges at peak times, so we’re working closely with energy companies and governments on a solution to help everyone better understand how energy is used and when. Initially, we’ll need to supplement renewables with fossil fuels at peak times, but eventually the goal is to transition to 100% renewables. This is where Smart Energy Systems (SES) come in.

SES are a new solution, which combine energy generation and storage technologies with ‘intelligent’ applications, controlling and optimising their usage. They will be key to meeting targets from companies and governments increasingly aiming for net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.

A SES is based on connectivity – mobile connectivity, in particular. That’s why we’re putting ourselves at the core of their creation, and are working with energy companies and MNOs to deploy them. The mobile sector will be essential to providing the backbone infrastructure for SES, which work using wireless connectivity to combine multiple solar farms, or thousands of homes with small-scale renewables or storage systems. Cloud computing helps us manage the systems – and AI platforms are added to control and optimise the use and storage of renewable energy resources, and work out if energy needs to be pulled from the grid at optimal times. Gradually the systems keep building the most optimal network for renewable supply and demand until we can fully decarbonise and retire fossil-fuels from the existing energy mix.

Getting SES up and running will boil down to three key steps, with wireless connectivity running through all of them: maximising the lifetime power output of renewable generation assets, minimising excessive energy consumption through end-use and transmission, and optimising load shifting and energy storage to align clean power supply and demand.

It’ll be no mean feat, but if we can implement SES, the benefits are potentially enormous. For one thing, we’ll prevent an overbuild of capacity worth 16,000TWh of annual generation. Based on today’s electricity prices, this will save approximately $1.9 trillion per year. And, on top of that, compared to today’s energy mix, an SES infrastructure will save emissions of 7.7 billion tons of CO2, making it responsible for over 23 per cent of global decarbonisation. It’s why GSMA is so passionate about these systems. It’s my hope that by next year’s COP, the industry will have made even more tangible steps towards their introduction, and laid the foundation for a true, mobile technology-based solution to help Europe navigate the three Cs.

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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

Mobile operator O2 (VMO2) has recommitted to continue their existing policy of retaining inclusive EU roaming as a standard feature on their plans, which they claim could be helping to save an average family of four around £100 during a two-week trip away. Across the UK, this could be saving as much as £3m per […]