News

This will be the first time that Wales will benefit from the project 

The UK government announced up to £800 million of funding to Openreach, to bring gigabit-capable broadband to 312,000 premises across the UK via Building Digital UK (BDUK). The initiative is part of ongoing efforts to improve digital infrastructure in rural areas. 

The agreement, worth up to £800 million, was finalised in June 2024 following an open procurement process. The focus of this partnership is on rural regions that have not been included in existing commercial broadband rollouts due to limited interest or capacity from other providers. 

Project Gigabit is a £5 billion UK government initiative aimed at expanding gigabit-capable broadband, particularly in rural and remote areas. The project focuses on closing the digital divide by bringing high-speed internet to regions that are unlikely to be served by commercial providers. 

With significant government funding, the project partners with broadband providers, like Openreach, to extend infrastructure to these “hard-to-reach” areas. By improving digital connectivity, Project Gigabit supports economic growth, future-proofs the UK’s digital infrastructure, and ensures widespread access to fast internet. The rollout is phased, targeting the most underserved areas first. 

The framework will support multiple call-off contracts, each targeting clusters of premises in different parts of the UK. The first two contracts have been awarded: 

Call-Off 1: Covering 54,300 premises in areas including Lancashire, North Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire, West and Mid Surrey, Staffordshire, West Berkshire, and Hertfordshire, with a contract value of £149.7 million. 

Call-Off 2: Addressing 42,200 premises in West and North Devon, as well as North West, Mid, and South East Wales, with a contract value of £139.1 million. 

Further procurement processes are underway to expand coverage under this agreement. 

“At the moment we have too many people, especially in the more remote areas, of Wales who can’t properly access the online world, and I’m pleased that thanks to this substantial investment from the UK Government work, on fixing that is starting now,” said Jo Stevens, Secretary of State for Wales in the annoucement. 

BDUK will work with local councils and Openreach to begin the necessary infrastructure work, such as trench digging and fibre installation. The first premises are expected to have access to gigabit-capable broadband by early 2025. Once the network is established, residents and businesses will be able to connect to the improved service through their broadband providers. 

Join the conversation around the UK’s broadband infrastructure by attending Connected Britain, 11-12 September in London. Get discounted tickets here! 

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NEWS

London, UK – Connected Britain, the UK’s biggest digital economy event, is returning to London as it celebrates its 10th anniversary

Hosted by telecoms media and events specialist Total Telecom, this year’s event will welcome 7,500 attendees from over 2,000 organisations, including 100 tech and digital startups exhibiting in its largest ever startup village. 

Across two action-packed days, the event will feature 350 speakers covering twelve key themes, including the UK’s journey to becoming a tech leader, achieving truly ubiquitous connectivity, and the digital divide. The conference will feature CXO interviews with some of the world’s most recognised companies, as well as a spotlight on local authorities who are the driving force behind some of the country’s most exciting technology trials. 

Key speakers at this year’s event include: 

– Marc Allera, CEO, EE & Consumer Division – BT Group 

– Phil Siveter, Chief Executive Officer, UK& Ireland – Nokia 

– Iain Milligan, Chief Network Officer – Three UK 

– Greg Mesch, Founder & Chief Executive Officer – CityFibre  

– Dame Melanie Dawes, Chief Executive – Ofcom 

“We’re absolutely delighted to be celebrating the ten-year anniversary of Connected Britain,” said Total Telecom Managing Director Rob Chambers. “We’ve come a long way from our first event back in 2015 which welcomed just a few hundred attendees – we’re now the UK’s largest digital economy event, which is a testament to the advancements and collaborative spirit within the industry. Connected Britain is not just a conference, it’s an essential platform for driving progress and building a more connected future for all.” 

On the evening of day one, the Connected Britain Awards will recognise the most significant and innovative organisations, solutions, and programmes that are shaping Britain’s digital future. The day one official afterparty: Connected After Hours, is an unmissable evening of fun that will cement and develop new relationships for event attendees over complimentary drinks and live music. 

