The post first appeared on Total Telecom.

A number of mobile network operators – including iD Mobile, Three UK, Lyca Mobile, Sky Mobile and Talkmobile – have just announced a shotgun blast of Black Friday discounts on their various mobile plans and handset bundles. We’ve summarised some of these in this article. We’ll start with iD Mobile, which has added extra data […]

Mobile network operator EE (BT) has today become only the second such provider after VOXI (Vodafone) to launch a low-cost social tariff – EE Basics – for mobile customers on Universal Credit and a range of other means-tested benefits. But some commercial 4G and 5G plans from rivals will give you more for your money. […]

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Portugal’s National Communications Authority (Anacom) has issued punitive fines to the country’s four national mobile network operators due to their poor communication regarding price increases

This week, Anacom has issued over €15 million in fines to Meo (Altice Portugal), Nos, Vodafone, and Nowo, saying that they did not clearly communicate to customers that they could terminate their contracts before price increases were applied back in 2016.

The regulator said that the changes in prices had impacted “a high number of subscribers”, many of whom had not been suitably informed of the price increases until they were no longer able to cancel their contracts free of charge.

“In particular, the behaviour adopted by these operators is related to the lack of information, within the contractually foreseen period, on the right of subscribers to be able to terminate their contracts free of charge, in case they do not agree with the proposed price increase. by operators,” said Anacom in a translated statement.

Anacom also complained that in many cases customers were only informed that their contracts would increase in price but were not clearly told by how much.

As a result of this ruling, Anacom has fined Meo €6.7 million, Nos €5.2 million fine, Vodafone €3.1 million, and Nowo €664,000.

Nos, Vodafone and Meo have each said that they disagree with Anacom’s ruling and will legally contest the fines.

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The post Anacom dishes out €15m fines to Portuguese telcos first appeared on Total Telecom.

News

The operator cited the macroeconomic environment as the main driver for this strategic shift, including inflation rates and the soaring cost of energy

This week, UK-based operator group Vodafone have announced their latest financial results, cutting its cashflow forecast by around €200 million and lowering its earning guidance from €15–15.5 billion to €15–15.2 billion.

These lacklustre results came as a result of numerous business units underperforming, from tough competition in Spain and Italy depressing revenues, to a loss of fixed line subscribers in Germany. In each of these markets, revenues declined quarter-on-quarter.

Vodafone UK, by contrast, was outlier in this regard, with strong service revenues and growth in the business segment.

Vodafone UK is currently trying to arrange a merger with CK Hutchison’s Three UK, who themselves reportedly positive financial results this week. Read says that merger discussions are progressing well, suggesting the move would not impact pricing for customers and would allow them to better compete with the BT, Virgin Media O2, and Sky.

But by far the largest factors negatively impacting Vodafone’s results were macroeconomic in nature, with Vodafone CEO Nick Read lamenting the impact that high inflation rates and energy prices were having on the Group’s operations – Vodafone’s energy bills have risen by €300 million this year.

In response to these factors and in-line with inflation, Vodafone has already implemented price hikes in 12 of its 13 markets.

“We are taking a number of steps to mitigate the economic backdrop of high energy costs and rising inflation,” said Read. “First and perhaps most important, given the historical deflation in our sector, we’ve taken proactive price action throughout our European markets.”

However, these price changes alone may not be enough to give the business the boost it so sorely needs, with Read suggesting the company will seek to cut costs by €1 billion over the next three and a half years. The company hopes to achieve this by streamlining and simplifying its portfolio and accelerating internal digitalisation.

In this vein, earlier this month the company agreed to sell half its stake in towerco Vantage Towers to private equity firms KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners, a move that is set to net the company between €3.2 billion and €7.1 billion.

However, Read also made clear that these cost-cutting efforts would engender job cuts.

“In terms of redundancies, of course, when we drive efficiency, product improvements and digitisation, there are impacts on some job roles,” said CEO Nick Read.

He explained that job losses in some parts of the business could be somewhat offset by growth in other areas, notably related to software, for which hiring will continue.

“We are also creating jobs in other areas, such as DevOps, tech development and software engineers, which are growing significantly,” he added. “We are growing in a number of areas but obviously there will be efficiencies in other activities.”

The total number of jobs at risk has yet to be announced.

Vodafone is not the only operator currently looking to slim down its workforce. Despite having experienced a wave of pay-related worker strikes over the past few months, UK incumbent BT said earlier this month that rising energy prices would force it to implement job cuts.

The company hopes to implement cost cutting measures to save £500 million, noting that their energy bill had increased by £200 million this year.

Are operators doing enough to support their customers during the cost-of-living crisis? Join the operators and the telecoms community in discussion at the upcoming Connected North conference

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The post Vodafone mulls job cuts as it targets €1bn cost savings first appeared on Total Telecom.

INTERVIEW

We had the pleasure of interviewing Malte Abel, Head of Regulatory Telecoms, Vodafone ahead of Connected Germany 2022 which is being held in Mainz on December 6-7 2022.

