UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) will later this morning discount the price of their standalone “Gig1 Fibre Broadband” package (average speeds of 1130Mbps down and 52Mbps up) again, this time reducing it from the previous offer price of £45 to £39.99 per month for the first 18 months of service (£62 thereafter). As usual, new […]

Alas, as the editor of ISPreview.co.uk, I don’t have a magic wand for making full fibre networks appear outside my door. Just like everybody else, I was forced to wait.. and wait. But the day did finally come and from an operator that, like so many other alternative networks these days, didn’t even exist for […]

News

According to the operator, the data of 37 million customers has been compromised

Today, US mobile giant T-Mobile has announced it has been hit by another cyberattack, resulting in the data of 37 million customers being accessed by a malicious actor.

The breach was reportedly identified on January 5, with the operator saying they had removed the attacker’s access to the data within 24 hours.

“Our investigation is still ongoing, but the malicious activity appears to be fully contained at this time, and there is currently no evidence that the bad actor was able to breach or compromise our systems or our network,” said the company in a statement.

T-Mobile was quick to play down the severity of the attack, noting that no sensitive data, such as financial information, was compromised. Instead, the operator said that the information stolen was “basic” and “the type widely available in marketing databases or directories”.

Basic or not, this data does include details such as names, dates of birth, and account numbers.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has initiated an investigation into the breach.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time in recent memory that T-Mobile has been hit with a major cybersecurity scandal.

In 2021, the operator reported a breach that had compromised data relating to 76.6 million customers. One year later, the FCC fined operator $350 million and stipulated they must spend a further $150 million on additional cyberdefense measures.

In somewhat related news, the FCC is currently in the process of updating its data breach reporting rules, aiming to have telcos notify customers earlier when their data has been compromised.

Want to keep up with all of the latest news from the US telecoms sector? Join the experts in discussion at this year’s Connected America conference

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Press Release

The companies combine technology expertise to deliver the first demonstration of network slicing using RIC on a live 5G SA network

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and KDDI announced the successful demonstration of Service Level Agreements (SLA) assurance network slicing in a field trial conducted in Tokyo, Japan. For the first time in the industry, the companies proved their capabilities to generate multiple network slices using a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) on a live commercial 5G Standalone (SA) network. The RIC, provided by Samsung in this field trial, is a software-based component of the Open RAN architecture that optimizes the radio resources of the RAN to improve the overall network quality.

Network slicing enables multiple virtual networks to be created within a single physical network infrastructure, where each slice is dedicated for a specific application or service—serving different purposes. For instance, operators can create a low latency slice for automated vehicles, an IoT slice for smart factories and a high bandwidth slice for live video streaming—all within the same network. This means that a single network can support a broad mix of use cases simultaneously, accelerating the delivery of new services and meeting the tailored demands of various enterprises and consumers.

“Network slicing will help us activate a wide range of services that require high performance and low latency, benefitting both consumers and businesses,” said Toshikazu Yokai, Managing Executive Officer, General Manager of Mobile Network Technical Development Division at KDDI. “Working with Samsung, we continue to deliver the most innovative technologies to enhance customer experiences.”

Through this field trial conducted in Q4 of 2022, KDDI and Samsung proved their capabilities of SLA assurance to generate multiple network slices that meet SLA requirements, guaranteeing specific performance parameters—such as low latency and high throughput—for each application. Samsung also proved the technical feasibility of multiple user equipment (UE)-based network slices with quality assurance using the RIC, which performs advanced control of RAN as defined by the O-RAN Alliance.

“Network slicing will open up countless opportunities, by allowing KDDI to offer tailor-made, high-performance connectivity, along with new capabilities and services, to its customers,” Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “This demonstration is another meaningful step forward in our efforts to advance technological innovation and enrich network services. We’re excited to have accomplished this together with KDDI, and look forward to continued collaboration.”

