News

The operator says its AI-powered spam detection solution is catching over 100 million potential spam calls a day

This week, Bharti Airtel has announced the rollout of its new AI-powered spam detection solution.

The solution, which has reportedly been developed over the past year, is able to analyse calls and alert the receiver of a potential spam call in just 2 milliseconds. The caller then has the option of whether to block the call or not.

The solution uses a purpose-built algorithm to accurately classify communications as “Suspected SPAM”, as well as scanning SMS messages for malicious links that have been identified on a centralised database.

“In 2 milliseconds our solution processes 1.5 billion messages and 2.5 billion calls every day. Our solution has been able to identify 100 million potential spam calls and 3 million spam SMSes originating every day,” explained Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal.

The solution will be rolled out to all of Airtel’s 387 million Indian customers for free.

“Spam has become a menace for customers. We have spent the last 12 months to solve this comprehensively. Today marks a milestone as we launch the country’s first AI-powered spam-free network that will shield our customers from the continuous onslaught of intrusive and unwanted communications,” said Vittal.

Calls and messages made through apps, such as WhatsApp, will be unaffected, a fact that Vittal called “one of the pain points” in the ongoing battle against spam.

The scale of the spam calling challenge in India is enormous. Earlier this year, media reports suggested that more than 60% of Indian’s receive three or more spam calls a day.

Indeed, the issue is well known by the government, which set up the National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC) in response in 2011; this allows registered mobile users to opt out of unwanted marketing calls.

While the NDNC has reduced the number of spam calls to these customers, data suggests it is far from perfect, with a survey from LocalCircles showing that 95% of people who registered still receive unwanted calls and messages.

Ironically, while AI is here being used to combat spam, it should be noted that it is also being used by bad actors to help facilitate it. Last year, for example, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it would be assessing AI’s impact on robocalling and telefraud, noting that AI deepfakes were becoming increasingly adept at mimicking users voices.

“While we are aware of the challenges AI can present, there is also significant potential to use this technology to benefit communications networks and their customers—including in the fight against junk robocalls and robotexts,” said FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “We need to address these opportunities and risks thoughtfully, and the effort we are launching today will help us gain more insight on both fronts.”

Keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news with Total Telecom’s daily newsletter 

Also in the news:
Meta resumes use of UK user posts to train its AI models
Verizon’s 4,800 job cuts will cost over $1.9 billion
CMA questions Vodafone–Three merger after second probe

The Northern Ireland Assembly yesterday met to debate the need for improvements in rural mobile coverage, which among other things highlighted problems with “major delays in the planning process” for approving new 4G / 5G masts, the need for greater infrastructure sharing and question marks over what impact the barrier busting task force has actually had.

In case anybody has forgotten. The Department for the Economy (DfE) published a rather vague Mobile Action Plan for Northern Ireland (MAP NI) in June 2022, which set out a series of measures that the executive should take to help support the wider £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) project – aiming to extend geographic 4G / mobile broadband coverage (aggregate) to 95% of the UK by the end of 2025 (84% when only considering the areas where you’ll be able to take 4G from all providers).

The action plan proposed to look at ways of ensuring the planning system could support the roll-out of new mobile networks, foster Digital Champions within local authorities to help with operator engagement, enable greater use of publicly owned assets to support related infrastructure and establish a NI Barrier Busting Taskforce to tackle obstructions to such builds.

Since then, there has been some progress and Ofcom recently reported that the SRN project had largely achieved its first coverage target for Partial Not-Spot (PNS) areas (here), which reflects locations that receive coverage from at least one operator, but not all. The PNS goal was for 4G to cover 88% of the UK’s landmass by the end of June 2024.

The regulator’s report noted that only Three UK failed to achieve the 88% UK target on time, although it should be noted that all four of the primary operators (EE, Three UK, O2 and Vodafone) managed to meet to even exceed the PSN target when only looking specifically at Northern Ireland:

Despite this, yesterday’s debate in the NI Assembly (here) saw ministers highlight how the barrier busting taskforce, which was established and met for the first time in December 2022, has since met only twice and few ministers seemed to know what, if anything, it had actually managed to achieve.

The debate also contained the usual complaints about gaps in rural mobile coverage, as well as a desire by some ministers to see greater sharing of mast sites (the SRN already does a lot of this) and calls for putting the building of new masts under Permitted Development (PD) rights (upgrades to existing masts are already partly covered by PD). But the latter was rejected by NI’s Minister for Infrastructure, John O’Dowd.

