Cumbria-based broadband ISP and network builder Grain (Grain Connect), which is busy deploying a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service across various parts of the UK, has today become the latest provider to launch a cheaper Social Tariff package – ‘Grain Social’ and ‘Grain Social Plus’ – for those on benefits. Customers of the regular service, […]

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Projects will have the opportunity to bid for the funds, which will be allocated later this year

As part of the European Space Agency (ESA) Advanced Research in Telecommunications Services (ARTES) programme, the UK Space Agency has today announced £50 million in funding for new satellite communications projects in the UK.

According to the government, this funding may be used for everything from developing new satellite constellations to innovating with teleports and developing new customer services.

Companies interested in accessing these funds will have until March 1 to submit applications, with the UK Space Agency set to pick winners and allocate the funding later this summer.

“This funding will help UK companies that have the right expertise and ambition to become global players in this market and lead on ground-breaking technologies that will enhance the wider UK space sector, create jobs and generate further investment,” said UK Space Agency CEO Dr Paul Bate. “I look forward to seeing the results of the competition and following the successful projects in their next steps.”

The UK government has shown increasing interest in the satellite communications industry in recent years, notably rescuing floundering satellite communications company OneWeb from bankruptcy back in 2020.

Today, OneWeb has 542 low Earth orbit satellites in orbit, with only around 100 more required to achieve global coverage.

According to the government, the satellite communications industry in the UK is already worth £10.4 billion and comprising around 26,600 jobs.

“Developing UK space capabilities and maximising commercial opportunities are key to the National Space Strategy, as part of our plans to become a leading power in space and build on a sector already worth £16.5 billion to the UK economy,” said UK Science Minister George Freeman.

“This latest £50 million UK Space Agency funding will help more companies into our vibrant fast growth UK space telecoms sector, helping drive both growth and wider UK economic resilience,” he added.

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According to Spanish media, American Tower and Brookfield Asset Management are reportedly considering acquiring Cellnex, Europe’s largest mobile tower operator

Mobile towers have always been an attractive prospect for investors, with their low operational costs and steady long-term returns denoting them as relatively low risk. In recent years, however, investor appetite for infrastructure has reached unprecedented heights, prompting enormous consolidation worldwide, particularly in Europe and Africa.

In many ways, this activity has been driven by the broader state of the telecoms industry as a whole. Network operators are currently in the process of rolling out expensive 5G and fibre networks, while at the same time seeing . As a result, offloading their passive infrastructure becomes an appealing proposition, with major telecoms groups like Orange and Vodafone spinning off their tower units into independent companies.

Throughout this global consolidation, Spanish infrastructure giant Cellnex has emerged as one of the voracious of all towercos, buying up a huge amount of European assets, including a €10 billion deal to purchase all the European towers belonging to CK Hutchison. It is currently the largest independent tower company in Europe, with over 130,000 thousand sites in 12 markets.

In the last year, however, the global economy has taken a turn for the worse. With interest rates on soaring, the debt used to finance Cellnex’s enormous acquisitions will need to be refinanced at a higher rate, cutting painfully into the company’s bottom line.

In November last year, Cellnex announced that its insatiable M&A spree was officially over, with CEO Tobias Martínez saying that the company now needed to “face and beat inflation”.

The company has net debt of €17.1 billion and is seeking to reduce its leverage from roughly eight-times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to below seven-times.

The company’s share price has fallen almost 40% over the last year, presumably a major factor in the resignation of Martínez as CEO two weeks ago.

Now, rumours suggest that this lowered share price is attracting attention from potential rivals, with Spanish media suggesting that American Tower and Brookfield Asset Management are considering a joint takeover bid.

While no financial details were mentioned, analysts suggest that such a deal would be worth around €50 billion.

Cellnex, American Tower, and Brookfield have all refused to comment, while other media sources have cited other unnamed sources refuting the rumour.

It should go without saying that if such a takeover were to materialise, it would have enormous implications for the European mobile market, making the combined entity a dominant force in markets like the UK, France, and Spain.

