News

The process has been pushed back to the end of the month, now set to take place on June 25

Earlier this year and after considerable delay, India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) announced that it had finalised the details for the country’s latest 5G spectrum auction, setting a date of May 20.

By April, however, it had become clear that the ongoing general election – the largest democratic vote ever to take place – could interfere with proceedings. As a result, the DoT delayed the auction to June 6, the day after the voting concluded.

Now, just a day before this revised deadline, the DoT is once again seeking to delay the process, with reports suggesting the auction will be pushed back to June 25.

No explanation has been given for this increased delay.

The auction is set to make additional spectrum available in the 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz, 2,500 MHz, 3,300 MHz, and 26 GHz bands, in total worth roughly $11 billion.

The broad range of low-band, mid-band, and high-band spectrum should represent a great opportunity for the operators to expand their spectrum portfolios in the areas they need to most. In reality, however, the spectrum auction is shaping up to be something of a disappointment. Initial deposits from the operators are reportedly 82% lower than they were for the 5G auction in 2022, indicating a general unwillingness to shell out for additional spectrum.

The reasoning behind this seems simple enough: demand remains too low.

India’s first 5G spectrum auction in 2022 saw Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (now Vi) all take home spectrum licences. Since then, both Jio and Airtel have been hard at work rolling out their 5G networks, while Vodafone Idea delayed the process due to its financial woes. Idea says it is aiming to launch commercial services in the second half of this year.

But despite swift rollouts from the country’s two largest operators, uptake has been slow to follow, with both operators reporting relatively little in the way of 5G revenues in their latest financials. As such, it makes sense that they are reticent to buy more spectrum just yet.

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Also in the news:
German government sells $2.7 billion stake in Deutsche Telekom
News in Brief: Cable updates from Submarine Networks EMEA
STC joins e& in eying up United Group 

The Horsham-based Telecom Acquisitions Group (TAL), which is a holding company for several familiar UK residential ISP brands (Home Telecom, No One and Eclipse Broadband etc.), has today acquired yet another broadband customer base, this time from little known ISP brand Eze Talk Residential.

Just to be clear. Eze Talk is currently adopting more of a business focus, and TAL will acquire only Eze Talk Residential’s 2,750 strong base of residential customers. In the last 15 months to February 2024, TAL have grown to circa 100,000 customers, while returning a £40m turnover, and this latest acquisition adds to that.

The TAL Group added that it is continuing to negotiate with other prominent alternative networks and ISPs for further expansion during the course of 2024. The company is also supporting this via an ongoing marketing deal to help boost take-up and bring its brand to houses on the footprints of CityFibre’s full fibre network across the UK, which complements existing arrangements with other networks (e.g. MS3, FullFibre and Freedom Fibre).

Nigel Barnett, TAL’s CEO, said:

“More and more ISPs and network providers like Eze Talk have found that servicing residential connections is time consuming and a drain on resources. We have a formula that works, which is backed up by scores of 4.5 stars including 10,700 reviews on Trust Pilot.

Eze Talk Residential was part of the very successful Eze Talk Group that has been established 22 years and is serious player in the B2B space. Eze Talk Residential is a traditional telephony base including lines, calls, broadband and all the BT services that go with it.

Personally, this acquisition means a lot to me, as Eze Talk helped me with the residential sector when we first setup 13 years ago. The family have really established themselves in the B2B sector and their trust in us taking over their residential side means a lot. There are so many synergies between the companies our relationship will grow even stronger.”

Mike Walsh, Eze Talk Managing Director, said:

“Residential business in our early days was the main stay of our business, but as we are all aware markets change and many years ago, we decided B2B was a more sustainable route for the future. Nigel is a character in our industry and hats off to a man that has put circa 100,000 customers together in four short years and we feel comfortable that our customers will be in excellent hands.”

The announcement doesn’t mention much about the customer side of this deal, but TAL’s past migrations have tended to broadly respect existing package details and prices, albeit sometimes with the odd change.