John O’Dowd, NI Minister for Infrastructure, said:

“I note Members’ concern about the fact that the [barrier busting] group has met only twice. Following the debate, I will undertake to go back and see what barriers there are to the barrier busting task force’s meeting. I will see whether we can ensure that the group meets more regularly and that the issues that are at the heart of concerns are dealt with in a way that they can be.

I suspect that some in the industry are seeking permitted developments for new masts etc, but I do not think that that is the road to go down. Some Members expressed concerns about the visual impact that telecommunications masts can have in rural communities. Some residents have also had concerns that, in some instances, have been ill-informed. It is only right and proper that, when new significant development is proposed in an area, communities have a right to raise their concerns and that those are dealt with appropriately through planning legislation.”

The debate ultimately ended with the assembly agreeing to issue a joint statement that recognised the “major delays in the planning process” (holding up some mast sites), but which doesn’t really say much in terms of how the big challenges should be resolved.

The Agreed Statement / Question

That this Assembly recognises the need for high-quality mobile coverage in rural communities across Northern Ireland; supports the roll-out of the Shared Rural Network (SRN) by the UK Government and four leading mobile network operators and welcomes progress to date; expresses concern that further investment in new and existing phone masts under this initiative has been jeopardised by major delays in the planning process; believes no community should be left behind as a consequence; acknowledges the work of the Department for the Economy in leading the barrier busting task force and its planning subgroup, including the involvement of the Department for Infrastructure, local councils and mobile network companies; endorses the aims of the subgroup to identify barriers relating to the planning system and to investigate best practice in mobile network development; further believes no community should be left behind; and calls on the Minister for Infrastructure to support the work of the task force to address the barriers to extending the 4G and 5G mobile network in rural areas, whilst respecting the principles of an inclusive planning system and ensuring the benefits of mobile coverage are maximised across this region.

London-focused broadband ISP CommunityFibre (CF), which has rolled out their 3Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to around 1.4 million UK premises (predominantly in the city), has launched a new discount that cuts their mid-tier 500Mbps (symmetric) speed package to £20 per month on a 24-month term (price increases £4 post-contract).

Just to put this in perspective. Residential customers of CF typically pay from £21 per month on a 24-month term for speeds of 150Mbps (symmetric) with free setup, a 60-day satisfaction guarantee and an included WiFi 6 router, which rises to £56 for their top 3Gbps tier. The pricing is currently fixed if you join before 4th November 2024. At the end of your contract, your price will increase by £4 per month.

CommunityFibre also offers a separate 35Mbps social broadband tariff at £12.50 a month (rising to £16.50 after the first 12-months), although their 35Mbps plan isn’t technically a true Social Tariff because it’s available to everybody covered by their network (i.e. not just those on state benefits).

The special discount on their 500Mbps package will be available to take until 21st October 2024.

Alternative network provider Gigaclear, which as of March 2024 has built a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 500,000 rural premises (RFS) in England (inc. 100,000 customers), has this week published their annual accounts to the end of 2023 and revealed some key figures for the year.

Just to recap. Gigaclear is principally owned by Infracapital, together with Equitix and Railpen. The company previously had investment commitments estimated to be worth up to around £1.1bn (here), although at the end of last year they also secured a £1.5bn debt facility (here) and recently won the £16.6m Project Gigabit rollout contract for East Gloucestershire (here), as well as the £26.5m contracts for North and South Oxfordshire (here).

The company’s annual accounts to the end of 2023 (here) naturally gives us a chance to see how Gigaclear has changed through the previous year, with the picture seeming to show an operator that is continuing to spend big while they scale up their build engine and prepare to deliver on those new Project Gigabit contracts. All this has been occurring during a period where many of their rivals have been force to cut jobs and slow their builds.

On the flip side, rural altnets like Gigaclear have been running for a while and thus carry a lot of debt, which is only going to grow as that build continues. In that sense, it’s good to see their customer base growing and general take-up still hovering at around the 20% mark, which should go higher once their rate of build slows in future years.

Remember that the figures below are to the end of 2023, thus the premises and customer figures stated above are slightly higher due to being a bit more recent.

Summary of Key Gigaclear Figures for 2023

➤ The company grew to 819 employees (2022: 670).

