Customers of mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) may like to know that the operator has just responded to Hurricane Beryl, which is wreaking havoc across the Caribbean, by crediting back charges on calls and texts from the UK to several of the affected territories from 3rd to 9th July inclusive.

The territories able to benefit from this currently include Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Cayman Islands.

“We’re also crediting roaming charges on mobile calls, texts and data used in the above territories during the same period“, added VMO2 (here).

Mobile operator EE (BT) claims to have achieved a “European first” with Nokia and Qualcomm in the UK by trialling Carrier Aggregation (CA) on 5G Standalone (5G SA) mobile technology with Five Component Carriers (i.e. 150MHz total bandwidth), which boosted their mobile broadband download speeds to 1.85Gbps.

The majority of most UK 5G network today are Non-Standalone (NSA), which means they’re still partly reliant on older and slower 4G infrastructure. But SA networks are pure end-to-end 5G that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better upload speeds, network slicing, improved support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, support for Voice over New Radio (VoNR or Vo5G) and increased reliability and security etc.

So far we’ve already seen both Vodafone (here) and O2 (here) launching 5G SA services in the UK, initially across the busiest parts of major cities. Meanwhile, the BT Group has said that they intend, via EE, to follow suit during the second half of 2024 (here). As part of that, EE have been trying to find ways of squeezing as much of a performance advantage out of the future upgrade as possible.

One of the ways of achieving this is by harnessing Carrier Aggregation (CA) to combine several radio spectrum bands to support a single extremely fast connection. This is not a new technology (4G used CA too), but applying this many channels (five) – all in mid-band frequencies – to the latest 5G SA technologies is at the cutting edge of commercial mobile networks.

The tests were conducted in the field on live network spectrum at Adastral Park, BT Group’s headquarters for R&D, using Nokia’s 5G AirScale portfolio and a device powered by a Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF system from Qualcomm Technologies. Downlink speeds of 1.85Gbps (Gigabits per second) were reached, using three FDD carriers NR2600 (30MHz), NR2100 (20MHz), NR1800 (20MHz) aggregated with two TDD carriers NR3600 (40+40MHz).

Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer at BT Group, said:

“This latest milestone achieved with Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies enhances 5G SA performance as we work towards the launch of our network, building further on the benefits of carrier aggregation in delivering greater throughput and speeds to customers. This is particularly important as more and more devices come to market with 5CC CA capabilities. We are focused on maximising our spectrum assets to deliver the very best experience to our customers with that in mind.”

The final launch network will “also have the capability to leverage a low frequency sixth carrier” (6 channels), which should provide another boost and aid indoor connectivity too (lower frequencies travel further). Despite being a bit late to the 5G SA party, we’d expect EE to launch the new service with a decent amount of coverage in urban areas, as they usually like to have a good reach before officially going live.

Customers of Three UK’s wireless (4G and 5G) home broadband service in Swindon (South West England), which hails from the old ‘Relish’ wireless service that was acquired from UK Broadband Ltd. in 2017 (here), were recently left in a panic after the operator incorrectly informed them that their service would “no longer be available“.

The confusion stemmed from a letter that was sent out to customers by Three UK last month, which stated: “Due to technical changes in your area, your current Home Broadband service will no longer be available from June. Your existing equipment will need to be removed by a professional. Should you wish to stay with Three we can offer you an alternative Home Broadband service. Visit the coverage checker to see what options are available in your area. We will be in contact with you to discuss.”

The situation prompted local councillors to engage with both Three UK and the government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency over the issue, which revealed that the letter was sent because the mobile operator will be replacing their existing 4G masts in the area with newer 4G / 5G ones in order to provide a better service. The catch is that this may require a change of the end-user’s (mobile) router.

According to the Swindon Advertiser and Cllr Sumner, Three UK has since acknowledged that “their communications could have been better” and they have now paused the terminations, albeit while still intending to contact those affected with an agreed date for the hardware change to occur (the new router kit will be provided for free).

In addition, the operator has said that no new contracts will be required and they’ve pledged to provide those impacted with 3 months of free broadband (the same will also be offered to re-sellers, although it is up to them whether they pass this on). But it sounds like the change won’t be particularly smooth.

Cllr Sumner said:

“I’ll be getting updates in due course on the mast programme and 7 sites will be having the new installation constructed before the old one is terminated, whilst 12 masts are what they call ‘rip and replace’ which will affect the service for customers for 3-5 days.”

Put another way, some customers may experience an outage that lasts up to 5 days, which is not trivial.

Network operator nexfibre, which shares some of their parentage with UK broadband ISP partner Virgin Media (O2), has today announced that they’ve added 20,000 additional homes in the Somerset (England) town of Yeovil to the coverage of their new 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband network.