The new CEO of BT Group (inc. EE, Plusnet, Openreach), Allison Kirkby, has told this week’s Deloitte and Enders Media & Telecoms 2024 Conference in London that any future UK government should look to boosting full fibre broadband and 5G mobile by making further changes to existing planning laws.

As it stands, EE’s latest 5G mobile network already covers 75% of the UK’s population (up from 72% in H1) and Openreach’s national gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network has reached 14 million premises. The latter is currently part of an investment (worth up to £15bn) that is expected to cover 25 million premises by December 2026 (80%+ of the UK) and then up to 30 million by 2030 (nearly universal coverage).

Suffice to say that the operator is making strong progress with its telecoms infrastructure and, over the past decade, the Government has already made a lot of changes to soften existing planning laws to help facilitate such work by network operators. Some examples include moving poles / street cabinets into more flexible Permitted Development (PD) rights and softening the rules on mobile mast upgrades etc.

However, with the 2024 General Election just around the corner, Allison Kirkby has signalled (The Guardian) that one way to support this ongoing work would be to improve “certainty” around regulatory and fiscal policy. Specifically, BT’s boss says the future government will “need to look at planning” (again).

Kirkby made this point at the same time as acknowledging something basic that anybody harbouring any familiarity with the sector has known for the best part of nearly two decades, which is that “Scandinavia is way ahead of the UK” and “part of that is very much driven by the regulatory environment, the planning environment and the general adoption of digital skills and digital services” (see the – 2023 EU Progress Report).

Admittedly, BT’s CEO does rather overlook the company’s own history of having spent many prior years being strongly opposed to investing in building FTTP at scale (something well documented by ISPreview), while instead preferring to focus on their ageing copper line infrastructure. This approach significantly contributed to today’s position, where the UK is playing catch-up with much of the EU. But on the flip side, it also helped to encourage plenty of alternative networks, which now threaten the incumbents.

Allison Kirkby, CEO of BT Group, said:

“It’s not necessarily market structure that stops the UK having the great networks that I saw in Sweden – a lot of it is restricted by planning. The Swedes, the Norwegians, the Finnish all expected their highways, their trains, to have great connectivity wherever you were, even when you were up in the northern part of the country. A lot of what is not working in the UK is the planning legislation.”

Sadly, the new CEO doesn’t elaborate on precisely what aspects of planning she would like to see changed or improved, which seems like a missed opportunity but does also limit any potential risk of fallout from such remarks during a General Election period.
For example, in recent months the news has been full of gripes about the deployment of new telecoms poles from multiple operators, which has grown to become somewhat of a political issue (here and here). Doing anything that might make such deployments even easier, right now, would thus risk being perceived as pushing too far in the wrong direction. BT’s CEO must this tread very carefully.

On the other hand, Openreach and rival operators are trying to find solutions to other problems, such as with the ongoing difficulties of deploying new fibre optic broadband lines into certain large residential buildings / MDUs (here). But that’s arguably more an issue of wayleave (access) agreements than planning, although it is an example of an area where there may still be room for improvement.

We have this morning asked both BT and Openreach if they might be able to elaborate on what sort of planning changes Allison had in mind and we’ll update if any specifics come our way.

News 

The sale forms part of the government’s “responsible privatisation policy”, an approach to privatising state-owned enterprises whilst ensuring that public interest is maintained 

Germany has sold a €2.5 billion ($2.7 billion) stake in Deutsche Telekom through state-owned bank KfW, with the funds set to be reinvested in the country’s state-owned railway network. 

KfW said yesterday that it has sold 110 million shares at €22.13 each. The state has agreed not to sell any more shares for the next three months. 

Following the divestment, the government and KfW will still be the company’s largest stakeholder, retaining a 27.8% share.  

In response to the divestment, Deutsche Telekom confirmed today that it will increase its share buyback program by €600 million. 

Interestingly, the government says it already knows where the recouped funds will be spent: rail infrastructure.  

“The federal government will use the net proceeds from the transaction to strengthen the equity of Deutsche Bahn AG and to expand the rail infrastructure in Germany in a forward-looking manner,” said the Ministry. 

