The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of UK broadband ISP and network business TalkTalk, James Smith, has revealed that the debt-laden group’s existing shareholders have “confirmed their intent to provide new funding of over £200m” to support the company’s “working capital and operational costs“.

The provider has already spent much of the past couple of years wrestling with its existing c.£1bn debt pile, which in 2023 culminated in a plan to demerge the group into three separate businesses (TalkTalk Consumer, TalkTalk Business Direct and the wholesale centric PlatformX Communications – here), while also cutting costs (e.g. marketing) and monetising some assets (e.g. selling IP addresses).

The demerger may also, in theory, make it easier to sell off individual parts of the business (selling the entire group proved tricky) and Virgin Media (VMO2) has previously been linked with a possible acquisition of their consumer broadband business (here), although nothing has come of that yet. The first piece to go was technically TT Business Direct, which ended up being sold to the company’s own shareholders for £95m after struggling to attract other fish (here).

The latest development indicates that the group’s existing backers – Sir Charles Dunstone, Toscafund and Ares Management – will meet next week to confirm an injection of over £200m to help keep the business rolling. According to Sky News, separate discussions with Australian banking giant Macquarie about a larger investment into TalkTalk’s wholesale network business, PlatformX, are still being discussed.

Just for some context. In May 2024 we reported (here) that TalkTalk was attempting to raise £450m from the possible sale of a large stake in PlatformX to Macquarie which, if successful, would help to pay off some of the debt and avoid a default. Suffice to say that TalkTalk are still very much in the midst of trying to resolve their now legendary debt problems, with pressure from several looming repayment deadlines helping to concentrate minds.

James Smith, Group CFO, said:

“We anticipate agreement on new capital investment into the business in the near future, and discussions to achieve that are ongoing. Engagement continues with a potential new investor, together with potential new lenders.

At the same time, the group’s existing shareholders have confirmed their intent to provide new funding of over £200m into the group to support working capital and operational costs.

Those shareholders and the company are in dialogue with existing group lenders, or their advisers, regarding the optimal route to put that funding into the business.”

According to the report, a key meeting will be held on Tuesday next week that should help to hammer out the details, which if agreed may also be accompanied by an amend-and-extend agreement with the group’s lending banks.

A new report from think tank Create Street has suggested that the new UK government should make it easier for local authorities to remove old and “ugly” pay phone boxes, which are said to damage the look of many high streets by attracting litter, graffiti and.. other things.

The focus here is on the more modern boxes (e.g. KX100+), rather than BT’s classic red kiosks across the UK or KCOM’s cream-coloured ones in Hull – many of those are now protected. There are now roughly 20,000 remaining working payphones (aka – “Public Call Boxes” or PCB) across the UK, around 3,000 of which are in traditional red kiosks.

However, the new report suggests that more than half of the remaining boxes are likely to be “blighting” the UK’s streets, which are said to act as magnets for graffiti, littering, fly tipping, drug taking and worse. But the report claims that removing these can sometimes end up costing tens of thousands of pounds, such as when operators add a claim for lost advertising money.

According to The Guardian‘s summary (Create Street don’t seem to have posted the report on their website yet), the think tank suggests that one way to resolve this would be via a legislative change to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to make it easier to remove phone boxes. For example, changing it so that operators are only compensated for the cost to remove the box and not for any lost advertising revenue.

Nicholas Boys Smith, Founder of Create Street, said:

“Box blight is a menace hiding in plain sight, attracting litter, cluttering up our pavements and making all our streets and square a little bit uglier and less pleasant. We don’t have to put up with this and we shouldn’t. Other countries don’t. Our paper sets out practical steps that the new government can take now to make our streets and town centres better and more prosperous.”

We should point out that BT has spent the past few years decommissioning many of their old payphones, most of which were no longer being used – largely due to improvements in mobile coverage and related service affordability. Some of those have been replaced by the operator’s new smart WiFi Street Hub kiosks (mostly in cities), while others have been adopted by local authorities or registered charities under the “Adopt a Kiosk” scheme (e.g. turning them into WiFi hotspots, 4G small cells, mini libraries or storage for life-saving public defibrillators – there are about 700 of the latter).

Suffice to say that some of those old payphone boxes do more than merely act as ugly advertising holders, but certainly there will be others that people would perhaps rather see being removed. No doubt many of those reading this article today will be able to think of a few examples from their own area.

