A specialist broadband ISP for the UK education market, Talk Straight (aka – Schools Broadband and Trust IT), has today announced that they’ve acquired Essex based internet and manager solutions provider United Network Technologies (UNT) for an undisclosed sum. Both providers appear to serve some of the same market. For example, UNT already delivers ISP […]

Press Release

Nokia today announced that Telefonica Spain has successfully trialed 25G PON technology

The trial, the first in Spain to demonstrate symmetric speeds of 20 Gbps, showed that the state-of-the-art 25G PON can co-exist with Telefonica’s existing GPON solution.

Telefonica, with almost 60 million FTTH homes passed already deployed in their multiple business units, has validated with this trial that current GPON and XGS-PON broadband technologies can co-exist seamlessly on the same fiber with the 25G PON. High speeds aligned with low latency, get the network ready for future exciting applications like the Metaverse. 25G PON delivers huge symmetrical bandwidth capacity that will support new use cases and bandwidth requirements.

Gonzalo Garzón, Head of Fixed Access at Telefónica España at Telefonica, said: “Telefonica was the first operator in Spain to provide gigabit connectivity, but we are not stopping there. Consumer bandwidth demands never halts and exciting applications, like VR gaming, will always be evolved to make the most of available bandwidth. New FTTH technologies give us even more opportunities than home connectivity. With their massive uptick in capacity we’ll be able to offer new business services on the same network.”

Bjorn Capens, VP Europe, Nokia Fixed Networks, said: “Thanks to our Quillion chipset, this 25G PON proof of concept with Telefonica has demonstrated that the huge bandwidth-capacity can be easily added to their existing networks, co-existing with their existing PON technologies. This means customers on the same fiber line can be served with GPON, XGS-PON or 25G GPON, making it much easier to manage upgrade cycles.”

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Also in the news:
Tech Mahindra and Microsoft team up for 5G core cloudification offering
London staff to take the brunt of Vodafone job cuts
Virgin Mobile begins migrating customers to O2 packages

News

According to reports, the layoffs primarily affect territorial retail managers and retail dealers

According to recent reports, a unknown number of T-Mobile’s retail stores have been closed and around 600 retail staff members have been laid off, according to estimates from analyst Jeff Moore of Wave7 Research.

The job cuts primarily appear to affect territorial retail managers and those involved with retail dealers and indirect retail sales.

Staff impacted by these job cuts have already been informed and, in many cases, have the option to reapply for their old jobs under a new title.

This news shortly follows a recent blog post from T-Mobile entitled ‘We’re Reshaping Retail in a Digital‑First World’, in which T-Mobile’s President of Consumer Group Jon Freier explained a shift away from one-size-fits-all stores and towards a more personalised, multi-channel retail experience for customers.

“Is brick-and-mortar retail dead? Here’s what I think: Yes, the way we’ve known it is dead. But it’s because physical shopping is changing – yet again – and will deliver experiences that will surprise and delight customers in ways that are more innovative than ever,” he explained.

He went on to explain that delivering this new experience would require the company to focus on “four distinct brick-and-mortar store formats that will serve customers’ different needs”:

Signature stores, which serve as brand showrooms and host events and product launches.
Experience stores, which will feature the “latest and broadest assortment of T-Mobile products and services”, as well as being staffed by the company’s Mobile Experts. Freier says this will be the fastest growing format.
Neighbourhood stores, which are more localised and offer a more limited selection of products and services.
Express stores, a new format

T-Mobile will also expand their mobile truck fleet, which primarily serves to provide customers in hard-to-reach areas with support and retail services, often ahead of the opening of a brick-and-mortar outlet.

The operator will also focus on branded kiosks within larger retail outlets, such as Costco stores.

Naturally, the blog post makes no reference to job cuts as a result of this strategic shift.

T-Mobile reportedly has around 7,000 retains outlets across the US – a figure which the operator says is growing, despite these recent cuts.

It should be noted that T-Mobile is far from alone when it comes to laying off staff in recent months. In the US, T-Mobile’s largest rivals, Verizon and AT&T, have both announced job cuts in the latter half of 2022, primarily as cost-cutting measures aimed at refocussing funds elsewhere.

Similar tales of job cuts as a cost-cutting measure can be found in numerous global markets, with many of the world’s largest telcos feeling the financial pressures posed by strong market competition, supply chain issues, and the global economic downturn. Earlier this month, for example, Vodafone Group said it would cut hundreds of jobs, with the company’s London office expected to face the biggest cutbacks.

So, is high street retail dead for telcos? Not exactly, but it is undoubtedly an area viewed as ripe for restructuring in the face of shifting customer expectations – and if cost savings via job cuts can be derived from this new strategy, then so much the better.

