A network operator called Step Telecoms UK has revealed that they’re planning to build a new gigabit-capable Dark Fibre network and lease it along with duct infrastructure on a wholesale basis to its data centre operator clients, which will initially focus on sites in London, Manchester and Slough (inc. some connections to coastal UK subsea cable landing stations).

The plan was revealed as part of the company’s application for Code Powers from Ofcom, which are typically sought to help speed-up deployments of new fibre and cut costs, not least by reducing the number of licences needed for street works. The powers can also help with supporting access to run new fibre via Openreach’s (BT) existing cable ducts and poles (PIA).

However, Step Telecoms UK (10724266) is currently listed on Companies House as being in a “Dormant” state, which usually means that it’s not doing any business (trading) and doesn’t yet have any other income. The business seems to have been in that state since shortly after it was first incorporated, all the way back in April 2017. But the new application suggests this may soon change.

Digging deeper. One of the company’s two active Directors, John Coughlan, appears to be a Director of another business at the same Sheffield address (Unit 3 Rotherside Road) called Oracy Ltd, which claims to be one of the “leading service providers in both telecommunication and [the] electric vehicle charging industry“. We did attempt to load the associated website at https://oracy.co.uk, although it appears to have an invalid security (SSL) certificate. But otherwise there’s not a lot more to add, yet.

Interview

The UK’s wholesale mobile market is changing rapily in 2024, with the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) ecosystem set to expand to almost 25% of the market.

At Connected Britain 2024, we caught up with Stuart MacLauchlan, Business Development Director at Vodafone Wholesale, about the growth of the UK’s MVNO market and how the shift to eSIM is gaining momentum.

Check out the full interview below

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

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Neil, reflecting on the transition, said, “After nearly 30 years in the telecoms sector it’s time I stepped down from the front line. I want to welcome Nathan Vautier to Freedom Fibre and wish him every success driving the company forward.

News

According to reports, the sale could raise hundreds of millions of euros

Reports on Friday suggest that digital infrastructure specialist Cellnex is currently in discussions with advisors regarding the potential sale of its French data centre unit.

While the financial details of any potential sale were not revealed, two anonymous sources told Reuters that the deal could fetch “a few hundred million euros”.

According to the company website, Cellnex has over 100 Edge data centres in France, operated by its NexLoop unit, which it acquired in 2020.

Cellnex is the largest telecoms tower operator in Europe, having grown enormously at the start of the decade through a highly aggressive pursuit of M&A.

Since 2022, however, the company’s strategy has changed, moving its focus away from M&A opportunities and instead turning to organic growth.

Over the last year, this strategic shift has seen the company pull back from a number of business units across the continent. Earlier this year, for example, Cellnex agreed to sell Cellnex Ireland to Phoenix Tower International for roughly €1 billion, while also selling its Austrian unit to a specially formed consortium for €803 million.

Cellnex has also sold its private networks unit – primarily made up of  Finnish subsidiary Edzcom – to Boldyn Networks for an undisclosed sum.

Cellnex’s sprawling tower portfolio, which includes over 138,000 towers in 12 countries, accounts for over 80% of the company’s revenue.

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

Alternative UK broadband network builder Freedom Fibre, which has deployed a 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 300,000 premises (27th Mar 2024) and is home to 20,000 customers (12th Aug 2024), has this morning announced the appointment of Nathan Vautier to be their new Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

The move will see Nathan replace the company’s former CEO and Co-Founder, Neil McArthur, who will instead transition into a strategic role while continuing to serve on the company’s board, ensuring his ongoing involvement in the operator’s future growth and vision.

By comparison, Nathan is said to have over 25 years of industry experience and has held various senior leadership roles in the telecoms sector, starting in infrastructure with Ericsson, then Sony Ericsson, EE (BT), and Brightstar Corporation before moving into PE backed businesses. Nathan was also the previous CEO of Box Broadband, which is now part of CommunityFibre.

