INTERVIEW

We had the pleasure of interviewing Malte Abel, Head of Regulatory Telecoms, Vodafone ahead of Connected Germany 2022 which is being held in Mainz on December 6-7 2022.

Can you introduce yourself and your role?

My name is Malte Abel. I am heading the Regulatory Telecoms at Vodafone in Dusseldorf. Before joining Vodafone in March 2021, I spent several years in the energy industry in various regulatory and legal positions.

In Regulatory Telecoms we are dealing with the framework for fixed and mobile networks. In addition, the new consumer protection rules are part of our tasks.

What has the impact of regulatory reform been on enabling faster network deployment?

The reform of the telecommunications law came into effect in December 2021.

It introduced useful options to streamline the approval procedures, such as completeness fictions for submissions. Yes, this can enable faster network deployment but depends on concrete actions by the federal states.    

In addition, we have seen new regulatory tools to enable a level playing field on the growing FTTH market (e.g. the concept of equivalence of input and improved duct access). Again, this “light” regulatory approach can only help with faster gigabit rollout if Bundesnetzagentur implements it in a consistent way. We are not there yet, e.g. the regulatory situation for FTTH-cooperations of Deutsche Telekom is still unclear.

Finally, the right to fast internet has been introduced and is currently rolled-out. We see the wide scope of the rollout with skepticism as regulated rollout is a hurdle for private rollout.

How can the regulatory environment continue to evolve within Germany?

In my view the focus needs to be on implementation of the new rules.

Our goal at Vodafone is the gigabit supply to all households. So, the need to replace the copper network by gigabit networks is common sense. 32 m households already have access to gigabit networks, thereof 24 m households connected by Vodafone. While investor interest remains high, we will only be successful if telecommunication, regulator and politics cooperate closely.

A few points to highlight:

We need subsidies only in areas without existing gigabit networks
Regulatory interventions (e.g. universal services) should be limited
New laying techniques need to be allowed more quickly

What are you most looking forward to at Connected Germany?

Of course, I’m looking forward to interesting conversations and meeting people in real life that I only know from virtual meetings so far.

You can hear from Malte and the rest of our amazing speaker line-up by joining us at Connected Germany – follow the link to secure your place!

The post “New regulatory tools can help enable a level playing field in the FTTH market” first appeared on Total Telecom.

News

The prosecution authority found no evidence that Ericsson staff had issued bribes and have thus closed the investigation

Despite Ericsson’s best efforts, in recent years numerous bribery investigations have cast a black cloud over the Swedish vendors international operations.

In December 2019, Ericsson agreed to settle a number of major bribery cases brought by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), agreeing to pay $1.1 billion in penalties. The cases alleged that, between 2000 and 2017, the Swedish vendor had issued bribes in at least five countries – Djibouti, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Kuwait – in an effort to win contracts from the government and government-owned companies.

Ericsson was surely hopeful that this settlement marked the end of the matter, but the Swedish government had other ideas, launching their own investigation into the bribery cases just one month later. These investigations were focussed on Kuwait, Iraq, China, and Djibouti.

Since then, the Swedish investigation has slowly been clearing Ericsson of wrongdoing. Prosecutors have already dropped their investigations in both Iraq and Kuwait, and earlier this year acquitted four former Ericsson executives on charges of bribery in Djibouti, though this final case is currently under appeal.

Now, the investigation is moving one step closer to its conclusion, with prosecutors this week dropping the probe into bribery in China.

“While payments amounting to several hundred million Swedish crowns, corresponding to tens of millions of dollars, were made over a period leading up to 2016, it was not clear that these were made in bad faith,” said Prosecutor Leif Gorts.

“This is the China part of the investigations. I have now closed the Kuwait, Iraq and China investigations.”

It should be noted, however, that Ericsson has not seen the last of bribery accusations.

Earlier this year, Ericsson revealed that it had identified unusual expenses in Iraq that could be linked to bribing extremist groups, including ISIS, as early as 2011. As such, the DoJ and the SEC opened a new probe against Ericsson earlier this summer and are expected to issue additional fines.

Join us in Dallas, Texas next year for the inaugural edition of the Connected America conference, bringing together top telecoms executives to discuss the key opportunities and challenges present in the US market

Also in the news:
Vestager: Restricting “high-risk” vendors a “matter of urgency” for EU
UKRI selects BT consortium for intelligent drone project
IRIS cable set to link Iceland and Ireland

The post Swedish court clears Ericsson of bribery in China first appeared on Total Telecom.

AST SpaceMobile, which is backed by Vodafone and various other global mobile operators, has successfully completed the deployment of a huge 693-square-foot (64.4-square-meter) phased array antenna on their prototype BlueWalker 3 LEO satellite. The platform will be used to test a new space-based 4G and 5G cellular broadband network. Over the past few months we’ve […]

Alternative broadband provider Truespeed, which is building a new gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across rural parts of South West England, has today welcomed a visit by the UK Government’s former Secretary of State for Business, East Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. The operator, which has so far covered 50,000 premises (including 11,500 customers connected) and […]

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today introduced new rules that will require phone providers to crackdown on “fake phone numbers” by identifying and blocking “spoofed calls“, where feasible. The move aims to tackle a problem that, during the summer, resulted in 40.8 million people being targeted by suspicious calls and texts. Most of the […]

PRESS RELEASE

Leeds based telco Northern Telecom has stepped in to rescue the business and assets of Toople Plc (and subsidiaries) in a deal with administrators FRP Recovery that closed on Friday..

