News

The recent wholesale deal with Telenet may help pave the way for the regulatory greenlight

Orange first agreed to acquire a 75% stake minus one share in Belgian operator VOO at the end of 2021, primarily motivated by the integration of the latter’s extensive fibre networks in Wallonia and parts of Brussels.

By mid-2022, however, the pair were still struggling to convince European regulators that the deal would not harm market competition, with regulators launching an official investigation in July.

The acquisition’s prospects were markedly improved in October, when Orange announced it had entered discussions with rival Telenet about a potential wholesale partnership.

This deal would give Telenet access to VOO and Brutélé networks in Wallonia following their acquisition by Orange, potentially alleviating some of the regulators competition concerns. As such, the regulator agreed to pause their investigation while the terms of a potential deal were hammered out.

After months of negotiations, Orange and Telenet finally signed a 15-year wholesale deal earlier this week. The agreement will give Orange access to hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) network in Flanders and Brussels, as well as the company’s future fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network. Telenet, on the other hand, would gain access to VOO and Brutele’s HFC network and future FTTH networks.

Xavier Pichon, CEO of Orange Belgium, heralded the deal as a “major step” towards the VOO acquisition, noting that the deal would allow Telenet to grow into a nationwide fixed line competitor.

Now, the European Commission has announced that it will continue its acquisition investigation, taking into consideration the wholesale deal with Telenet and other concessions made by the operators.

A decision is now expected to be made by April 11 this year.

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Alternative network builder and UK ISP Zzoomm has today announced that their multi-gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network has now covered 100,000 premises across 29 locations. The figure is double the 50,000 they reported in July 2022 and ten times more than the 10,000 they had in December 2021. The operator, which aims to reach […]

News

The operator’s latest results show service revenue down in Germany, Italy, and Spain, with the UK the company’s only major growth market

This week, beleaguered operator group Vodafone has announced its latest financial results, the first under the stewardship of interim CEO Margherita Della Valle.

As expected, they company continues to struggle in some of its largest markets, with revenues falling in Germany, Italy, and Spain by 1.8%, 8.7%, and 3.3%, respectively.

These three markets remain highly competitive, with Vodafone’s fibre business in Germany losing subscribers to rivals, and mobile price wars in Spain and Italy driving down revenues.

The UK was the only large market in which Vodafone’s service revenues had increased, rising 5.3%, largely as a result of inflation-linked price rises.

Vodafone is currently seeking to merge its UK operations with those of CK Hutchison’s Three UK, with Della Valle confirming that talks are ongoing between the two companies.

In total, these Q3 results showed total revenues of €11.64 billion, 0.4% lower than those reported for the same time last year.

Nonetheless, Della Valle said the company would not alter its forecasts for the year, still targeting full year EBITDA of €15–15.2 billion.

“Although we’re continuing to target our financial guidance for the year, the recent decline in revenue in Europe shows we can do better. We need to do more for our customers by delivering quality connectivity in an easy way,” said Vodafone’s interim CEO Margherita Della Valle.

Vodafone has been struggling to find growth for numerous years now, with key shareholders – notably activist investor Cevian capital –increasingly calling for an organisational shakeup.

Previous CEO Nick Read, who stepped down from the role after four years at the end of 2022, had long argued for market consolidation as the key to returning the organisation to growth, but very few deals at scale were ultimately struck during his tenure. Meanwhile, the company’s share value declined by around 40% during this period.

Della Valle took over as interim CEO at the start of this year, with the search for a permanent replacement still ongoing.

Now, Vodafone is pursuing a number of new strategies in order to reduce costs, having announced last year that it would seek to save €1 billion by 2026.

According to Della Valle, initiatives aimed at generating around €500 million in cost savings are already underway.

“We’ve already taken action, including simplifying our structure to give local markets full autonomy and accountability to make the best commercial decisions for their customers. In addition, we now have initiatives underway to generate around half of our €1 billion cost savings target. There is more to do and our focus is to provide a better service to our customers, become a simpler business and deliver growth,” said Della Valle.

It should be noted that this cost cutting plan includes the loss of at least several hundred jobs across the business, with the first batch of job cuts announced earlier this year. The company’s London office is expected to account for the lion’s share of the losses.

Vodafone is not alone in making job cuts in the UK, with BT also notably announcing a reduction in staff earlier this month.