As a result, various regulatory bodies would closely investigate such a tie up, with American Tower surely forced to offload a significant amount of its own towers that overlap with Cellnex’s portfolio, at the very least.

This would be nothing overly surprising ­– Cellnex itself has already shown a willingness to pursue this sort of compromise, offloading some of its overlapping towers in the UK in order to gain clearance for its acquisition of CK Hutchison’s towers in the market.

But perhaps the largest obstacle to such an acquisition is not some regulatory complexity, but simply cash. While American Tower and Brookfield could, at a stretch, likely afford such a giant investment, they would surely need a hugely favourable valuation of Cellnex to truly consider such a purchase.

With Cellnex already taking steps to consolidate their position, reduce debt, and encourage organic growth, the company will surely argue that the company is undervalued, making reaching an amiable takeover agreement unlikely.

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Press Release

‘Last mile’ services are now live in four key UK cities as part of the company’s ongoing Metro Access Network expansion programme

Neos Networks, one of the UK’s leading fibre connectivity suppliers, today announced that it has completed the delivery of its three regional Metro Access Networks in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester along with phase one of its deployment in London. The business connectivity provider announced plans to enter the market for last-mile services at the end of 2021, as part of its major Metro Network Expansion programme, targeting key metropolitan UK cities. With services now live in all four regions, Neos Networks is bringing fibre connectivity direct to thousands of locally based businesses across the cities.

At the time of this announcement, Neos Networks is ahead of schedule on its fourth Access Network build in London. Four of a planned eight routes are now live across the capital with the remaining phase of deployment on track for delivery over the next year. The entire Metro Network Expansion project makes up over 60km of Neos Networks’ national fibre footprint.

The strategic move by Neos Networks into last-mile access means the company no longer has to rely on third-party connectivity across these business hubs. As a result, it will now offer its customers improved timescales and lower costs to deliver the higher quality of service associated with the company’s nationwide UK backbone business network. The move provides Neos Networks customers with the same level of commitment that they have come to expect, but with an easier path to upgrade, quicker response for break fixes, and the network characteristics that meet their needs and growth ambitions.

The multi-million-pound investment has helped Neos Networks build out its on-net presence in the four cities to deliver a full end-to-end fibre connection to the doors of many. Neos has invested further into adapting its products to work over its own Access Tails, addressing opportunities to meet the connectivity needs of customers in multi-business units (MBUs) by driving a better overall quality of experience.

The delivery of high capacity, high bandwidth, low latency fibre connectivity will provide a critical foundation of digital infrastructure to support the growth of businesses in metro areas. New developments in key business districts will benefit from business-grade fibre connectivity to support the adoption of new applications and technologies underpinned by business resiliency, growth and efficiency improvements. The breakdown of fibre deployed in each city is 3.6km in Liverpool, 7.1km in Birmingham, 13.7km in Manchester, and 37km in London once the whole build is complete.

Neos Networks has already begun identifying early adopter customers in each region, working with those partners to understand the depths and requirements of businesses in their respective cities. As the business case grows within each region, Neos will explore additional opportunities to extend the reach of these access networks. An opportunity to grow the network has already been captured in Liverpool with the network extension having gone live in December.

Sarah Mills, Chief Revenue Officer at Neos Networks, said: “I’m thrilled that we’re nearing completion of our Metro Access Network builds in these four key UK cities. This project will underpin the growth of UK PLC by creating new opportunities for enterprises and driving investment within several new business districts. The ambition for our network expansion project has always been to help UK businesses realise the growth potential associated with resilient, secure, high-capacity business connectivity services. We look forward to engaging businesses on how we can support their network resiliency and priorities with the right connectivity solutions.”

As Neos Networks continues to assess the connectivity requirements of businesses in each city, it also plans to explore using its Optical Wavelength technology to deliver the right commercial packages for customers, particularly those in MBUs. This will help to ensure a guaranteed level of service to businesses over either an Optical or Ethernet connection. The network expansion into each of the cities is giving choice to customers regardless of their sector. For network players, the new infrastructure supports the data backhaul requirements of their services and will be particularly influential in supporting mobile operators with their local cell sites and as they rollout 5G and beyond.