Toople’s customer and reseller relationships (including customers of Toople and Direct Market Services Limited (DMSL)) will transition into the wider Northern Telecom group.

The transaction is the eighth for Northern Telecom in the last five years and secures provision of service for a range of small to medium sized business customers across the UK.

Toople PLC was listed on the London Stock Exchange in May 2016 and acquired DMSL in January 2020. Trading in shares was suspended on the 19th October. The deal sees the bulk of the assets and business of Toople return to private ownership.

Northern Telecom Group Operations Director Simon Rogers commented “The Toople business has underperformed over the last five years. A fundamentally flawed business model and questionable strategic decisions have masked what we believe to be a business with strong underlying financials. We’re delighted to welcome Toople customers into the wider group and we’re excited to enable the business to unleash its full potential”.

Northern Telecom Group Managing Director Jon Graves commented “We’re delighted to finalise another two acquisitions to supplement our growth this year. We look forward to supporting each customer with their IT & Telecoms requirements.”

Discover the north’s connected future. Join Total Telecom at Manchester Central on the 17 – 18 April 2023. totaltele.com/connectednorth

Related:
Connected North 2022 highlights video
Northern mayors talk levelling up frustration at Connected North

The post Northern Telecom acquires business and assets of Toople Plc & DMSL first appeared on Total Telecom.

Internet provider File Sanctuary has this week launched a new range of Black Friday sales across their range of Openreach based Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband packages, which broadly discounts the price across all their plans by £4 per month for the entire 12-month minimum contract term. Each package includes free installation or migration, unlimited usage, UK […]

Vodafone UK has this morning published their latest Q2 FY23 results, which reveals that their fixed broadband ISP base grew again to total 1.111 million customers (up sharply by 39k in the quarter vs 22k in Q1 FY23) and their mobile base also surged again to total 17.543 million (up by 321k vs 115k in […]

Openreach (BT) appears to have recently introduced an additional broadband availability checker to its website, which is designed to provide visitors with more details about the current and future coverage of their ADSL, FTTC and FTTP services. But it also gives you data on your estimated UK ISP speeds via their network. At present, if […]

News

The Commission has urged the European community to accelerate its implementation of EU 5G security guidelines, singling out Germany for special criticism over government inaction

Back in 2019, following the US banning Huawei 5G network equipment from its domestic networks, 5G network security rapidly become a political hot potato, with the Trump administation pushing the international community to implement bans of their own. Some countries, such UK, quickly followed suit in 2020, but others were more reticent to ban the Chinese vendor outright, preferring instead to bolster their individual security measures.

This led the European Commission to publish a 5G Security Toolbox in early 2020, with EU member states agreeing to implement a raft of security recommendations to mitigate the risk of so-called ‘high-risk’ vendors. This included technical security measures to identify vulnerable equipment, as well as policy suggestions around foreign direct investment, to shield critical national networks from falling under foreign influence.

By the end of 2020, periodical reports suggested that most member states were “well on track of implementing the recommended measures”, with the Commission suggesting that they should be complete implantation of the various measures by the second quarter of 2021.

Now, however, almost three years later, EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has chastised the broader EU community for failing to implement these security measures quickly enough.

“We are urging member states who have not yet imposed restrictions on high-risk suppliers to do that without delay, as a matter of urgency,” said Vestager. “A number of countries have passed legislation but they have not put it into effect […] Making it work is even better.”

One country notably singled out for individual criticism was Germany, with Vestager saying that the country had not done enough to tackle security concerns related to the 5G supply chain.

“It is not only Germany, but it is also Germany,” she said.

Historically, Vodafone Deutschland and Deutsche Telekom have been heavily reliant on Huawei for their mobile network equipment. This fact saw the country at the centre of the geopolitical tussle over Huawei in 2020, with the US government urging Berlin to ban the vendor, and the national telcos urging for restraint.

In the end, Germany declined to ban the Chinese vendor outright, but has introduced various additional security measures, including a new law last year allowing the government to intervene on mobile operators’ supply contracts where untrusted vendors were involved.

To date, however, these special powers have seen little usage.

Is the government doing enough to mitigate the threat of high-risk vendors in Germany? Find out from the experts at this year’s live Connected Germany event

Also in the news:
Remaining competitive in an evolving telco landscape
Wi-Fly: Could AFC improve rural connectivity?
BT warns of further job losses as soaring bills force bigger cost-cutting drive

The post Vestager: Restricting “high-risk” vendors a “matter of urgency” for EU first appeared on Total Telecom.