VIEWPOINT

Aleksandra Ciric, Director, International Marketing at Calix

The biggest change to the telecom industry since Alexander Graham Bell is happening now—and Grayshott & Hindhead, villages in the United Kingdom with a population of 7,355, are taking a community-minded approach to networking with Grayshott Gigabit and Calix.

Project Gigabit is a £5 billion program initiated by the U.K. government to provide hard-to-reach communities with lightning-fast, gigabit-capable broadband. Copper networks, currently provided by Openreach, will be withdrawn on December 31, 2025, placing urgency on local communities to prioritise a move to full fibre.

While this move pushed many internet service providers (ISPs) in the U.K. market to build fibre networks, it didn’t necessarily encourage them all to take a people-first approach. But for Grayshott Gigabit, it was nearly impossible to separate the network connectivity from the community connectivity. As a result, they initiated a project with Calix to build community Wi-Fi, so no one goes without a connection.

Community Wi-Fi Is the Pulsing Heart of East Hampshire

In Grayshott, there is currently very limited mobile coverage. For residents of the village, this means they cannot access normal services via mobile —and imagine the impact. While a business may have a physical broadband connection, all is lost if it goes down. Parents cannot call their children—and children cannot call their parents. Online resources can’t be accessed. The entire community was limited with basic connectivity—until Grayshott Gigabit and Calix stepped in.

Now, every customer with Grayshott Gigabit receives a minimum of 100Mbps and many have full gigabit speeds with full fibre to the premise XGS-PON connectivity. Adding numerous Wi-Fi hotspots in premises, Grayshott Gigabit and Calix have created a Wi-Fi cloud for the entire community—especially those that are elderly, vulnerable or those struggling during these economic times. Residents can make calls for emergencies, or critical situations. The Village Hall, primary school, and armed forces charity—The Royal British Legion—can all access the same Wi-Fi for learning, sharing, and connecting.

With a community Wi-Fi program from Calix, Grayshott Gigabit can offer the latest speeds and software releases, including Wi-Fi 6, while separating SSIDs for different uses. This means businesses aren’t stuck using the same SSID for their private network as their public hotspot, which improves coverage, security, and manageability. These separate networks also allow for ease of integration between third party systems required for billing, inventory, and supply chain management.

This easy, reliable Wi-Fi cloud also encourages higher foot traffic in the village’s commercial district which comprises of 100+ small to medium businesses, surgeries, dentists, supermarkets & other local shops, boosting the local economy and attracting more tourism. Additionally, community Wi-Fi helps boost premise values—which is highly beneficial in the current economy. The Wi-Fi cloud has started to connect many businesses in the first phase including estate agents, beauty salons, pet shops, small supermarkets, and the village hall, community library, and sports pavilions.

With Subscriber Experience Key to Increased Loyalty, Grayshott Gigabit Trims Response Times From 14 Days to 24 Hours

Grayshott Gigabit is highly differentiated amongst ISPs in the U.K. market. They haven’t had to raise prices, unlike many big box brands and altnets, primarily because they saved on operations and support by partnering with Calix. The average support response time in the UK is a whopping 7-14 days according to the industry regulator Ofcom. With full fibre and using Calix XGS-PON E7-2 network architecture, Grayshott Gigabit can trim this down to 24 hours—and provide a much more always-on & reliable network.

“A quick, efficient level of support isn’t common in the U.K.,” says Mashood Ahmad, Founder and Manager Director at Grayshott Gigabit. “People are used to waiting for a very long time, so our ability to compress this schedule is a huge differentiator. As such, we’re also able to accomplish more in less time—since we don’t have the long waits. This is true monetised savings we’re seeing as an organisation that we can pass along to our community.”

An Evolution in Partnership: From Network Build to Smart Home to Community Wi-Fi 

As a local mainstay, Grayshott Gigabit is also able to provide services to the community that other ISPs cannot. For example, they offer programs to help the elderly and vulnerable “silver surfers” and were one of the first to offer at least 100Mbps social broadband: social tariff. “Cake and coffee” mornings teach the elderly not only how to use Wi-Fi, but also how to remedy general IT problems like disconnected printers and passwords. Programs in local schools focus on online safety and harmful content, teaching students and teachers how to navigate the internet securely.

“Absolutely first on our list is our community. We built a state-of-the-art network in rural areas, as these were areas with low priority from the larger providers. As members residing in such communities, we knew that we needed to make the change ourselves. We’re doing this because we want everyone, no matter where they live, to access the fastest internet and superior Wi-Fi—just as any advanced area. We want our students never to suffer when they need to learn using Wi-Fi. We want our first responders to never be saddled with unstable connections, which could potentially cost someone their life. We want our elderly citizens to feel secure and comfortable using the internet,” Ahmad continues. “By connecting everyone through this Wi-Fi cloud from Calix, we know that we are bringing them the very best. We chose Calix specifically because they were able to simplify this entire community broadband solution. Other ISPs were forced to raise prices, but we avoided this because of our partnership.”