Neil McArthur said:

“After nearly 30 years in the telecoms sector it’s time I stepped down from the front line. I want to welcome Nathan Vautier to Freedom Fibre and wish him every success driving the company forward.
My move into telecoms started with deregulation in 1996 at Opal Telecom, which teamed up with Carphone Warehouse to form TalkTalk.

I have had a splendid career at a really interesting time in the industry’s history, and the opportunity to set up Freedom Fibre was too exciting to resist. Being involved at the start of deregulation and broadband, and now being able to step down as fibre reaches well over 50% of the UK has been my good fortune.

It’s time to let someone else take the reins. I look forward to continue working in a reduced capacity with the great team at Freedom Fibre as the company enters its next phase of growth.”

Nathan Vautier said:

“I am honored to be joining Freedom Fibre at such an important stage of its journey. It is an important time in the industry and for the continued development of this critical UK infrastructure and Neil’s vision has laid a strong foundation. I look forward to working with the team to drive continued growth, build on the achievements so far, and enhance the value we deliver to our customers.”

According to the spin, Nathan will focus on growing the business as the company embarks on its next phase of expansion, including “accelerating commercialization of Freedom Fibre’s network by leveraging the company’s existing wholesale partnership with TalkTalk and driving direct sales through its own ISP” (LilaConnect). But aside from the recently awarded Project Gigabit contracts, it appears as if the operator is currently more focused on commercialization than network expansion (a common theme among many altnets).

Connectivity Services provider Aqua Comms has announced that they’ve boosted their network capacity by lighting a new fibre pair on their AEC-1 system, which is a subsea fibre-optic network that provides connectivity between New York (USA), Dublin (Ireland) and London (UK). The link is also being upgraded to support Ciena’s latest technology.

The privately owned AEC-1 (AEConnect-1) subsea cable, which is 5,536km long, first went live in 2016 and is designed to handled 130 x 100Gbps (Gigabits per second) wavelengths or 13Tbps (Terabits per second) per fibre pair. The cable is said to comprise six fibre pairs (some reports put the figure at only four) and supports diverse backhaul fibre routes to additional Points of Presence (PoPs) in the USA, Ireland and UK.

Cables like this often increase their capacity over time, both as industry demands and as fibre optic data and broadband technologies improve. The new fibre pair has thus been brought into service to address the growing bandwidth demands of Aqua Comms’ customers, which means more data flowing between the three countries.

In addition, Aqua Comms will, in the “coming months“, begin upgrading the system from Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme submarine network solution, powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) coherent optics, to harness the latest WaveLogic 6 Extreme technologies. This is both much more energy efficient and capable of handling wavelength capacity of up to 1.6Tbps.

Aqua Comms CCO, Nick Barton, said:

“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. 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.”

Aqua Comms also operates and helps to run several other subsea fibre cables under the Atlantic ocean, such as AEC-2 and AEC-3. Not to mention several smaller subsea links, like the recently completed CC-2 (Celtix-Connect 2) cable that runs between Ireland (Dublin), the Isle of Man and England (Blackpool) – featuring 15-fibre pairs.

Network operator Zayo Europe, which runs a large high-capacity metro and long-haul fibre optic network across Europe, has today announced that they’ve introduced a new DWDM (wavelength) fibre route connecting London to Paris. The move boosts their capacity between the UK and France, while providing a diverse alternative on their existing cable system.

The new route, which is said to be “ready” for their 400G (Gbps) networking, also enables separate connections between other cities, such as Manchester to Frankfurt, with no overlap in networks. Zayo Europe expects around a 20% reduction in transit time or latency between Points of Presence (PoPs), like London and Paris, and says the route will improve network reliability and security for customers by removing the ‘single point of failure’.

In total, Zayo Europe now operates five subsea routes between the UK and continental Europe. This new CrossChannel route complements existing Circe South and Channel Tunnel routes between London and Paris, whilst Zeus and Circe North link London to Amsterdam.

