News 

The move is part of a new strategic direction devised by the company’s new CEO, Kim Young-seop, who has been in the role since August 

South Korean telco Korea Telecom (KT) has announced a major restructuring programme as part of an increased focus on AI and cloud services.  

This strategic shift involves the establishment of two new subsidiaries and significant changes to the company’s workforce. 

According to the newspaper Business Korea, the company will create two new subsidiaries – “tentatively” named KT OSP and KT P&M – and implement a large-scale voluntary retirement scheme for employees with over 10 years of service or those nearing retirement. 

A board meeting was held this week to decide on the final details of the subsidiaries, which are set to be properly established in January next year.  

KT OSP will reportedly focus on field operations and network management, with an initial capital investment of 71 billion won ($52.7 million), while KT P&M will focus on customer service, with a smaller capital base of 10 billion won ($7.4 million). Nearly 3,800 employees will be transferred to these new businesses, which are set to begin operations on January 1, 2025.The reallocation of affected employees is expected to begin as early as this month. 

Alongside this restructuring, KT says that its voluntary retirement scheme will begin from next month. Exactly how many jobs are expected to be cut was not specified, but the total number of employees affected by the reallocation and voluntary retirement could reach “up to 5,700”, suggesting that around 2,000 jobs could be eliminated.
As part of its broader strategy, KT is investing heavily in AI and cloud sectors. The company has partnered with Microsoft to co-develop AI models and data center infrastructures, with a joint investment of 2.4 trillion won over the next five years. This move aligns KT with industry trends, as other telecom companies like SK Telecom are also investing in AI and offering early retirement programs. 

In related news, this week KT and Samsung have been chosen by the Korean Navy to deploy a private 5G network as part of its ‘Smart Naval Port’ project. The project, which is the first of its kind at a Korean naval base, began this summer with the goal to complete deployment by the end of next year.  

“The companies will build a more intelligent and fully independent network infrastructure to provide seamless coverage and enhanced connectivity for the Republic of Korea Navy 2nd Fleet,” the press release stated. 

The new ICT network will have use cases including intelligent security monitoring and battleship operation management.   

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter   

Also in the news:
Singtel becomes latest telco to launch AI cloud services
South Korean telcos accused of collusion, may face fines of $4bn
Hexatronic: Innovation will be needed to reach rural customers 

Customers of UK ISP Virgin Media’s (O2) and certain pay TV, broadband, phone and or mobile bundles, primarily those that usually add their ‘Stream’ box, may have noticed that the provider renamed this from ‘Stream‘ to ‘Flex‘ this week. The change is partly cosmetic, but for new customers there’s now an extra £5 monthly charge.

Until now if a customer wanted to add Virgin Media’s Stream TV box to their package then there was just a single one-off £35 activation fee to pay and no additional monthly cost, unless you chose to add a premium TV subscription. Otherwise, Stream is just a streaming TV box that gives customers access to lots of UK Freeview TV channels, the usual apps (iPlayer, YouTube etc.) and the ability to add Virgin’s own premium TV content.

However, since Monday, the name has changed to ‘Flex’ (oddly the box is still called a ‘Stream Box‘) and the one-off activation fee has been reduced from £35 to £10. So far so good, but Virgin Media has also introduced a monthly £5 charge for new customers, which for those expecting to keep using the device for a while may seem like poor value for money.

The good news is that existing ‘Stream’ customers will not have to pay the new charge (Virgin Community Forum), although it remains unclear why Virgin Media has opted to take this approach. But it’s entirely possible that the name change may have been intended to avoid a conflict with other pay TV brands, such as Sky Stream, although ‘Flex’ seems like an oddly non-descriptive choice as a replacement.

Virgin Media’s Statement

Stream from Virgin Media customers may have noticed a message in recent bills advising of an upcoming name change to their service. We can confirm that from today it will be called Flex. There is nothing to worry about, and this won’t affect your service in any way – you will still be able to enjoy your favourite entertainment in exactly the same way as you do today, and any subscriptions you have added will be unaffected. Your equipment (TV box) will still be known as the Stream Box. As a result of this change, you will now see Flex on your bills, and areas of your account view within My Virgin Media will be renamed too (E.g. “My Flex Plan”).

Sadly, Flex isn’t the only change, with some of Virgin Media’s premium TV subscription add-ons having also experienced a price increase this week.