Every community deserves a fully connected Wi-Fi solution. As Calix heads in 2023, ISPs can embrace the benefits of a broader solution with SmartTown launching in the latter half of the year. Easier deployment, security, and management differentiates Calix SmartTown from other community Wi-Fi solutions—and brings everyone together.

 

 

 

News

The launch comes after roughly four months of delays related to licencing issues

This week, relative newcomer to the Nigeran mobile market, Mafab Communications, has announced the commercial launch of its 5G network.

For now, the network is only available in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, but with additional locations, including Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kano, and Kaduna, expected to be added in the coming months.

Founded in the summer of 2020, Mafab Communications was quickly licenced by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to provide and operate local interconnect and international carrier services within the country.

By 2021, however, the operator had ambitions of offering commercial 5G services, announcing it would compete with MTN Nigeria and Airtel Nigeria in the nation’s first 5G auction at the end of the year.

The auction saw Mafab succeed in acquiring 100 MHz of 3.5 GHz spectrum for $273.6 million, the same as MTN, Nigeria’s largest operator.

With only two 5G licences available in this opening auction, this result notably left the much larger Airtel Nigeria without any 5G spectrum at all, having dropped out in the 11th round due to the rising price tag.

Airtel would go on to win its own 100 MHz of 3.5 GHz spectrum in an uncontested auction a year later, in December 2022.

At the time of its surprise spectrum victory, Mafab said it hoped to launch 5G services commercially by August 2022, in line with MTN. But, while MTN stuck to this deadline and launched services as expected, Mafab instead faced delays related to the allocation of the unified access service licence required to offer mobile services.

Now, around four months later, Mafab is finally ready to begin offering 5G services to the public.

“The rollout of Mafab 5G network is the beginning of immense opportunities for the country as it represents Nigeria’s capabilities and infinite possibilities,” said Mafab chairman and founder Musbahu Bashir. “The prospect of increased job opportunities as a consequence of the value-chain benefits the technology will generate and offer is the dream we have all gathered here to launch today.”

He added that 5G will be integral to ensuring Nigeria remains a competitive economy in the years to come, saying that “Nigeria will surely be ahead of many other countries, especially in Africa”.

The Nigerian government also complemented the launch, with the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Pantami, suggesting that the rollout of 5G in Nigeria by Mafab and MTN would create a combined 3.6–4.8 million jobs over the next decade.

This launch will pile pressure onto Airtel, which has yet to announce an expected date for its 5G launch.

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Also in the news:
UK Space Agency to invest £50m in satellite comms
Neos Networks announces fibre milestones in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, and London
American Tower rumoured to be eying Cellnex takeover

News

Private equity firm Apollo Global Management, alongside, former SoftBank CEO Marcelo Claure, have reportedly entered into discussions with Latin American operator group Millicom International Cellular

This week, Millicom has confirmed that it is engaged in ongoing discussions with investment firm Apollo Global Management and Claure Group for the sale of all its outstanding shares.

Apollo and Claure are reportedly considering an offer of around $19 per share, a move that would value the business at just over $9 billion, including debt.

An official offer has yet to be made, with Millicom quick to point out that there is no certainty that any deal will materialise.

The potential takeover comes at a time when acquisitions of this scale are difficult finance, with major banks unwilling to offer large loans due to high interest rates and the turbulent nature of the global economy.

Millicom itself currently has a net debt of around $6.9 billion, with sources suggesting that Apollo and Claure are attempting to structure their takeover bid in such a way as to avoid needing to refinance these financial obligations.

For Millicom, the deal would come at a time of considerable consolidation. The operator has been refocussing its efforts on its Central and South American operations for some years now, as well as gradually withdrawing from its African markets.

In 2021, the company acquired full control of its Guatemalan joint venture for $2.2 billon, as well as finally selling off its final African business, Tigo Tanzania.

In February last year, Millicom formally announced a new three-year plan to invest over $3 billion in its Central and South American businesses, as well as potentially spinning off its mobile money business and mobile tower infrastructure unit.

Some months later, this strategic shift had enticed French billionaire and owner of Iliad Group Xavier Niel to take a 7% stake in the operator for an undisclosed sum.

The first steps of Millicom’s new investment plan are already beginning to be put into action, most notably building on its networks in Colombia and Paraguay. More recently, Millicom announced earlier this week that Tigo Panama will invest $100 million to modernise and expand its 4G and fibre networks later this year.