Michael Katz, VP for Product & Technology at Zayo Europe, said:

“Zayo Europe is committed to providing the best connectivity and reliability for our customers across the continent, and this new cross-Channel wavelength route marks a great improvement in the diversity we can offer between these two major hubs and beyond. This high-capacity, low-latency solution will significantly benefit those seeking a fast and secure connection between London and Paris, and will be crucial for those needing to build reliable and secure network solutions.”

The introduction of a new fibre route is said to have been driven by a “surge in adoption of cloud and AI technologies“, which has put higher demands on their network for data capacity and lower latency connections.

News

A key focus of the fund will be on enhancing the digital skills of young people 

UK incumbent BT has launched a £4 million Apprenticeship Fund to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), charities, and public sector organisations across England.  

The funds will be delivered over the next four years, helping these organisations to recruit and train apprentices. 

Since 2017, companies in the UK with an annual wage bill over £3 million have been required to pay an ‘apprenticeship levy’, with 0.5% of the company’s annual wage bill being paid to the government to support various apprenticeship programmes. Larger businesses such as BT can transfer up to 50% of their levy to other companies directly, which is what BT is doing here.  

BT has partnered with Babington, a leading apprenticeship training provider, to manage the fund and guide applicants through the process.  

Eligible organisations can apply for funding and, if successful, will be matched with appropriate training providers within 20 days. The fund could support up to 550 apprentices and is expected to generate a £21 million economic impact. 

“SMEs make a significant contribution to our economy, but their uptake of apprenticeships is low,” said Chris Sims, Managing Director for Small and Medium Business at BT in a press release. 

“By sharing up to £4 million from our apprenticeship levy funds, we’re giving these businesses the financial support they need to invest in talent. This not only helps create a more skilled, diverse, and competitive workforce, it also provides SMEs with additional resources to grow and scale their business,” he continued. 

The fund is available to SMEs, charities, and public sector organisations across England, including the NHS. It focuses on apprentices aged 22 and older and seeks to support local economic growth, reduce the digital divide, and enhance social mobility. 

As one of the UK’s largest employers, BT is already a major player in the UK’s apprenticeship landscape, having recruited around 3,000 apprentices and graduates in the past five years. 

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

Also in the news: 

Interview

We caught up with Netceed’s Director of Telecoms, Steve Doddington, at this year’s Connected Britain to discuss how the UK telecoms market is rebounding from a slow year and how AI-fuelled data centre growth is a major opportunity for suppliers.

Check out our full interview here

Leicester-based UK broadband ISP Giganet Networks has today confirmed to ISPreview that, despite putting their best efforts toward attempting to refinance the business, the provider was ultimately unsuccessful and recently appointed a licensed insolvency practitioner to help navigate the situation.

The confirmation probably won’t come as too much of a surprise to our readers, given that the provider had already shifted their residential customer base over to the Telecom Acquisitions Group (i.e. Home Telecom) between June and August 2024 (here and here). But this was initially promoted as a means for the ISP to re-focus on their wholesale and channel business instead.

Despite this, we recently heard that Gigabit Networks’ business and channel customers were now being looked after by Global4, which meant that there wasn’t much of a business base left. The current situation isn’t yet being reflected via Companies House, but the provider’s CEO, David Yates, was kind enough to provide an update.

David Yates, Gigabit Networks CEO, told ISPreview:

“It has been a difficult time in the market and number of factors conspired against Gigabit Networks and its ability to trade profitably. Mounting bad debt within the consumer side of the business coupled with the cancellation of a significant new investment from existing investors put the business in an untenable situation.

Despite our best efforts to refinance the business we were ultimately unsuccessful. As a result, we appointed a licensed insolvency practitioner last month.

All customer services have been maintained throughout this time and have now been transferred to Telecom Acquisitions Ltd as previously reported by ISP Review.”

Naturally, our thoughts go out to the company’s staff too, who will hopefully be able to find a new home. Such situations can be very disruptive for all involved, particularly customers, but it could also be seen as a reflection of the difficult trading environment that many ISPs and network operators currently find themselves inhabiting.