Satellite operator Iridium and chipmaker Qualcomm have joined forces to add satellite-based “messaging and emergency services” access to premium Android powered Smartphones in the second half of 2023, which will enable them to compete with rival solutions like the Apple iPhone’s new Emergency SOS via Satellite (here). Over the past year it’s been difficult to […]

Internet service provider iTalk has finally branched-out beyond its old ADSL and Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) based home broadband packages by launching a new range of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) powered services on Openreach’s national network. Some of their new full fibre packages have also been discounted. Each of the new full fibre packages include a digital […]

Customers of broadband ISP Virgin Media’s (VMO2) pay TV service, particularly those who are more fitness conscious, may like to know that the operator has just added content from Nuffield Health, Fiit and Fit at Home (i.e. reflecting a range of sessions including yoga, cardio, strength and kid’s workouts) “at no extra cost“. A total […]

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Cox Mobile services are now available in all 18 states in which the operator has fixed line and cable TV offerings

This week, Cox Communications have announced the long-awaited launch of their mobile services, facilitated by a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) deal with Verizon.

Cox says their 4G and 5G mobile services will now be available throughout the 18 states in which they already offer fixed line services, building on the service’s soft launch in three locations last year.

The new mobile packages will only be available to customers who are already customers of their fixed line services, with Cox viewing the move to converged services as a key factor in customer retention.

“The convergence of wired and mobile communications has never been more important. Customers recognize Cox as a reliable provider of connectivity, so introducing a mobile phone offering was a natural extension of our services,” explained Mark Greatrex, president of Cox Communications.

Cox’s major fixed line rivals, Comcast and Charter Communications, both also have MVNO deals with Verizon and are operating their mobile services on a similar business model.

Cox’s MVNO launch has been a long time coming. Back in 2021, the company had already agreed to partner with Verizon to use the latter’s mobile network, planning to launch in three markets that October. However, T-Mobile rapidly drew Cox into a legal battle, saying that Cox was obligated to partner with them for their mobile network needs due to their previous relationship with Sprint.

Courts initially ruled in T-Mobile’s favour, but later overturned the decision following appeals, leaving Cox free to proceed with Verizon.

Want to find out all of the latest news from the US telecoms market? Join the operators in discussion on the industry’s hottest topics at the new Connected America conference

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A number of broadband ISPs and mobile operators are kicking off special January sales today, such as BT with its offer of 6 months half-price broadband and Sky Broadband’s general package discounts. We’ve summarised both of these below in a bit more detail. We’ll start this short summary of new weekly deals with BT, where […]

The UK Gov has confirmed that two new laws came into force on 26th Dec 2022, which make it both mandatory for property developers to ensure that new build homes are constructed with support for faster broadband, and to make it easier to expand that into big residential buildings (MDU) when “rogue landlords” fail to […]

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According to the government, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is aiming to launch a commercial 5G network in 2024

This week, India’s Minister for Railways, Communication and IT, Ashwini Vaishnaw, has indicated that state-run telco BSNL will be ready to launch 5G services in 2024.

Speaking to reporters at an event in the Indian state of Odisha earlier this week, Vaishnaw noted that BSNL’s 4G network was set to launch later this month and would aim to have nationwide coverage with by the end of the year.

The company’s 4G network will initially prioritise 45,180 villages across the country that are not already covered by any other 4G network.

Moreover, Vaishnaw also emphasised that the greenfield nature of BSNL’s mobile network would allow them to upgrade sites to 5G quickly, without having to overcome the challenge of legacy equipment.

“The complete roll out of 4G service by BSNL across the country is expected by the end of this year. Since BSNL does not have legacy network, the 4G towers can be upgraded to 5G very fast. There will be no issues in faster roll out of 5G service by BSNL in India,” explained Vaishnaw.

Interestingly, BSNL will use homegrown mobile networking equipment provided by a consortium of local companies, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT).

However, it is worth noting that even if BSNL begins launching 5G services next year, just one year after its greenfield 4G network launch, it will still be playing catchup with its local rivals. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are already in the process of rolling out their 5G network across the country, with Jio already serving almost 50 cities.

In addition, Airtel and Jio may not be the only company’s BSNL has to face in the 5G arena, with Adani Group recently purchasing 400MHz of spectrum in the 26GHz band at the latest spectrum auction. However, it seems that the newcomer has little interest in offering 5G services directly to consumers but will rather use the spectrum to craft private 5G network offerings for enterprise customers.

BSNL’s journey as a burgeoning mobile operator is sure to be a difficult one, with the company set to lean heavily on government support for the foreseeable future. As a fixed line operator, the company had been losing ground to Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio for years, being overtaken by Jio as the country’s largest fixed broadband provider for the first time at the start of 2022.

As a result, last summer, the Indian government green lit a $20.5 billion relief package for BSNL, aiming to give the struggling telco a much-needed boost as it continues to lose market share to Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. At the time, Vaishnaw told BSNL employees to “perform or perish”, saying that major improvements were needed, or else jobs would be at risk.

Around the same time, it was also announced that BSNL will be merged with Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), the special purpose vehicle created to operate the planned nationwide mobile network BharatNet.

