Rural broadband ISP Gigaclear, which has so far deployed their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to cover 300,000 premises across England, is on-track to cover 2,500 homes in the Gloucestershire town of Lydney after it deployed specialist engineering to drill under a historic railway line. But it may go further than that. The town and civil parish, […]

Broadband ISP and mobile operator EE has today announced that they’ve teamed up with the Money Adviser Network to offer customers free, independent debt advice through referrals from customer service advisors. Nearly 3,000 customers are said to have so far benefitted from the service since its rollout in June 2022. EE states that they’ve embedded […]

At the start of this year we reported (here) that Axione UK – a subsidiary of French provider Axione – had started a £300m project to build a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to 4 million premises for ISPs to sell on to homes (open-access). We now have a fuller list of their rollout […]

As expected, Sky (Sky Broadband) has today announced the launch of their new standalone ‘Sky Stream‘ product, which uses your home broadband ISP and WiFi connection to stream Sky’s on-demand video content and live TV channels directly to your existing TV set without any satellite dish or installation being required. Most of Sky’s existing TV […]

Rural broadband ISP Wessex Internet, which is building a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across parts of Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Somerset in England, has today announced that they’ve secured a “major equity investment” from abrdn’s Core Infrastructure team to “accelerate” their rollout. The provider has recently been making good progress on their commercial builds, […]

Macquarie Capital-backed UK ISP Voneus, which holds a “near term” plan to cover 100,000 homes in rural areas with their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network (here), has today appointed the ex-commercial director at BT Enterprise, Francesca Lee, to be their new Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). The new appointment is part of Voneus’ plan to more than […]

NEWS

There’s not much positive press for Liz Truss at the moment, but one change from the UK Prime Minister which is likely to be better received is a review of Britain’s visa system which could benefit the telecom sector.

The government is set to review the “shortage occupation list” which will enable certain industries  more freedom to employ staff from overseas – including, as widely reported, broadband engineers.

The changes would mean a relaxation of requirements around speaking English and simplified entry for migrants from outside the EU with lower visa fees and no employer requirement to prove that there is no suitable local worker for the role.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) welcomed the review saying “Guarding against skills and labour shortages can simultaneously help keep inflation in check while ensuring firms have the people they need to grow, benefiting everyone.”

The Times newspaper reported Truss specifically mentioning the need to recruit broadband engineers from abroad so they can help fulfil a Government promise to ensure 85% of homes have access to full-fibre broadband.

The telecom sector has long recognised it’s skills shortage with various initiatives undertaken to try to address the situation, including Telcom Group and their Telecoms Engineer Bootcamp, whilst the subject was discussed by a panel featuring altnets including CityFibre, Full Fibre and Zzoomm at last weeks Connected Britain.

James Fredrickson, Policy Director at Hyperoptic, is quoted by ISPReview as having said “It’s great to see progress being made on this issue – this will be a big help in securing the skilled labour needed to accelerate full fibre rollout. We will continue to work with the Home Office to maximise the impact of this.”

The post Telecoms could benefit from changes to shortage occupations list first appeared on Total Telecom.

News

Ooredoo Group becomes the latest telco to announce its plans to sell its tower portfolio.

Ooredoo Group has confirmed that it is preparing to sell approximately 20,000 of its towers. In a statement released on Monday, the Qatar-based company announced the move as part of its shift to an “asset-light model”.

The company’s strategy seeks to maximise value from its infrastructure and generate more value for customers and shareholders alike.

Ooredoo Group’s portfolio consists of 20,000 towers across the different markets where the company operates.

With this latest announcement from Ooredoo, the trend of telcos offloading their tower assets continues. Last month saw reports of a bidding war in Brazil with TowerCo’s lining up to bid for OI’s towers. In the Philippines, Globe also secured deals worth $1.28 billion for the sale of 5,700 towers.

The post Ooredoo prepares to offload tower portfolio first appeared on Total Telecom.

Press release

abrdn’s Core Infrastructure team has agreed to make a major equity investment in Wessex Internet. The investment will help to accelerate the deployment of Wessex Internet’s full fibre-to-the-home network across rural parts of the South West of England. In establishing the agreement, abrdn will work together with Wessex Internet’s founders to support their vision for the future growth of the business.