➤ Gigaclear’s network is now present in 26 counties of England (2022: 23).

➤ Built to a total of 166,252 extra premises during 2023 (2022: 118,000).

➤ Ready for Service (RFS) premises hit a total of 480,000 at the end of 2023 or 500,000 premises passed.

➤ Customers grew by 24,000 in the year (up by 41% from 17,000 last year) to total 92,000 (2022: 69,000).

➤ Gigaclear finished 2023 with customer installations reaching a monthly run rate of over 3,000 (15% of these also took their Home Phone service alongside broadband).

➤ Revenues increased by 32% to £33.8m (2022: £25.7m) – due to growth in their customer base.

➤ Losses for the year grew sharply to £138.3m (2022: £21.8m) – made worse by a market-to-market loss on their interest rate swaps of £23.8m (2022 had a £46.8m profit).

➤ Total assets reached £849m (2022: £701m).

➤ Total liabilities reached £845.7m (2022: £559.7m)

➤ Operating expenses for the year increased to £91.9m (2022: £63.75m) – in no small part due to Gigaclear scaling-up their build engine and upgrading systems, new staff etc.

➤ Total drawn debt grew to £657.6m (2022: £501m) – due to network construction work.

➤ The operator’s Trustpilot scored increased to 4.5 (up from 3.8).

➤ Revenue from the Government’s gigabit broadband voucher scheme increased by 28%.

Crowdsourced benchmarking firm Opensignal has today published their latest Mobile Network Experience Report for H2 2024, which examines the 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) services of all four primary networks – EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three UK – to find which delivers the best performance. Overall, EE scooped 10 out of 14 awards.

As usual, the report is based off data (speed and signal tests etc.) gathered from people using hundreds of thousands of devices (Smartphones etc.) between 1st June and 29th August 2024. The results were then processed to reveal how the primary mobile network operators compared across various categories.

The study continues to be predominantly focused upon the combined performance of 3G, 4G and 5G networks, but it also splits out some of the results for 5G-only connections. Overall, EE continued to pick up the win for most of the performance categories in the primary study, while Three UK came top for 5G download speed, 5G upload speed and general network availability (i.e. % of time users spent connected to a network), albeit not 5G availability where EE now tops the table.

Elsewhere, O2 only managed to pick up one win for ‘Coverage Experience’, while Vodafone failed to score any wins across any categories – despite still performing reasonably well in several areas.

Download Speed Experience – All Mobile Connections
(H2 2023 Result in Brackets)

1. EE 45.9Mbps (40Mbps)
2. Three UK 38Mbps (34.5Mbps)
3. Vodafone 31.1Mbps (27.9Mbps)
4. O2 23.1Mbps (20.9Mbps)

Upload Speed Experience – All Mobile Connections

1. EE 9.8Mbps (9.3Mbps)
2. Vodafone 7.8Mbps (8Mbps)
3. Three UK 7.1Mbps (6.3Mbps)
4. O2 5.3Mbps (5Mbps)

Download Speeds – 5G

1. Three UK 208.9Mbps (205.5Mbps)
2. Vodafone 138.7Mbps (114.3Mbps)
3. EE 96.8Mbps (99.5Mbps)
4. O2 80.1Mbps (77Mbps)

Upload Speeds – 5G

1. Three UK 19.2Mbps (17.5Mbps)
2. EE 17.7Mbps (15.9Mbps)
3. Vodafone 15.1Mbps (14.9Mbps)
4. O2 10.1Mbps (10Mbps)

UK Availability % – All Mobile Connections

1. Three UK 99.2% (99.1%)
2. EE 98.5% (98.5%)
3. O2 97.4% (97.3%)
4. Vodafone 95.4% (97.5%)

UK Availability % – 5G

1. EE 13.2% (10.6%)
2. Vodafone 9.6% (10%)
3. Three UK 9.3% (10.3%)
4. O2 8.3% (10.1%)

Overall, most of the mobile operators seemed to record a performance improvement over this time last year, albeit with smaller changes now that the first generation 5G deployments have reached some level of maturity. But sadly, O2 continued to generally trend toward the bottom of the pack across most of the key performance metrics.