Contributed Article

By Angel Dobardziev, Senior Director, European Consulting at IDC and Chris Barnard, Vice President, European Telecoms and Infrastructure, at IDC

Telcos in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) are coming under increasing investor pressure to deliver stronger growth. The average year-on-year (YoY) revenue growth rate among the “Big 5” European telcos — BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, and Vodafone — in 2023 and the first half of 2024 was 0% and 1%, respectively. The group of four leading Middle East and Africa telcos, namely Etisalat, MTN, Mobily, and STC, are doing better, with a collective year-on-year revenue growth rate of 5% in H1 2024, but investors are noting that this is slower than their collective 9% year-on-year revenue growth in 2023.

What is going on here? First, the core telco business of providing network connectivity and communications services to consumers and business — which accounts for over four fifths of the revenues of most telcos — is challenged by a new breed of competitors. Users increasingly rely on the more convenient MS Teams and Zoom apps for their business calls, and WhatsApp or Viber apps for their personal calls and messages, which is hurting telco revenues. And a whole host of disruptive players are challenging telcos’ broadband and enterprise networking business, from new entrant fibercos offering full fiber at attractive prices to consumers and small businesses to systems integrators pitching SD WAN and private 5G solutions to large enterprises.

Second — and more important — is the fact that EMEA telcos’ efforts to expand into “beyond connectivity” solutions have not had a major impact on the growth needle so far. Telcos have a bewildering range of market positioning, customer, and technology choices to make in this area, as we show in this diagram:

From a customer perspective, telcos need to not only find ways to serve existing consumer and business customers better, but they also need to consider targeting new customer segments in the broader ICT ecosystem. But the real maze of choices is in the top part of this growth diagram, where telcos need to decide if and how they play effectively in technology areas such as security, communication platform as-a-service (CPaaS), cloud/datacentre, and sustainability, to name just a few. The complexity is compounded by the myriad of sub-segment (i.e., IoT software and services versus IoT connectivity), vertical (manufacturing versus healthcare), and geographic considerations.

As it stands, telcos need to address dozens of “where to play,” “how to win,” and “how to execute” jobs to be done — and do these extremely well — as they seek to address the growth imperative, illustrated on the left-hand side of the diagram below:

And yet, there are three big jobs that telcos need to do particularly well:

Prioritise growth opportunities: No telco will have the capacity to address every segment in every solution box outlined in the growth matrix above, so either/or choices will have to be made.
Identify and incorporate global best practices: Telcos do not need to reinvent the wheel in each of the adjacent growth opportunities, innovative solutions by both telcos and non-telcos across the world offer valuable lessons for those willing to look.
Define winning value propositions: Telcos often have good value propositions in a range of “beyond connectivity” areas, but crucial ingredients that would make them great and irresistible by clients are often lacking.

IDC can help telcos address these critical growth jobs to be done with three well-established custom solutions:

IDC’s Opportunity Thermometer helps telcos identify, select and prioritise the best and most attractive growth opportunities within or outside current product and geographic markets — that are within client’s capabilities to exploit.
IDC’s Innovation Radar helps CSPs identify and integrate inventive best practices and/or value propositions — and leverage the insights from these to accelerate revenue growth and boost customer loyalty.
IDC’s Value Prop Accelerator solution helps CSPs build or validate winning value propositions in target growth areas that often sit outside the connectivity and communication perimeter (e.g., cloud, security, APIs)

Should you wish to learn more about these and other IDC Custom Solutions, please contact your IDC account manager or send an email to info@idc.com. For more info on addressing growth in the telco space, please register for the following webcast: Addressing the telco growth imperative in EMEA

The Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council in Staffordshire (England) has recommended that the ITS Technology Group, which operates wholesale full fibre broadband and Ethernet networks (“Faster Britain“) across urban parts of the UK, be appointed to build up to 50km of a new fibre network to help reach poorly served areas.

Most of the market town is already reached by Openreach and Virgin Media’s (VMO2) gigabit-capable broadband ISP networks, but some patches in the central area remain poorly served and that’s where the new network could help. This will seek to connect public sector sites, but would also benefit areas within the town that are not within the scope of digital upgrades from existing network providers.

The project, which is being supported by an allocation of £2.285 million from the Newcastle Town Deal grant monies, is “intended to seek benefits for all businesses and residents of the town centre and along the A34, including the business parks north of the town centre to support the economic development with improved digital connectivity within Newcastle town centre“.

The proposal, which was this week recommended for approval, requires a contractual agreement with ITS Technology for construction and operation of the fibre network. This will include an Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) agreement to secure for the Council an exclusive and unrestricted ‘right of use’ to access a specified amount of the network’s capacity for 15 years.