How is the US telecoms market shifting in 2023? Join the experts in discussion at the upcoming Connected America conference live in Dallas, Texas

Also in the news:
Orange opens European solar farm to boost access to renewable energy
Bullitt: Two-way satellite messaging will be available this quarter
Cox launches mobile services to bolster fixed line offerings

 

Customers of Tesco Mobile, which is an O2 (VMO2) based Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), can now harness a new trade-in scheme that enables them to donate their old mobile phones or other devices for cash (direct to your bank account) or a Tesco e-gift voucher, usually within just 5 working days. In order to […]

London-focused broadband ISP CommunityFibre, which is busy building a multi-gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 2.2 million UK premises by the end of 2024, has today announced that they’re doubling the speed of their cheap £12.50 per month social broadband tariff to 20Mbps. The Community Fibre Essential package is unique in that it […]

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today announced a couple of big changes to their top leadership team, which is apparently intended to help them “continue delivering against [our] strategic goals” (e.g. the £15bn rollout of full fibre broadband to 25 million UK premises by December 2026). The biggest change reflects the retirement of the […]

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Our panelists include:
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Elif Kaya, Deputy CTO, Turkcell
Dr. Mohamed Madkour, VP, Global Carrier Networks Solutions & Marketing, Huawei
Moderator: Dimitris Mavrakis, Senior Research Director, ABI Research

STARTUP STORIES

Californian startup Beamlink brings you a portable cell in a lunch box that anyone can set up – ideal for minimising disruption through post-disaster wireless access. This is their startup story

Tell us about your start up
Beamlink brings Internet to disaster prone communities, providing peace of mind for survivors and first responders and easing the relief and recovery process. Our lunch box sized cell towers, called “Bentocells,” can be set up by anyone with the push of a button, can operate completely off the grid, and function just like normal cell towers – connecting directly to phones via LTE or 5G-NR to provide broadband internet access. They also provide Wi-Fi to allow nearby computers and sensors to get online. Currently in beta, we intend to sell these directly to first responders, community centres, local governments, and telecom carriers interested in providing tailored solutions for disaster resiliency. Our long term goal is to complement the traditional telecom model, enabling those historically underserved to take connectivity into their own hands – literally.

What is your USP, how do you stand out from your competition?
Cellular technology is perfect to provide connectivity in disaster zones, but cell sites are designed to be set up by trained radio engineers who have spent months on site surveys, not fast and dirty by doctors and first responders. Currently, while everyone waits for cell networks to be repaired, they are limited to the use of satellite networks, which isn’t capable of providing the connectivity needed. Beamlink is the only cell tower that can be set up by anyone with the push of a button. While we offer better range, bandwidth, and durability than any other solutions, our main value propostion is ease of use. Using Beamlink BentoCells to provide 4G/5G coverage, survivors and first responders can continue to use their own mobile phones, don’t have to install any apps, and don’t have to coordinate with ISPs or carriers. This provides peace of mind and critical resources to survivors and essential situational awareness to first responders, while freeing up resources for ISPs and carriers to rebuild their networks.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
We function both within and alongside the telecom sector. On the one hand, we build cell towers, and they’re regulated like cell towers, so we have to work within the existing regulatory framework. However, our business model is the opposite of traditional carriers – we don’t provide coverage, we provide equipment – which can make it look like we compete against the sector as a whole. The way we see it though, the telecom sector is doing a lot right, and there’s no point changing what works. There is, however, an equity gap in access that no amount of technical innovation can address without also changing the underlying network architectures and business models, something established carriers can’t simply change tomorrow. We seek to complement these carriers by supporting and extending their existing services, filling in gaps that are major pain points for them. You can consider us to the telecom sector as both a vendor and a neighbour, depending on the use case.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
To date, we are entirely grant and self funded. We’re backed by the National Science Foundation through their SBIR program and have received recognition and funding from Cisco, Mozilla, the GSMA, and the University of Southern California. We’re now preparing to raise a seed round of funding and transition over to a VC-backed, growth-oriented startup model to be able to expand our worldwide reach.

Why did you establish the business?
Our team has a varied background in social entrepreneurship, aerospace and network engineering, and disaster response / resiliency. Being partially in the telecom sector but partially outside it, we’ve noticed a disconnect between the traditional telecom business model and the needs of disaster-prone communities and humanitarian aid NGOs. While the telecom sector is constantly innovating, there continues to be a huge need for communications technology that can be operated by communities and NGOs in the field. We built the BentoCell to complement the traditional telecom model and fill in these gaps, keeping disaster prone communities and first responders online and expanding Internet access to those who need it most.