On the other hand, Ofcom does generally expect operators to retire unused boxes over time, and so most of those may still end up going extinct and without the need for new legislation. Put another way, there is probably more scope for a voluntary solution to this than complex and slow legislative change.

Existing customers of BT’s online Cloud storage service, which was once frequently offered alongside their various broadband packages, have been notified that the long-running service will finally be switched off on 31st October 2024. At this point “all information will be deleted“, so now might be a good time for users to download anything of relevance.

The move, which was spotted by one of ISPreview’s forum community members – ‘Some Edinburgh Guy‘ (here), should not come as too much of a surprise. BT stopped making BT Cloud available to new customers almost exactly two years ago (here), which occurred at the same time as they did the same for their Email service.

Thankfully, there is a fair bit of choice to be found online when it comes to Cloud storage services (Dropbox, OneDrive etc.), although not all of them provide a free option. The official statement can be found below.

BT Cloud is closing

From 31 October 2024, our BT Cloud will close, and all information will be deleted.

We’ll start reaching out to customers to let them know that the BT Cloud is closing and advise them to download/move their data.

From 9 September the BT Cloud will become read-only.

Content will still be viewable, and available to download, but you won’t be able to upload anything new.

If you pay for additional storage, you won’t be charged from 9 September 2024.

Merseyside-based UK ISP BeFibre, which is powered by FullFibre Ltd’s national gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, has sweetened the existing discounts on their top 900Mbps (symmetric) broadband package by throwing in a £75 Amazon gift card (£50 if you take a shorter 12-month term). The package costs from £29 per month on a 24-month term (£45 thereafter).

The package itself includes free installation, a WiFi 6 capable Linksys router, a pledge of no in-contract price hikes and 30-day service guarantee. But the Amazon gift card bonus will only be available to take on orders made before Wednesday 31st July 2024.

The underlying full fibre network, which as of May 2024 could be reached by about 339,000 premises (RFS) across England (here), is available to parts of Derbyshire, Essex, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Herefordshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.

News

Telcos will not longer be allowed to implement mid-contract price rises linked to unclear metrics like inflation

In December last year, Ofcom proposed the introduction of stricter rules surrounding mid-contract price hikes for mobile, pay-TV, and broadband customers, after an investigation found that many customers were confused

The issue primarily related to inflation-based price increases, where pricing would be linked to indexes like the consumer price index (CPI) or retail price index (RPI) – indices not well understood by consumers, leading to unexpected increases in their bills.

Now, following a consultation, Ofcom has announced that new rules will indeed be introduced, requiring telecoms operators to express mid-contract price rises “prominently and transparently” in pounds and pence.

Providers will also be required to clearly explain when price increases will occur,

“Providers must draw this information to the customer’s attention prominently before they are bound by the contract, in a clear and comprehensible manner (including during a sales call or other verbal sale such as an in-store sale) to enable them to make an informed choice. Providers must also set out when any changes to the monthly price will occur,” said Ofcom in a statement.

“With household budgets squeezed, people need to have certainty about their monthly outgoings. But that’s impossible if you’re tied into a contract where the price could change based on something as hard to predict as future inflation,” said Cristina Luna-Esteban, Ofcom’s Telecoms Policy Director. “We’re stepping in on behalf of phone, broadband and pay TV customers to stamp out this practice, so people can be certain of the price they will pay, compare deals more easily and take advantage of the competitive market we have in the UK.”

The new rules will officially come into effect from 17 January 2025.

Many of the UK’s providers had already made the required changes pre-emptively over the past six months, with BT notably having already announced its revised price increases for 2025.

The UK’s largest digital economy event is just around the corner! Join the telecoms community in discussion on key issues at this year’s Connected Britain conference

Also in the news:
Power play: Thailand’s biggest telco to merge with energy giant
Germany implements long-awaited Huawei ban
Telecom Egypt readies for country’s first 5G services

News  

The sale comes off the back of a financially poor first quarter for Commscope 

Commscope has announced a deal to sell its mobile networks businesses to Amphenol for $2.1 billion.  

Specifically, the deal includes the purchase of CommScope’s Outdoor Wireless Networks (OWN) segment as well as the Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) business, which resides in CommScope’s Networking, Intelligent Cellular and Security Solutions (NICS) unit.  

The acquired businesses are projected to generate full-year 2024 sales of approximately $1.2 billion and EBITDA margins of 25%.  

Commscope says the deal will allow it to better manage its debt load, which currently stands at $9.3 billion. In its Q1 earning report published in May, net sales had declined by 30% to $1.17 billion, with management noting the “challenging” nature of the period, as it “continues to deal with lower demand.” 