The roll-out should give a boost to the town, but it’s worth noting that Yeovil is already well covered by full fibre lines from Openreach and Jurassic Fibre (All Points Fibre). A little bit of Gigaclear and Wessex Internet can also be found in the area. Confusingly, Virgin’s press release also mentions a figure of both “18,000” and “more than 20,000” homes for Yeovil, so we’ve picked the roundest number.

Nexfibre has already covered over 1 million premises across the UK with their new full fibre network, and they’re currently in the process of investing another £1bn during 2024, which should enable them to cover an additional 1 million UK premises (on top of their existing footprint).

Just for some context. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners originally setup the new £4.5bn nexfibre joint venture in 2022 (here), which aims to deploy an open access fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT currently served by Virgin Media’s network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.

London-focused UK business ISP Vorboss, which has already rolled out a 100Gbps capable full fibre network in the city centre, have just opened a new City of London office headquarters at Exchange Square (Liverpool Street) to meet demand and support growth.

Just to recap. Vorboss has spent the past four years deploying 500km of their own dedicated point-to-point fibre across Central London (covering most of zones 1 and 2), which we’re told is enough to potentially connect all commercial buildings in the area to their direct internet access and Ethernet network.

However, with that build completed, they’ve recently been more focused upon growing their customer base and have also created 60 new London-based account management roles to help support customers in key industries, including media, broadcast, finance, healthcare, hospitality, hotels and fitness.

Suffice to say that the provider needed a bit more room to expand and have just moved their HQ into a new 2,700 square metre office at Exchange Square, which will house their 24/7 Network Operations Centre. More than 500 square metres of the new space is also being made available to Vorboss customers and partners for working, meeting and networking.

Tim Creswick, CEO of Vorboss, said:

“This new space – close to our network and our customers – will support our continued growth, meeting the demand that’s out there for high-capacity, reliable internet. We’ll be able to better serve our customers and partners by opening up our office to them – this is a place where London businesses can meet, work and collaborate.”

The new facility was opened with an event hosted by Howard Dawber, London Deputy Mayor for Business and Growth, in collaboration with BusinessLDN.

Broadband ISP and mobile operator Vodafone UK has announced that they’ll invest around £120m (Euros 140m) this year to deploy and upgrade their existing AI chatbot system with SuperTOBi, which will support customers via Generative AI (GenAI) technologies from Microsoft Azure OpenAI.

Vodafone already has an existing chatbot system called TOBi, which is being used in 13 countries across Europe and Africa. But the new SuperTOBi system can “understand and respond faster to complex customer enquiries better than traditional chatbots“. SuperTOBI has already been introduced in Italy and Portugal and will start serving customers in Germany and Turkey from this month, with other markets to follow “later this year“.

SuperTOBi can also interpret entire sentences and phrases, overcoming the limitations of existing chatbot technologies (and some humans ), which typically can answer only simple questions based on a few keywords. “It also engages in more natural conversation with customers for a more personalised experience, rather than one- or two-word answers, and it will automatically transfer a question it can’t answer to a person that can,” said the announcement.

Vodafone claims that the use of SuperTOBi in Portugal is already being used for booking appointments. As a result, the first-time resolution rate has increased from 15% to 60% and Vodafone’s online net promoter scores (where respondents are asked to rate their experience) improved by 14 points to 64 points (above 50 points is considered a strong result), although booking appointments isn’t exactly the hardest of tasks.

However, consumer sentiment toward the use of AI chatbots tends to be quite mixed, with many viewing it as being more of a negative and just a way of reducing the number of actual humans that are available to provide support over the longer term. On the other hand, if systems like this do end up making it quicker and easier for customers to get their issues resolved, then that will be a positive change.

Speaking of staff, Vodafone’s own customer care employees will shortly be “complemented” by an enhanced bot assistant of their own, called SuperAgent, which is based on the same sort of technologies as SuperTOBi (i.e. Microsoft Azure OpenAI’s Agent Copilot solution). This should help human agents to “quickly search and locate answers to complex queries or multiple questions” (remember when humans could do that by themselves?).

In Ireland, SuperAgent is assisting agents by sending a summary of its online customer conversation to the agent, so customers don’t need to repeat themselves. So, it’s probably not going to try and take over the world just yet, while simultaneously settling your billing woes and randomly hunting for people with the name John Conner.

Rural UK ISP Wessex Internet, which is rolling out a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across remote parts of Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Somerset in England, has listed the latest batch of 16 communities to be added to their live network coverage between April and June 2024 (Q2).

The provider’s existing footprint is vaguely said to cover “tens of thousands of homes” (some of this may include their old fixed wireless network), while their current business plan targets an “additional” 150,000 premises by 2027 through a combination of both subsidised and unsubsidised capital investment.

