Network access provider Openreach (BT) has issued a small but interesting update to UK ISPs on the question of how they intend to deal with G.fast broadband cabinets that have a) no activate customers, and b) have been 100% overbuilt by the operator’s latest gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network. You can guess the answer.

Just to recap. G.fast (ITU G.9701) was an interim hybrid-fibre and copper technology, which was capable of download speeds up to around 300Mbps, but which ultimately ended up being abandoned (here) in favour of Openreach’s welcome desire to deploy full fibre (FTTP) technology at scale. The service only ever covered around 2.8 million UK premises and just a tiny number of ISPs still support it (here).

Openreach has since overbuilt many of their G.fast cabinet (extension pods) areas with FTTP and take-up of the old service was so low that some of those don’t have any active G.fast customers left. According to the details of a new briefing (here), which have been seen by ISPreview, Openreach already have an agreement with ISPs that would allow them to close G.fast in FTTP Priority Exchanges areas with 100% full fibre overbuild.

The agreement has since been firmed up through discussions at the industry CFPCG (Copper Fibre Products Commercial Group), which means that they now have the support to “close ALL remaining Gfast Pods with zero active end customers where they also have 100% FTTP overbuild“. As a result, 30 days’ notice has been issued for the first tranche of the qualifying DSLAMS (cabinets) to be put into the decommissioning programme.

At present this means that a total of 335 G.fast DSLAMs will be put through the Openreach Compaction process, where line cards are removed for reuse, all systems and inventory will be updated and then finally the DSLAM will be stood down and removed from power.

At this stage we don’t have any details regarding the exact list of DSLAMs or how long they will all take to be decommissioned, but then this process is as much a learning process for Openreach as it is for ISPs. Overall, this is a logical step (given the total availability of FTTP in related areas) and obviously won’t impact any live customers.

Just to be absolutely clear, if you are still on a G.fast line in an Openreach FTTP area then you’re not on a “zero use” cabinet and so don’t need to worry.

News

A contract worth billions of dollars will provide U.S. Navy agencies with T-Mobile equipment for years to come

This article was originally released by our sister publication Broadband Communities

T-Mobile has been selected for a $2.67 billion defence contract that will make them a wireless solutions provider for the U.S. Navy for the next decade.

The contract replaces a previous iteration, known as Spiral 3, which expired in May.

With the new Spiral 4 contract, all agencies under the U.S. Department of Defence umbrella will have the ability to place orders for wireless services and equipment for the next 10 years with T-Mobile.

An announcement from T-Mobile, released Thursday, explained how the company has grown its range of services for government operations since 2017, when the provider began participating in Spiral 3.

T-Mobile’s release cited the company’s advanced 5G network solutions, which includes applications that can “meet specific performance needs of government agencies,” as an advantage.

David Bezzant, a VP of sales with T-Mobile’s government division, said the Spiral 4 contract award is a testament to T-Mobile’s network and emphasis on solutions.

“With a cutting-edge product portfolio, a proven track record and a clear vision for the future, we’re ready to take government innovation to the next level,” he said, according to T-Mobile’s release. “It’s an honor to serve those who serve this nation.”

Major carriers like T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T were all involved with the Spiral 3 contract vehicle, which allowed agencies to place orders against the contract.

T-Mobile’s release called the Spiral 4 contract a ” comprehensive, multiple-award contract” that includes solutions for voice, data, fixed wireless access, Internet of Things and mobility management.

In the future, according to T-Mobile, the government could also leverage the company’s partnership with Starlink.

In January, T-Mobile celebrated the launch of Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell technology.

According to T-Mobile, the milestone, part of the Coverage Above and Beyond Initiative, “aims to bring connectivity nearly everywhere in the U.S.” for T-Mobile customers.

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

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Infracapital-backed UK broadband ISP Fibrus has today announced that they’ve extended their multi-gigabit speed capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to reach 1,000 premises in the Cumbria (England) port town of Silloth, which follows similar deployments in locations such as Workington, Parton and Wigton.

The provider’s gigabit broadband network has, as of 31st March 2024, already been expanded to cover 354,000 premises (337k RFS) across parts of England and N.Ireland, which is up from 339,000 premises on 31st January 2024 (321,000 RFS). In addition, the operator recently grew their customer base to over 80,000.