For more than a decade, the two companies have been working together, hitting major 5G networks milestones that include: KDDI’s selection of Samsung as a 5G network solutions provider, end-to-end 5G network slicing demonstration in the lab, 5G network rollout on 700MHz and the deployment of 5G vRAN on KDDI’s commercial network.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios, and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

Want to keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news from around the world? Sign up here to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

Also in the news:
Rethinking retail: T-Mobile lays off around 600 retail staff
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The operator will work with Japanese start-up Gryllus to help automate the cricket production cycle

To many of us, the concept of eating insects strange and, it must be said, unappetising. However, with the global population set to reach almost 10 billion by 2050 and the food poverty already a major issue worldwide, many experts believed that this attitude towards edible insects must change – if not by choice, then by necessity.

In fact, there are many benefits to farming insects for human consumption compared to traditional livestock: they require far less land, water, and food; they reproduce quickly; they produce very low greenhouse gas emissions; and, perhaps best of all, they are highly nutritious.

The biggest challenge, however, remains making them appealing for human consumption. Despite insects being a stable food source for centuries in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, for Western audiences remain unconvinced, with edible insect companies trying various marketing tactics over the past few yeas to varying degrees of success.

Nonetheless, according to a report by Barclays, the edible insect market is set to see healthy growth over the coming decade, climbing to to $6.3 billion by 2030.

Perhaps this is why the topic of edible insects has drawn the attention of Japanese operator giant NTT, with NTT East this week announcing a new partnership with a local start-up called Gryllus, helping them to more effectively breed and harvest edible crickets.

According to the Japanese operator, over the next the next month, the operator will work with Gryllus to deploy various technological solutions to help accelerate and optimise the cricket production process. This will include sensors measuring temperature and humidity to help ensure the ideal growing conditions, as well as an AI-powered cameras to monitor the insects and alert workers to health anomalies.

As the scale of operations increases, NTT will leverage its IT expertise to provide additional support.

While this initial partnership appears little more than a trial, NTT’s commitment to the edible insect market here should not be underestimated.

According to the company, NTT is considering renting unused office space in some of the more inexpensive parts of the country and converting them into cricket breeding facilities. If successful, NTT intends to sell these insect farming businesses for profit, estimating that the business could be worth tens of millions of dollars over the next five years.

Telecoms operators are becoming increasingly involved with smart farming operations around the world, arguing that the connectivity and IT expertise they provide is the gateway to a wide range technologies to boost operational efficiencies.

What does the term smart agriculture or smart farming really mean and what can we expect from this space in the coming years? Join the experts in discussion of this and other fascinating topics at the upcoming Connected America conference

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Infracapital-backed UK ISP Fibrus, which is building a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband networks across Northern Ireland and the North of England, has today pledged to retain their existing policy against mid-contract price rises and their buyout promotion to help new customers leaving their old provider. In short, the ISP has “guaranteed that it will not […]

Broadband ISP Quickline, which is currently rolling out a mix of Full Fibre (FTTP) and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) based networks across parts of Lincolnshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire in England, has responded to this week’s price hikes (up to 14.4%) at the biggest providers (here) by reaffirming its own two-year price freeze. The provider, which […]

Mobile operator Vodafone has confirmed that the first “trial” customers are now able to connect to one of the UK’s first deployments of an ultrafast cloud-based 5G Standalone (SA) network, which has been built across parts of several cities including London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Bath, Glasgow and Birmingham. At present, existing 5G deployments in the […]

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As fibre and 5G networks continue to be rolled out at pace, the South African telecoms operators are preparing for further severe disruptions to their power supply

For South Africans, the rolling blackouts resulting from ‘load-shedding’ by state-run energy company Eksom have been a simple fact of life for over a decade now. Years of underfunding and mismanagement by Eksom has resulted in an energy grid that simply cannot cope with demand, with the nation routinely plunged into darkness for hours at a time.

In 2022, however, the load-shedding crisis reached new heights, with Eksom announcing Stage 6 measures for just the second time ever, requiring the shedding of 6,000 MW and resulting in cuts over a four-day period for four hours at a time.