Apollo, meanwhile, has shown increasing appetite for telecoms infrastructure in recent years, most notably striking a deal with Lumen back in 2021 to acquire the company’s incumbent local exchange carrier business, including its consumer, small business, wholesale and mostly copper-served enterprise customers and assets in 20 states. The $7.5 billion transaction was closed last year, with the business subsequently renamed Brightspeed.

It currently serves around 6 million customers in the US with phone and broadband services.

Want to keep up to date with all the latest international telecoms news? Sign up now to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

Also in the news:
UK Space Agency to invest £50m in satellite comms
Neos Networks announces fibre milestones in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, and London
American Tower rumoured to be eying Cellnex takeover

The latest Q3 2022 Ofcom survey of UK consumer complaints has, once again, named ISP Shell Energy as attracting the most consumer gripes for both fixed line broadband and landline phone services, while BT and Virgin Mobile did the same for Pay Monthly Mobile services and Virgin Media for Pay TV. The regulator’s report only […]

Customers of UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) – specifically those that take their fixed line broadband, phone and pay TV services – are today being informed about the operator’s annual price hikes, which “on average” are set to increase by 13.8% on either 1st April or 1st May 2023 (price changes will vary according to […]

The Hampshire County Council (HCC) in England appears set to slash its spending on rural broadband upgrades for the coming year, which will see it falling sharply from £130,000 in 2022/23 to just £5,000 in 2023/24. But this change perhaps isn’t as surprising as it might first appear. Just to give this some context. Last […]

Back in 2018 we reported (here) on how community ISP HebNet CIC had worked with Scottish Sea Farms (SSF) to extend a 30Mbps+ capable Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) broadband network to serve homes near to two Salmon farms on the Isle of Skye and Knoydart in rural Scotland (Highlands). The good news is that this […]

News

The smart home device market is set to boom over the coming years, but just how many customers will actually connect these devices to the internet?

From Ring doorbells to intelligent fridges, smart devices are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in homes around the world. Last year alone, three quarters of Americans purchased a smart home device, with the average number of home devices continuing to climb steadily year-on-year.

This growth has led to attractive market forecasts, with most analysts predicting a double-digit CAGR over the coming five years. Fortune Business Insights, for example, estimates that the smart home market will be valued at $380.52 billion in 2028, up from $99.89 billion in 2021.

Clearly, there is an enormous appetite for smart home devices, but this impressive growth rate begs the question: just how many of these devices are actually connected to the internet?

Naturally, for some smart devices, remaining connected to the internet is paramount to their functionality; a smart doorbell, for example, is of relatively little use if it cannot connect to the customer’s phone to inform them when a visitor is at their door.

But, for other smart devices, being connected to the internet is not strictly necessary. This is particularly true for smart appliances, where, in many cases, the connectivity is extraneous to its primary purpose. A smart washing machine will still wash your clothes and a smart refrigerator will keep your food cold, regardless of whether you told them to do so via a phone app.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that many of these devices actually end up disconnected from the internet over the course of their lifespan in customers’ homes.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, South Korean electronics manufacturer LG recently revealed that fewer than half of its smart appliances remain connected to the internet.

The manufacturer noted that these devices are typically connected to Wi-Fi when first installed, but if this connection is lost – for example, due to a change in internet provider – they are often left disconnected.

Part of the issue here is that the benefits the customer receives from having these devices connected is considered too small compared to the inconvenience of having to reconnect them to the Wi-Fi. While for LG having these devices connected to the internet provides them with a wealth of invaluable consumer usage data, the direct benefits for the customers themselves are often more limited – especially for appliances that customers are used to operating manually.

“The challenge is that a consumer doesn’t see the true value that manufacturers see in terms of how that data can help them in the long run. So they don’t really care for spending time to just connect it,” explained Henry Kim, the US director of ThinQ, LG’s smart platform, which allows you to control numerous smart devices via a single app.

This issue represents more than just a customer experience challenge for these manufacturers. The data generated by these devices is paramount in the creation of new services and revenue streams, at a time when manufacturers are already being squeezed by a strained global economy and supply chain issues.

Thankfully, to a certain extent, manufactures can overcome these connection issues themselves through technical innovations, such creating improved antennae that remain connected more easily or protocols that help the devices reconnect themselves.

However, more complicated challenges remain, from creating meaningful benefits for customers to ensuring that their data secure and their privacy respected.

Also in the news:
UK Space Agency to invest £50m in satellite comms
Neos Networks announces fibre milestones in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, and London
American Tower rumoured to be eying Cellnex takeover

Press Release

Spark, New Zealand’s largest telecommunications and digital services provider, together with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Red Hat today announced the successful completion of a 5G Standalone (5G SA) trial in New Zealand. The trial was delivered within an impressive three-month timeframe, demonstrating the ease with which standalone cloud-native solutions can be deployed.