Simon Tagg, Council Leader, said:

“Commercial providers cover many areas, but parts of the town centre and outlying business parks can be overlooked, which is why we’re stepping in with this initiative to back communities.

Not only do we want to encourage growth and investment for smaller businesses, but we’re providing residents with the infrastructure they need to improve their day-to-day lives.”

The open access network, which also calls for “digital hubs” to be located in existing community centres/local facilities within the Newcastle Town Deal area, would be accessible to others and could thus provide an opportunity for further private sector investment into local business parks (i.e. there is potential for the Council to realise a modest revenue share from the transit fees charged).

The project is expected to cover multiple Wards that are within the Newcastle Town Deal boundary, namely Crackley and Red Street, Bradwell, Holditch and Chesterton, Wolstanton, Cross Heath, Knuttton, Silverdale, May Bank, Thistleberry, Town, Keele, Westlands, Clayton, Westbury Park and Northwood Park.

The new fibre itself would be delivered by harnessing as much of Openreach’s Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) product (i.e. running new fibre via their existing cable ducts) as possible to minimise disruptive street works.

Network operator Openreach (BT) has introduced a new special offer for broadband ISPs that discounts the charge on 10Gbps Cablelinks for their FTTP and FTTC lines (GEA), nationwide, to just £399 +vat when taken on Layer 2 Switches (L2S) older than 6 months (the regular connection cost is normally three times higher).

The Cablelink (Ethernet) products are how Openreach provide data capacity for their full fibre and other connections (i.e. the connection between their fibre headend and an ISP’s equipment). Suffice to say that any discount on this side may also feed down to impact the price consumers may pay for their service from an ISP (more likely for the biggest providers), so they’re worth keeping an eye on.

The latest discount is available to ISPs irrespective of whether they’re already taking advantage of the “Equinox” offer for cheaper full fibre FTTP line rentals. But ISPs won’t be able to benefit from it if they’ve previously purchased a 10Gb Cablelink on the same L2S or the L2S is already at capacity.

The special offer will run from 1st December 2024 until 31st March 2026 (details here).

News

The operator’s rivals, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, both launched 5G services in 2022

This week, Vodafone Idea (Vi) has announced plans to launch commercial 5G services by March 2025.

The operator says its initial rollout will cover all metros and major cities in 17 of India’s 22 telecom circles (essentially licencing regions), beginning with Delhi and Mumbai.

Vi estimates the rollout will include the rollout of 5G equipment to 75,000 existing 4G sites over the next three years.

The news follows the announcement of multibillion dollar 4G and 5G equipment deals with Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung earlier this month.

Vi also noted that it continues to aggressively roll out 4G, aiming for 90% population coverage with 4G by June next year.

The operator’s existing 4G network covers roughly 77% of the population.

“We are not going to be too aggressive on 5G, we will go by case-to-case basis depending on how the 5G is growing, how the use cases and device penetration are happening,” said Vi’s chief technology officer Jagbir Singh.

Singh noted that 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) remains an exciting uses case for 5G, with Vi likely to launch a commercial 5G FWA offering “three to six months after the 5G launch”.

“This is a good use case right now, in absence of any other good use case to monetise 5G. We will also do it,” said Singh, noting that rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel were both having significant success with their respective FWA services.

It is worth noting here, however, just how much of a 5G laggard Vi is compared to Airtel and Jio, both of which launched their own commercial 5G services in 2022. Jio already had 130 million 5G users as of August this year, having recently reached ‘nationwide coverage’. Airtel, similarly, is not far behind with roughly 90 million 5G subscribers.

Catching up to these figures will be a major challenge for cash strapped Vi. Knowing this, and with 5G revenues remaining relatively low across the sector, it should come as little surprise that the company is being relatively cautious in its expensive 5G rollout and instead trying to consolidate its position in 4G.

In related news, this week the Department of Telecoms (DoT) has reportedly drafted a Cabinet note proposing to eliminate bank guarantees for deferred spectrum payments.

If passed, this proposal would be a huge boon for Vi, which currently needs to provide the government with bank guarantees of almost $3 billion in the coming months, related to its spectrum repayments due next year.

Vi missed the first deadline to submit bank guarantees back in September and began petitioning the DoT to waive the bank guarantees shortly after.

Removing the need to secure these bank guarantees would significantly free up Vi’s cash flow for the following year and therefore have a major impact on the company’s 4G and 5G rollouts.

