Press Release

The companies say the multi-year strategic partnership will help expand mobile service availability across the continent

American Tower Corporation’s (American Tower) African operations (ATC Africa) and Airtel Africa plc (Airtel Africa, or the Group) today announced that they have entered into a multi-year, multi-product agreement, leveraging ATC Africa’s vast portfolio of communications sites and new site and product development capabilities across its footprint in Kenya, Niger, Nigeria and Uganda in support of Airtel Africa’s network rollout. Through their combined efforts, the companies expect to substantially increase connectivity on the continent, extend digital inclusion to underserved communities and advance their mutual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction objectives.

All new site development under the agreement will comply with ATC Africa’s new green site specifications, which is expected to substantially reduce reliance on fossil fuels, while advancing American Tower’s progress toward achieving its science-based targets (SBTs). Furthermore, this strategic partnership is expected to reduce exposure to fuel price volatility for both ATC Africa and Airtel Africa. The parties have also committed to continue working together to convert existing telecommunications sites to ATC Africa’s green site specifications over time.

In addition, Airtel Africa and ATC Africa will partner to provide training around information and communications technology skills to underserved communities as part of their respective kiosks and Digital Communities programs. Under this partnership, it is expected that more than 200 Digital Communities will be deployed in these markets in the coming years.

“Over the last several years, ATC Africa has made forward-thinking investments to ensure we achieve tangible reductions in our on-site fossil fuel consumption in Africa,” Marek Busfy, SVP and CEO of ATC Africa stated.

To date, ATC Africa has invested approximately $300 million in energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy deployments and energy storage solutions to decrease on-site reliance on fossil fuels. The company has also earmarked additional investments to fund the implementation of future energy efficiencies.

“As we selectively extend the platform services we offer, we are demonstrating our commitment to introduce new and renewable sources of energy to power our sites, which protects the industry, our customers and consumers from ongoing and future volatility in fuel prices. Airtel Africa’s environmental goals are aligned with ours and, as we expand digital reach on the African continent, we remain committed to reducing GHG emissions in tandem with our growth.” Busfy adds, “Furthermore, through our Digital Communities program, we will be able to meaningfully improve quality of life in our markets through connectivity.”

Commenting on this landmark agreement, Segun Ogunsanya, CEO of Airtel Africa, said that “The company has once again demonstrated its commitment to creating value for customers and shareholders by subscribing to an environmentally sustainable growth model. Airtel Africa’s corporate citizenship requires us to extend coverage to increasingly remote areas – and meeting this obligation is necessary to establishing a sustainable partnership with a like-minded industry player. We continue to invest in infrastructure and distribution networks across the countries where we operate to support their economies and communities. Sustainability is at the core of our strategy, driven by our corporate purpose to transform lives across Africa and support people, businesses, and governments in getting access to better connectivity.”

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MTN Group joins the Telecom Infra Project’s Board of Directors

The post Airtel Africa teams up with American Tower to expand sub-Saharan connectivity first appeared on Total Telecom.

NEWS

The new Hornsea 2 offshore wind farm, situated off the Yorkshire coast, is the largest in the world

This week, Vodafone and Vilicom have announced the deployment of a private LTE network at the world’s largest operational wind farm, Hornsea 2.

The windfarm itself, built by Danish firm Ørsted, became operational at the end of August and spans around 300 square miles of the North Sea, roughly 90km east of the Yorkshire coast. It will provide 1.3GW of renewable energy to the UK, enough to power over 1.4 million homes.

The wind farm’s private LTE network will provide connectivity to the hundreds of staff that oversee the operation and maintenance of the wind farm, with the network coving not only the wind farm itself but also the route to and from port.

“Building a complete mobile infrastructure on an offshore wind farm is a technical challenge, but I’m delighted we’re able to provide the connectivity that Ørsted’s Hornsea 2 needs to connect to the outside world and be efficiently managed,” said Vodafone UK’s Business Director, Nick Gliddon. “It is testament to the great collaboration between us and Vilicom.”

The specific spectrum being used to operate the network has not been announced.

Vodafone and Vilicom have reportedly been working closely with the Ørsted team on the Hornsea 2 project for the past two years, including providing a temporary LTE solution throughout the project’s construction phase.

Offshore wind farms, naturally, present a difficult challenge when it comes to connectivity. Historically, offshore locations largely relied on very high frequency (VHF) radios or very small aperture terminal (VSAT) satellite technologies for their communications needs, but these carried inherent limitations when it came to bandwidth, latency, and reliability, particularly in rough weather.

More recently, however, it is private mobile networks that are growing in popularity for offshore energy plants, being able to overcome their predecessors’ latency and bandwidth shortcomings.

Indeed, Ørsted itself appears particularly fond of using private mobile networks for their latest wind farm deployments, having worked with Chunghwa Telecom and Ericsson to deploy a private LTE network at their Greater Changhua 1 & 2a Offshore Wind Farms in the Taiwan Strait just last year. They also deployed a similar private LTE network in partnership with Norwegian connectivity specialist Tampnet for the Hornsea 1 wind farm, Hornsea 2’s smaller predecessor, earlier this year.

How is the telecoms industry stepping up to the sustainability challenge? How are connectivity choices for challenging geographies evolving? Join the experts in discussion on these topics and more at the upcoming Total Telecom Congress

Also in the news:
Understanding the telco’s role in the IoT market
Startup Stories: A new approach to telecoms consultancy
MTN Group joins the Telecom Infra Project’s Board of Directors

The post Vodafone and Vilicom deploy private 4G network for offshore wind farm first appeared on Total Telecom.