However, the 5G availability (% of time spent on 5G) performance of Vodafone, Three UK and O2 all seemed to suffer a fall over this time last year, with O2’s drop from 10.1% to 8.3% being particularly pronounced. We aren’t quite sure why this has occurred, although 5G availability is one of those areas that can be affected by external factors that impact signal strength (e.g. the weather) and other changes (i.e. it doesn’t mean that 5G coverage shrank). The 3G switch off and wider changes in 4G signal strength, such as via the ‘Share Rural Network’ programme, may have also impacted this area.

Naturally, there are caveats to this sort of study, such as the fact that app-based crowdsourced data can be impacted by any limitations or locations of the devices or plans being used, which at the same time removes the ability to adopt a common type of hardware and environment to help form a solid baseline. Naturally, some operators also have better 4G or 5G coverage, lots of spectrum bands and more advanced networks than others too.

Suffice to say that performance testing like this may not always tell the whole story, although Opensignal are generally one of the better organisations at analysing such data.

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a website ad for Sky’s broadband ISP and subscription-based TV streaming sub-brand, NOW TV (NOW Broadband), after it failed to make clear the “significant conditions” of its free trials, which would automatically auto-renew at a fee.

The promotion itself was for one of NOW TV’s standard Entertainment Membership plans, which showed up after clicking the “Choose your membership” button on the company’s website in December 2023. Upon clicking that button, consumers were taken to a page showing two subscription options labelled “6 Month Saver” and “Fully Flexible”.

The text in a bullet list in the “6 Month Saver” subscription stated “Watch in Full HD on 3 devices at once with 1 month free Boost”, while small text stated: “New Boost members only. After your 1 month free trial Boost auto-renews at £6 a month unless cancelled”. Text in the “Fully Flexible” subscription stated: “Included: 7 day free trial of Cinema and Boost – cancel anytime”, while the small text stated “After your 7 day free trials, membership auto-renew monthly at £9.99 for Cinema and £6 for Boost. Cancel anytime”.

The free trials were automatically added to the basket and would auto-renew at a monthly charge, unless cancelled. But the ASA ruled that the advert was misleading because significant conditions of the offer(s) were all in the small print and did not immediately follow the reference to the free trials.

ASA Ruling Ref: A24-1229858 Sky UK Ltd

We understood that each free trial would auto-renew at a monthly charge, specifically £6 for “Boost” and £9.99 for “Cinema”, unless they were cancelled within the free trial period. We acknowledged that those significant conditions were stated at the bottom of the two boxes detailing each of the streaming packages. When compared, however, to the other text presented in the box, we considered this information was in a smaller font and a less prominent colour.

Furthermore, we noted that the text was positioned at the bottom of the boxes, underneath the buttons to select and purchase the consumer’s desired streaming package. We considered that, because the text was placed away from the references to the free trials and below the button to proceed in the consumer journey, consumers were more likely to overlook the significant conditions of the trials. We considered the presentation of such text made it significantly less prominent to consumers and increased the likelihood that consumers would miss that information.

Because the text outlining the significant conditions of the free trials was not clear in either size or clarity of font and did not immediately follow the reference to the free trials, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

As usual, the ASA banned the advert in its current form and told NOW TV to ensure that their future ads made sufficiently clear that free trials would auto-renew at a fee. Interestingly, this ruling appears to form part of a wider piece of work by the ASA, which is examining online choice architecture and how it impacts consumers (following complaints received and intelligence gathered by the ASA). This goes beyond merely examining static adverts and probes deeper into the selection process.

News  

The 5,536km-long America Europe Connect  (AEC-1) cable links the US to Ireland and the UK 

Subsea connectivity company Aqua Comms has expanded its network capacity by lighting a new fibre pair on the AEC-1 submarine cable system. The cable, which is Ireland’s first dedicated subsea cable, connects New York, Dublin, and London. 

The move is designed to meet the increasing demand for fast and reliable data transmission between the three nations.  Aqua Comms says the move has also presented an opportunity to reassess the system’s energy consumption, with newly lit fibre pair allowing for greater energy efficiency per Tb. 

“From a sustainability perspective, this new fibre pair has given us an opportunity to really analyse the entire system and supplier network to make significant energy savings,” said Chief Commercial Officer Nick Barton in a press release. 

“Through use of new technology, we will be able to generate more capacity per fibre pair, leading to better performance on power draw per Tb, and therefore a significantly more sustainable system. The system will also reduce regen requirements at our different cable landing stations and simplify backhauls to create a greener path,” he continued. 