However, it’s worth noting that Fibrus’ deployment in Silloth does not come without some competition, since rival altnet Voneus has already covered most of that location with their own FTTP network.

Chris Collins, Head of Network Build at Fibrus, said:

“We’re delighted to be able to bring the benefits of our Full Fibre network to even more communities in Cumbria. At Fibrus, we use a full-fibre optic cable all the way to the premises creating a quality and reliability that cannot be achieved any other way. This will make a big difference to local businesses and families in Silloth, allowing them to access more reliable broadband rather than having to rely on slow copper wires for their internet.

As you will have fibre directly to your home, you will no longer need a traditional telephone line. If you use your telephone line for making and receiving calls, we can provide you with an excellent low-cost alternative using VoIP (voice over IP) Technology.”

Residential customers can expect to pay from £24.99 £21.99 per month for download speeds of 159Mbps (average) and uploads of 34Mbps on a 24-month term (£39.99 thereafter), which rises to £44.99 £39.99 for their top 982Mbps (310Mbps) tier (£59.99 thereafter). The packages also include an Amazon Eero 6+ router (or routers), UK support, free setup and the pledge of “no mid-contract price hikes“. Prices may differ in areas of subsidised build.

News

The platform aims to be a Google rival, having already received backing from the likes of Nvidia and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos 

South Korean telco SK Telecom has announced today that it will invest $10 million in US-based generative AI search engine start up Perplexity. 

The two companies will collaborate to further develop Perplexity’s GenAI search engine platform, which is attempting to disrupt Google’s hegemony over the industry.  

Founded in 2022, Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search engine that provides direct answers to questions by analysing information from across the internet, rather than just listing websites. It searches the internet in real time, rather than being trained on a fixed dataset (such as Chat GPT), so its answers are more up to date. It currently processes over 230 million search requests each month. 

Perplexity and SK Telecom first signed a strategic cooperation agreement at MWC Barcelona in February. Here, the companies agreed that SKT subscribers could use the paid version of Perplexity for free, and the company could use Perplexity’s models to build personal AI assistant products with access to real-time information.  

SK Telecom will provide Perplexity with Korean-language data and other content to help improve its large language model. 

“Both companies share a vision to provide the best AI services that enrich our lives. We are excited about this partnership and are pleased to have the opportunity to provide Perplexity Pro services to SKT customers,” said Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity’s Chief Business Officer. 

“Through this investment cooperation with Perplexity, we have secured global competitiveness in the AI search engine market,” said Lee Jae-shin, SKT’s Vice President of AI Growth Strategy. 

“Based on the close cooperation between the two companies, we will strengthen A.’s search capabilities and plan to launch the highest level AI personal assistant service at home and abroad,” he continued. 

As part of the agreement, Perplexity will also invest in SK Telecom’s Global AI Platform Corporation, which was established last year. 

 SK Telecom has been hugely vocal in the last two years about its goal of becoming a world leader in AI. The company’s Chief Financial Officer Kim Jin Won has said that the company is “stepping up efforts on all fronts to transform itself into an AI company”, including launching numerous initiatives and making various strategic investments in AI startups. 

To this end, last year SK Telecom formed a Global Telco Alliance with e&, Deutsche Telecom, and Singtel to collaborate on the use of AI in the telecoms sector and create new customer and business opportunities. 

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

Also in the news:
Freshwave to deploy small cells in Manchester for VMO2
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Rural network builder and UK ISP Voneus, which aims to cover 370,000 premises via both their gigabit-capable fixed wireless access (FWA) and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband networks, has announced that they’ve begun to build a new gigabit wireless network that will connect thousands of homes on Walney Island in the south of Cumbria.

The project, which has been in the works for a while, is getting underway in the North Scale area and the first customer installations are scheduled for the beginning of July 2024. Assuming all goes to plan then the build could eventually end up connecting around 4,700 homes, many of which currently lack access to gigabit-capable broadband speeds.

In partnership with the local authority, Voneus has selected lighting columns to deploy the network, which is capable of delivering up to 1 Gigabit speeds both upload and download by harnessing Cambium Networks 60GHz cnWave mesh network technology.