Earlier in the year, the German government confirmed that it would raise €4 billion from selling various shareholdings to fund the railways. In recent years, the country’s railway networks have begun to deteriorate, with ageing infrastructure and a lack of state investment leading to major disruptions for travellers. 

But things may be looking up. Last year, Vodafone Germany announced that it is on track to become the first in the country to launch 5G standalone (SA) on a large scale on Germany’s intercity train routes. So far, the company has activated 5G SA on over half of the country’s railway lines (15,000km).  

Join the German operators in conversation at this year’s Connected Germany – book your tickets now!  

Also in the news:
Microsoft pours $3.2 bn in Swedish cloud infrastructure
Zegona Communications completes Vodafone Spain acquisition
Verizon secures $2.7bn US navy contract

A new Censuswide survey of 353 UK decision makers at smaller (SME) businesses, which was conducted by broadband ISP Sky Business (Sky Broadband) during April 2024, has revealed that their SecurityEdge filters blocked over 73 million malware, phishing and bot attacks in the past year. But SMEs that have yet to experience a cyberattack still underestimate the potential financial impact.

The results found that UK SMEs estimate they’d be forced to stop trading for an average of four days following a cyberattack. And of the businesses surveyed that had experienced a breach in the past, the economic loss of being offline for this time was estimated at £123,984. But for SMEs that have NOT been hit yet, they estimated that the loss would be £39,633, which is 68% (£84.3k) lower than the average of those who had experienced an attack.

In addition, some 16% of businesses surveyed don’t think a cyberattack would cause their business to close and, the longer a business has been running, the less likely they are to think a cyberattack would cause business closure. Some 25% of businesses which have been running for 20 years or more believe a cyberattack wouldn’t shut them down, compared to just 11% of those 1-20 years old.

Further key findings:

➤ 21% of businesses yet to experience an attack don’t think they would have to close, while 100% of those who have been victims said they would.

➤ 8% of businesses who haven’t been victims think an offline period would last 8 days or longer, compared to 24% of those who have experienced one before.

➤ Microbusinesses (those with 1-9 employees) were more likely to underestimate the impact of a cyberattack on their business, with 29% saying an attack wouldn’t cause their business to close. Only 10% of medium businesses (with 100-249 employees) said an attack wouldn’t cause business closure.

Stacey Hill, Director of Sky’s Small Business Group, said:

“The risk of cyber attacks is increasing for UK businesses. A fifth (18%) of SMEs we spoke to have already fallen victim, and research shows this figure will rapidly rise. With those previously attacked SMEs estimating average losses of nearly £31,000 for each day they are forced to close, cybersecurity must be at the top of the business agenda.”

Sky Business obviously has a vested interest here via pushing their SecurityEdge network filters, which are included as standard with their Plus package or as an add-on to their Essential or Pro packages. But despite this, the results of the survey do still help to illustrate some of the challenges involved.

Press Release

Full fibre network operator MS3 Networks has hit another milestone — its network build has passed 200,000 premises across the Hull and the Humber region of England.  The company has been on a rapid network expansion for the last two years and is also connecting its 10,000th customer in Hull.

The latest achievements mark MS3’s progress towards its goal to ultimately cover over 500,000 premises with its 10Gb fibre network. MS3 has now passed over 200,000 homes and businesses across the North of England, including completed builds in Scunthorpe and Immingham, ongoing work in Mexborough and Grimsby and is on track to complete the majority of its Hull build by the end of 2024.

Hull, where MS3 is based, has now seen the network rollout reach 113,000 premises passed with 93,000 able to order today from their network of 15 residential and 35 business partners directly or via the MS3.net price comparison site. Customer penetration 12 months after build in Hull is at 14.3 per cent and Hull will be the first location on MS3’s network to reach 10,000 customer fibre connections next month.