What motivates you?
We were on the ground during Hurricanes María and Harvey and saw first-hand how quickly connectivity went down, how long it took to bring back, and how big of a difference there was between wealthy communities that got it back first versus the communities that still lack connectivity today. Many people in this space are doing amazing work, but cellular technology is not designed with them in mind. Our motivation comes from their passion and drive, and we hope to enable NGOs and community members to get back online as fast as possible, and in the long run, never experience outages due to natural disasters.
Read more on this on the Cisco Blog

What does the future hold for your business?
We are running paid pilots and a closed beta now. We’re also raising a seed round of funding which we plan to close in Q2 2023. Using these as a launchpad, we plan to start large scale production in the summer and begin covering live disasters during storm season in the Fall. We also plan to begin international testing once we’ve completed beta tests in the US.

Company CV

Headquarters: Los Angeles, California, USA
Number of Employees: 7
Last funding round: 2023 Pre-Seed ($150k secured) alongside NSF SBIR Grant ($250k)
Website: https://beamlink.io
Founders and key employees:

Mateo Abascal — Cofounder and CEO
Arpad Kovesdy — Cofounder and CTO
Daniel Starosta — Community and Strategy

Beamlink are one of the startups you can meet at Connected America on 28-29 March 2023 at the Irving Convention Center, Dallas. Register to meet them here or to bring your startup along to the event, message Katie Dudney

Openreach UK has issued a progress update on their £180m investment to deploy a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) ISP network across Wales, which reveals that their network now covers more than 600,000 homes and businesses in the country (roughly, that’s over 35% of premises). Engineers are currently known to be actively working in areas such as […]

VIEWPOINT

Following two years buffeted by supply chain disruption, energy price surges and economic pressures, 2023 is likely to continue to be defined by change. While there’s no way to predict what will unfold, for telcos, there are a few trends we expect to see.

The rise of data mesh architecture.
Data-driven decisions can help telcos reduce operational costs, reinvent customer experiences and drive innovation. Companies such as T-Mobile and Telia are already leveraging data and artificial intelligence (AI) to elevate their customer experience and automate campaigns; however, the industry has a lot of untapped potential.

Although telcos have vast amount of data, much of it is scattered and siloed. A solution to this is the implementation of data mesh architecture data. This would enable each domain-driven data set to be treated as a product and owned by the teams that intimately know the data. Data is then shared to a centralised catalogue where it can be used for business transformation.

A data mesh also ensures that departments have the right tools for the job. For example, it enables non-data scientists to build, train, and deploy machine learning (ML) models, increasing ML adoption across the organisation, which can accelerate innovation.

Partnerships will grow the 5G ecosystem as networks mature.
This year will mark the beginning of a tipping point for monetising 5G networks. According to GSMA, 34 out of 50 European countries have deployed 5G, and devices are catching up as more smartphones come with 5G support.

The last hurdle is the 5G ecosystem. More cross-industry and cross-functional partnerships are needed to create new services and reduce barriers to build and manage the networks. In 2023, we expect more telcos to forge partnerships to increase adoption, like the way Verizon and Vodafone have partnered to accelerate edge computing.

Energy costs and sustainability drive business decision making.
According to GSMA Intelligence, energy consumption accounted for 15-40% of telcos operating expenditure in 2021. Reports from McKinsey and Ericsson estimate that 60-75% of energy consumption for mobile network operators is from radio access networks (RAN). Data-traffic loads are intermittent, meaning different parts of RAN can be put briefly into sleep mode. By using data and AI/ML applications, telcos can use intelligent services to monitor and automate this process.

Results show that companies in Europe can reduce their energy use by almost 80% by moving their compute workloads out of on-premises data centres to AWS. Companies could potentially further reduce carbon emissions from an average workload—by up to 96%—once AWS meets its goal to be powered by 100% renewable energy, a target the company is on a path to achieve by 2025.

The accelerated evolution of telcos to “tech-cos”.
The relationship telcos have with their customers and the ways in which they operate are also set to shift this year. This change is two-pronged.

First, telcos will have to move away from being connectivity providers to becoming digital service providers. An example is Swisscom, a company that is evolving its offerings by training technical and commercial employees to also advise their customers on their own cloud journey. Second, more telcos will experiment with running their network as a platform, providing a new way to monetise their network build-outs and spin up a new MVNO within a couple of days.

Successfully implementing these four trends won’t be easy. This will require upskilling and reskilling, and more importantly, internal buy-in and commitment from leadership. However, 2023 will be a year of massive change and these shifts will help unlock new growth and opportunity to innovate

This article was written and contributed by Adolfo Hernandez is Vice President, Global Telco Business Unit at Amazon Web Services (AWS)