The sale of its mobile networking technology units will allow Commscope to focus on its fixed line products, a segment that was boosted by the acquisition of Casa earlier in the year. 

Amphenol, on the other hand, says the deal will help complement their existing wireless portfolio. 

“We are excited by the prospect of adding CommScope’s mobile networks businesses and their approximately 4,000 talented employees to the Amphenol family. CommScope’s advanced technologies in base station antennas and interconnect solutions, along with distributed antenna systems, significantly enhance our existing offerings,” said R. Adam Norwitt, President and CEO of Amphenol in a press release. 

“In particular, we are encouraged that the businesses we are acquiring make up the former Andrew Corporation portfolio of products, a company with a rich history of innovation and technology leadership in the wireless industry. We look forward to supporting customers who are developing next-generation wireless networks around the world with these advanced solutions as well as our own existing complementary products.” 

Norwitt also highlighted the alignment of the acquisition with Amphenol’s long-term growth strategy, placing emphasis on the better support the company will be able to provide to customers developing next-generation wireless networks globally.  

Amphenol plans to finance the acquisition through a combination of cash and debt. The company confirmed that it is scheduled to discuss this acquisition in further detail during the company’s Q2 2024 earnings call later this month. 

The transaction is subject to standard regulatory approval and is anticipated to close in the first half of 2025. 

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

Also in the news:
Power play: Thailand’s biggest telco to merge with energy giant
Germany implements long-awaited Huawei ban
Telecom Egypt readies for country’s first 5G services

News 

The outage has caused disruption for millions 

Today, an IT malfunction of unprecedented scale has sent shockwaves across the world, affecting critical services and impacting millions of people. 

Elon Musk, tweeting this morning, has labeled the event as the “biggest IT fail ever.”  

The cause of the huge outage lies in a software update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The company uses a cloud-based system that offers companies security over the internet, rather than local installations. It provides companies with real-time insights into security threats.  

A defect in the company’s latest update triggered a chain reaction, impacting Windows operating systems globally, meaning that many systems, including Teams and Outlook, went down. 

CrowdStrike president George Kurtz said that the issue has been caused by “a single content update for Windows hosts”. 

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers,” he wrote on X.  

Despite this, the residual impact and full recovery is expected to take several days, with many companies around the world being forced to restart their machines in safe mode. 

The company was quick to stress that the event was not malicious in nature. Despite acting like a cyberattack in many ways, the fault did not compromise the integrity of any users’ data. 

The ripple effects of this glitch have been far-reaching and are still arising. Nearly 1,400 flights have been canceled due to system failures, banks are struggling with transaction processing issues, as well as the broadcasting, retail and healthcare industries, amongst others. 

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

Also in the news:
Power play: Thailand’s biggest telco to merge with energy giant
Germany implements long-awaited Huawei ban
Telecom Egypt readies for country’s first 5G services

Openreach (BT) has today released the next batch of 92 exchanges (Tranche 17) in their “FTTP Priority Exchange Stop Sell” programme, which reflects areas where over 75% of premises are able to get full fibre and will thus stop selling copper based analogue phone and broadband products (i.e. FTTP becomes the only product option).

Currently, there are two schemes for moving away from old copper lines and services, which can sometimes criss-cross. The first starts with the gradual migration of traditional analogue voice (PSTN) services to digital all-IP technologies (e.g. SOGEA), which is due to complete by 31st January 2027 and is occurring on both copper and full fibre products (i.e. ISPs are introducing digital voice / VoIP services). The national “stop sell” on analogue phone services began on 5th September 2023 (here).

The second “FTTP Priority Exchange” programme involves the ongoing rollout of gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines – using light signals via optical fibre instead of electrical signals via slow copper lines. Only after this second programme has largely completed (75%+ FTTP coverage) in an exchange area can you really start to completely switch-off copper-based products, which will come later as you have to allow time for natural customer migrations.

Between the scrapping of analogue phone services, the full fibre rollout and the gradual switch away from copper lines themselves, this process will take several years in each area to complete, and the pace will vary (i.e. some areas have better coverage of full fibre than others). Naturally, premises that can’t yet get FTTP will continue to be served by copper-based broadband products.