MS3’s strategic expansion focuses on bridging the digital divide, especially in underserved areas like Hull, which have long suffered with higher prices due to incumbent operator domination — something that’s recognised by Ofcom.  By delivering reliable, ultrafast internet and making it available to multiple ISP partners at competitive rates MS3 aims to support digital inclusion, enabling more individuals and businesses to access the internet.

“Passing the milestone of 200,000 premises is a testament to our team’s ongoing determination and drive to change the broadband landscape in the region,” explained Guy Miller, CEO of MS3 Networks. “We remain committed to providing exceptional full fibre services to our ISP partners and their customers as we continue to expand our network. We are also very proud of our take-up levels with a number of areas in Hull above 20 per cent despite us only starting the build two years ago.”

News

Day 2 of the event saw presenters provide updates on 10 exciting subsea cable projects across the EMEA region and beyond. Here are some of the highlights…

Portugal becoming an interconnection hub

There is no denying that Portugal sits in a privileged geographical position when it comes to submarine cable infrastructure. With access to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, the country is seeing a surge of new cable deployments connecting it to all four corners of the globe.

“Portugal has been a submarine cable hub for a long time, but now we’re really starting to see rapid growth,” said Jorge Andrade Santos, Head of International Wholesale at Altice Portugal, noting the new cables connecting the country are expected to more than double those being retired between 2021­ and 2026.

These new routes travel in seemingly every direction: West to the Americas, South down the west coast of Africa as far as South Africa, North to northern Europe, and East to the Mediterranean and through the Suez Canal to East Asia.

“It’s like a star, spread across the entire globe with Portugal at its centre,” said Santos. “In many cases, these routes are extremely low latency due to their efficient routing, being deployed almost on the same lines that air companies use for commercial flights.”

Portugal is also seeing more cloud infrastructure being deployed inside the country itself, rather than in the previously more popular location of neighbouring Spain. Altice itself recently launched a new interconnection data centre in Lisbon, which is already generating significant business.

“Our main focus is to reduce costs for customers, be open and neutral, and be an interconnection and edge data centre. Now we’re looking to grow and diversify the kind of players that are using the facility,” said Santos.

The operator is also considering a new cable landing station and interconnection project in Porto, with feasibility studies already underway.

South Africa: More than the bus stop at the end of the line

South Africa is well known as the termination point for numerous major submarine cable systems travelling up and down the continent’s East and West coasts. But while this distinction comes with a certain level of prestige, it also leaves the country incredibly vulnerable to cable cuts taking place many miles to the north. In fact, this year alone, we have seen disruptions from both east ad west, with cables damaged off the west coast of Africa and in the Red Sea.

The SAEx Project seeks to alleviate this pressure, providing a new route that will link the USA (Virginia) to Brazil (Fortaleza) all the way to Singapore via South Africa.

“The geopolitical tensions that we’ve seen rising across the route are not easing up. We need a more reliable route that avoids some of the troubling areas, like the Red Sea,” said Rosalind Thomas, Managing Director and CEO of SAEx International Management. “South Africa is often the bus stop at the end of the line but we aim to change that.”

The eastern portion of the cable (SAEx East, South Africa to Singapore) is currently in the funding stage, aiming to close by the start of 2025. Work on SAEx West (Virginia to South Africa) will take place roughly one year after SAEx East.

The project already has approval from the South African government, which has identified it as a “Strategic Mega Telecoms Infrastructure Project”.

Overcoming icebergs to connect Greenland

For the most part, Greenland’s existing submarine cable infrastructure is already over a decade old. As a result, new infrastructure is required, not only to serve growing demand but also to provide additional redundancy for existing routes.

The planned Tusass Connect 1 system will meet this need, connecting Qaqortoq in the south to Aasiaat/Disko Bay in the North, via the capital Nuuk.

Surveys for the project have already been completed. Deployment, however, will be far from easy.

“The area is famous for having some of the world’s biggest glaciers, therefore the world’s biggest icebergs, which, as you can imagine, can create some problems!” said Steen Hansen, Department Manager at Tusass A/S.