Is the North receiving its fair share of broadband investment? Join the discussion alongside operators and local government at this year’s Connected North conference in Manchester

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Neos Networks has today announced that they’ve completed the latest phase of work to boost their full fibre, last mile, metro network expansion by delivering three new regional Metro Access Networks in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester, along with phase one of its ongoing deployment in London. The major multi-million pound Metro Network Expansion programme, which […]

Customers of UK broadband ISP BT (including EE) look set to benefit from improved protection against SPAM and fraud calls, which reflects the fact that they’ve just become the first major telecoms provider in the country to adopt Hiya’s AI-based voice security solutions – Hiya Protect – in conjunction with Ericsson. Until now, the Seattle-based […]

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With customers complaining of unreliable service, Rakuten Mobile has seen subscribers slipping away over the past year

This week, Japan’s newest mobile network operator, Rakuten Mobile has announced that it will close 261 retail stores across the country, bringing its total retail footprint down to 1,000 locations.

Exactly how many jobs will be affected by these cuts is unclear.

The move comes as the latest in a string of cost cutting measures taken by the operator, with the company struggling to reach profitability targets by the end of its financial year in March.

Rakuten Mobile first burst onto the Japanese telecoms market back in 2020, launching consumer mobile services via its greenfield Open RAN-based network. At the time, the company claimed that Open RAN architecture would allow make the network 40% cheaper than traditional telecoms infrastructure, a fact that was reflected in their aggressive subscriber acquisition strategy, which included offering three million customers free unlimited data for a year.

Since then, the company’s network has grown to cover 98% of the Japanese population, with subscriber numbers climbing to a peak of around six million.

But despite this rapid growth, it has not all been sunshine and cherry blossoms for the newcomer, with many customers complaining of poor and unreliable service.

The root of this problem – at least according to Rakuten itself – is not the company’s network, but its lack of spectrum. Rakuten only has around a quarter of the 4G spectrum owned by its competitors, as well as no low-band spectrum at all.

For over a year, the operator has been calling for various spectrum bands to be refarmed and unassigned spectrum to be allocated, though the Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communications has been dragging its feet. A decision is finally expected to be announced by the ministry later this spring.

Rakuten Mobile CEO Tareq Amin said late last year that the company hopes to begin using what Japan calls ‘platinum band’ spectrum (800/900MHz) in 2024.

Having been forced to work with only relatively meagre spectrum holdings has left the operator largely reliant on a roaming agreement with KDDI to serve its customers. This had not only driven up the company’s cost-per-gigabyte significantly, but also undermined Rakuten’s attractiveness for customers, with the roaming data carried on KDDI’s network capped at just 5GB.

Now, however, with Rakuten having rapidly deployed more base stations greatly increasing its own infrastructure coverage, the issue of roaming costs has been largely alleviated. The lack of spectrum, on the other hand, remains a major challenge.

With customer acquisition and retention proving disappointing, the first nine months of 2022 saw Rakuten Mobile report losses of around $2 billion, with subscriber numbers down almost half a million in the period between April and September.

Rakuten now says that it will aim to bolster its subscriber base through means beyond its retail outlets, particularly by increasing points of contact with consumers and encouraging them to sign up online.

In related news, alongside these cost cutting measures, Rakuten continues to attempt to raise additional funding through the issuance of additional ‘Rakuten Mobile Bonds’. The latest band of bonds, issued two weeks ago, aims to raise $1.8 billion, with the funds raised to be used as working capital.

This builds upon the roughly $1.65 billion the company raised through issuing two similar sets of bonds last year.

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Press Release

The 2Africa cable has landed at the Vodacom facility in Gqeberha (previously Port Elizabeth), South Africa, to provide a gateway to direct international connectivity for faster, more reliable internet services

The 2Africa subsea cable, the largest subsea cable system in the world, has landed at the Vodacom network facility in Gqeberha, South Africa. This is the first submarine cable landing in the Eastern Cape region, promising greater internet capacity and acceleration of connectivity across the province and supporting South Africa’s growing digital economy.