For more information or to register to attend Connected Britain 2024, visit: https://www.terrapinn.com/conference/connected-britain/index.stm  

——- 

Since 1997, Total Telecom has provided the connection between the buyers and sellers in the global telecom market. We do this through high quality editorial content and events to facilitate discussion on industry issues, and recognise innovation and excellence by companies and individuals.   

Our community of 120,000+ telecom professionals rely on Total Telecom for daily news and regular in-depth insight, delivered through a number of channels including online, video, social media, and at our series of events.  

Our award-winning event portfolio includes, Broadband Communities Summit, the World Communication Awards, Connected North, Connected Germany, and the UK’s largest connectivity event Connected Britain.   

Alchemy has this morning announced that they’re selling their Pan-European mobile operator business, LebaraGroup B.V, to Waterland Private Equity for an undisclosed sum. In the UK, Lebara is a virtual mobile operator (MVNO) that harnesses Vodafone’s national network to deliver 4G and 5G services (calls, text and mobile broadband).

Lebara currently offers similar mobile services to 4.4 million subscribers (up from 2.4m in 2019) across the UK, Netherlands, Germany, France and Denmark. Alchemy’s journey with Lebara began in 2018 when, following a “period of underperformance under prior ownership“, they identified an opportunity to acquire the business and have since led it through a period of transformation.

The business’ profitability and customer base has broadly doubled during Alchemy’s ownership, but now the reins are being passed to a new home.

Ian Cash and Alex Leicester of Alchemy said:

“Stephen and his team have done a fabulous job at repositioning Lebara and delivering substantial growth for the business, particularly in the UK where Lebara is the fastest growing player in the mobile telecommunications value segment.

The business has been truly transformed since our first investment in 2018 and we are grateful to Stephen and the team for their outstanding contribution to Lebara over the last 4 years – they have been a pleasure to work with. We have no doubt that Lebara will continue to go from strength to strength over the coming years under Waterland’s ownership.”

Stephen Shurrock, CEO of Lebara, said:

“It has also been our pleasure to work with Alchemy over the last few years. They have been hugely supportive of the Lebara turnaround, and have invested in the company to achieve significant growth. With Alchemy’s investment Lebara has repositioned itself and now has the latest digital platform, a focus on customer experience and is one of the fastest growing mobile businesses in Europe. They have also invested in people and upskilling the business.

Today Lebara is a strong business with a leading management team that will continue the strong growth story into the future. On a personal level I would like to say a big ‘Thank You’ to Alchemy, their trust, support and encouragement has meant a lot to me and the management team as we have worked through the company transformation.”

The sale, which is pending regulatory approval, is aiming to deliver a strong return on investment for Alchemy’s investors.

Network operator Freedom Fibre, which claims to have already rolled out a 10Gbps capable full fibre broadband (XGS-PON / FTTP) network to cover 300,000 premises across England (27th Mar 2024), has today revealed that they’ve grown their customer base to 20,000 in the North West and West Midlands of England.

The announcement represents the first time we’ve had any solid customer figures from the operator, which reflects additions across deployment locations such as Stoke-on-Trent, Crewe, Leek, Urmston, Northwich and Whitchurch etc. This clearly factors in their recent acquisition of the previously InfraBridge-backed VX UK Holdings ltd (VXFIBER) last year (here).

We should point out that Freedom Fibre also holds the state aid supported £24m Project Gigabit contract to roll-out full fibre broadband across “around” 12,000 hard-to-reach premises in rural parts of Shropshire (here), as well as the £43m contract to reach 15,000 similar premises in Cheshire (here).

Customers can typically order broadband packages on FF’s network via partner ISPs such as TalkTalk, LilaConnect, Squirrel Internet, Fusion Fibre, MTH and Beebu etc.

Marie Danby, Customer Operations Director at Freedom Fibre, said:

“Thanks to our hard-working team, the cooperation of communities and local leadership, we have been able to successfully deliver our high-speed network cost-effectively whilst maintaining our high level of customer service. This is just the start of our journey to make full-fibre, high speed broadband available to everyone.”

