Rural broadband ISP Quickline, which is deploying a mix of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) networks across parts of Lincolnshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire in England, has today revealed that their full fibre build has now covered 10,000 premises across multiple locations and rising. The FTTP side of their network roll-out is still in […]

Kenosha, Wisconsin is probably not a place that immediately springs to mind when you think about American cities, but now the city on the shore of Lake Michigan has become the sixth US city to get open access, city wide, fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) rollout due to a partnership between infrastructure investor PATRIZIA and privately owned telecom company, SiFi Networks.

Originally named Kenozia, or “place of the Pike” by Native Americans, Kenosha is today best know as corporate HQ of Snap-on Tools and underwear company Jockey International. Beyond that it’s a tourist town and major hub for Amazon.

It is now the sixth city in the US and the largest investment yet from PATRIZIA’s Smart Cities Infrastructure Fund (SCIF) bringing their total investment in FiberCity® networks to more than EUR 600 million.

Kenosha has a population of roughly 100,000 people so the scheme which will provide 40,000 residents and businesses with 10 gigabit per second internet via 700 miles of fibre and 56 cabinets is reaching a significant proportion of the population. The network is expected to be completed by November 2025.

Nearly half the population of Kenosha are under 35 years of age, so high-speed internet is seen as vital for supporting future jobs and making it a smart city of the future.

Ben Bawtree-Jobson, Chief Executive at SiFi Networks, which counts PATRIZIA as a shareholder, said: “SiFi Networks have been busy at work in Kenosha for months and we are delighted with the experience to date and the opportunity to bring our FiberCity® solution to residents and businesses in the city.”

Phoebe Smith, Senior Director at PATRIZIA Infrastructure, said: “Having already invested in four cities in California and one in Massachusetts, we are firmly committed to delivering open access, high-speed networks to millions of people across America. With the need to digitalise our economies only accelerating, enabling the development of smarter cities through innovative digital infrastructure is absolutely essential if we are to meet the future demands of our communities.”

Californian cities already covered by the investments include Fullerton, Placentia, Simi Valley and Rancho Cordova, totalling more than 150,000 units currently under construction, whilst Salem in Massachusetts is the first East Coast investment. Amongst future plans, SiFi are inviting expressions of interest for proposed 172,000 units for Arlington in Texas.

German PATRIZIA was founded in the Bavarian city of Augsburg and established their Smart Cities Infrastructure Fund (SCIF) in November 2018. SCIF is managed by PATRIZIA and funded by Dutch pension fund manager APG. It invests in smart city infrastructure solutions, allowing cities to more efficiently allocate resources and improve the lived environment. As well as its investment in the United States, it previously made investments in Europe, creating a EUR 180 million portfolio of Italian smart streetlighting companies.

Shawn Parker, Vice President Government Affairs & Business Development at SiFi Network will be speaking at Connected America, our new event at the Irving Convention Center, Dallas on March 28-29, 2023. Find out more at www.totaltele.com/connectedamerica

Mobile operator EE has announced that they’ve already upgraded their 4G mobile network on the London Underground by enabling the latest ultrafast 5G based mobile broadband connectivity, which will initially only be live across three stations – Archway and Tufnell Park (Northern line), as well as Notting Hill Gate (Central line). Just to recap. The […]

Bath-based alternative network UK ISP Truespeed, which is deploying a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of South West England, has today reported that their network now covers 60,000 premises (up from 50k in Sept 2022) and has 13,000 customers (up from 11,500) – 21.67% take-up. The operator, which holds an […]

Vodafone UK has published their latest quarterly (Q3 FY23) results, which states that their fixed broadband ISP base saw strong growth to total 1.158 million customers (up by 47k in the quarter vs 39k in Q2 FY23), while their mobile base also grew again to total 17.802 million (up by 259k vs 321k in the […]

Kent-based independent UK ISP Vfast (Orbital Net), which sells packages to consumers based on a mix of fixed wireless access (FWA) and full fibre (CityFibre and OFNL – in London and Medway) broadband networks, has today announced that they’ve signed-up their 15,000th internet access customer. We should point out that Vfast are also building their […]

Rural UK broadband ISP Gigaclear has announced that their ongoing £38m investment to expand their UK Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network into Buckinghamshire (England), which has already covered around 19,000 premises, is being extended to reach 1,700 homes in the village of Great Missenden. But they’re not alone. The first deployment work in Great Missenden is due […]

Press Release

BT Group’s Digital Unit today announces it is working with Kyndryl on a cutting-edge program to move a number of the Group’s mainframe applications which service its legacy copper business and consumer broadband products to the cloud.

The unique and complex project will see the Digital unit move critical legacy applications that cannot be shut down in the short term to the cloud, allowing it to operate its copper broadband infrastructure in a modern way. The ten-year partnership, which draws on Kyndryl’s hyperscaler capabilities and partner ecosystem, will allow BT Group to reduce mainframe operating costs and energy consumption by 70%, leading to savings worth more than £17m a year by 2026.

“We like thinking out of the box to solve complex problems – like how to move off mainframes given the prohibitive increase in legacy infrastructure cost – without rewriting decades-old applications,” explains Harmeen Mehta, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer at BT Group. “With that mindset, working with Kyndryl, we figured out how to turn legacy mainframes into modern digital apps and run them at a fraction of the cost.”