Customers of the new wireless network can expect to pay from £38.99 per month for symmetric speeds of 250Mbps (inc. free router and installation), which rises to £74.99 for 900Mbps. The first three months of service are being offered for free and the provider is pledging no mid-contract price rises on their 24-month term.

Voneus’ CEO, Christoper Traggio, said:

“Voneus is the vanguard of rural gigabit connectivity, deploying advanced wireless and fibre technology in a hybrid, complementary manner.

“Today marks another significant milestone on our mission to bring better broadband to the people of Walney Island. The community’s welcome has been uplifting and the response has been fantastic, with many residents registering already for our game-changing service. We can’t wait to start installing customers next month.”

The news comes just a day after we reported that the operator had benefitted from another investment boost of £18m (here) and appeared to be accelerating their plans.

News

Slim and his family own and manage América Móvil, one Latin America’s largest telcos

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has bought a 3.16% share of BT for roughly £400 million, making him one of the company’s largest shareholders.

The share was purchased through Slim’s financial company, Inbursa, and two other group companies.

Slim is now the third largest shareholder in BT, after fellow billionaire Patrick Drahi, who owns an 24% stake through his subsidiary Altice UK, and Deutsche Telekom with a 12.06% share.

“We have frequent communication with all of our shareholders and meet with major investors on a regular basis,” said a BT spokesperson. “We look forward to engaging with Inbursa, just as we do with all investors.”

Speaking to the Financial Times, director of consumer and connectivity at CCS Insight, Kester Mann, said the investment in BT was “an endorsement” of BT’s latest strategy update and reflected “good recent momentum for BT” under the leadership of new CEO Allison Kirkby.

Kirkby, who joined the company in February from Telia, last month announced that the company had already met its target to save £3 billion in costs by 2025, largely thanks to its ongoing job-cutting programme;   BT is currently aiming to eliminate 55,000 jobs (or 40% of the total workforce) by the end of the decade.

With this target met, Kirkby now says BT will do the same thing again, cutting a further £3 billion in costs by 2029.

Join the conversation around UK telcos at this year’s connected Britain, 11-12 September in London. Get half price tickets this week only!

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The UK Labour Party has today published their Manifesto for the forthcoming 2024 General Election, which is due to be held on 4th July 2024. As usual, ISPreview has taken a quick dive into the document to see what the party may be planning in terms of their broadband, mobile and internet related policies.

Since the last election, the party appears to have moved away from their heavily nationalisation focused “free full-fibre broadband to all by 2030” pledge of 2019 (here), which raised more than a few questioning glances and a fair bit of scepticism from within the industry, as well as more widely. But today our focus is firmly on 2024 and not 2019.

Until today, we haven’t really been able to gleam much detail about what position the party would take for the election. But Labour has previously signalled that they might continue to support the current Government’s existing £5bn Project Gigabit broadband roll-out programme (i.e. aiming for 85% gigabit coverage by 2025 and “nationwide” [c.99%] by 2030).

The party has also previously spoken of working with Ofcom to try and encourage greater infrastructure sharing or co-operative build between network operators, which would have to be carefully balanced to avoid any unintended damage to competition.

In addition, Labour indicated in 2023 that it would aim to foster an “industry wide social tariff for low-income families” and do more to tackle mid-contract price hikes and loyalty penalties etc.

Labour’s 2024 General Election Manifesto

The good news today is that Labour’s 2024 UK General Election Manifesto (PDF) has now been published. But given all the previous talk above, we were a little bit surprised to find how light it is on matters of broadband and mobile policy. Across the whole document, we could only find one single paragraph on the subject, which makes for quite a stark contrast with the last election:

“In an ever more connected world, Britain’s communication network is also vital. Under the Conservatives, investment in 5G is falling behind other countries and the rollout of gigabit broadband has been slow. Labour will make a renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030,” said page 31 of the document.

On the one hand, that talk of making a “renewed push” sounds positive, but on the other hand they don’t define what this actually means and how it will differ. The approach does at least appear to support the aforementioned idea that they might not be intending to make any major changes to Project Gigabit itself, which is probably a good thing in this case, as that tends to require new reviews and thus delays (i.e. the risk of making that 2030 target even harder to hit).