The related terrestrial infrastructure for the system will be built between 2024 and 2026, including power infrastructure. In some cases, these fibre deployments will be completed via unburied pipes due to rocky and otherwise impenetrable terrain. The stormy weather also notably makes deployment via poles – a method popular in countries like the US – largely impossible.

Tusass say the project is aiming to be RFS in late 2026 or early 2027.

Genoa growing as rival to Marseille

Marseille has long been at the heart of the Mediterranean submarine cable ecosystem, but in recent years new hubs are growing in prominence. One such hub is Genoa, which is the focus of the new Unitirreno cable system off the west coast of Italy.

The system will connect Genoa to Mazara Del Vallow (Siciliy), with branches to Rome and Sardinia. It comprises 24 fibre pairs on the main trunk, with 16 on the Rome branch and 4 on the Olbia (Sardinia) branch.

“Almost all cables coming from the Middle East and Africa have Marseille as their termination point. Uniterreno will provide an alternative route into Europe, with Genoa emerging as one of the next subsea hubs in the Mediterranean,” said Chris van Zinnicq Bergmann, CCO of Unitirreno.

Part of the motivation here is the growth of Rome as a major data centre region within Italy, beginning to steal the thunder from ever-popular Milan. The new submarine cable system, van Zinnicq, will support this growth.

The initial deployments are expected to start in December this year, with the system read for service in June 2025.

Telxius focussing on redundancy in the Americas

Digital infrastructure provider Telxius had two systems to discuss at Submarine Networks EMEA this year: Firmina and Tikal.

Firmina is a 13,500km cable system currently under construction that spans from the East Coast of US to Brazil and Argentina.

Part of the motivation here, explained Gonzalo Rodriguez, Account Manager EMEA at Telxius, is that the route will provide the company with additional landing points in the US and Brazil, helping to provide redundancy for their existing cables in the region.

Firmina is expected to be ready for service in Q4 this year.

Tikal, meanwhile, is a 2,000km cable connecting Boca Raton, Florida, to Guatemala, with a branch extending to Cancun, Mexico. An additional branch to Barranquilla, Colombia, is also being considered.

“What’s really interesting is this will have a branch to Cancun, Mexico. The region has been very active in the last few years and is now able to justify such an expansion,” said Rodriguez.

Telxius plans for Tikal to be ready for service in Q4 2024.

Cinturion making steady progress on TEAS project

Cinturion Group’s Trans Europe Asia System (TEAS) project is one of the most anticipated subsea cable systems in the world, an open-access network connecting Europe to India with an overland hop across Saudi Arabia.

This terrestrial route will not only allow data traffic to avoid the lengthy task of circumnavigating the Arabia peninsula, but will also avoid troublesome geopolitical regions such as the Red Sea.

Much progress has been made with regards to permitting for the system in the past year, with only the final details waiting to be agreed with the Saudi Arabian government before the project can begin.

Cinturion says it expects to have a contract in force in Q3 of this year, with TEAS ready for service in Q2 of 2027.

Medusa to connect to all five north African countries 

The upcoming Mediterranean’s Medusa cable will span roughly 8,700km from Portugal to Egypt, with branches to major hubs in Europe and North Africa. This notably includes branches to each of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt.

“This is really significant,” said Miguel Angel Acero, CTO of the Medusa Submarine Cable System. “It’s the first submarine cable that will connect to all of these five countries in North Africa.”

He also noted the cable’s significance of the cable for the Mediterranean’s research community, with the EU having provided funds to help connected universities and research institutes across the region.

“We have a grant of €40m from the EU to use Medusa to help connect university and research networks between Europe and North Africa,” explained Acero.

The Medusa system is aiming to be ready for service in Q4 2025.

Tampnet’s Norfest celebrates completion in under a year

With a cold climate and a plentiful supply of fresh water, Norway has grown significantly as a data centre hub in recent years, bringing with it an enormous need for fibre backhaul. This was the motivation behind Tampnet’s new Norwegian Norfest cable system, which spans between Stavanger to Oslo, with branch to Stromstad, Sweden.

