Press Release

Serveo and Telefónica Tech have carried out an innovative pilot project for the Community of Madrid that allows the inspection of traffic accidents and the state of its roads with drones. This is a pioneering project that shows the potential of drone technology to promote safer, more efficient and sustainable mobility.

Both companies, together with the operator Navalair, have carried out a 4.6 kilometres drone flight out of visual range from the North Zone Road Maintenance Centre in La Cabrera (Madrid) to a simulated accident at kilometre point 1+300 of the M-631 road, with the aim of optimising the inspection of accidents and speeding up the response of the Serveo service in critical situations.

Drone technology will make it possible to quickly assess the scene of any incident that occurs on the roads, speed up the response of the conservation and emergency services and improve the care of the people involved in the accident. In addition, drones provide a complete aerial view of the accident scene, which can be particularly useful for further investigation in the case of complex accidents.

The pilot project has also simultaneously inspected 13 kilometres of the M-608 road with LiDAR technology using a drone piloted from a moving vehicle, with the aim of obtaining a cloud of points for subsequent processing and analysis by Serveo and the Directorate General of Roads, Department of Housing, Transport and Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid, which will allow the necessary actions to be planned to improve road safety on the infrastructure.

Cristina Aragón, head of innovation at Serveo, said: “This project demonstrates Serveo’s commitment to road safety and efficient infrastructure management, placing us at the forefront in the implementation of innovative solutions to promote safer and more sustainable transport.

Alfredo Serret, Global Head of IoT at Telefónica Tech, said: “We are very proud to carry out this innovative project with drones in the field of mobility that will improve road safety and speed up the response in case of accidents. It represents, without a doubt, an exciting step forward in the management of transport infrastructures and the prelude to being able to carry out this type of flights in the future with 5G technology”.

Pedro J. Capote, CEO of Operadora Navalair, said: “This project has been a great challenge for our company. We have been able to demonstrate once again that drone technology is a great tool when it comes to obtaining data and images, among other of its multiple uses, with the resounding success of the operation. It has been a great pleasure to work hand in hand with the Telefónica Tech and Serveo teams, two giants that undoubtedly work every day to improve services for all users”.

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

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News

The merger, which was first announced in June 2022, was finally approved earlier this year 

According to a report from Spanish business newspaper El Economista, Spanish operators Orange and MasMovil are set to name their newly consolidated business ‘MasOrange’. 

Both Orange Spain and MásMóvil have declined to comment on the name’s revelation, with the Spanish paper’s sources claiming that an official unveiling of the new branding will come after Easter. 

The merger of Orange Spain and MasMovil, worth €18.6 billion, was approved by the European Commission (EC) in February this year, following a lengthy investigation by regulatory bodies.  

This investigation sought to overcome concerns that the transaction would restrict market competition by creating the largest operator in Spain (in terms of customers) and reducing the number of players in the market from four to three.  

The newly combined MasOrange will serve over 30 million mobile subscribers and  almost 8 million fixed broadband customers. 

In order to counterbalance the newly merged company’s dominant market position, the EC required MasMovil to divest of 60MHz spectrum assets to local operator Digi, as well as providing the latter with a new roaming agreement. This, the regulators suggest, should allow Digi to grow rapidly to become a new fourth national operator in the Spanish market. 

The deal’s approval marked a notable shift in regulatory attitude within Europe, a fact that Kester Mann, Director of Consumer and Connectivity at CCS Insight, suggests will now turn the spotlight on the Vodafone and Three mrgeer in the UK. Just this week, a second phase of an investigation by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was confirmed, after an initial investigation found unresolved competition concerns. 

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

Also in the news:
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Interview

At this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), we caught up with Stefan Pongratz, Vice President of Dell’Oro Group, to discuss the state of 5G in 2024 and what the future of the technology holds for us in 2024

It has been almost half a decade since the global telecoms industry first began its transition to 5G and, while rollouts have proved broadly successful, the technology has so far delivered little in the way of revenue growth for operators.

“So far with 5G, results have been mixed,” explained Pongratz. “On the one hand, coverage has been pretty good – some estimates suggest its 45% of the global population, so we’re developing significantly faster than LTE. […] From a capacity perspective as well, when you look at the proliferation of Massive MIMO in the upper midband, we’ve seen a stepwise reduction in data delivery costs of 50-70% cost per bit, so from that perspective its very good. But, on the other hand, 5G has not reversed the operators’ flat revenue trajectory so far.”

Now, with 5G’s evolution towards 5G-Advanced, questions are being asked as to whether this new flavour of 5G will be able to reverse the operators’ fortunes.

For Pongratz, beyond simply helping to meet the rising mobile data demand, 5G-Advanced could offer the operators many opportunities for service differentiation.

“The operators don’t need to rush things too much […] They can approach [5G-Advanced deployment] methodically, in line with their overall 5G roadmap,” he explained, saying that there are numerous scenarios in which 5G-Advanced will be a welcome upgrade, particularly when it comes to improving indoor coverage.

“There’s still a lot of areas out there where [5G] performance is not excellent, both outdoors and especially indoors. I think there’s a lot of opportunities for the operators to differentiate themselves here,” he explained. “One of the things we thought we’d see transpire with 5G was that the gap between indoors and outdoor coverage would actually be significantly reduced. We’ve seen that happening in China, but outside of that it has been limited. A stronger indoor emphasis in the 5G-Advanced era could be an opportunity for operators to move beyond human-based MBB applications.”

5G-Advanced in combination with AI and automation can spur improved efficiencies and ultimately help the operators reduce the TCO.

“Operators that can invest in building a more intelligent and automated network could have an advantage,” said Pongratz, describing it as a chance to ‘one-up’ their rivals.

“The ecosystem is in pretty good standing. With the standards being frozen in the first half of 2024, we will see some initial commercial deployments in 2024. These will most likely focus on capacity – as Huawei are calling it, 5.5G, will focus on the 10 Gbps capacity sites,” he explained. “We’ll see some initial uptake and then it will steadily improve throughout 2024 and beyond.”

You can view our full interview with Stefan Pongratz, VP of Dell’Oro Group, from the link below

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News 

The merger was agreed last year, with Vodafone taking a 52% in the new business and Three UK taking the remaining minority stake

This week, the UK competition and markets authority (CMA) have completed the first phase of its investigation into the merger which was put in place to identify whether the deal may lead to a ‘substantial lessening of competition’. 

The review, which began in January, concluded in short that the “CMA is concerned that combining these two businesses will reduce rivalry between mobile operators to win new customers.” 

The CMA have concluded that it has identified concerns significant enough to warrant further scrutiny in a Phase 2 investigation, in which an independent body will review the concerns raised in phase one in more depth. 

The high level of CMA intervention is necessary because, if the deal is given the greenlight, it will reduce the number of MNOs in the UK from four to three, with the newly merged company having a market share of 32.1%. Additionally, and perhaps rather obviously, the CMA found that “Vodafone UK and Three UK provide important alternatives for mobile customers”. 

Of particular concern to the CMA is the potential impact on smaller mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), such as Sky Mobile, Lebara, and Lyca Mobile. These operators rely on access to larger network infrastructures to provide services to their customers. The merger could potentially limit their ability to negotiate favourable deals with fewer network operators available to host their services. 

Both Three and Vodafone have made significant investments in their networks in recent years, including rolling out 5G. Unsurprisingly, both companies are emphasising that the merger will allow them jointly invest £11 billion in services and next generation wireless infrastructure.  

According to the CMA, Vodafone UK and Three UK have five working days to respond with meaningful solutions to the CMA, otherwise the deal will be referred to a more in-depth Phase 2 investigation. 

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

Also in the news:
BT wins £26m contract to connect UK schools
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