Alongside lighting the new fibre pair, Aqua Comms revealed it also has plans to upgrade the system to the latest tech from Ciena in the coming months. AEC-1 currently uses Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Extreme optics, with Aqua Comms planning to upgrade to the next generation, WaveLogic 6 Extreme solution.  

This upgrade is expected to cut energy use per bit by more than 50%, and will allow for a wavelength capacity of 1.6Tbps. 

Join us at next year’s Submarine Networks EMEA, 18-19 February in London. Get tickets here! 

Also in the news:
Meta resumes use of UK user posts to train its AI models
Verizon’s 4,800 job cuts will cost over $1.9 billion
CMA questions Vodafone–Three merger after second probe

News

Swisscom first announced the €8 billion deal back in March, and notified the EU in August  

The European Commission has given the green light to Swisscom’s acquisition of Vodafone Italia, without conditions. The clearance, granted under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, is a crucial step toward finalising the transaction. 

The Italian Competition Authority is still reviewing the deal, having launched a deeper investigation earlier this month to assess the transaction’s impact on market competition, Swisscom noted. 

Swisscom expects the deal to be finalised by the first quarter of 2025. 

Once completed, Swisscom plans to merge Vodafone Italia with its Italian subsidiary, Fastweb, creating Italy’s second-largest fixed-line broadband provider, behind market leader Telecom Italia.  

The merger is expected to save around €600 million through synergies related to increased scale and efficiency, Swisscom says. 

Swisscom’s CEO, Christoph Aeschlimann, called the merger a “strong strategic fit”, saying it will add significant value to both companies.  

Vodafone will also continue to provide services to Swisscom for the next five years as part of the deal. 

The transaction forms part of Vodafone’s broader strategic efforts to streamline its European footprint in recent years. This shift has involved selling off or merging various business units across Europe, including the sale of its Spanish business and a merger with Three in the UK. 

Keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news with Total Telecom’s daily newsletter 

Also in the news:
Meta resumes use of UK user posts to train its AI models
Verizon’s 4,800 job cuts will cost over $1.9 billion
CMA questions Vodafone–Three merger after second probe

The state-aid backed Superfast North Yorkshire (SFNY) project, which was supported by £100m of investment (£85m from public sources), has finally reached completion and helped more than 200,000 extra premises to access faster broadband speeds via a mix of different technologies (FTTC, FTTP, Fixed Wireless etc.) and operators (Openreach and Quickline).

The SFNY project was managed by NYnet (i.e. the North Yorkshire County Council-owned broadband company) and financed by a mixture of funds from the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, EU, North Yorkshire County Council and some private funding from network suppliers. At the last check in 2022, take-up in the project’s intervention area had already exceeded 80%.

Regular readers might recall that Openreach completed their build contracts under the scheme in 2022 (here), which deployed a mix of fibre-based (FTTC and FTTP) networks to expand the reach of “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) lines into digitally disadvantaged areas (i.e. usually rural locations where there were no commercial builds being planned). This accounted for the lion’s share of the project’s roll-out.

In addition, Quickline also held a contract to deliver the final Phase 4 of the SFNY roll-out (here), which involved a public and private investment of £14.5m and saw the operator extending their “fibre-backed fixed wireless” network to bring “superfast, ultrafast and in some cases gigabit speed broadband” to a further 15,830 premises. But the latest announcement states that this has now also completed.

However, the council’s leader, Cllr Carl Les, warned that a connectivity gap remain and he has thus pledged to petition the Government to “ensure every household and business in the county has access to superfast internet“.

Councillor Carl Les said:

“The need to have access to superfast broadband is now part of everyday life for communities and businesses across the country.

We have had particular issues in North Yorkshire, which is largely down to the vast rural areas in the county. The superfast broadband programme in North Yorkshire has been instrumental in providing far better connections for tens of thousands of people.

It has given a strong foundation for attracting new enterprises as well as helping to ensure that rural communities can remain sustainable in the future.”

Matthew Lovegrove, Openreach’s Manager for Yorkshire and the Humber, said:

“The success of the Superfast North Yorkshire partnership is a great achievement and testament to the team who have worked so hard for the past 12 years.