In terms of gauging take-up, the press release somewhat confusingly states that “the business works to build to over 300,000 premises“, which makes the 300k figure sound more like a target than the way it’s been referenced before (i.e. as pre-existing coverage, post-merger). But crucially, it’s unclear how many of those premises are ‘Ready for Service’ (RFS), which is hard to gauge until the VXFIBER network is fully integrated and all ISPs have the same availability.

The Government claims to have kicked off a “renewed push” today to “reach full gigabit [broadband] coverage by 2030“, which they’ve done by announcing that Openreach (BT) has secured several contracts under the £5bn Project Gigabit scheme. This could eventually be worth up to £800m (state aid) and may upgrade 312,000 premises in remote rural areas of Scotland, England and Wales.

Project Gigabit has been running for the past few years and aims to extend networks capable of delivering download speeds of 1000Mbps+ (1Gbps) and uploads of 200Mbps+ to 85% or more of UK premises by the end of 2025 (it’s currently c.84%), before rising to “nationwide” coverage (c.99%) by around 2030 (here). But commercial builds are delivering most of this, while public money remains focused on the final 10-20% of poorly served premises.

Most of the related contracts (Type A – Local scale and Type B – Regional scale) under Project Gigabit’s Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS) scheme have already been awarded for much of England. All of these have gone to smaller alternative networks (altnets) like Cityfibre, GoFibre, Wessex Internet, Gigaclear and various other providers.

However, the project has also had to create a number of Cross-Regional (Type C) procurements, which were focused on areas where no or no appropriate market interest had been expressed before to the Government’s umbrella Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, or areas that have been descoped or terminated from a prior plan.

Such areas are often skipped due to being too expensive (difficult) for smaller suppliers to tackle. Due to this Type C’s can only really be delivered by operators of some scale and are intended to cover a much wider area. Back in May 2024 we revealed that Openreach (BT) had been named as the preferred bidder for all of these (here) and thus today’s announcement is the logical outcome of that.

What’s been awarded?

The official announcement is a bit generalised, but it states that “up to” £800 million in government investment will be made available to modernise broadband infrastructure for 312,000 premises in rural areas of England, Scotland and Wales as part of the new deal with Openreach. Just to be clear, this figure was first stated for Type C procurements back in 2022 (here) and forms part of the overall budget for Project Gigabit.

However, it’s important to stress that Openreach hasn’t yet won all of the Type C procurements (it’s just a matter of time), thus the figure of 312,000 premises and £800m being headline today is more a reflection of what they’re expected to secure over the coming months. Instead, today’s announcement only confirms that Openreach have secured the first two out of six Type C contracts.

The deal today means that premises in remote areas of Britain, such as the South Wales Valleys, Exmoor National Park and the Forest of Bowland will finally gain access to gigabit broadband. This is also the first time that Wales, the nation with the lowest percentage of gigabit coverage, will benefit from this programme.

Today’s Contract Awards for Openreach

Type C (Call Off 1): Lancashire (Lot 9C), North Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire (Lot 30C) , West and Mid -Surrey (Lot 22C), Staffordshire (Lot 19C), West Berkshire (Lot 13C) and Hertfordshire (Lot 26C)
Premises: 57,100 * (final contracted 54,300)
Value: £149.7m

Type C (Call Off 2): West and North Devon (Lot 6C) , North West Wales, Mid Wales (Lot 43C) and South East Wales (Lot 44C)
Premises: 47,100 * (final contracted 42,200)
Value: £139.1m

* The figures above are from Project Gigabit’s April 2024 estimate and thus the final contract details are slightly different.

According to today’s announcement, both contracts – worth £288 million – have been signed with Openreach and aim to connect approximately 96,600 homes and businesses in England and, for the first time, Wales. This is slightly less than the originally forecast total of both contracts (c.104,000 premises). In any case, the first premises under these contracts are anticipated to have access to gigabit-capable broadband in “early 2025“.

Take note that Call Off 2 will benefit parts of the following constituencies in Wales: Arfon, Clwyd South, Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Ceredigion, Montgomeryshire, Brecon and Radnorshire, Monmouth, Torfaen, Newport West, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent, Cardiff North, Cardiff Central, Cardiff West, Cardiff South and Penarth, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, Ogmore, Islwyn, Pontypridd, Cynon Valley, Rhondda, Vale of Glamorgan, Bridgend, Neath, Aberavon, Swansea East, Swansea West, Gower.

Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for DSIT, said:

“Over the past decade, the UK’s broadband rollout has clearly not happened fast enough and has overlooked too many areas, especially in Scotland and Wales. Robust digital infrastructure is essential for growth, productivity and competitiveness and this shortfall not only poses risks to our economic stability, but also entrenches existing inequalities across the country.

We are fixing this by delivering for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses up and down the country, focusing on the areas that were not prioritised by the previous government, such as Wales.

Today marks a significant milestone in delivering on our promise to redouble our efforts to achieve full gigabit coverage by 2030 and lay the foundations for a more inclusive, dynamic and prosperous future for all citizens.”

Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said:

“Research shows that full fibre provides a host of economic, social and environmental benefits – and I believe we’re the best in the business at delivering it. I’m proud we’ve been chosen, through a fiercely competitive process, and we’re already cracking on with the job.

This is a British infrastructure success story. Our network already reaches more than 15 million urban and rural premises and, wherever we build, we bring the widest choice of providers for customers. I’m confident we can reach as many as 30 million homes by the end of the decade if the conditions remain supportive.”

Jo Stevens, Secretary of State for Wales, said:

“At the moment we have too many people, especially in the more remote areas, of Wales who can’t properly access the online world, and I’m pleased that thanks to this substantial investment from the UK Government work, on fixing that is starting now.”

Talks are now said to be “underway with Openreach to agree further contracts” to benefit around 215,800 more premises across England, Scotland and Wales, with more announcements expected in the “coming months“. This reflects the following ongoing Type C procurements.

Remaining Type C Procurements

Type C (Call Off 3): East and South Shropshire, North Herefordshire, North Wales, and South West Wales
Est. Premises: 49,600
Est. Value: £136.1m

Type C (Call Off 4): Mid Devon, North Somerset, and South Devon
Est. Premises: 23,300
Est. Value: £69.8m

Type C (Call Off 5): Essex and North East England
Est. Premises: 22,100
Est. Value: £61.3m

Type C (Call Off 6): Central and North Scotland
Est. Premises: 96,900
Est. Value: £207.4m

In terms of Wales specifically, the government says this means that – once all the related Type C contracts have been awarded – a total of around £170m of public money will go toward extending gigabit-capable broadband to benefit around 70,000 hard-to-reach Welsh homes and businesses. But the exact details of Call Off 3 – 6 won’t be known until they’ve been officially awarded, which is expected by around the end of this year.

The announcement builds on work already underway through other Project Gigabit contracts to build faster networks for up to 910,000 hard-to-reach premises across England. Dozens of contracts representing more than £1.9bn worth of public investment have now been signed with 11 suppliers to deliver the upgrades.

However, the new Government is perhaps being a bit disingenuous in parts of this announcement, such as by claiming that this is all part of Labour’s pre-election commitment to “make a renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030” (here). But much as we said above, there’s nothing particularly new about today’s announcement, which has been in the pipeline since well before the election.

UPDATE 7:03am

We’ve updated some of the totals with the final contracted figures for call-off 1 and 2 above. In addition, Openreach successfully bid for these to adopt the single supplier framework (here), which means any future fibre build delivered through the framework doesn’t have to go through another competitive process each time (i.e. later extension projects and infill in these areas will be easier to agree). You can see a rough image of the related build for each area below:

Call-off 2 – South East Wales (Lot 44C) 
Call-off 2 – North West and Mid Wales (Lot 43C)
Call-off 2 – West and North Devon (Lot 6C)
Call-off 1 – North Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire (Lot 30C)
Call-off 1 – Hertfordshire (Lot 26C)
Call-off 1 – West and Mid Surrey (Lot 22C)
Call-off 1 – Staffordshire (Lot 19C)
Call-off 1 – West Berkshire (Lot 13C)
Call-off 1 – Lancashire (Lot 9C)

The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) looks set to start a year-long trial that will upgrade trains on the Far North and Kyle lines (railway) in the Highlands of Scotland with “the best Wi-Fi experience of any train service” in the UK. The capacity for this will be supplied by unspecified broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

The project, which appears to have the backing of both ScotRail and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), aims to start fitting the new system during this autumn (2024). The service itself would then become available from December 2024 and run until the end of 2025.