92 New Exchange Locations (Tranche 17)

In this programme, the migration process away from legacy services starts with a “no move back” policy (i.e. no going back to copper) for premises connected with FTTP, which is followed by a “stop-sell” of copper services to new customers (12-months of notice is given before this starts and that is what today’s list represents). This stage is then followed by a final “withdrawal” phase, but that comes later. The stop sell is applied at premises level, so it shouldn’t impact you if you don’t yet have access to FTTP (edge-case conflicts may still occur due to rare quirks of network availability).

The 92 exchanges announced today – covering at least 615,000 premises – takes the total number of exchange upgrades that have already been notified as part of the aforementioned process (including trial exchanges), or which are actively under “stop sell“, to 1096. The “stop sell” in the Tranche 17 areas will be introduced from July 2025.

James Lilley, Openreach’s Managed Customer Migrations Manager, said:

“We’re moving to a digital world and Openreach is helping with that transformation by rolling out ultrafast, ultra-reliable, and future-proofed digital full fibre across the UK. This game changing technology will become the backbone of our economy for decades to come, supporting every aspect of our public services, businesses, industries and daily lives.

Already, our full fibre network is available to more than 14 million homes and businesses, with more than 4 million premises currently taking a service. Taking advantage of the progress of our full fibre build and encouraging people to upgrade where a majority can access our new network is the right thing to do as it makes no sense, both operationally and commercially, to keep the old copper network and our new fibre network running side-by-side. As copper’s ability to support modern communications declines, the immediate focus is getting people onto newer, future proofed technologies.”

By the end of the summer, these ‘stop sell’ rules will have been activated in more than 700 exchanges (excludes unactivated stop sells) – meaning around 6 million premises will be under active Stop Sell – i.e. premises where Full Fibre is available to a majority of premises & new copper products cannot be sold.

The operator also has a Stop Sells Page on their website, which makes it easy to see all the planned changes. Otherwise, the following list is tentative, so changes and delays will occur (exchanges can and are often shifted around into different tranches).

92 Stop Sell Exchanges in Tranche 17

Exchange Name
Exchange Location

Shenley Church End (XCH)
Milton Keynes

Killingworth (KLT)
Longbenton

Greenhill (SF/GL)
Sheffield

Astley Bridge (EAY)
Greater Manchester – Bolton

Prescot (LV/PRE)
Prescot

Heckmondwike (HHJ)
Liversedge

Toothill (THL)
Swindon (Wiltshire)

Saughall(GSU)
Saughall

Barrow On Humber(BCA)
Barrow upon Humber

Blackwater(BLW)
Sandhurst (Berkshire)

Kesgrave(KGF)
Kesgrave

Stowmarket(STW)
Stowmarket

Brandon(BMT)
Brandon (West Suffolk)

Builth Wells(BSX)
Builth Wells

Port Dinorwic(PES)
Y Felinheli

Sittingbourne(SKD)
Sittingbourne

Maesglas(MES)
Newport (Newport)

Hethersett(HIF)
Hethersett

Wymondham(WRA)
Wymondham (South Norfolk)

Burgh Castle(JUQ)
Belton (Great Yarmouth)

Faygate(FYG)
Horsham

Goldthorpe(GTR)
Thurnscoe

Gorseinon(GBY)
Gorseinon

Llanymynech(LLV)
Pant

Galashiels(GL)
Galashiels

Sevington(SGT)
Kingsnorth (Ashford)

Rye(RI)
Rye

Newton Abbot(NEA)
Newton Abbot

Camblesforth Uc(ZNX)
Camblesforth

Wilberfoss(VFS)
Wilberfoss

West Kilbride (WRB)
West Kilbride

Kinross (KR)
Kinross

Morpeth (MP)
Morpeth

Gorleston (YGS)
Gorleston-on-Sea

Kirkbymoorside(KCZ)
Kirkbymoorside

Rasharkin(RKI)
Antrim

Castlereagh(CTH)
Down

Ilmington (IMN)
Ilmington

New Abbey (NAB)
New Abbey

Borgue (BGZ)
Borgue

Kettleholm (KOM)
Hoddomcross

Eastrington (EJD)
Eastrington

Somerby (SOB)
Somerby

Scalford (SLD)
Harby

Knipton (KEC)
Croxton Kerrial

Honington (HTN)
Grantham

Bridge Of Gaur (QUR)
Carie

Newdigate (NDE)
Dorking

Weston (WGH)
Weston (North Hertfordshire)