So far, none of the manifestos we’ve seen being released have included any big surprises or solid new commitments, which is a bit disappointing.

Press Release

Residents, visitors and businesses in Manchester city centre and surrounding areas will soon be enjoying enhanced mobile connectivity from Virgin Media O2 thanks to a new agreement between Freshwave and Manchester City Council.

Connectivity infrastructure-as-a-service provider Freshwave will be deploying more than 20 outdoor small cells on behalf of Virgin Media O2 in busy areas of the city, including outside the Arndale Shopping Centre, Manchester Piccadilly Station and Piccadilly Gardens.

In busy urban areas such as city centres, the large number of people all using their mobile phones at once can place a high demand on the mobile network. Outdoor small cells help meet some of the demand at street level, relieving the wider network and providing a better mobile service for customers.

Outdoor small cells are often fixed to existing street furniture, such as lampposts, so are ideal for boosting mobile capacity in busy areas without increasing clutter on the streets. They’ll be connected to Virgin Media O2’s fibre network which will carry the data to and from the internet. These small cells will immediately enhance 4G signal and are also 5G ready.

Councillor Rabnawaz Akbar, Executive Member for Finance and Resources at Manchester City Council, said: “Everyone in Manchester deserves to benefit from high quality, reliable digital infrastructure. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Freshwave and Virgin Media O2 to bring convenient, fair, and equitable connectivity to more people in our city. We believe that this agreement is a significant step towards achieving the aims set out in our Digital Strategy for 2021-26, which outlines our ambitious vision to build a more digitally enabled future for Manchester. By enhancing communication, improving access to vital services, and driving economic growth, improved connectivity will make a transformative difference to the lives of businesses, residents, and visitors alike.”

Steven Verigotta, Director of Mobile Delivery at Virgin Media O2, said: “We are committed to bringing the best experience possible to our customers no matter where they are. Small cells are an important part of this strategy, helping to boost capacity for customers in some of the busiest areas.

“With upgrade programmes underway right across our network, we’re working hard to ensure our customers consistently receive an exceptional experience wherever they are and even at the busiest times.”

Nick Wiggin, Freshwave’s Head of Partnerships, said: “This agreement is an exciting step forward in Manchester’s digital ambitions. We want to stay connected no matter where we are, whether at home or on the go in the city centre, and Freshwave are always pleased to work with partners in bringing assured connectivity to where it’s needed.”

Join the connectivity community in discussion around all of the North’s biggest infratructure topics at Connected North live from Manchester

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The Party of Wales (Plaid Cymru) has today become the latest political party to publish a Manifesto for the 4th July 2024 UK General Election, which we’ll take a brief look at below because it includes a couple of commitments related to broadband and mobile connectivity.

The Plaid Cymru Manifesto for the Westminster General Election 2024 (PDF) document, which has just been published this morning, states that it would “seek to invest in our digital infrastructure and guarantee a high-speed connection to every home and business“, albeit without giving a clear timescale or any funding figures (there’s also a question mark over how they define “high-speed“).

However, after digging a bit deeper into the document, we did manage to uncover the following statement: “Plaid Cymru has previously called for the establishment of a Welsh Broadband Infrastructure Company. We have also called for the UK Government to release more Project Gigabit money increasing the investment to tackle the “very hard to reach areas” or the “total not-spots” where there is no fast broadband or 4G signal at all and bring the timescales forward. We will also push for more investment in alternative technology projects especially in the “very hard to reach” areas e.g. small cell projects / Fixed Wireless Access.”

Overall, it’s quite vague, but the important thing is that they’re at least referencing digital infrastructure as an area that needs further improvement, which is always a positive thing. But like so many other election manifestos, we’d really like to see a bit more detail on the delivery, funding and timescale side.

In particular, we’d like to know more about how their Welsh Broadband Infrastructure Company would work and how it would fit in with the country’s existing selection of competitive operators and network build, such as the ongoing projects from Virgin Media / nexfibre, Openreach, Netomnia, Ogi and others.