The 2Africa Consortium includes eight international partners, China Mobile International, Meta (Facebook), MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, center3 (stc), Telecom Egypt, Vodafone/Vodacom and WIOCC, who have partnered to build 2Africa. Launched in May 2022, the subsea cable project aims to significantly increase the capacity, quality, and availability of internet connectivity between Africa and the rest of the world.

The Gqeberha landing is the 2Africa project’s third on the coast of South Africa, following two recent landings in the Western Cape by MTN GlobalConnect, Vodacom is the designated landing partner, providing facilities for the cable’s installation at an existing site in the Summerstrand area.

“This latest 2Africa cable landing affirms Vodacom’s commitment to driving digital inclusion in Africa by increasing access to quality internet services and investing in the network infrastructure to support this goal. We cannot achieve this alone, and collaboration between other industry stakeholders and the public sector is critical in enabling more citizens across the continent to be connected,” says Diego Gutierrez, Vodacom Group Chief Officer: International Markets.

Through the 2Africa landing at Gqeberha, service providers will be able to obtain capacity on a fair and equitable basis, encouraging and supporting the development of a healthy internet ecosystem. Direct international connectivity can then be provided to data centres, enterprise, and wholesale customers. Once the fibre cable system has been 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 cable system’s landing in the Eastern Cape will also offer the potential for much-needed regional job creation in sectors that rely on direct international connectivity, such as data centres, call centres and software development. This employment opportunity can help contribute to local and national socio-economic development.

The 2Africa project underpins further growth of 4G, 5G and fixed broadband access by providing improved connectivity to underserved and rural areas; and network resilience from the Eastern Cape to the rest of South Africa. As a gateway to international connectivity, the cable’s landing at Gqeberha will help to develop telecommunications networks in the Eastern Cape and surrounding provinces.

Submarine cable systems, which provide the international networks between continents and countries, form an integral part of the connectivity value chain and increase internet capacity to meet the current and future demands of growing digitalisation in Africa, while catalysing economic growth. In an RTI study, 2Africa is predicted to spur economic impact worth US$26.2 billion to US$36.9 billion, equivalent to 0.42-0.58% of Africa’s GDP, within two to three years of becoming operational.

Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) is responsible for manufacturing and deploying the 2Africa cable, due for completion in 2024. The cable system, measuring 45 000 kilometres in length with a design capacity of 180 Tbps, will interconnect Europe (eastward via Egypt), the Middle East (via Saudi Arabia) and Africa. Essentially, 2Africa will connect 19 countries in Africa and 33 countries in total. The system has four landings in South Africa and two each in Mozambique, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and Egypt, so a total of 27 landings in Africa and 46 landings in total.

Delivering more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables serving Africa today, 2Africa will provide much-needed internet capacity and reliability across much of the Middle East, India, Pakistan and Africa, supporting the growth of 4G, 5G, and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people. The 2Africa East cable system, of which the Gqeberha branch is part of, will go live by and be ready for service by the fourth quarter of 2023.

Gutierrez adds, “Vodacom Group is pleased to be working with our partners in the 2Africa project to bring faster, more reliable internet to local businesses and consumers while helping to build an inclusive digital society on the continent and around the world. The subsea cable system enables more communities to access transformative online resources, from education and healthcare to jobs and financial services, and experience seamless connectivity’s economic and social benefits.”

What impact will the 2Africa cable have on the international submarine cable industry? Join the experts in discussion at the upcoming Submarine Networks EMEA event

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The West Mercia police force in Shropshire (England) are appealing for information after repeated attacks by criminals, which have occurred over the last four weeks, caused an estimated £13,000 worth of damage to broadband infrastructure belonging, we think, to Openreach in the village of Selattyn (near Oswestry). According to the force’s Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) […]

Telecoms data analysts at global market intelligence firm ThinkCX have published a new update that forecasts how increasing consolidation in the United Kingdom’s overcrowded market for alternative broadband network (altnet) providers could play out during 2023. Needless to say, the new update holds few surprises. As we’ve said more than a few times over the […]