Gigabit broadband ISP YouFibre, which until now has been closely wedded to Netomnia’s ongoing project to build a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to cover 1 million UK premises by the end of 2023, has today announced the unexpected extension of their service to include CityFibre’s network in Middlesbrough (North Yorkshire). According to the announcement, the partnership […]

STARTUP STORY

We were delighted to meet FlexiFone, the bootstrapped Brighton based startup specifically targeting the needs of Generation Z mobile users with a fully eSIM powered MVNO

Tell us about your start up
FlexiFone is Europe’s first multi-network MVNO targeted towards Gen Z mobile users. Being a multi-network MVNO, our customers can choose a mobile plan from a carrier with the best coverage in their area. By subscribing to a FlexiPlan not only get a mobile plan with access to EE, O2 and Three’s network, but also over 50% discounts on subscriptions to dozens of apps like Netflix, Disney+, VPNs, and more!
It’s “Revolut for your mobile plan”.

What is your USP?
FlexiFone is a 100% digital MVNO powered by eSIMs, with no physical presence. By reducing overhead costs on logistics, inventory, and through digital on-boarding plus a remote team based in Asia, we pass on the savings directly to our customers offering affordable value for money bundles. You don’t have to wait for your SIM card to arrive over post unlike other MNOs, your eSIM QR code and setup guide is sent on your email immediately after payment.

Traditional mobile network operators work on a very capital-intensive distribution model, where they have physical stores and inventory in order to sell a mobile plan plus a handset on a 12 to 24 month contract. Due to this, the end customer pays a higher price for the same service due to in-efficiencies in their distribution model.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
We partner with MNOs including EE, O2 and Three through aggregators (MVNAs), to provide our plans to end customers.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
FlexiFone started as a concept which was brainstormed during an assignment in the University of Sussex, and fast forward a lot of hustling, we are now at the pilot-test stage. We’re currently bootstrapped, and would be raising funds before our grand public launch Q1 of 2023.

Why did you establish the business?
Sarthak Sethi says, I worked for business incubator based in Dubai and London, and supporting entrepreneurs in launching and scaling online businesses was my role for the last two years, and it was always in my mind to build a product that solves a real-world problem.

While conducting research on the state of the telecom sector in the UK, I identified that there are in-efficiencies in the distribution model being utilized by traditional MNOs that lead to expensive mobile bills for end users, and I decided to build Europe’s first asset-light, 100% digital and affordable mobile network.

Who is your mentor?
My mentor is my uncle Mr. Bhushan Sethi, who currently works as the VP of Product (IoT) in Vodafone-Idea Group, and has been in the telecom industry for over two decades. He was able to provide me with insights about the industry such as customer acquisition strategy, plan pricing model, and licensing, which today has enabled me in taking this product from an idea to an MVP.

What does the future hold for your business?
Globally, the MVNO market size is going to reach USD$123 Billion by 2028, so it’s a market with huge potential. As we progress onto eSIMs, we will see more ‘neo-telecos’, which would basically be mobile network operators following the Revolut / Monzo model. We’ve already seen in the US that the latest iPhone 14 only supports eSIMs and soon other manufacturers will follow.

COMPANY CV
HEADQUARTERS: Brighton, United Kingdom
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 3
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Bootstrapped
URL: www.flexifone.co.uk
FOUNDER: Sarthak Sethi

If you are interested to know more about FlexiFone, you’ll find them in the Startup Village at Total Telecom Congress – in London on the 1-2 November 2022. To come along, register at www.totaltele.com/congress

RELATED CONTENT: more interviews and Startup Stories are in the interview section of the Total Telecom website

The post Startup stories: the benefit of a multi-network MVNO for Gen Z customers first appeared on Total Telecom.

News

The London-based altnet says the funds will be used to complete the next phase of their rollout, which aims to reach 2.2 million premises by 2024

The ongoing economic crisis in the UK appears to have failed to put the brakes on the flow of capital into the UK fibre market, with Community Fibre this week announcing they have signed a new finance facility worth £985 million.

The new funding comprises £685 million in committed facilities with a further £300 million uncommitted accordion (i.e., optional extension). The identities of the new financiers were not revealed.

Community Fibre says that the new funds will be used to expand its fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) rollout to 2.2 million London homes by 2024.

“We are delighted that lenders have seen the impact of our ever-increasing network and the level of customer interest in faster, more reliable and more affordable broadband access,” said Graeme Oxby, CEO of Community Fibre. “In a time of money worries for many families, Community Fibre has been able to deliver a better service for a lower price. We will now be able to accelerate our network roll out and bring these benefits to a much larger number of customers.”

