Building the UK’s most intelligent fibre network to serve 30% of the UK by 2025 isn’t just about securing the necessary investment and workforce, it’s also about driving quality and ensuring everyone goes home safe at the end of each day.

With 2 million premises now passed and a build that continues to accelerate, we spoke to Richard Thorpe, Chief Delivery Officer at #ConnectedBritain to get his insights on how CityFibre is tackling these challenges head on, and why CityFibre is already the preferred choice for many of its growing community of build partners.

Watch the interview here:

To find out more about CityFibre’s rollout of full fibre to 8 million homes by 2025, visit www.cityfibre.com

The post CityFibre on build barriers and better relationships first appeared on Total Telecom.

A collaboration between mobile operator O2 (VMOS), wireless infrastructure provider Freshwave and ad firm Clear Channel UK has enabled residents and visitors in parts of Tower Hamlets (London) to access a stronger 4G mobile signal when standing near to supporting bus shelters, which have built-in small cell connectivity. Shoebox sized small cells are like mini […]

UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) has today finally confirmed that they too also saw their “highest traffic peak on record” on Wednesday (19th Oct) last week, which occurred as football fans tuned into stream Premier League matches on Amazon (Prime Video) and gamers preloaded the latest ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2‘ game ahead of […]

Up to 38,000 workers at UK broadband and telecoms giant BT (including Openreach) have today begun the final day of their latest round of strikes over a pay dispute (the 8th day overall). But the Communications Workers Union (CWU) claims that BT’s CEO, Philip Jansen, still “won’t even negotiate” with them. The strikes have so […]

News

Two years after Cellnex first agreed to buy CK Hutchison’s mobile towers in the UK, the deal is finally set to move forward

Back in 2020, Spanish infrastructure giant Cellnex announced the signing of a €10 billion deal with CK Hutchison, aiming to purchase roughly 24,600 mobile tower assets in numerous European markets.

But while this deal was finalised without a hitch in five of the six countries involved – Italy, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and Ireland – in the UK the move proved far more contentious.

In May 2021, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that it was launching an investigation into the deal, suggesting that the acquisition of these additional UK towers would make Cellnex’s already market-leading position in the UK dangerously unassailable.

As the investigation progressed, numerous parts of the UK telecoms market spoke out against the deal, with BT being particularly vocal in September, saying that the move would “inevitably lead to higher prices for the services offered by Cellnex to BT and other UK wireless operators”.

By the end of 2021, the CMA was already considering “structural remedies” to the deal, suggesting that they would introduce requirements for Cellnex to offload some of its existing tower infrastructure in the areas that overlapped with CK Hutchison’s towers. This was ultimately confirmed in March 2022, when the CMA gave the deal the green light on condition that around 1,000 sites be offloaded to a third party.

Cellnex and the CMA agreed terms in May this year, and this week Cellnex is upholding their end of the bargain, announcing that they will divest of around 1,100 sites to Wireless Infrastructure Group (WIG).

WIG is one of the UK’s leading mobile infrastructure-as-a-service providers and is backed by Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, one of the largest global infrastructure investors.

“The divestiture agreement reached with WIG allows us to meet the conditions required by the UK Competition and Markets Authority and to proceed to complete the UK CK Hutchison transaction, the last of the deals announced in November 2020 to integrate the global CK Hutchison’s telecommunications sites in six European countries,” said Àlex Mestre, Deputy CEO of Cellnex Telecom.

Financial details of the acquisition by WIG were not announced.

Cellnex said it expects the transaction with WIG to be completed by the end of the year and that with CK Hutchison to take place in ‘early/mid-November’.

How is the neutral host market changing across Europe? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s live Total Telecom Congress

Also in the news:
The missing 3.2 billion…
New EXA investment serves customers across the Iberian peninsula
Startup stories: Facing up to cybersecurity risks

The post Cellnex hands 1,100 sites to Wireless Infrastructure Group to appease CMA first appeared on Total Telecom.

British satellite operator OneWeb, which is partly owned by the UK Government, has confirmed their return to flight after successfully launching 36 of their compact Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based ultrafast broadband satellites aboard a LVM3 rocket from the NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) facility in Sriharikota, India. The operator has previously lofted 428 of their […]

Broadband ISP WightFibre, which operates a full fibre (FTTP) network across the Isle of Wight – just off the South Coast of Hampshire in England, has revealed that it too has a social tariff for those on benefits, which will give you an unlimited 100Mbps (symmetric) speed for just £16.50 per month with a PAYG […]

Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark (TUD) have done something quite remarkable by demonstrating a record data transmission speed of 1.84 Pbps (Petabits per second) – or 1,840Tbps (Terabits per second) if you prefer – over a single 37-core and 7.9km long fibre optic cable. Oh.. and they could go a lot faster. Just […]

Network operator Freedom Fibre, which is currently deploying a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across parts of England (Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Shropshire) and North Wales, has kindly provided ISPreview with a map that helps to visualise their current and future rollout plan. Many of Freedom Fibre’s initial deployments are currently taking place in […]

NEWS

Roughly 500 employees are being laid off and the company’s network expansion paused due to economic pressures

Starry was formed back in 2016, aiming to use fixed wireless access (FWA) technology to deliver home internet to customers in various parts of the US. Since then, the company has gone from strength the strength, leading the company to make an initial public offering (IPO) via a special acquisition company (SPAC) earlier this year; the move raised around $176 million, with the business being valued at $1.7 billion.

Now, just six months later, Starry has announced that it is taking drastic cost cutting measures to secure the business’s future.

In a statement, company CEO Chet Kanojia said that the “extremely difficult economic climate and capital environment” had led the company to pause its network expansion and lay off half of its employees, roughly 500 people.

The company says it will instead focus on increasing penetration in its existing footprint.

“We, like so many others, are making the difficult calls now and taking steps that will allow us to be laser-focused on financing the business over the long-term and continue serving our markets,” said Kanojia.

The extent of the company’s financial troubles is for now unclear, with additional financial results expected to be reported on the 2nd of November.

It would appear, however, that a major pain point for the company has been the uptake of its services; despite Starry’s services being available to just shy of 6 million homes across the US, the company says it has just 91,000 customers.

It is also worth noting that Starry will no longer be fulfilling its obligations as part of the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, through which it had won $269 million in grants to deliver rural connectivity.

How is the global economic climate impacting the US telecoms sector? Join the industry in discussion at the inaugural Connected America conference

Also in the news:
The missing 3.2 billion…
New EXA investment serves customers across the Iberian peninsula
Startup stories: Facing up to cybersecurity risks

The post A falling star? Wireless ISP Starry to cut workforce in half amid money woes first appeared on Total Telecom.