Our own commercial build is currently building full fibre at pace across the county including Richmond, Skipton, Malton, Starbeck, Pickering, Selby, Scarborough and Harrogate with the services available to nearly half the premises in North Yorkshire. It’s part of our commitment to reach 25 million homes and businesses across the UK by December 2026.”

Quickline CEO, Sean Royce, added:

“The delivery of the Superfast North Yorkshire programme means thousands more homes and businesses, can now access much improved broadband speeds which will change their lives for the better.”

The focus for future deployments has now switched to the more centrally (government) managed Project Gigabit contract (Lot 31) for North Yorkshire, which is worth £73.5m and has already been awarded to Quickline (here). As part of that the network operator plans, over the next few years, to roll-out their gigabit-capable broadband network to cover an additional 36,300 premises in some of the hardest-to-reach areas of the county.

Mobile operator Vodafone UK has today claimed, as part of their efforts to build support for a merger with Three UK, that their joint plans for a nationwide roll-out of 5G Standalone (mobile broadband) technology could save regular road users £2bn a year on fuel and boost productivity through remote working on trains by £1bn (GVA) a year.

At present most existing 5G networks in the UK are Non-Standalone (NSA), which means they’re still partly reliant on some older 4G infrastructure. By comparison, 5GSA reflects a pure end-to-end 5G network that can deliver improvements such as ultra-low latency times, faster mobile broadband upload speeds, network slicing capabilities, better support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, increased reliability and security etc.

Vodafone has already made 5G SA technology available in the “busy areas” of 23 cities and more than 300 locations across the UK, although it’s currently only accessible to customers with supporting devices on their Ultra plans. But the operator has also pledged, as part of their merger with Three UK, to extend the service to more than 99% of the UK’s population by 2034 and push fixed wireless access (home broadband) to 82% of homes by 2030.

The new modelling, which was put together by WPI Strategy, is designed to support all this by using survey data on the working and connectivity patterns on trains to estimate that there could be up to 28.2 million train journeys every year in the UK where people want to work, but don’t due to poor connectivity. Changing this, says Vodafone, could deliver £1bn in extra productivity for the UK economy.

In addition, the survey claims that 5G SA could help to reduce train delays (good luck with that one!), which would save £10m in delay compensation that Vodafone seems to think would magically be “reinvested into critical infrastructure” instead. Similarly, reduced congestion and journey delays for freight drivers thanks to 5G-connected devices on the UK’s roads would equate to productivity savings of £140m per year for businesses in the sector by reducing traffic, making journeys smarter, and deliveries more time efficient.

Alongside the modelling, a new poll of 2,000 UK adults revealed that 60% say poor mobile connectivity on trains stops people using journeys productively – whether to work, catch up with friends or watch a film.

Andrea Donà, Chief Network Officer of Vodafone UK, said:

“The national rollout of a 5G Standalone network has the potential to transform connectivity on the UK’s roads and railways. Across road and rail alone, it could unlock £3bn a year for the UK through boosted productivity and by saving fuel costs through smoother journeys.

Without the proposed merger between Vodafone UK and Three UK, the UK misses out on an £11bn self-funded infrastructure investment to deliver 5G Standalone to 95% of the population by 2030 and 99% of the UK population by 2034.”

At the end of the day, deploying 5G SA more widely and at a faster pace could deliver various improvements, which is something to be both welcomed and encouraged. But we’d caution against accepting the inflated optimism and hype of these anecdotal reports as an accurate reflection of future reality, since in our experience the real-world outcomes are often a lot more modest and harder to quantify.

As we always say, trying to accurately gauge the economic impact of deploying faster broadband or better mobile is notoriously difficult, not least because most people and services won’t be starting from a point of zero connectivity and many of the most common internet tasks (e.g. online shopping, banking etc.) only need a fairly basic connection. Not that better connectivity isn’t needed, but diminishing returns are a factor.

In the case of road and rail users, many of the benefits described above could similarly be delivered if good 4G and regular 5G coverage was improved. However, connectivity isn’t the only problem that is difficult to solve, since trains can still be crowded, bumpy and generally uncomfortable spaces to be working within – 5G SA won’t fix that.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently gave Vodafone and Three UK a chance to propose solutions for some of the significant competition concerns that they uncovered with the proposed merger (here). The operators are currently preparing a response to that, which is likely to take the form of several key commitments. If the operators can satisfy the CMA, which seems probable, then there’s a fair chance the deal will be approved.