BharatNet had repeatedly failed to meet implementation targets, with the government hoping that the merger will serve to improve project coordination, contain costs, and accelerate outcomes.

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VIEWPOINT

CSPs seeking to generate more value beyond connectivity increasingly see anonymized customer data as a high-value asset to be monetized, providing significant benefits to its enterprise customers and partners

Since 2006, when the mathematician declared that “Data is the new oil”, companies started caring more about the data they collected and generated. Telcos have been no exception, but due to a higher focus on the consumer segment, Telcos are not yet using data in B2B as they are in B2C.

Nevertheless, the investments made in B2C digital transformation can drive opportunities to sell that experience to B2B clients. Further to that, data collected from the network and business and operation systems creates the potential for new business models and revenue generation with data monetization.

Compared to Internet companies such as Meta with 1.8 billion users, and Google at 1 billion users, CSPs worldwide have aggregate access to 5-8x of user data information with their service subscribers. Not only every smartphone runs on a CSP network, but also a significant part of IoT devices, making CSPs an important source of data, complementary to or for some localized use cases better than such high-scale competitors.

CSP’s first-party data, enriched with open data, can provide ready value for enterprise customers on personalized marketing, credit scoring use cases and help with insights into population, economics, consumption patterns, and mobility flows.

Evolving from the current 50m location accuracy of 4G, it is expected that 5G shall be capable of enabling a mobile positioning accuracy down to below 10 meters, when leveraging dense deployments in urban areas. For specific use cases such as factory automation, 5G developments target an accuracy of below 30cm. As per BCG’s survey , location data is considered of high importance by most companies in financial services, retail and e-commerce, logistics and delivery, real estate, and travel and tourism. Nevertheless, the value of location-based insights Telcos can produce and provide can bring benefits to almost any industry.

Examples of anonymized, aggregated geo-located insights Telcos can already provide to business customers:

Geographical origin of people passing by a store area, based on correlated data through cell-towers
Average time spent by people in an area, based on mobile up-time in those areas
Social and digital profile of people in the area, based on devices and usage of connectivity services, open data, and Telco’s information about customers
Enriched use cases about users’ digital behaviour by layering information extracted from mobile devices when Telcos’ self-care apps or Telcos’ partners’ apps are used.

Beyond direct monetization, data can become a new feature or module of existing CSPs’ products, increasing their value. For example, a unified communications service platform managed by the CSP could report to an enterprise customer not only on their key performance indicators, such as average call handling times, but also on how their company compares to others.

Above all, data represents a real opportunity in a growing digital ecosystem. CSPs need to seize the opportunity to unleash the value of data, further leveraging location intelligence over the mobile network, which will ultimately provide significant benefits to their partners and customers.

This viewpint was written by Miguel Raposo of Celfocus. Celfocus are a sponsor of the Total Telecom Congress that tis year will take place in Amsterdam on the 21-22 November 2023

Infracapital-backed broadband ISP Fibrus, which is currently rolling out a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) networks across both Northern Ireland and the North of England (Scotland will follow), has revealed that it now aims to reach a total of 1 million premises over the next 3 years (by Q1 2026). At present the provider has already […]

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Supply chain issues resulted in Germany’s newest mobile network operator only narrowly meeting its goal of launching 5G services in 2022

This week, new German mobile operator 1&1 has announced the expansion of its 5G coverage with the activation of 50 additional 5G sites in Hamburg, Essen, Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Munich, and Freiburg. These new sites will be used to make 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) services available to customers in those locations.

These new sites join the three already activated in Frankfurt am Main and Karlsruhe in the final days of December last year – three sites which crucially allowed 1&1 to claim to have met its goal of launching commercial 5G services by the end of 2022.

Mobile 5G services, however, will have to wait until later in the year, with 1&1 in fact lagging significantly behind its initial 5G rollout plans.

1&1 was originally aiming to have rolled out 1,000 5G mobile sites by the end of the 2022, as per its regulatory obligations, but in September the company moved to rein in these expectations, blaming a then-unnamed partner for delays that could take up to six months to resolve.

The partner in question was subsequently revealed to be Vodafone’s recently spun-off mobile tower company Vantage Towers.

As a result, in an update this week, the company said that just 235 sites are currently under construction, though CEO Ralph Dommermuth said he was confident that the company could still reach its obligated coverage target of 50% of all households ahead of its 2030 deadline.

Achieving such targets will reportedly require “around 12,600 radio masts and over 500 regional datacentres,” according to Dommermuth.

In the nearer term, 1&1 is required to have passed 25% of the German households by the end of 2025.

It is worth noting here that 1&1 is one of the few operators in the world building a network entirely on Open RAN architecture, with its network being build and managed by Open RAN specialist Rakuten Symphony.

Other vendors involved in various parts of the network include Dell, Supermicro, Cisco, Mavenir, Altiostar, NEC, and Communications Components (CCI).

As such, the performance of 1&1’s network will be closely scrutinised by the international telecoms community, with Open RAN advocates surely hoping it will prove something of a European trailblazer for the burgeoning technology.

How is the German telecoms industry evolving in 2023? Join us at this year’s Connected Germany conference to hear the experts discussing the industry’s hottest topics

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