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter  

Also in the news:
Singtel becomes latest telco to launch AI cloud services
South Korean telcos accused of collusion, may face fines of $4bn
Hexatronic: Innovation will be needed to reach rural customers

Broadband ISP Plusnet has this week introduced a bunch of new discounts across their home broadband packages for new customers, which for example have reduced the monthly price of their top 900Mbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) package to just £39.99 per month on a 24-month term.

The internet provider’s fibre broadband packages are typically data-only plans (no home phone) that include unlimited usage, a new Hub Two wireless router (re-branded BT SmartHub 2), a 24-month minimum contract term, Plusnet SafeGuard and Protect – both powered by Norton – and free activation.

Prices currently start at £27.99 per month for their 145Mbps service (£43.20 after 24-months), before rising to £29.99 for 300Mbps (£49.38 thereafter), £32.99 for 500Mbps (£58.02 thereafter) and £39.99 for 900Mbps (£67.89 thereafter). But be aware that prices tend to rise mid-contract each year on 31st March by £3.

Several recent statements and FCC filings for SpaceX’s popular Starlink service, which offers ultrafast broadband connectivity via a global mega constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), have hinted that the provider is still aiming to deliver gigabit (1Gbps+) speeds to consumers, and they have a plan for achieving it.

At present Elon Musk’s Starlink network has 6,458 satellites (c.2,200 are v2 Mini / GEN 2A) in orbit – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km – and they’re in the process of adding thousands more by the end of 2027. Customers in the UK typically pay from £75 a month for a 30-day term, plus £299 for hardware on the ‘Standard’ plan (inc. £20 postage), which promises internet latency times of 25-60ms, downloads of c. 25-100Mbps and uploads of c. 5-10Mbps.

However, those with a long enough memory may recall that, prior to its commercial launch, the operator was originally aiming to deliver up to 1Gbps speeds to customers (possibly even rising up to 10Gbps in the future). But once launched, the service has often struggled to get much above peaks of around 200-300Mbps, while average performance is still considerably lower.

For example, the average (median) UK download speed on Starlink is currently 90.7Mbps and this rises up to 156.9Mbps for those with the top 10% of fastest connections, while upload speeds average 11.2Mbps or 16.4Mbps for those in the top 10% (here). Suffice to say that the network is currently a long way off the 1Gbps+ mark, which also helps to keep it affordability.

What the future holds

SpaceX has long envisaged that their new Starship rocket, which is currently still a work-in-progress but is rapidly nearing the point of being able to handle commercial launches, as being the game changer that would be needed in order to loft a much larger number of fully sized (heavier) next generation v2 and even v3 Starlink satellites. Such satellites would be able to handle much more capacity.

The good news (credits to PC Mag) is that, as Starship progresses, we’re now starting to see signs of Starlink talking about gigabit speeds again. For example, SpaceX recently requested that the FCC allow it to make several updates to its v2 (second generation) satellites, which would bring them a bit closer to earth (i.e. lowering their altitudes from 525-535km to 480-475km) and allowing them to harness additional radio spectrum in the E band (i.e 71-74GHz downlink and 81-84GHz uplink).

The language used in this filing does not mince words, including talk of these changes making it possible to “deliver gigabit-speeds, low-latency broadband and ubiquitous mobile connectivity to all Americans and the billions of people around the world who lack adequate broadband.” The same goal was recently echoed by one of SpaceX’s top executives.

Michael Nicolls, VP of Starlink Engineering at SpaceX, said (X):

“The next generation @starlink satellite will launch on Starship and deliver gigabit connectivity anywhere in the world. We got one step closer to that reality today [13th Oct 2024] with an amazing Flight 5!”

Naturally, we still don’t know when this would become viable at the consumer level and rivals may yet attempt to block some of the recent FCC requests, which has happened before (LEO is an increasingly competitive environment). At the same time, we’ve heard all this talk of gigabit and fibre-like speeds before – some years ago now, although turning that aspiration into an affordable reality for consumers remains a slow, expensive and complex process.

Some customers of alternative network provider LightSpeed Broadband, which has built a gigabit-capable broadband (FTTP) network across 250,000 premises in the East of England, are reporting that the operator has been experiencing network disruption since around 2pm yesterday.

Sadly, LightSpeed is another one of those ISPs that doesn’t have a dedicated Service Status page, which has made it difficult for customers to find answers without needing to contact the provider directly. The provider’s social media pages on X and LinkedIn were similarly devoid of any useful updates, although their Facebook Page did carry a notice, which was only posted 2 hours ago (despite the problem starting yesterday).