Wessex Internet is a full fibre operator in the South West of England, having built an impressive fibre footprint across Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset. The business has a network footprint covering tens of thousands of homes across these counties and has secured significant contracts underpinning a business plan that targets an additional 150,000 premises by 2027, through a combination of subsidised and unsubsidised capital investment. Notably, at the end of August 2022, the UK Government announced that Wessex Internet had been awarded the first subsidy contract under their new £5bn Project Gigabit broadband scheme, which will reach 7,100 premises in rural parts of North Dorset.

This is the first investment funded by abrdn’s third Core Infrastructure Fund, ASCI III, which is raising a target €1 billion to invest in the Pan-European infrastructure mid-market, and follows on from the final investment in abrdn’s second Core Infrastructure Fund, SLCI II, which invested in the German train rolling stock sector.

Dominic Helmsley, Head of abrdn Core Infrastructure, said: “We are committed to delivering reliable and essential infrastructure to local communities. This investment is our second UK rural fibre investment and underpins our core capabilities and ambitions in real assets.”

Alex Anderson, Investment Director, abrdn Core Infrastructure, added: “We look forward to working alongside Wessex Internet’s founders and management team, leveraging our capabilities and experience in the infrastructure sector to deliver this next phase of growth to the benefit of a number of historically underserved rural parts of the country. This kind of investment is crucial to allowing the supply of ultrafast, reliable and cost-effective broadband in rural areas to help drive productivity, connect communities and reduce the digital divide across the UK”.

Hector Gibson Fleming, Chief Executive Officer at Wessex Internet, commented: “Wessex Internet is a local Dorset company; our fantastic team has already built a track record of delivering outstanding products and exceptional service through our collaborative approach to full fibre rollout into underserved rural communities.  This investment from abrdn is a demonstration of the success of our differentiated strategy. As we accelerate our rollout, we will fulfil our vision of connecting the rest of the communities within our region, creating a truly local broadband operator with a trusted brand that fully understands its customer base. We are hugely excited about working with the abrdn Core Infrastructure investment team to build on our reputation as we enter this next phase of growth”.

The post abrdn invests in Dorset-based Wessex Internet first appeared on Total Telecom.

STARTUP STORIES

Tell us about your start up
AppSec Phoenix is a next-gen ASOC correlating Application Security and Cloud Security with a product risk and impact view. We help CISOs and Executives set risk-based targets that translate to task for engineers. With our ARCTIQ technology and graph, we help teams correlate and visualize the next vulnerability that will hurt them.

We serve mid-size and enterprise customers across the world, but currently focus primarily in Europe and the Americas.

What is your USP?
ACT On risk – Actionale Contextualized Threat – We translate vulnerability into risk into actions for engineers based on the risk appetite from the business.

Appsec Phoenix enables security teams to scale, removing the manual triaging and offering a consistent approach on vulnerabilities across cloud, application security, vulnerability management.

Appsec Phoenix prioritize vulnerabilities based on contextual aspect, Cyber Threat Intel, business criticality and delivers a risk based view of the vulnerabilities .

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
Telco’s can act as clients when they want to visualize the risk across their estate and they can also offer Managed Service Providers Solutions when managing vulnerabilities or pen testing.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
Appsec Phoenix was boostrapped and admitted in Plexar DCMS, Primarily through self-started passion, extensive experience and network in the industry, and with the help of angel investors.

Why did you establish the business?
The founders have extensive experience as security practitioners. The project was born from the struggles and learnings within large enterprise organisations in the telco (Vodafone) and banking (HSBC) sectors.

What does the future hold for your business
We are working on graph visualization, pipeline integration and expansion

COMPANY CV
HEADQUARTERS: London, UK
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 10-20
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Seed
URL: https://appsecphoenix.com/
FOUNDERS:
Francesco Cipollone
Alfonso Eusebio

You can meet AppSec Phoenix at the Total Telecom Congress in London on the 1-2 November 2022. To book your ticket CLICK HERE
There are still limited Startup Village slots available – to confirm yours email Will Everill

The post Startup Stories: prioritising the vulnerabilities that will hurt you most first appeared on Total Telecom.