The latest update names the 16 villages and other rural communities in Dorset, Somerset and Hampshire that were connected to their new full fibre network between April and June 2024. During this period, the Dorset-based rural ISP has grown to more than 300 employees and was also named the ‘Best Rural Enterprise’ in the UK at the annual 2024 Countryside Alliance Awards.

Wessex Internet’s 16 New Fibre Locations (Live)

In Dorset:

Child Okeford
Gussage St Michael
Hazelbury Bryan
Holwell
Mappowder & Pleck Hill
Marnhull
Stourton Caundle
Tadnoll

In Somerset:

Dimmer & Blackworthy
Lovington
Lytes Cary
Podimore
Somerton
Yeovilton
Welham

In Hampshire:

Damerham

Gavin Davies, Chief Operations Officer at Wessex Internet, said:

“Our network build has continued apace, as we bring reliable, ultrafast broadband to even more rural communities. We’ve reached an important milestone in now employing 300 staff to help reach homes and businesses in the countryside as efficiently as possible, but we’re not stopping here!

We will be continuing to grow our teams over the next few months, including at our new base in Codford, as we fulfil our plans to deliver full fibre internet to rural areas across Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire and Wiltshire.”

Prices for their full fibre packages start at £29 per month for a 100Mbps (15Mbps upload) tier on a 12-month term, but this only comes with a meagre 100GB data allowance (£44 for unlimited), and you’ll have to pay £49 (one-off) for activation. By comparison, their top unlimited usage plan will give 900Mbps (450Mbps upload) for £79 per month, which isn’t cheap but then they’re often the only FTTP choice in a lot of their locations (rural areas cost a lot more to serve too).

Low-cost focused UK broadband ISP Plusnet, which is a BT Group (EE) sibling, is to follow their parents by introducing a new pricing model, which moves away from the old percentage (%) figures and inflation (CPI) approach to annual price hikes. Instead, from 9th July 2024, they’ll introduce a “clear and simple” view of future price rises, expressed in “pounds and pence“.

The change is designed to reflect Ofcom’s recent move to BAN broadband ISPs and mobile operators from doing mid-contract price hikes that are linked to confusing inflation and percentage-based changes (here). But the regulator’s change was never designed to stop mid-contract hikes (i.e. it’s more about making future package pricing clearer and simpler), which means that providers must now tell customers precisely what any future price increases will be when they sign up (“in pounds and pence“).

The first broadband and mobile providers to announce their intention to adopt this approach became BT and EE during April 2024 (here), although at the time it was stated that sibling broadband ISP Plusnet would, for whatever reason, “follow later this summer.” As expected, Plusnet has now revealed when they’ll introduce the same change.

For all new contracts signed up on or after 9th July 2024, a price rise of +£3 per month will be effective each March from 2025 onwards. Existing customers who want to re-contract their package will also become subject to the same change of terms / pricing policy (if you don’t re-contract and joined before this date, then the old CPI + 3.9% terms will still apply). Finally, out of bundle services will increase by 5% on 31st March each year (these aren’t covered by Ofcom’s policy).

A Plusnet spokesperson told ISPreview:

“Our focus is to provide Plusnet customers straightforward broadband at straightforward prices. From the 9th July 2024, we will be introducing a pricing model aligned with Ofcom’s approach, offering our customers a predictable long-term view of their contract terms. These new contracts will make it simpler for our customers and provide more certainty on what annual price changes will be.”

We are very supportive of Ofcom’s recommendation to show upfront pounds and pence amounts for price change and remain committed to supporting all our customers, especially those who are financially vulnerable.”

On the one hand this approach, which other providers will have to adopt too, is clearer. But on the other hand, it does still continue an approach that will most likely see new and re-contracting customers being hit with an above inflation increase in their monthly prices (i.e. given how quickly inflation has fallen in the past year and the presumption of it staying low by March 2025).

In addition, the £3 increase seems to apply no matter how much you’re paying today (i.e. it doesn’t scale with different monthly rentals), which effectively means that it will hit those on the cheapest and often slowest packages the most.

Admittedly, this does help to protect ISPs from the inherent difficulty of trying to balance mid-term price rises against unknown increases in future network costs and inflation, but it’s also unlikely to damped calls from those who believe there should be an outright ban on mid-contract hikes – something we’d support. Speaking of which, if broadband ISPs can now predict this, then it arguably increases the case for just baking the hikes into a fixed price contract.

However, it’s worth remembering that not all providers adopt the same approach as the biggest players and many smaller ISPs, particularly newer alternative networks, often already promote packages with simple fixed price terms.