Want to keep up to date with all of the latest changes in the UK telecoms sector? Join the ecosystem in discussion at this year’s live Connected North conference in Manchester

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Civil engineering firm Light Source, which works with a number of UK operators to deploy Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP infrastructure (e.g. Upp, Netomnia, Virgin Media, Airband and KCOM), appears to be experiencing problems after engineers reported being laid off and a manager said they had “entered administration“. At the time of writing, we haven’t […]

Rural broadband ISP Quickline, which is deploying a mix of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) networks across parts of Lincolnshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire in England, has today revealed that their full fibre build has now covered 10,000 premises across multiple locations and rising. The FTTP side of their network roll-out is still in […]

Kenosha, Wisconsin is probably not a place that immediately springs to mind when you think about American cities, but now the city on the shore of Lake Michigan has become the sixth US city to get open access, city wide, fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) rollout due to a partnership between infrastructure investor PATRIZIA and privately owned telecom company, SiFi Networks.

Originally named Kenozia, or “place of the Pike” by Native Americans, Kenosha is today best know as corporate HQ of Snap-on Tools and underwear company Jockey International. Beyond that it’s a tourist town and major hub for Amazon.

It is now the sixth city in the US and the largest investment yet from PATRIZIA’s Smart Cities Infrastructure Fund (SCIF) bringing their total investment in FiberCity® networks to more than EUR 600 million.

Kenosha has a population of roughly 100,000 people so the scheme which will provide 40,000 residents and businesses with 10 gigabit per second internet via 700 miles of fibre and 56 cabinets is reaching a significant proportion of the population. The network is expected to be completed by November 2025.

Nearly half the population of Kenosha are under 35 years of age, so high-speed internet is seen as vital for supporting future jobs and making it a smart city of the future.

Ben Bawtree-Jobson, Chief Executive at SiFi Networks, which counts PATRIZIA as a shareholder, said: “SiFi Networks have been busy at work in Kenosha for months and we are delighted with the experience to date and the opportunity to bring our FiberCity® solution to residents and businesses in the city.”

Phoebe Smith, Senior Director at PATRIZIA Infrastructure, said: “Having already invested in four cities in California and one in Massachusetts, we are firmly committed to delivering open access, high-speed networks to millions of people across America. With the need to digitalise our economies only accelerating, enabling the development of smarter cities through innovative digital infrastructure is absolutely essential if we are to meet the future demands of our communities.”

Californian cities already covered by the investments include Fullerton, Placentia, Simi Valley and Rancho Cordova, totalling more than 150,000 units currently under construction, whilst Salem in Massachusetts is the first East Coast investment. Amongst future plans, SiFi are inviting expressions of interest for proposed 172,000 units for Arlington in Texas.

German PATRIZIA was founded in the Bavarian city of Augsburg and established their Smart Cities Infrastructure Fund (SCIF) in November 2018. SCIF is managed by PATRIZIA and funded by Dutch pension fund manager APG. It invests in smart city infrastructure solutions, allowing cities to more efficiently allocate resources and improve the lived environment. As well as its investment in the United States, it previously made investments in Europe, creating a EUR 180 million portfolio of Italian smart streetlighting companies.

Shawn Parker, Vice President Government Affairs & Business Development at SiFi Network will be speaking at Connected America, our new event at the Irving Convention Center, Dallas on March 28-29, 2023. Find out more at www.totaltele.com/connectedamerica

Mobile operator EE has announced that they’ve already upgraded their 4G mobile network on the London Underground by enabling the latest ultrafast 5G based mobile broadband connectivity, which will initially only be live across three stations – Archway and Tufnell Park (Northern line), as well as Notting Hill Gate (Central line). Just to recap. The […]

Bath-based alternative network UK ISP Truespeed, which is deploying a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of South West England, has today reported that their network now covers 60,000 premises (up from 50k in Sept 2022) and has 13,000 customers (up from 11,500) – 21.67% take-up. The operator, which holds an […]

Vodafone UK has published their latest quarterly (Q3 FY23) results, which states that their fixed broadband ISP base saw strong growth to total 1.158 million customers (up by 47k in the quarter vs 39k in Q2 FY23), while their mobile base also grew again to total 17.802 million (up by 259k vs 321k in the […]

Kent-based independent UK ISP Vfast (Orbital Net), which sells packages to consumers based on a mix of fixed wireless access (FWA) and full fibre (CityFibre and OFNL – in London and Medway) broadband networks, has today announced that they’ve signed-up their 15,000th internet access customer. We should point out that Vfast are also building their […]