With its financial performance stuttering, Vodafone Group is hoping a pair of new voices in its board of directors will help revitalise the company’s fortunes. 
Vodafone has now announced the appointment of Simon Segars, ex-CEO of Arm, and Delphine Cunci, previous head of France Télévisions, as non-executive board members.
Segars spent almost 21 years at UK…

With its financial performance stuttering, Vodafone Group is hoping a pair of new voices in its board of directors will help revitalise the company’s fortunes. 

Vodafone has now announced the appointment of Simon Segars, ex-CEO of Arm, and Delphine Cunci, previous head of France Télévisions, as non-executive board members.

Segars spent almost 21 years at UK-based chip giant Arm and had served as the company’s CEO and President since 2013. He stepped down from the role in February following the collapse of Arm’s $66 billion takeover by Nvidia.

Cunci, meanwhile, served as the president of France Télévisions since 2015, prior to which she spent 26 years at Orange, giving her a wealth of telecoms experience on which to draw.

“They are well-respected leaders who bring extensive experience and track records of value creation across the telecoms, technology and media sectors,” said Vodafone Chairman Jean-Francois van Boxmeer. “I look forward to Delphine and Simon’s valuable contribution as the Board and management team work closely together to drive the execution of Vodafone’s strategy, to achieve our commercial and portfolio priorities and deliver long-term value for shareholders.”

The appointments come partly in response to the pressure applied to Vodafone by activist investor Cevian Capital, which took an undisclosed stake in the operator group back in January.

Following the investment, Cevian immediately called for Vodafone to drive harder for industry consolidation and to reshuffle its board of directors, which it claimed lacked telecoms experience. 

Cevian, which manages roughly $15 billion of shares in its portfolio, has a history of targeting conglomerates they believe are being run inefficiently, typically aiming to simplify their management structure and shed underperforming businesses.

Consolidation has been a major focus for Vodafone for many years now, but so far their plans have met with limited success. CEO Nick Read has repeatedly argued that the European telecoms industry is ripe for mergers and acquisitions, saying in February that he was in talks for tie-ups in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain. 

Just yesterday, Vodafone UK boss Ahmed Essam called on regulators to look more kindly on consolidation, saying that the telecoms industry had been “suffering for decades” under the strict controls.

Today, SK Group has announced a 50 billion won ($39 million) investment into game creator Haegin, further bolstering its metaverse offering in anticipation of expanding the service abroad.
 
SK Telecom (SKT) and SK Group’s investment arm, SK Square, will each invest half of the total sum. Combined, they will become Haegin’s third-largest shareholder, though the exact size of the total share was not disclosed…

Today, SK Group has announced a 50 billion won ($39 million) investment into game creator Haegin, further bolstering its metaverse offering in anticipation of expanding the service abroad.

SK Telecom (SKT) and SK Group’s investment arm, SK Square, will each invest half of the total sum. Combined, they will become Haegin’s third-largest shareholder, though the exact size of the total share was not disclosed. 

Haegin has produced a string of successful games in South Korea since being founded in 2017, but its largest hit came in April 2021 with the launch of ‘Play Together’, a casual metaverse game that offers players various mini-games, daily life experiences, and a large range of avatar customisation. Likened to the game platform Roblox, which saw a surge of popularity during the pandemic, Play Together also functions as a game creation platform, allowing players to create their own minigames challenge their friends online. 

Play Together attracted 80 million downloads within its first year and has roughly four million daily users. 

From the success of Play Together, Haegin has seen a boom in investor interest, announcing in March this year that it had attracted $82 million in Series B investment.

SKT, it seems, are trying to capitalise on Haegin’s meteoric rise, hoping that the company’s gaming expertise will help them further develop their own metaverse platform, Ifland, and ensure its competitiveness in an international market. The operator said it will collaborate closely with Haegin to upgrade the game content available on its platform, particularly with regards to immersive experiences and the intersection of AI technology and the metaverse, something they call the ‘AI-Verse’.

“Our collaboration with a global games firm will be a big boost for SKT’s penetration into the global market with AI-Verse, as well as strengthening our service competitiveness,” said Lee Hyun-ah, manager at SKT’s AI&CO.

In future, for example, SKT aims to releasing what it calls an ‘AI secretary service’ as part of its Ifland platform, whereby AI-powered avatars of each smartphone customer can act as a personal secretary to the user.

Yang Maeng-seok, head of SK Telecom‘s metaverse business, described the investment as the foundation for “providing Ifland users with more fun factors”.

Recent years have seen an uptick in regional submarine cable projects being developed and launched in the EMEA region. One of those projects is the IONIAN subsea system which is being built by Islalink. 
Islalink’s current focus is on delivering the IONIAN submarine system. Can you tell us more about the project? 
Greece has suffered from a lack of investment on its international telecommunications network since the financial crisis in 2008…

Recent years have seen an uptick in regional submarine cable projects being developed and launched in the EMEA region. One of those projects is the IONIAN subsea system which is being built by Islalink. 