The 5G SA trial was underpinned by Ericsson’s cloud-native 5G Core running on Red Hat OpenShift, integrated with Spark’s 5G Fixed Wireless Access Network (FWA) to test enhanced wireless broadband. The trial successfully confirmed and validated the technical capabilities of 5G Standalone technology on Spark’s network.

The trial demonstrates how 5G standalone technology can deliver the low latency, high bandwidth and reliability that are required for high-performance use cases, such as real-time video analytics, when compared to previous wireless technologies. Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core network slicing and edge computing deployment capabilities creates the potential for new monetization opportunities for Spark’s customers in enterprise and critical communication.

The trial is part of the ongoing groundwork that Spark is undertaking to prepare for the roll out 5G standalone network at scale in the future and explore the future benefits of 5G

Nilay Rathod, Technology Tribe Lead at Spark, says: “This proof-of-concept trial with Ericsson and Red Hat demonstrates the potential that 5G standalone technology offers to our Spark network, opening the door on capacity and low latency to help accelerate Internet of Things trends, such as connected cars, smart cities and industrial IoT. The benefits of this technology include greater opportunities for our partners and better services for our customers. Trialing the solutions offered by Ericsson and Red Hat is an important step for us to identify the optimal combination of vendors and solutions to deliver the benefits we want to achieve, as we work to bring relevant use cases specific to New Zealand’s local requirements.”

Emilio Romeo, Head of Ericsson, Australia and New Zealand, says “Ericsson’s technology portfolio to support 5G Standalone presents a pathway to 5G maturity and future-readiness for communications service providers, their partners and customers. This trial with Spark and Red Hat clearly demonstrates the range of capabilities and use cases made possible by a network underpinned by Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core technology including ultra-low latency and access to higher data rates for applications such as cloud gaming, immersive video and real-time robotics control.” ​​

Ben Panic, APAC Head of Telco, Media & Entertainment at Red Hat, says: “Red Hat is excited to collaborate with Ericsson and Spark to deliver positive business and technical outcomes for New Zealand’s leading telecommunications carrier and its customers. This trial with Spark showcases the power of Red Hat OpenShift in supporting greater flexibility, reliability and scalability for software-defined networks and any underpinning systems. In longstanding collaboration with both Ericsson and Spark, Red Hat is pleased to play a key role in building the future of one of New Zealand’s largest wireless mobile networks.”

Also in the news:
UK Space Agency to invest £50m in satellite comms
Neos Networks announces fibre milestones in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, and London
American Tower rumoured to be eying Cellnex takeover

STARTUP STORIES

t3 Broadband are one of the companies you can meet at Connected America, making place in Dallas this March. Find out more here

Tell us about your start up
t3 Broadband is a company that specializes in providing engineering services and products for broadband access solutions. Our offerings include RF engineering, wireless engineering, fixed and mobile wireless products, optical products, and GIS. We work closely with our operator customers to effectively solve their business needs by providing the correct product, solution and service set that help achieve their goals. Customers are service providers, utilities, tribes, and other entities that provide broadband and mobile services to their subscribers, typically but exclusively to the rural markets.

What is your USP
t3 approaches each customer opportunity with an economic-first approach, working with our customer to solve their broadband network questions in the most cost-effective manner possible. We also take a solution- and vendor-neutral position, and given our background in both fixed and mobile networking, partner with our customers to find the best options to fit their budgets and their needs, many times creating a hybrid network solution that combines wireless and fiber components. We also bring unique intellectual property to our customer engagements that combines business and technical domains that are aligned to meet each customer’s budget and solution requirements.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
Telecom service providers are t3’s customers. These service providers may be fixed wireline operators such as traditional telephone or cable companies, mobile operators migrating their 3G and 4G networks to 5G, and tribes, municipalities, and utilities providing broadband to their communities.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
We are in a growth mode, self-supported with some key customers and partners, leveraging both the national broadband infrastructure investments and network modernization trends across both fixed and mobile operators.

Why did you establish the business?
Based on the management team’s background with large multinational companies, we started t3 to provide similar services to rural and smaller operators to assist them in bridging the digital broadband divide with value-based economic solutions.

What is your motivation?
Our motivation is the need for advanced digital services in rural parts of the country and our ability to help our customers provide these services to their communities.

What does the future hold for your business?
With broadband becoming a critical service, we see continued growth with the expansion into the unserved and underserved markets and communities.

COMPANY CV
HEADQUARTERS: Council Grove, KS USA
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Self-funded, private investment
WEBSITE URL: www.t3broadband.com
FOUNDER: Chris Crowe, Owner/CEO