The fully buried, open access cable system is comprised of 48 fibre pairs and connects all of the major data centre locations along the southern coast the country.

“It was important for us to do this deployment in the most environmentally sustainable way,” said Tampnet Carriers’ Director of Infrastructure Development, Carol Browne. “The cable itself never left Norway, being domestically manufactured – that’s quite unusual for such a big cable project.”

Norfest was ready to begin commercial operations in December last year, having been completed in just 11 months.

TAM-1 set to be the most advanced cable system in the Caribbean

Phase 1 of TAM-1’s deployment, which is already taking place, will see Florida connected to Central America and the North Caribbean. Phase 2 will see this expanded to the wider Caribbean and the northern parts of South America.

Combined, the full TAM-1 system will span over 7,000 km, with 36 fibre pairs and a total capacity of 648Tb.

Work on the project is progressing steadily, with a contract in force as of September last year and initial surveys taking place this April.

The system is currently set to be ready for service Q4 2025.

Speaking at the event, Joerg Schwartz, Chief Partners & Solutions Officer at Xtera (pictured), noted that the company’s latest repeater, branching unit, and open access technologies will be deployed in the TAM-1 system.

“We’re working to essentially allow you to make a network within each fibre pair,” explained Schwartz. “This is going to be the most innovative and flexible system in the region.”

SEA-SPINE: Connecting the Aegean’s underserved islands

The Aegean Sea includes around 1,415 islands, some of which are among the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. But while the better-known islands are generally well-connected with submarine cable infrastructure, many of the other islands remain largely unconnected.

SEA-SPINE is a submarine cable project aimed at shrinking this digital divide, using roughly 563km of submarine fibre and 232km of terrestrial fibre to connect almost a dozen islands to the global internet backbone.

“We are going to connected 11 islands with 7 submarine links. These are not the best known islands – we are trying to bring quality connectivity to some of the more underserved, geographically challenging areas of Greece,” said Ioannis Patsouras, Solutions Architect for WINGS ICT Solutions.

An international tender for procurement for the cables was launched in February, with initial deployments likely to begin later this year.

Submarine Networks EMEA is the region’s leading submarine cable infrastructure event, covering all of the biggest topics from across the industry

Network operator Openreach (BT) has issued an update on a long-running petrol leak in the village of Bramley (Surrey, England), which is having a “significant and ongoing impact” on their underground broadband and phone network. Sadly, the dangers involved mean that the problem is now likely to affect their local work and services for “several months“.

According to a new notice sent to local communication providers and seen by ISPreview, the situation technically began “at least two years ago” after fuel began leaking from an ASDA Petrol Station in the village. But over the course of that time this petrol has begun to cause fuel smells in the area, harming local businesses, and has since leaked into the surrounding groundwater, as well as local utility services.

The local authority now reports that Thames Water has had to issue “do not drink tap water” notices to 616 Bramley properties (GU5, Surrey), with Water Stations being setup at Bramley Library and Artington. Both Openreach and Thames Water have since been busy investigating whether the work of both parties can be safely undertaken to help resolve the situation and minimise disruption time for residents.

ISPreview has been waiting to get a comment from Openreach on this for a few weeks, but so far without success. In the meantime, the operator has today sent out a new notice to local communication providers, which underlines how challenging the situation is to resolve (it goes without saying that petrol can be highly flammable and explosive).

The bad news is that it may now take “several months” before the situation is resolved, and that’s to say nothing of the longer-term environmental clean-up and impacts. Openreach understandably states that their engineers cannot work while the area is so unsafe, and are thus “proceeding with extreme caution“. A specialist contractor (OHES) has also been instructed to advise the operator and help “put safety measures in place to mitigate any immediate risk.”

The good news is that, right now, the direct impact upon local phone and broadband services is said to be “minimal” and only a “handful of customers” are known to have reported faults via their ISP. But it’s worth remembering that the restrictions are having a much wider impact than just the area itself, with Openreach noting that “the network that’s impacted [serves] thousands of customers in Bramley and the surrounding area.”

In other words, while the operator hopes that there won’t be any major service-related issues over the coming months, they do warn that they “won’t be able to fix every issue that’s reported to us” (many can be resolved remotely, but some cannot). “In these cases, we’ll be working with Communications Providers to provide alternative and temporary services until we can – for example via a mobile/wireless signal,” said Openreach.

The fact that no physical service repairs, engineering work, fault management, end customer provision or fibre (FTTP) build can take place (i.e. at least until the immediate explosion risk is mitigated) is naturally very disruptive, and some customers will no doubt be caught out. But at the same time Openreach are still encouraging ISPs to “continue placing orders“, even though in the short-term they may only be able to deliver those that don’t require an engineer visit.

In the end, it is VERY important to remember just how dangerous and extraordinary this situation is. We can’t recall seeing anything quite like this before. On the upside, there is a massive team effort going on behind the scenes, involving Jeremy Hunt MP, Bramley Parish Council, St Catherine’s School, Asda, EPS, Thames Water, WBC’s Environmental Team, Openreach, the EA, UK Health Security Agency and Surrey Trading Standards Officers.

Not quite the “Asda price feeling” locals had in mind, perhaps.

News

A deal could value United Group at approximately €8 billion, including debt 

Saudi Arabia’s STC group is considering the takeover of European telecom and pay-TV operator United Group, according to a report from Reuters that cited three anonymous sources familiar with the discussions. 

The article confirmed that United Group’s owner, BC Partners, which acquired the company from KKR in 2019, is currently working with advisors to start a sale process in the coming weeks. 

If the transaction materialises, United Group could be split into “two different regions” to maximise value through two separate regional deals, the sources said.  

Discussions are still in the early stages and may not come to fruition.  

STC is not the only Middle Eastern telco to view United Group as a major European opportunity. Just last month it was rumoured that Abu Dhabi-based operator group e& was looking to expand into Europe by acquiring the company for a similar sum. At the time, sources said they expected the deal to be announced later this month, but so far a deal has failed to materialise. 

A deal with STC would appear fitting, as the company has been actively expanding its presence in Europe as part of its growth strategy. In April last year, the company made its first move into Europe through its tower subsidiary TAWAL, which inked a deal to acquire United Group’s telecommunications tower assets for €1.2 billion.  

“Our agreement with United Group represents an exciting new chapter for TAWAL and the wider STCGroup,” said STC Group CEO Olayan Alwetaid. 

“The agreement is a significant milestone in our ambitious growth strategy and the expansion of our international footprint,” he continued. 

Last September, the company then acquired a 9.9% interest in Telefónica, which has operations in Spain, Germany, the UK. 

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

Also in the news:
Microsoft pours $3.2 bn in Swedish cloud infrastructure
Zegona Communications completes Vodafone Spain acquisition
Verizon secures $2.7bn US navy contract

Consumer magazine Which? has revealed the results of a recent consumer survey of 3,739 UK mobile users, which found that the most common complaints related to poor signal, price rises, receiving SPAM from their provider and poor customer service. Three UK and Lyca Mobile were also most likely to have had customers experiencing a problem in the past year.

The results, which are somewhat intended to complement their annual 2024 consumer survey of UK mobile operators (here), found that problems with mobile signal and network connections topped the table and were reported by 17% of mobile users (i.e. typically involving consistently poor phone signal, frequent but brief network dropouts or network outages that lasted more than a whole day).

In addition, 6% of respondents said they received unwanted or irritating marketing communications (i.e. calls, texts and emails) “from their provider“, while another 6% complained that a recent price hike was “unexpected or unreasonable” and 5% experienced problems with customer service in the past year (e.g. difficulties resolving complaints/queries and contacting support (e.g. long call waits)).

Finally, a third (33%) of respondents said they had not changed their provider for more than 6 years, which increases for most operators when only looking at the largest four networks – EE 47%, Vodafone 44%, O2 43%, Three UK 30%. But sadly, that’s all the detail they’ve released.