Islalink’s current focus is on delivering the IONIAN submarine system. Can you tell us more about the project? 

Greece has suffered from a lack of investment on its international telecommunications network since the financial crisis in 2008. Such investment is required for the development of the digital economy in Greece. We started working on the IONIAN project in 2019 with this basic assumption and we developed a business plan for IONIAN that was approved a year ago by our investors. 

2022 is set to be a big year for the IONIAN cable. How is the project progressing and when are you expecting to be ready for service? 

The project is progressing as per the plan that was defined a year ago, and we expect to be ready for service by the end of this year 2022. The cable is now ready for installation, and it will be laid after the summer window, during which no landing operations can take place. Also we have finalized all major agreements and acquisitions for the critical terrestrial elements. 

What will this new cable mean for connectivity in the Mediterranean region? 

IONIAN will be a much needed route between Italy and Greece and it will bring: 

– Maximum diversity from existing routes 

– The safest possible submarine route as the cable will be laid mostly in deep waters, avoiding the most common hazards for submarine cables 

– Very large capacity with 24 low attenuation fiber pairs, each capable of delivering more than 15 Tbps with existing technology 

– Redundant terrestrial fiber routes with up to 40Tbps each to reach Athens, Milan, Rome and Thessaloniki 

What are your predictions for the submarine cable industry over the next 18 months? 

The submarine industry is already – and will keep being in the coming years – extremely busy to deliver the projects that are being deployed and those that are under development, many of them led by the OTTs. Large fiber count systems (with up to 24 fiber pairs, even when repeated) are becoming common as Open systems with DC to DC connectivity have already become now the norm of the industry.  

You will be joining us as a speaker at Submarine Networks EMEA 2022 in May. What are you most looking forward to about the event? 

In the past years Submarine Networks EMEA has established itself as a very focused gathering of the industry, and it is very nice as its smaller size allows you to network with suppliers, customers and partners in a more relaxed environment. I also hope to get an update from the industry as a whole during the sessions which are generally quite interesting.   

Launched back in summer 2021, the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Programme is a $980 million programme directed by tribal governments, offering grants for the deployment of broadband infrastructure on tribal lands, as well as to enhance the access to digital learning opportunities and telehealth.
 
Applicants for the grants had until September 2021 to apply, with the programme receiving over 280 submissions. Ironically, at the start of 2022, some tribal advocates complained to the Senate that they did not have the broadband access needed to apply for the funding scheme…

Launched back in summer 2021, the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Programme is a $980 million programme directed by tribal governments, offering grants for the deployment of broadband infrastructure on tribal lands, as well as to enhance the access to digital learning opportunities and telehealth.

Nonetheless, since late 2021 the NTIA has gradually been reviewing these applications, periodically announcing grant allocations in batches. So far, these allocations have been relatively small, totalling around $6 million for various projects. 

This week, however, marks the first major raft of grants to be allocated, with the NTIA awarding 19 grants worth almost $77 million. The grants will affect communities in 10 states, with the projects set to boost internet use and adoption projects to improve healthcare, workforce development, education, housing, and social services in tribal communities.

By far the largest of these grants is being given to the Alaska Federation of Natives. Totalling over $35 million, the project proposes a consortium consisting of 73 Alaska Native Tribal governments, Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs), and tribal organisations to reduce barriers to broadband usage among Native Alaskans by providing broadband-enabled devices, subsidizing broadband service, and implementing digital skills and workforce training. It will also seek to improve health care access among tribal communities by equipping Alaska tribal health partners with the equipment and training needed to offer telehealth services.

In total, the NTIA has so far awarded 33 grants, representing over $83 million in investment. 

“For far too long, Tribal Communities have been cut off from the benefits of high-speed internet, as well as the associated economic benefits that come with it. From running a business to taking online classes to scheduling a doctor’s appointment, the internet is a necessary tool for participating in our modern economy, and it’s an absolute injustice that this resource has been deprived from so many Native Americans across our country,” said US Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo. 

“This critical funding will bring affordable, high-speed internet service to Tribes from Alaska to Rhode Island, and many places in between, expanding access to telehealth, distance learning, and workforce development. Today’s awards reaffirm the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to ensuring that Tribal communities, as well as unserved and underserved communities in every state and territory, have the resources they need and deserve to thrive in our increasingly digital economy.”

The recently enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which will see an investment of $65 billion in broadband funding across the country, will further bolster the TBCP with an additional $2 billion.

Extending broadband access to tribal communities in the US is a major challenge. While 2019 data from the Federal Communications Commission showed that 95.6% of the US population had access to fixed broadband services, his number shrinks to just 79.1% of people on tribal lands. 

In addition, to having less access to the technology, the data also suggests that there is also a major hurdle when it comes to uptake of these services, with just 46.5% of tribal households making use of available broadband services. 

Clearly, there is much progress yet to be made to help connect tribal communities and, with almost $2.9 billion remaining, the scale of government support via the TBCP must accelerate quickly if it is to have a significant impact on the growing digital divide in the US.