Kyndryl, which currently runs BT Group’s mainframe estate, extends its partnership with BT to deliver the transformation project by 2026, accelerating the drive to reduce cost and open up data insights within these key applications. As part of the project, some applications are being “retired” (contributing to the Group’s target to get to fewer than 500 strategic systems by 2027, simplifying its technology estate), “refactored” (redeveloped into BT Group’s existing strategic systems and architecture) or rehosted (repackaged to operate in a cloud environment).

In moving to the cloud, the applications will become more “digital” with application programming interface (API) and micro-services capabilities developed to help integrate the value of data across wider BT Group systems and drive innovation through automation, while lowering costs. Applications will be hooked into BT Group’s service management platform, and support its “AIOps” self-healing IT estate model, reducing the risk of downtime and accelerating and automating fixes. It will enhance other applications’ ability to call on data and capabilities within the mainframe applications, giving rise to more seamless customer experiences, supporting customers with the migration to modern fibre services as the legacy copper networks are retired in the years ahead.

“It’s exciting to be partnering with BT Group on such an ambitious and critical programme. Migrating from mainframes to cloud extends the usefulness and lifespan of these applications in a modern, micro-services led, cloud-centric way and helps unlock intelligent data insights. We’re excited to draw on our deep knowledge, ecosystem of partners and community of industry leading experts to help deliver this transformation,” comments Petra Goude, Global Practice Leader, Core Enterprise & zCloud, Kyndryl.

From cloudification to sustainability, join the operators in discussion around the hottest topics in telecoms at this year’s live Connected North conference

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News

The vendor says its continued investments will help it to gain market share when demand begins to rise again next year

When the coronavirus pandemic first struck back in 2020, it quickly wreaked havoc for production lines around the world. For the slow-moving juggernauts of the semiconductor industry, the impact was dramatic and immediate, forcing the closure of various fabs and creating a vicious supply crisis, the reverberations of which can still be felt to this day.

Now, roughly three years on, the semiconductor crisis is gradually easing for many customers, aided in no small part by favourable policies and subsidies promoted by governments, who increasingly view chip production as a key element of technological sovereignty.

Indeed, in South Korea, the world’s second largest semiconductor producing nation, chip manufacturers are now, ironically, facing a new challenge: oversupply.

Since the global economic downturn last year, demand for electronic goods has decreased dramatically, leaving the nation’s chipmakers with a significant surplus of memory chips.

At the end of last year, the South Korea’s chip production decreased for the fourth consecutive month, leading many manufacturers, including SK Telecom’s chip unit SK Hynix, to slash their manufacturing spending in response.

But Samsung, it seems, views this supply crisis reversal as an opportunity, saying they will continue to invest heavily in their semiconductor conductor business this year in anticipation of future demand.

The company spent around $38.8 billion on its semiconductor business in 2022 and said they would aim to do similarly in 2023.

“The market conditions this year are not favourable as consumer sentiment weakens and companies prioritise financial soundness amid inflation and higher interest rates,” said Samsung’s executive vice-president Jaejune Kim during an analyst call. “But this gives us a good opportunity to thoroughly prepare for the future. We will continue to invest in infrastructure to meet mid-to-long-term demand.”

Samsung says it expects demand to rise again towards the end of this year.

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The operator disputes the legitimacy of the $773 million tax bill forced upon it by the Ghana Revenue Authority

At the start of this year, the Ghanaian tax regulator announced that it was issuing MTN Ghana a bill of roughly $773 million, including penalties and interest, claiming the operator had underpaid its taxes for multiple years the previous decade.

The announcement came following the Ghana Revenue Authority’s audit of the operator’s finances for the years 2014–2018, with the regulator finding that MTN had under-declared its revenue by around 30% during this period.

“The base component of the assessment (that is, excluding penalties and interest), on MTN Ghana’s analysis, infers that MTN Ghana under-declared its revenue by approximately 30% over the audit period,” explained the regulator in a statement.

MTN “strongly disputes” these findings, saying they are inaccurate and made use of a flawed methodology.

“It is important to also emphasise that we believe MTN Ghana has paid its due taxes during this period under assessment,” MTN’s CEO Ralph Mupita told analysts at a meeting earlier this month.

Legal proceedings are ongoing to resolve the situation.

This week, however, the South African government has begun to weigh in on the dispute, urging the two parties to find an ‘amicable solution’ to the conflict.

The international relations and cooperation minister Dr Naledi Pandor called for fairness in resolving the legal battle, arguing that greater cooperation was needed between the two countries, especially in the telecommunications sector.

“Our common destiny, as outlined in the Agenda 2063 aspirations, depend on win-win intra-African collaboration and cooperation,” she said.

Agenda 2063 is a set of initiatives currently under implementation by the African Union, aimed at improving the continent’s economy and promoting closer collaboration between nations. The plan includes numerous flagship projects, ranging from the establishment of a high-speed continental rail network to the creation of a Great African Museum.

Crucially, many of these projects are directly tied to the telecoms industry, such as the creation of a pan-African digital data network, collaboration on cybersecurity, and the establishment of an open, digital Pan-African University.

In related news, it should also be noted that Ghana is currently experiencing a major economic crisis, with inflation rising above 50% and the government seeking financial aid from the International Monetary Fund. If ever there was a time when the government could do with a financial windfall, this is undeniably it.

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