Can you introduce yourself and your role?

My name is Malte Abel. I am heading the Regulatory Telecoms at Vodafone in Dusseldorf. Before joining Vodafone in March 2021, I spent several years in the energy industry in various regulatory and legal positions.

In Regulatory Telecoms we are dealing with the framework for fixed and mobile networks. In addition, the new consumer protection rules are part of our tasks.

What has the impact of regulatory reform been on enabling faster network deployment?

The reform of the telecommunications law came into effect in December 2021.

It introduced useful options to streamline the approval procedures, such as completeness fictions for submissions. Yes, this can enable faster network deployment but depends on concrete actions by the federal states.    

In addition, we have seen new regulatory tools to enable a level playing field on the growing FTTH market (e.g. the concept of equivalence of input and improved duct access). Again, this “light” regulatory approach can only help with faster gigabit rollout if Bundesnetzagentur implements it in a consistent way. We are not there yet, e.g. the regulatory situation for FTTH-cooperations of Deutsche Telekom is still unclear.

Finally, the right to fast internet has been introduced and is currently rolled-out. We see the wide scope of the rollout with skepticism as regulated rollout is a hurdle for private rollout.

How can the regulatory environment continue to evolve within Germany?

In my view the focus needs to be on implementation of the new rules.

Our goal at Vodafone is the gigabit supply to all households. So, the need to replace the copper network by gigabit networks is common sense. 32 m households already have access to gigabit networks, thereof 24 m households connected by Vodafone. While investor interest remains high, we will only be successful if telecommunication, regulator and politics cooperate closely.

A few points to highlight:

We need subsidies only in areas without existing gigabit networks
Regulatory interventions (e.g. universal services) should be limited
New laying techniques need to be allowed more quickly

What are you most looking forward to at Connected Germany?

Of course, I’m looking forward to interesting conversations and meeting people in real life that I only know from virtual meetings so far.

You can hear from Malte and the rest of our amazing speaker line-up by joining us at Connected Germany – follow the link to secure your place!

The post “New regulatory tools can help enable a level playing field in the FTTH market” first appeared on Total Telecom.

News

The prosecution authority found no evidence that Ericsson staff had issued bribes and have thus closed the investigation

Despite Ericsson’s best efforts, in recent years numerous bribery investigations have cast a black cloud over the Swedish vendors international operations.

In December 2019, Ericsson agreed to settle a number of major bribery cases brought by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), agreeing to pay $1.1 billion in penalties. The cases alleged that, between 2000 and 2017, the Swedish vendor had issued bribes in at least five countries – Djibouti, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Kuwait – in an effort to win contracts from the government and government-owned companies.

Ericsson was surely hopeful that this settlement marked the end of the matter, but the Swedish government had other ideas, launching their own investigation into the bribery cases just one month later. These investigations were focussed on Kuwait, Iraq, China, and Djibouti.

Since then, the Swedish investigation has slowly been clearing Ericsson of wrongdoing. Prosecutors have already dropped their investigations in both Iraq and Kuwait, and earlier this year acquitted four former Ericsson executives on charges of bribery in Djibouti, though this final case is currently under appeal.

Now, the investigation is moving one step closer to its conclusion, with prosecutors this week dropping the probe into bribery in China.

“While payments amounting to several hundred million Swedish crowns, corresponding to tens of millions of dollars, were made over a period leading up to 2016, it was not clear that these were made in bad faith,” said Prosecutor Leif Gorts.

“This is the China part of the investigations. I have now closed the Kuwait, Iraq and China investigations.”

It should be noted, however, that Ericsson has not seen the last of bribery accusations.

Earlier this year, Ericsson revealed that it had identified unusual expenses in Iraq that could be linked to bribing extremist groups, including ISIS, as early as 2011. As such, the DoJ and the SEC opened a new probe against Ericsson earlier this summer and are expected to issue additional fines.

Join us in Dallas, Texas next year for the inaugural edition of the Connected America conference, bringing together top telecoms executives to discuss the key opportunities and challenges present in the US market

Also in the news:
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IRIS cable set to link Iceland and Ireland

The post Swedish court clears Ericsson of bribery in China first appeared on Total Telecom.

AST SpaceMobile, which is backed by Vodafone and various other global mobile operators, has successfully completed the deployment of a huge 693-square-foot (64.4-square-meter) phased array antenna on their prototype BlueWalker 3 LEO satellite. The platform will be used to test a new space-based 4G and 5G cellular broadband network. Over the past few months we’ve […]

Alternative broadband provider Truespeed, which is building a new gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across rural parts of South West England, has today welcomed a visit by the UK Government’s former Secretary of State for Business, East Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. The operator, which has so far covered 50,000 premises (including 11,500 customers connected) and […]

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today introduced new rules that will require phone providers to crackdown on “fake phone numbers” by identifying and blocking “spoofed calls“, where feasible. The move aims to tackle a problem that, during the summer, resulted in 40.8 million people being targeted by suspicious calls and texts. Most of the […]