Broadband ISP toob has today announced that they’ve added the Hampshire (England) town and district of Gosport and Lee-on-the-Solent, respectively, to their rollout plan for a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which is expected to cost them around £18m and cover 45,000 premises. The provider, which is supported by an investment of £162.5m from the […]

INTERVIEW

AS THE FIBRE TO THE HOME MARKET EXPLODES BOTH IN THE UK AND GLOBALLY, UK MANUFACTURER HELLERMANNTYTON CONNECTIVITY HAVE NEEDED TO BE RESPONSIVE AND AGILE TO KEEP PACE WITH DEMAND.

In 2017, HellermannTyton moved to a larger purpose built facility, having outgrown their previous factory. Continuous growth has led to high levels of recruitment across the business and expansion to a second facility in Northampton.

The 2019 acquisition of gabocom, a German duct manufacturer, has driven the need for further manufacturing space which will be hosted in a new site in Plymouth in 2023.

Matthew Hunter, MD, HellermannTyton Connectivity shares his expansion views at Connected Britain 2022.

To find out more about HellermannTyton Connectivity’s full suite of products and solutions, go to https://www.htdata.co.uk/

The post HellermannTyton: Growing a Business in line with Rapid Market Growth first appeared on Total Telecom.

ISP 4th Utility, which is deploying a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to serve UK homes (SDU) and large residential blocks (MDU), have today announced that their network has now passed 40,000 homes and they intend to expand their headcount from 56 up to 100 over the “coming months“. We were previously informed that the […]

Broadband and mobile giant O2 (VMO2) has completed the first trials of their 5G DRIVE project, which is a consortium that is part-funded by the Government and aims to develop a secure Radio Access Network (RAN) connection capability for integrating private and public networks. Private 5G networks can today be created to serve specific sites, […]

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The post Protected: Openreach’s road to a balanced full fibre build first appeared on Total Telecom.

The Government has today placed their previous decision to BAN Huawei’s equipment from ultrafast 5G mobile networks (including restrictions on its use in full fibre broadband infrastructure) on more of a legal footing, which it has done by issuing legal notices to 35 telecoms network operators. Back in 2020 the government announced that it would […]

The UK Labour Party has proposed a new policy that would, if they won the next election, see them introduce a mandatory “industry-wide” social tariff for cheaper broadband (available to those on benefits). On top of that, they would also stop mid-contract price hikes by ISPs and reduce early termination charges for contract leavers. At […]

INTERVIEW

We recently had the pleasure of catching up with Alexander Rabe, CEO, eco – Association of the Internet Industry ahead of our upcoming event Connected Germany which is being held in Mainz on December 6-7 2022.

Can you introduce yourself and your current role?

My name is Alexander Rabe and I’m the Managing Director at eco – Association of the Internet Industry. With over 1,000 member companies, we have been instrumental in shaping the framework conditions for an efficient and trustworthy digital ecosystem since 1995. In 2018, the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany was also founded under the association’s umbrella. I see this as a very important initiative, given that – together with the stakeholders of this digital infrastructure ecosystem – we have already been able to significantly raise awareness of the role of digital infrastructures among policymakers and the public in recent years. Our focus here and now is on the positive effects of digitalisation for Germany as a business location, side-by-side with the topic of sustainability.

How has Germany’s digitalisation journey progressed?

The importance of digitalisation has come more and more into focus in Germany over the past few years. This became particularly clear during the Covid-19 pandemic, when digital infrastructures essentially kept our entire working and social life up and running. At the same time, however, the biggest digital policy challenges also came to the fore. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go to achieve the digital awakening currently envisaged by the German federal government (comprised of the SPD/the Greens/the FDP) in its coalition agreement. Our latest Civey survey revealed that 71 per cent of Germans are dissatisfied with the current digital policy. What we need is a digital policy with a long-term perspective that does not capitulate to the department principle and that at the same time can react quickly to acute crises and challenges – such as the energy crisis and the climate crises.

What impact can digitalisation have on helping Germany to achieve its sustainability targets?

Digital services and technologies offer many innovative solutions for a more sustainable future. To take the utilisation of waste heat from data centres as an example: In purely calculated terms, in Frankfurt – the location of more than 60 data centres and the world’s largest Internet Exchange – all residential and office spaces could receive a climate-neutral heat supply by 2030 through waste heat utilisation.

In other cities, if we want to save CO2 and energy costs, the waste heat utilisation of data centres will definitely be among the top solutions in the coming years. But here, too, the political framework conditions must be appropriate: Approval procedures must be substantially streamlined and the CO2-free waste heat must be fed into the local and district heating network to a greater extent than it has been to date.

And there are many more examples, studies and research projects that underline how digitalisation is part of the solution to achieve the climate goals in Germany. To showcase this range of examples, this year we launched the #JOINTHESOLUTION campaign.

What are you most looking forward to at Connected Germany?

I am looking forward to meeting and interacting with key decision-makers of the digital infrastructure provider ecosystem. Connected Germany offers a suitable platform for the entire industry. Without a doubt, the event also shows that functioning networks are every bit as important as high-performance data centres for advancing Germany as a business location.

You can hear from Alexander and the rest of our amazing speaker lineup at this year’s Connected Germany – follow the link to secure your place!

The post Digital infrastructure’s role in shaping a sustainable Germany first appeared on Total Telecom.