The network builder last received funding back in 2020, when private equity firm Warburg Pincus and investment management group DTCP contributed a combined £400 million. At the time, Community Fibre was aiming to pass one million homes by 2023 – a target that it seems likely miss, having currently only passed around 675,000 homes, according to the company press release this week.

Indeed, this means that reaching the company’s new target of 2.2 million by 2024 will be no small feat, suggesting the company aims to triple its existing fibre footprint in just over a year.

Community Fibre’s rollout has been accelerating in recent months, having passed an additional 175,000 homes in the past four months alone, but the company’s rollout pace will have to increase significantly to meet this ambitious target.

Also in the news:
Understanding the telco’s role in the IoT market
Startup Stories: A new approach to telecoms consultancy
MTN Group joins the Telecom Infra Project’s Board of Directors

The post Community Fibre secures almost £1bn in fresh fibre funding first appeared on Total Telecom.

INTERVIEW 

DURING CONNECTED BRITAIN 2022, WE SPOKE TO ANDY MARR, DIRECTOR CONSULTING SERVICES – SPACE, DEFENCE & INTELLIGENCE AND ALAN NUNN, CONSULTING DIRECTOR (TELECOM SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT) AT CGI TO GET THEIR VIEWS ON THE OPPORTUNITIES CREATED BY HYBRID AND 5G NETWORKS.

While 5G networks are rolling out fast, there will inevitably be hard to cover areas. Join CGI’s Andy Marr, Director Consulting Services for Space, Defence and Intelligence, and Communications Subject Matter Expert, Alan Nunn, as they discuss the opportunities for innovation that are created by hybrid satellite, terrestrial 5G networks and private 5G networks.

Find out how CGI’s innovative approaches using Hybrid 5G and Low Earth Orbit Satellite networks can be used to improve coverage on trains, giving users services they need while on the move.

Indoors, 5G coverage challenges can be addressed with private networks, which can provide high capacity and low latency coverage, giving opportunities to deliver more efficient and flexible operations in factory and logistics environments.

5G and private networks also enable the benefits of collaboration within the Metaverse. Learn how CGI used this emerging technology to develop a solution to a specific problem encountered in the pandemic: how to successfully onboard staff who may not be able to meet their team in person.

If you’d like to find out more about CGI, please visit our website cgi.com/uk or our dedicated Connected Britain Content Hub.

Alternatively, get in touch at enquiry.uk@cgi.com, quoting “Connected Britain”.

The post Innovation in Action: Delivering better indoor and outdoor coverage with Hybrid and 5G networks first appeared on Total Telecom.

INTERVIEW

WHEN TALKING WITH FREEDOM FIBRE’S CFO DARREN WOODS, ONE THING BECOMES ABUNDANTLY CLEAR; THE FUTURE IS FIBRE.

Though the company is relatively new on the scene, Freedom Fibre is quickly establishing themselves as a key player in the next generation of FTTP providers, with an experienced team that have been in the sector for many years. While other alt-net companies are often focused on exchanging small, high-density areas, Freedom Fibre believes the difference is in their mission to build to full exchange boundaries, replacing the copper networks with full fibre and ensuring that even the most rural areas of Britain have access to gigabit internet. This mission has seen at least 97% of the exchange boundary in their completed build areas now supporting the full fibre network, allowing local and national ISPs to switch from copper and provide their customers with full fibre broadband services.

While ensuring connectivity for everyone is an important goal, lightning-fast broadband isn’t the only advantage. The arrival of Freedom Fibre and other alt-net companies signals the end of a previously monopolized industry, which – alongside approx. £5 billion of government investment coming into the sector – creates a competitive market that benefits the consumer and their pockets. Full fibre also uses an estimated 80% less energy than the standard copper networks, providing significant environmental benefits. Although there are still challenges associated with supporting the country’s speedy move off the current copper system, Freedom Fibre is confident that with a focus on building to exchange boundaries, they can create a network for the future and provide even the most rural villages with a resilient, stable, and lightning-fast network.

To find out more about Freedom Fibre, please visit https://www.freedomfibre.com

The post Building to Exchange Boundaries: The Importance of Replacing Copper Networks with Full Fibre first appeared on Total Telecom.

NEWS

With winter looming and control of the British economy slipping from the government’s grasp, the UK network operators are stepping up to the plate to help support their most vulnerable customers

Back in June, when the severity of the cost of living crisis was only just becoming apparent, the UK telecoms industry formally agreed to work alongside the government to help customers afford vital connectivity.