“We know that some of our customers have been affected by an outage we have experienced in our Kings Lynn Exchange. We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience that this may have caused,” said the statement. The provider also stated that their customers should now be “back up and running“, although we separately note that a few people are still complaining about problems.

“However to ensure continuation of services we will be planning to replace [some related] hardware to mitigate the risk of this occurring again in the future. This replacement is being planned for today. There may be a further short break in service whilst our engineers physically replace the affected component,” added the operator. This may help to explain why everything isn’t yet 100% back to normal.

According to feedback from some of the affected customers, the issue appears to have impacted a wide area around Norfolk and possibly beyond. Once again, we really must stress the importance of ISPs ensuring that they’re able to both offer a useful Service Status page and to ensure it’s kept up-to-date in a timely fashion.

Visual Map of LightSpeed’s Network

Press Release

An innovative ‘Dig Once’ policy is continuing to demonstrate its value in reducing carbon emissions, minimising disruption and successfully expanding the county’s digital connectivity.

Through Light Blue Fibre, a joint venture between Cambridgeshire County Council and the University of Cambridge to commercially market the fibre assets of both the University and the Council, this forward-thinking approach is helping to yield substantial environmental and economic benefits.

The Dig Once policy, which was first introduced in 2019 as part of the Connecting Cambridgeshire programme, integrates fibre ducting into new transport infrastructure projects.

Councillors at the Council’s Asset & Procurement Committee meeting on Tuesday 15 October were given an update about the progress of Light Blue Fibre over the last year, and heard how the Council’s Dig Once Policy of installing fibre ducting into new transport schemes enables telecom operators to avoid costly retrofitting and reduces carbon emissions.

To date, over 21km of additional fibre ducting has been installed or is planned across Cambridgeshire by 2025, ensuring gigabit-capable broadband is rolled out quickly and efficiently. The policy has already prevented the release of more than 20 tonnes of CO2 – the equivalent of nearly half a million miles driven by an average car – while reducing the need for costly, disruptive roadworks.

Cllr Ros Hathorn, Chair of Cambridgeshire County Council’s Assets and Procurement Committee, said: “The Light Blue Fibre venture showcases the value of long-term collaboration and the importance of strategic planning to deliver greener and smarter infrastructure.

“Connecting Cambridgeshire’s Dig Once policy demonstrates how we can work together to improve connectivity while reducing carbon emissions and disruption in our communities. By integrating digital infrastructure into our transport planning, we’re not only delivering short-term benefits but also laying the groundwork for a sustainable, connected future for the region.

“So far, this policy has resulted in a huge CO2 reduction and significantly less disruption to road users, thanks to the proactive installation of ducting as part of new road projects.”

Light Blue Fibre has played a pivotal role in enabling telecom providers like CityFibre and Gigaclear to connect hard-to-reach areas, speeding up the deployment of gigabit broadband and benefiting thousands of homes and businesses. Pre-installed fibre ducting has allowed Gigaclear to avoid disruptive engineering works and provide full-fibre broadband to over 2,000 properties in Linton and surrounding communities.

In Whittlesey, fibre ducting installed under the new Ralph Butcher Causeway – built to replace the Kings Dyke level crossing – is being used by CityFibre to bring gigabit connectivity to over 5000 homes and businesses that would otherwise have been challenging to reach across busy rail lines.

Light Blue Fibre is also in discussions with a global cloud services provider to further extend the reach of its infrastructure, ensuring that the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area continues to benefit from cutting-edge digital connectivity while supporting the Council’s ambition to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2045.

Connecting Cambridgeshire

The Connecting Cambridgeshire programme, hosted by Cambridgeshire County Council and led by Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority, with additional funding from the Greater Cambridge Partnership, is driving improvements to Cambridgeshire’s digital connectivity infrastructure – for fibre broadband, mobile and public access Wifi coverage – and using smart technology to support economic growth and help businesses and communities to thrive.

As part of the programme, the Smart initiative brings together Cambridgeshire-based Universities, local authorities and businesses with a focus on improving the use of data, embedding digital solutions and exploring how emerging technologies can be used to develop innovative solutions to improve the quality of life in market towns across the county.

This multi-agency programme, is working with Government bodies, local councils, and external organisations, including telecoms suppliers, mobile operators and technology experts to make it easier to access public services, and help meet some of the key challenges of our age – including climate change mitigation, sustainable transport and the management of water and energy resources.

For more information visit connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk.