News

A selection of the month’s biggest news stories from the German telecoms market, with guest commentary provided by Rowan Thomson, Senior Conference Producer of Connected Germany, Total Telecom

Vodafone Germany to power 5G infrastructure with renewable energy: Vodafone Germany has signed a renewable energy supply deal with RWE and will, in turn, supply the energy company’s offshore windfarm with 5G connectivity

Deutsche Telekom joins Fetch.ai Foundation to pursue AI and blockchain convergence: The German telecoms giant continues to lean heavily into AI, this time considering the long term implications it could have for Web3 technologies.

Deutsche Telekom shifts voice customers to the cloud: Deutsche Telekom has successfully centralised 17 million customer connections in the cloud, processing billions of voice minutes through the NIMS platform.

Telefonica Germany builds self-powered 5G site: Photovoltaic modules have been installed next to the mobile tower, removing the need to connect the site to the national grid.

“This month’s stories highlight the growing focus within the sector on emerging technologies and technological transformation, with artificial intelligence and cloud transformation big topics, not just within the telco space, but within Germany’s digital economy more generally.

We can also see the importance of sustainability as well as the growing synergy between the telecoms industry and energy sector, with areas such as smart networks, smart grids and broader decarbonisation efforts becoming increasingly important as part of hitting Germany’s net zero goals – as highlighted in our stories on Vodafone’s renewable energy partnership with RWE and Telefonica’s build out of a self-powered 5G site. Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest industry news from Germany and further afield.”

– Rowan Thomson, Senior Conference Producer of Connected Germany, Total Telecom

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Want to keep up with all the latest developments in the German telecoms market? Join the ecosystem in discussion at this year’s Connected Germany conference live in Munich

Viewpoint

On Day Zero of this year’s MWC Barcelona event, Huawei hosted the 5G Beyond Growth Summit. Here, Li Peng, Huawei’s Corporate Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales & Service discussed how carriers can achieve business success in 5G and how 5.5G will further unlock the potential of networks, creating new growth opportunities

Li began by reminding the audience that it has been five years since 5G launched into global markets, and since then, the way our world is connected had changed exponentially. He noted that 5G is the fastest growing mobile technology ever. Since hitting the market in 2019, there are now over 1.6 billion 5G users globally from 302 carriers in more than 100 countries in five years. With 4G, this same milestone took seven years to reach.

Despite less than 20% of global mobile subscribers using 5G currently, this generates 30% of all global mobile traffic, which in turn accounts for a huge 40% of all mobile service revenue. To tackle this, it’s essential that carriers find new ways to monetise 5G to bring this revenue back up. Let’s take a look at some successful examples of 5G monetisation.

Because 5G can deliver up to ten times faster speeds than 4G and a lower cost-per-bit, Li continued, it results in increased investment in both home and consumer markets. In the home market, 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) has been a success, as over 150 global carriers have launched 5G FWA services, which have connected three million households. Especially for carriers in the Gulf Cooperation Council, (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) it has become a lucrative income source.

Speed based pricing is another way to effectively monetise 5G. Charging customers different prices based on different speed tiers, has been done effectively in 21% of 5G carriers in countries such as Switzerland, Austria, UAE and Thailand. Similarly, providing more speed tiers in hotspot areas can result in monetisation. For example, a carrier in Thailand recently released a 5G Boost Mode add-on. Users can use this whenever they want to enjoy faster speeds in hotspot areas. Boost Mode plans only cost $1.4. They include 3 hours of faster speed and 5 GB of data. And these plans have increased average revenue per user (ARPU) by 20%.

Targeting plans at specific consumers is another viable monetisation option. For example, one Chinese carrier launched a plan with guaranteed uplink rates designed specifically with live streamers in mind. China has the world’s largest livestreaming market, and specifically in China’s Guangdong province, there are more than 300,000 livestream users who have increased ARPU by 70%. This model could be adapted to different types of users, such as business professionals or delivery drivers, to help monetise the experience of the existing consumer base.

New services emerging in the areas of 5.5G, AI and cloud convergence. Chinese carriers have, for example deployed services such as New Calling, cloud phone and glasses-free 3D. Since launching the services, they have over 100 million New Calling users and 12 million cloud phone users.

In the area of smart vehicles, 5G powered autonomous vehicles are being adopted in various sectors such as logistics, retail and security. In Beijing for example, 5.5G is being used to power hundreds of unmanned distribution vehicles that can travel at a top speed of 25 Km/h, whereas before it was 12Km/h. Therefore, more packages each day are able to be delivered at a faster speeds than a human employee, increasing efficiency and increasing revenues.

These are some examples of industry successes of 5G adoption and monetisation. As adoption increases and more customers are able to make use of the different opportunities that 5G can bring to both consumers and businesses. However, more work must be done to ensure than new growth in the industry is driven, to build today’s networks for tomorrow’s applications.

Li closes out the session by promising the audience, “Together with carriers, we will unlock the potential of 5G and 5.5G, and drive incredible new growth”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency appears to have scrapped the relatively user-friendly website for their Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which instead redirects interested consumers and businesses to a somewhat less user-friendly GOV.UK information page that lacks even a simple availability checker. Just to recap. The GBVS generally offers grants worth up to […]

Mobile operator Vodafone has this morning echoed EE’s recent announcement (here) by confirming that they’ve successfully switched-off their 3G mobile (mobile broadband) network across the UK. The related radio frequencies will now be repurposed to strengthen faster 4G and 5G services, but there’s a small catch. The activity, which is said to have “finished this […]

Infracapital-backed network builder and UK ISP Fibrus, which is rolling out a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across Northern Ireland and parts of North England (Cumbria), has revealed that they plan to expand their off-net retail provision and coverage by launching Openreach-based packages. The operator, which recently had to scale back some of their […]

Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK (VMO2), supported by UK network operator nexfibre, have today announced that more than 12,000 extra homes and businesses in the Northumberland (England) town and civil parish of Blyth can now access their new 2Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband services. Blyth is the latest in a long list of VMO2 […]

Horsham-based Telecom Acquisitions (TAL Group), which is a holding company for several familiar UK consumer ISP brands (e.g. Home Telecom, Fleur and Eclipse Broadband), has revealed that over the past 15 months they’ve grown to total 100,000 customers and added 22,000 residential broadband users in the last quarter alone. According to data from Fibre Provider, […]

Software as a service provider X3T, which recently merged with Strategic Imperatives and also provides an aggregation platform to help UK alternative broadband ISP networks grow, has today appointed BT’s former CEO, Gavin Patterson, to its board. But he’s not the only high profile appointment. In case anybody has forgotten, Gavin Patterson led BT Group […]

Starlink’s (SpaceX) mega constellation of ultrafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has become a popular solution for UK customers in remote rural areas, yet its adoption is often held back by the high price of entry. But the space ISP is now testing the waters with a 50% cheaper plan, albeit one with […]

Press Release

[Barcelona, Spain, February 26, 2024] Huawei hosts the Green Development Elite Club during MWC Barcelona 2024. More than 90 delegates from UNFCCC, ITU-T, and leading network operators such as Turkey Turkcell and Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) gathered together to discuss the latest developments in the building of Green Target Networks to further enable the sustainable development of the industry.

In the intelligent era, global network operators should not only fulfill the social responsibility of reducing their own carbon emissions, but also seek to help wider industry with energy conservation and efficiency improvement. Now, with the advent of enhanced computing power and artificial intelligence, network operators can not only transform their own operations to reduce carbon footprint but also enable many new 2H and 2B services to help wider society also lower its carbon footprint.

Opportunities and Challenges for the Green Development of the ICT Industry

In his opening presentation, Mr. Massamba Thioye, Project Executive of UNFCCC-GIH (UN Climate Change Global Innovation Hub), explained how the GIH organizes global industry partners to actively participate in and disseminate global thought leadership on “systemic innovation to enable green development”. Through multilateral collaboration with standards organizations, network operators, and equipment vendors from the ICT industry they hope to make breakthroughs in green innovation initiatives and green operation methods, and share best practices to support the sustainable development of humankind.

Next, Ms. Qi Shuguang, Vice Chair of ITU-T SG5 (International Telecommunications Union Study Group 5: Environment, climate change and circular economy), Vice Chief Engineer of CTTL-system in CAICT, outlined the standardization work of Sustainable Digital Transformation which is focusing on Double-Edge Nature of ICTs. On the one hand, how to minimize the negative effect of ICT, including published Recommendations on circular economy, digital product sustainable passport, sustainable data centers, smart energy solutions, Climate Actions towards Net Zero, scope3 emissions and ongoing work related to environmental impacts assessment etc. On the other hand, due to huge potential of ICT to slash global GHG emissions , Ms. Qi briefly introduced the content of ITU-L. 1480 which is on assessment of enablement effect of ICT as well as under developing standard titled“Enablement indicator of ICT to other sectors and best practices to achieve Net Zero goal”. Finally, she mentioned the collaboration between ITU and other UN organization such as UNFCCC, UNEP, ETSI on standardization work of Sustainable Digital Transformation.

Green Development Practices of Global Leading Operators

Mr. Yildiray Ornekli, Access network infrastructure associate director of the Türkiye Turkcell, was the first of two network operators presenting, sharing their green site solution. With simplified site redesign and extensive solar energy utilization, their Green Site Solution is more energy efficient and environmentally friendly, and as a side-effect, its cyber resilience is improved. Even during the major earthquake of 2023, the solution provided stable and reliable communication services to the impacted areas. Turkcell will continue to build 5,000+ green sites and 300 MW solar power plant in the future to rapidly improve wireless network coverage, introduce connectivity to unconnected areas, and help more people bridge the digital divide.

Next, Mr. Derek Chen, Engineering Operations VP at HKT, shared HKT’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2050 and provided details of their green management system. HKT’s equipment room modernization program together with AI-driven power source scheduling has already greatly improved energy efficiency and operational efficiency. Now, 80% of their equipment rooms are equipped with intelligent power-saving meter systems, saving 31.8 GWh of power and reducing carbon emissions by 10% annually. HKT also provides various green services for communities and enterprises, including smart property management, cloud computing, generative AI services, telemedicine, and marine environment monitoring. Together, these are promoting green and sustainable social development.

Beyond Imagination，Digit Create Green Future

In the closing presentation, Zhou Yu, president of Huawei Network Consulting and System Integration, announced the release of two white papers which aim to stimulate and drive increased sustainability in both telecommunications operators, and the wider industry.  The first white paper, “Green Management”, co-authored by China Mobile, Hong Kong Telecom and Huawei, proposes a management and governance framework to help network operators successfully transform to more sustainable operations. The second white paper “Green Network Evolution with Digital-Twins” introduces Huawei’s Green Network Evolution with the Digital Twin Platform (GNED), a transformative tool to helps carriers accelerate green transformation.

Mr. Zhou Yu concluded by emphasizing that with the rapid development of computing and AI capabilities, operators can provide more innovative 2C, 2H, 2B and computing services. However, this leads to faster network expansion and rapid growth of operation costs. The network is gradually going beyond the limits of “Moore’s Law.” and exceed the control of the “man”. Huawei is committed to helping operators integrate green and intelligence into networks through new digital and AI technologies, and enabling the promotion of organizations, talents, and processes, to support the evolution of network architecture from “Pyramid” to “Spindle”, achieving continuous growth of network capabilities without increasing energy consumption – Beyond Imagination.

To enable this transformation, Huawei has built many end-to-end digital capabilities based on its NetLIVE platform, such as Full-service Area Planning, Smooth and Resilience Migration and Continuous Operation. It provides operators with a comprehensive set of scenarios solutions such as Green Site Modernization, Green CO Modernization and Solar Farm etc. – Digit Create Green Future.

In the future, Huawei’s Intelligent Connectivity Integration service will build on the concept of “Less for More” – less resource for more end-services – and focus on a holistic network-wide view rather than single sites in isolation.  Huawei’s digital and AI capabilities will continue to build ever more green, efficient, resilient, secure and service-rich networks for operators, and is committed to achieving the strategic goals of green and sustainable development.