Now, in 2023, the situation shows no signs of improvement, with analysts fearing that even more severe loadshedding – up to Stage 8 – could be required to alleviate pressure on the national grid. Indeed, this week the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was forced to cancel his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos due to the deepening energy crisis in South Africa.

But what does this ongoing energy crisis mean for the nation’s telecoms operators?

Networks, naturally, consume an enormous amount of energy to run and account for anywhere between 10% and 40% of an operators OPEX. In cases where insufficient energy can be supplied by the national grid, such as a temporary power outage, these networks typically switch automatically to an alternative energy source, from batteries or localised generators.

In South Africa, however, where outages are increasingly common and are last for a longer duration, these solutions may soon prove insufficient.

For the nation’s mobile industry, this problem is particularly acute. Back-up batteries can typically provide power for 6 to 12 hours, after which they require between 12 and 18 hours to fully recharge. Thus, site batteries generally remain a robust solution up to Stage 4 load-shedding; however, at Stage 5 load-shedding and beyond, batteries alone can no longer handle demand.

“Stage 6 means that batteries have less time to recharge between outages and that they won’t last as long given they haven’t had time to fully recharge,” Vodacom explained to TechCentral, noting that they were doing “all we can” to deploy additional backup power solutions, like diesel generators, to sites across the country.

Indeed, mobile operators are increasingly looking further outside the box to meet their energy needs. In 2021, for example, Vodacom announced it was beginning to deploy solar-powered mobile sites, while last year MTN turned to crowdsourcing power from local businesses to keep its network operational.

A similar story can be heard from South Africa’s fixed broadband network operators. While most of the operators have indicated that their backup power supplies can cope with up to Stage 6 load-shedding, they too are now taking additional measures to ensure their networks remain operational during Stage 7 and above.

“Sadly, it seems our predictions are correct, and load-shedding is with us for the long term,” explained Shane Chorley, chief business development officer of Frogfoot, South Africa’s third-largest fibre network operator. “Over the coming year, we will invest R40 million [$2.33 million] in additional capital expenditure and further increase our resilience across the network as the demand for reliable energy supply increases.”

Ultimately, however, despite these investments, the increasing duration and frequency of outages can take their toll on the networks, necessitating additional maintenance and a closer oversight over damaging power surges.

“The most significant impact of stage 5 and stage 6 load-shedding is the pressure it places on equipment, the associated cost of running generators over an extended period, and requiring more maintenance teams in the field to improve reaction time should failures occur,” said Dewald Booysen, COO of Frogfoot’s rival, Vumatel.

“We have seen an increase in equipment failure due to power surges linked to these stages of load-shedding, putting additional pressure on maintenance teams. We also have areas where substations do not come up after scheduled load-shedding, putting additional pressure on our backup power in these areas,” he added.

It should also be noted that network equipment is not only at risk of technical failure due to load-sharing operations, but also vandalism and theft. Power outages present ideal opportunities for thieves and vandals to act while unmonitored, with incidences of theft and destruction of critical infrastructure in South Africa skyrocketing in recent years.

For the telecoms industry, batteries and cables have been noted as increasingly enticing targets.

So, what does the future hold for the South African telcos?

While it is undeniable that the South African network operators are trying their hardest to mitigate the effects of this enormous societal disruption, the situation continues to worsen. With 2023 already a year filled with inflation and tightened purse strings, the question begging to be asked of these telcos is simple: how long can they keep this up?

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Also in the news:
Rethinking retail: T-Mobile lays off around 600 retail staff
Exploring a collaborative approach to digital skills development
Israel’s Cognyte embroiled in Myanmar spyware scandal

Openreach (BT) has today announced the addition of a further 51 UK exchanges under ‘Tranche 11‘ of their project to move away from copper-based analogue phone (PSTN / WLR etc.) services and on to a new all-IP network, which can also occur once over 75% of premises in each area are able to get FTTP […]