News 

The partnership comes as a response to the growing complexities of cyber-attacks, skill shortages, stringent regulatory requirements, and the rise of hybrid workforces 

Australian telco Optus has announced a multi-year partnership with Cisco aimed at increasing network protection for enterprise and business customers. 

The announcement notes that because 37% of Australians now regularly work remotely, there has been an increase in the reliance of Software-as-a-Service public and on-demand network services. Although these are convenient, they can increase the risk of security breaches in both devices and their software. 

In an effort to combat this, the new partnership will see Optus launch a portfolio of network security services, powered by Cisco.  

“This includes the significant upgrade of Optus’ Secure Network Operation Centre, complemented by a suite of new products from Cisco,” the companies confirmed.  

There will also be a boost in the investment of Optus’ Integrated Network Operation Centre and Security Operation Centre. 

The platform also includes Cisco-Powered Secure Firewall and Managed Secure Service Edge (SSE) services. Additional features, like vulnerability management, advanced email security, and integration with Cisco Meraki and ThousandEyes, will further enhance security for Optus customers. 

“Our enterprise and business customers rely on Optus to deliver a network that can support high traffic, secure and reliable bandwidth. We are committed to creating solutions that address complex security issues while optimising performance and reliability, particularly in environments that are increasingly hard to defend,” said Danny Price, VP Client Services and Delivery, Enterprise and Business at Optus. 

Optus itself has faced multiple cyber security issues in recent years. In September 2022, Optus suffered a data breach that affected up to 10 million current and former customers, comprising a third of Australia’s population. The breach resulted in the illegal acquisition of sensitive information, including names, dates of birth, addresses, and contact details.  

Australia’s Communications and Media Authority subsequently launched legal action against Optus in May over the breach, saying it “failed to protect the confidentiality of its customers’ personal information from unauthorised interference or unauthorised access.” 

Former CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin also resigned from her position in November last year, following a 14-hour network outage that left millions without mobile or internet coverage for over 12 hours. 

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

Also in the news:
Dutch operators finally get their hands on midband 5G spectrum
Virgin Media O2 completes first stage of Shared Rural Network
Xavier Niel’s $4.1 billion bid for Millicom is too low, company says 

News

The new non-cash impairment charge is in addition to the $2.9 billion impairment logged last year

Ericsson acquired application programming interface (API) specialist Vonage back in 2022 for $6.2 billion, saying at the time that it would play a central role its in ongoing growth strategy.

The idea, in short, was that Ericsson would work together with Vonage to develop network APIs, allowing app developers to gain deeper access to telcos’ 4G and 5G networks, including features such as user authentication, bandwidth, responsiveness, energy efficiency, and security. This, the companies said, would allow developers to better leverage the network to create unique and interesting applications.

In particular, the partners said they would work to build a Global Network Platform for APIs, essentially allowing app developers to rollout their apps across any telco network running on Ericsson equipment – a task that would previously have required unique coding for each telco partner.

At the time, Ericsson claimed that the communications API market would swell to $22 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 30%.

In reality, however, things have moved far more slowly than predicted. App developers’ appetite to get deep into telco networks has been slim, while competition from rival platforms, including Amazon, has been fierce.

By last year, the Swedish operator had announced a non-cash impairment of $2.9 billion – almost half of the acquisition’s value – citing ‘the significant drop in the market capitalization of Vonage’s publicly traded peers, increased interest rates and overall slowdown in Vonage’s core markets.’

Today, the company’s fortunes continue to slide, with Ericsson writing off a further $1.1 billion for Q2 this year.

In total, this leaves Vonage worth only around a third of what Ericsson paid for it just two short years ago.

Ericsson attributed this reassessment of Vonage’s value as being related to “deterioration in the market environment and elective decisions we have made to refocus our investments in strategically prioritized areas”, according to Niklas Heuveldop, Head of Business Area Global Communications Platform and CEO of Vonage.

Despite this, Vonage appears committed to further developing its Global Network Platform.

“We continue to advance our strategy to build a Global Network Platform for network APIs, which was the strategic impetus for the Vonage acquisition. We recently announced additional partnerships with leading mobile network operators and we see continued positive momentum across the industry,” said Heuveldop.

“Through this strategy, we are making advanced 5G network capabilities available to the world’s developer community to accelerate the innovation of value-added applications for industry and society. This will open up new revenue streams for our operator customers and spur growth in the telecom industry.”

At this point, there is no doubt that Ericsson paid far too much in its acquisition of Vonage. Just how much it overvalued the company, however, remains to be seen.

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

Also in the news:
Dutch operators finally get their hands on midband 5G spectrum
Virgin Media O2 completes first stage of Shared Rural Network
Xavier Niel’s $4.1 billion bid for Millicom is too low, company says