Since then, the economic strain on the UK’s most vulnerable households has continued to increase, with Ofcom noting just two weeks ago that 29% of UK households (8 million) are reportedly struggling their phone, broadband, and TV bills this year – almost twice the amount reported in 2021 (15%). The regulator subsequently urged the operators to pause planned price hikes, as well as encouraging those without social tariffs to introduce them as soon as possible.

It remains to be seen if the telcos will ultimately introduce the feared price rises above the rate of inflation, a move that would surely.

Nonetheless, the industry has been broadly proactive in introducing alternative special measures to support vulnerable customers, from Vodafone expanding its everyone.connected programme that offers free SIMs to the digitally excluded, to BT partnering with charity Home-Start UK to offer 2,500 households free laptops.

Now, Three and Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) have announced their newest schemes to help mitigate the ongoing economic crisis in the UK, focussing on mental health and expanding their social tariff’s availability, respectively.

Three Business partners Samaritans to support SME mental health

New research from Three has revealed the enormous pressure being felt by the UK’s small and medium enterprise (SME) ecosystem during the cost of living crisis, 39% of 1,003 SME decision makers reporting that financial pressures were contributing to a decline in their mental health.

In total, 59% of respondents said that the economic crisis was their biggest challenge this year, with 25% worrying that their mental health will decline over the rest of the year.

As a result of this survey, Three Business has announced a new partnership with the charity Samaritans, aiming to expand access to the latter’s Building Resilience and Wellbeing digital course to Three’s SME customers.

The course reportedly focusses on equipping small business owners and their employees “with practical strategies to strengthen their personal resilience, and enhance their wellbeing to respond effectively to challenges in their role and environment”.

“From speaking to small businesses every day, we know the huge pressures they are facing not only financially but on their mental health and wellbeing too. That’s why we wanted to build on Three’s existing partnership with Samaritans, and extend it to all small businesses in the UK. We hope that many small business owners take advantage of this free support and guidance during a pretty difficult period for everyone,” said Snehal Bhudia, Director of Business Propositions & Go-To-Market for Three UK.

VMO2 cut social tariff prices and increase availability  

VMO2’s news, on the other hand, is set to directly impact vulnerable customers’ bank balances, with the operator reducing the price of their ‘Essential Broadband’ social tariff from £15 to £12.50 per month.

The 15Mbps plan is directly targeted at those receiving Universal Credit and features no fixed-term contract and no activation fees.

Alongside this price cut, VMO2 is also introducing an upgraded social tariff option called ‘Essential Broadband Plus’, giving customers 50Mbps speeds for £20 per month. Customers will also have the option to add VMO2’s entertainment product, Stream, for a one-off payment of £20 for the basic package.

“We have a long history of stepping up in tough times and now is no different. Connectivity remains an essential part of our lives, so we are boosting the support we provide to those who need it most in the cost-of-living crisis. We’re taking steps to increase awareness of our social broadband plans, while making it easier to sign up, and are calling on the Government to cut VAT on social tariffs which we will directly pass on, helping those struggling most to save even more”, said Jeff Dodds, Chief Operating Officer at VMO2.

“Through continued network investment, and a range of products at different price points and speeds, we consistently provide incredible value to customers and will keep playing our part in this challenging climate.”

The news was positively received by the Government’s Cost of Living Business Tsar, David Buttress, who praised VMO2 for “increasing flexibility, value and choice and giving support to those who need it most”.

Are telcos doing enough to address the cost of living crisis? Join the experts in discussion at the upcoming Total Telecom Congress

Also in the news:
Understanding the telco’s role in the IoT market
Startup Stories: A new approach to telecoms consultancy
MTN Group joins the Telecom Infra Project’s Board of Directors

The post Three and VMO2 announce their latest cost of living special measures first appeared on Total Telecom.

City-focused gigabit broadband ISP Hyperoptic has today celebrated its 11th anniversary and highlighted how they expect to extend the coverage of their gigabit-capable “full fibre” (FTTP/B) network to cover 1 million UK premises by Christmas. A significant milestone on the way to their target of 2 million by the end of 2023. At present the […]

Two UK home broadband ISPs – toob and Aquiss – have today separately announced that they’ve each managed to pass the milestone of 10,000 customers on their respective Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) packages and networks. First up, we have Shropshire-based internet provider Aquiss, which is a more traditional ISP that sells FTTP packages via Openreach’s national network. […]

A new Opinium survey of 2,000 UK adults, which was commissioned by Uswitch, has found that 25% of respondents “regularly fail” to receive the broadband internet speeds they pay for and 7% claim to never get the promised performance. But 42% also admit to not knowing what speed their package is supposed to deliver. Confusion […]

The post An Interview with Darren Woods, CFO, Freedom Fibre at Connected Britain 2022. first appeared on Total Telecom.