Kerry (KRY)
Kerry

Yarrow (YRW)
Yarrow

Bretton (JRF)
West Bretton

Thwing (TWI)
Burton Fleming

Mid Yell (MNU)
Mid Yell

Bearsden (GW/BEA)
Bearsden

Horbury (OBE)
Ossett

Urmston (MR/URM)
Greater Manchester – Trafford

Shrewsbury (SY)
Shrewsbury

Harrogate (HG)
Harrogate

Armley (LRY)
Leeds

Waltham Cross (L/WX)
Cheshunt

Sandy (SDT)
Sandy

Newark (NBD)
Newark-on-Trent

Worksop Mnr (WW)
Worksop

Seacroft (SET)
Leeds

Hornchurch (L/HC)
Greater London – Havering

Hindley (HIN)
Greater Manchester – Wigan

Portland(PLX)
Weston (Dorset)

Kidderminster(KD)
Kidderminster

Devonport(DV)
Plymouth

Neath(NM)
Neath

Davidson Mains (EH/DAV)
Edinburgh

Rochford (REP)
Rochford

Donaghmore(DIZ)
Tyrone

Castlederg(CVC)
Tyrone

Dervock(DVK)
Antrim

Maghera(MOZ)
Londonderry

Toomebridge(TIY)
Antrim

Wolverton (WMV)
Milton Keynes

Stony Stratford (STM)
Milton Keynes

Kettering (KZ)
Kettering

Taffs Well(TAT)
Taff’s Well

Ynysowen(YYN)
Merthyr Tydfil

Brecon(BNB)
Brecon

New Southgate(L/ENT)
Greater London – Barnet

Newington (EH/NEW)
Edinburgh

Gortin(GRP)
Tyrone

Beragh(BZD)
Tyrone

Tulnacross(TNC)
Tyrone

Draperstown(DJI)
Londonderry

Stewartstown(SYP)
Tyrone

Glenwherry(GQW)
Antrim

The Government (DSIT) has just confirmed that the Chair of their broadband and mobile centric Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, Simon Blagden, resigned from his position yesterday “with immediate effect“. The details of Simon’s departure have not been made public, but it’s perhaps not surprising given the recent change of Government.

A spokesperson at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said: “The Department would like to thank Mr Blagden for the significant contribution he has made in this role. Arrangements for appointing his successor will be confirmed in due course.”

The Labour Party’s recent 2024 General Election Manifesto (here) made clear that they would be making a “renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030.” The party has already given mild support to Project Gigabit and appears to be aware that any big changes would risk adding further delays to the gigabit roll-out. But aside from reform of the planning system (here), solid details of their wider plans in this area remain unclear.

UK ISP Quickline has announced that their state aid (Project Gigabit) supported roll-out of a new gigabit full fibre (FTTP) broadband network in the North Yorkshire village of Escrick has now reached 600 homes. As part of that, they’ve teamed up with PBS Construction to show pupils at the local Primary School how they build the network via a “Digger Day“.

The school Digger Day, which sounds like a dream come true for many kids (particularly boys of a certain age – usually aged 5 to 80+), is a joint project that is designed to cut costs by developing a future work force based on cheap child labour help improve understanding and awareness of the delivery of full fibre broadband in their communities (joking with that strike-out , obviously).

The event comprised a short presentation to a full school assembly to explain the work Quickline and PBS are undertaking in the village, followed by the opportunity for all pupils to see a digger up close in the playground and learn more about how it operates.

Judging by the picture, a few lucky little ones also got the chance to have a go in the digger. But it’s unclear whether or not they were also coached in the ways of dealing with anti-pole campaigners, long breaks for tea drinking and the need to tackle Openreach’s many laboriously “fun” PIA processes. But we’d assume.. probably not.

More Digger Days are being planned for the new school year, with hundreds more children set to be involved in the programme from September 2024.

Tamara Butterworth, Social Values Executive at Quickline, said:

“We have been working with PBS in Escrick over recent months to build our network in the village and so people have seen us, our vehicles and our equipment around.

It’s really important to us that we foster relationships with the communities we serve and spending time at school, talking to the children about what are doing is a great way of bringing it to life and educating them at the same time.”

Quickline is being supported by funding of c.£500m from Northleaf Capital Partners and c.£177m of public subsidy from Project Gigabit (here, here and here). The provider holds an aspiration to cove around 500,000 premises in rural and semi-rural areas across Northern England and beyond with “ultrafast broadband” – via both FTTP and wireless technologies – “by 2025” (here). Some 200,000 of those rural premises will be tackled by their wireless network, with the other half or more coming from FTTP.