Trains that run on these routes typically pass through some of the most intermittent and least reliable areas of mobile network coverage in the UK, which is obviously something that the new system could tackle. But it would cost around £26,700 per two-car train to deliver, which is after the one-off design costs of £95,000 and one-off system integration of £40,000 (i.e. the first train conversion will cost up to just under £162k).

The cost of potentially deploying this across all 25 of the Class 158 fleet of trains based in Inverness (i.e. not only those on the Far North Line) could, however, reach “just” £802,500 if the trial were to be rolled out more widely.

Robert Gardner, Associate Director of the SFT, said (Inverness Courier):

“High-speed broadband internet access on trains would be a major step towards improving the passenger experience and could provide significant benefits to both passengers and train operating companies.

Many rail passengers may need to stay connected to the internet during their journey, whether for work or personal reasons. Providing internet access can make their journey more convenient, attractive, and enjoyable.

Many people use their commute time to catch up on work, answer emails, or complete other tasks. With good internet access, commuters can stay connected and productive during their ride, maximizing their time.”

The article doesn’t mention which satellite operator would supply the service, although both OneWeb (here) and Starlink have suitable LEO broadband networks and related technologies.

Telecoms analyst firm Juniper Research has used an April 2024 survey of 3,300 UK mobile subscribers to identify that iD Mobile ranks top as the “leading network operator in the UK for subscriber roaming satisfaction in 2024“, which saw them achieve a net promoter score of 77%.

The survey claims that 85% of iD Mobile subscribers reported a positive experience when managing their mobile subscription whilst abroad. Since the UK left the European Union (EU), subscribers no longer qualify for the free roaming initiative (Roam Like At Home), which has resulted in a fair bit of variation among roaming offerings and charges.

However, the study claims that iD Mobile “offers the most free roaming data across the EU” in its standard roaming packages (i.e. a fair usage cap of 30 GigaBytes for mobile broadband), and thus its subscribers have not yet been all that negatively impacted by the recent return to roaming charges – as adopted by many other operators. A few others, like O2, also offer inclusive data roaming, but apply different limits (e.g. O2 limits you to 25GB).

Best Five UK Mobile Operators for Subscriber Roaming Experience
1. iD Mobile – 77%
2. O2 (Virgin Media) – 75%
3. Tesco Mobile – 74%
4. giffgaff – 73%
5. Vodafone – 68%

Notably, the survey also claims to have found that 5G connectivity was the “least in-demand element of roaming packages“, indicating subscribers find roaming over 4G networks sufficient for their needs when travelling. But the full details are locked behind a paid survey report and weren’t included in Juniper’s press summary.

Report author, Elisha Sudlow-Poole, said: “To compete effectively with iD Mobile, mobile operators must not only look to reinstate free EU roaming for mobile subscribers, but also seek to improve consumer education around roaming options, by offering user-friendly tools like pre-travel notifications and roaming cost calculators to avoid customer confusion.”

At this point it may be worth noting that Ofcom recently finalised new rules that will require mobile network operators to protect UK consumers who travel abroad from mobile BILL SHOCKS on data (broadband), call and text charges (here).

The London Internet Exchange (LINX), which handles a key chunk of UK and global data traffic through their switches via 950+ members (broadband and mobile operators etc.), has today announced that alternative full fibre network provider toob has become the first ISP to take a 400G (Gbps) port at the IXP for their peering services and more.

Just for some context. Toob is a Hampshire-based operator that was originally backed by £75m from the Amber Infrastructure Group (here) and “up to” £87.5m from the Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund (here). During 2023 the operator also secured £160m of additional funding (debt financing) from Ares Management‘s Infrastructure Debt strategy (here), which could be upsized to £300m over time to support growth.

Toob’s own FTTP broadband network is known to cover 150,000 premises (24th Aug 2023 – not all RFS) and they’re aiming to reach 300,000 premises across parts of Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex in the future. In June 2024 the provider also revealed that they’d passed 50,000 customers (here), which is more than double the 20,000 they had a year earlier.

Suffice to say that they’ve seen a fair bit of growth and as part of adapting to that they’ve taken the first 400G port at LINX, which actually introduced 400G ports towards the end of 2021 due to customer demand. LINX enlisted technical supplier Nokia to deliver this additional service. But so far at LINX’s UK platforms, it’s mainly global content delivery (CDN) networks or global carriers who have traditionally had demand for this solution.

Sean Teggart, Technology Director of toob, said:

“We are thrilled to pioneer the adoption of 400G technology at LINX, reaffirming our dedication to delivering unmatched broadband connectivity in the UK. This strategic upgrade not only enhances our network’s capacity but also increases toob’s reliability and prepares us to support the future needs of our customers.”

Jennifer Holmes, CCO for LINX, said:

“We are really excited to be supporting and celebrating toob during their upgrade to 400G, the first UK ISP to take this step. This reflects the continued growth and demand of online services, good connectivity and the Internet as a whole in the UK.”

The new 400G port appears to have been connected within LINX’s largest LON1 (London) Ethernet switching platform, which is accessible from 16 data centre locations.

News

AustralianSuper says Optus is failing to deliver the more than 500 additional towers it requires as part of a deal with Australia Tower Network

According to The Australian Financial Review, Australian telco Optus is in the midst of a dispute with pension fund AustralianSuper, with the latter accusing them of failing to build new towers as per their agreement.

Back in 2021, AustralianSuper bought a 70% stake in Australian Tower Network (ATN) from Optus’ parent company Singtel for A$1.9 billion.

As part of the agreement, Optus was obligated to build 565 additional towers via ATN in the next three years, to be added to the 2,312 sites already included in the deal.

Now, with the three-year deadline approaching, Optus is reportedly behind schedule on its tower build, a fact it blames on struggling to identify suitable locations.

The exact tower deficit is unclear.

Reports suggest that discussions between Optus and ATN to resolve the issue are ongoing.

ATN acquired its tower rival Axicom in 2022, a move that saw it roughly double its tower footprint across the country. Shortly after, the company subsequently rebranded as Indara.

Join the conversation around all things connectivity at this year’s Connected Britain conference, 11-12 September in London. Get tickets here! 

Also in the news:
NTT to launch new AI company ‘NTT AI-CIX’
Thousands of kms of fibre could be left underutilised warns asset reuse specialist
IOH launches Southeast Asia’s largest digital intelligence operations centre

News

The partnership will offer businesses the tools they need to innovate while protecting their data 

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) has teamed up with Google Cloud to bring advanced cloud services to Indonesia, addressing the country’s strict data residency, security, and privacy requirements.  

The expanded partnership will introduce Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) to various sectors across the country, allowing organisations to manage AI and data-heavy tasks while maintaining control over sensitive data.  

The collaboration will support industries such as public services, defence, healthcare, finance, energy, and manufacturing.  

GDC offers a range of features, such as a fully managed solution that can operate either fully disconnected from the public internet for highly sensitive tasks or connected between edge locations and Google’s Indonesian data centers. This flexibility allows organisations to choose the setup that best suits their needs. 

Indosat Group will provide hosting options for GDC through its data center unit, ensuring that all data stays within the country and complies with local law. 

“Indonesia is paving the way towards its golden era in 2045. Indosat Group is committed to contributing through technological advancements in pursuit of this vision,” said Vikram Sinha, President Director and Chief Executive Officer of IOH.  

“The partnership with Google Cloud is driven by empowering Indonesia, aiming to deliver the country’s first sovereign cloud and edge cloud solutions. These solutions will equip organizations with the state-of-the-art infrastructure, operational features, and developer tools they need to accelerate digitalization at scale,” he continued. 

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

Also in the news:
NTT to launch new AI company ‘NTT AI-CIX’
Thousands of kms of fibre could be left underutilised warns asset reuse specialist
IOH launches Southeast Asia’s largest digital intelligence operations centre