This week, Vodafone Group has reportedly agreed the sale of its 70% stake in Vodafone Ghana to smaller African player Telecel.
 
Telecel currently owns and operates a number of mobile operators in African and Europe, as well as providing wholesale, enterprise, and digital security services to other operators and businesses worldwide. The company has already made investments in Ghana as part of the Africa Startup Initiative Program “ASIP”.
 
While the financial terms of the deal are so far undisclosed…

This week, Vodafone Group has reportedly agreed the sale of its 70% stake in Vodafone Ghana to smaller African player Telecel.

Telecel currently owns and operates a number of mobile operators in African and Europe, as well as providing wholesale, enterprise, and digital security services to other operators and businesses worldwide. The company has already made investments in Ghana as part of the Africa Startup Initiative Program “ASIP”.

While the financial terms of the deal are so far undisclosed, sources suggest that Telecel plans to invest around $500 million in the first three years to bolster the Ghanaian company’s network.

There were initially rumours that the sale would be partly funded by the potential sale of Vodafone Ghana’s tower infrastructure, though this has since been debunked by Telecel.

« The acquisition is fully financed by Telecel Group and its partners. Telecel confirms that the potential sale of Vodafone Ghana Towers is not part of the acquisition funding,” said the company in a statement. 

Vodafone itself had acquired its 70% stake in what was then Ghana’s state-run telco, Ghana Telecom, back in 2008, paying the government $900 million. To this day, the government retains the remaining 30% stake.

But for Vodafone Ghana this plan never materialised, and it now seems a stake sale to a fully independent party could be more appealing. 

However, getting regulatory approval for the takeover is proving problematic. 

Speaking on the local Asaase Radio channel earlier this week, Ghana’s Communications and Digitalisation minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said that the acquisition had been denied approval earlier in the year, saying that she was “surprised at the news going around.”

“The law requires that they get regulatory approval from the National Communications Authority (NCA), and we’ve had a series of discussions with them. We were concerned that [Telecel] were a very small operator and didn’t have the technical and financial muscle to be able to take on the challenging environment that we have in the telecom sector here in Ghana.”

In a statement, the NCA noted that they had not blocked the deal, as such, but rather concluded that the sale did not meet regulatory requirements in its current form. As such, Telecel and Vodafone say they are in ongoing negotiations with the regulator. 

“We have received their responses which have not granted the approvals yet and Telecel is willing to re-engage soon after putting together the necessary clarifications,” said Telecel in a statement. “Telecel and Vodafone have been in touch with Ghana’s Ministry for Communications, Bank of Ghana, and the National Communications Authority, to finalize all the regulatory requirements related to this transaction.” 

At the end of 2021, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) completed its most recent spectrum auction, offering 16 lots in the 850 MHz and 900 MHz bands and raising over AU$2 billion.
Telstra and Optus were the only bidders in the auction and did so following relatively divergent 5G strategies: Telstra targeted the 850 MHz band, picking up the four available lots for roughly AU$615 million, while Optus won all the 900 MHz spectrum available for roughly AU$1…

At the end of 2021, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) completed its most recent spectrum auction, offering 16 lots in the 850 MHz and 900 MHz bands and raising over AU$2 billion.

Telstra and Optus were the only bidders in the auction and did so following relatively divergent 5G strategies: Telstra targeted the 850 MHz band, picking up the four available lots for roughly AU$615 million, while Optus won all the 900 MHz spectrum available for roughly AU$1.4 billion.

The licences won at the auction will come into force on July 1, 2024, and last for a 20-year term. 

Naturally, this is quite a delay for the operators, who are keen to begin making use of the spectrum as soon as possible. As such, the ACMA quickly announced that it would authorise PMTS (public mobile telecommunications service) Class B licences – essentially ‘early access’ licences that would allow the operators to make use of the spectrum at specific, registered locations.

In cases where a PMTS licence would clash with existing spectrum licences, the ACAM said it would allow whoever registered first to be given priority.  

This decision represented something of an opportunity for Telstra. The operator still owns 900 MHz spectrum that it had previously used for its now retired 2G network. Registering for PMTS licences would allow Telstra to make use of this largely unused spectrum for the first time since 2016.

As a result, Telstra quickly registered 206 additional sites to use 900 MHz spectrum, on top of the 109 sites it currently had registered. 

“We identified an opportunity to reduce congestion in a small number of places by moving 3G traffic onto our 900 MHz spectrum, given it is unused and we own until 2024. At the same time this would free up 850 MHz spectrum to meet the growing demands of our 5G customers,” explained Telstra.

However, the ACCC suggested that these deployments could hinder competition with Optus, noting that could interfere with the latter’s national 5G rollout. 

“[The registration] had the substantial purpose or likely effect of lessening competition by Optus, as Telstra knew of the importance of this spectrum band to Optus’ 5G rollout plan,” said ACCC commissioner Liza Carver.

While Telstra disagrees with this assessment, the operator has subsequently agreed to deregister 153 of the sites, leaving just 162 still registered. 

“While we do not agree with the ACCC’s view, these cases can be drawn out, costly and time-consuming, and risk distracting us from providing better service to our customers, including customers in regional Australia,” said Telstra. “To avoid that we have filed an undertaking to deregister sites in areas Optus demonstrates it will use the spectrum in its 5G rollout.”

This clash over mobile site licences is taking place against the backdrop of a far larger struggle between Telstra and Optus, with the latter decrying the network sharing agreement Telstra struck with TPG earlier this year as uncompetitive. Optus has said that the deal is “uniquely one-sided” and will largely serve as a merger disguised as a partnership. Earlier this month, Telstra struck back, accusing Optus of ‘scaremongering’ and suggesting that parts of the deal have been “twisted intentionally” to “mischaracterise” the arrangement. 

Also in the news:

India has concluded its long-delayed 5G auction, raising almost $19 million in what proved to be a much more competitive process than anticipated. 
The seminal 5G auction made spectrum in a huge array of spectrum bands – 600MHz, 700MHz, 800MHz, 900MHz, 1.8GHz, 2.1GHz, 2.3GHz, 3.3GHz, and 26GHz – available to the operators for the first time. 
The Indian operators have been trialling the new technology for the past year, with Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi) all suggesting they would look to launch 5G services in 2022 as soon as the auction has concluded.
For a long time, however, the extent to which the Indian operators would want to compete in the 5G auction was unclear…

India has concluded its long-delayed 5G auction, raising almost $19 million in what proved to be a much more competitive process than anticipated. 

The seminal 5G auction made spectrum in a huge array of spectrum bands – 600MHz, 700MHz, 800MHz, 900MHz, 1.8GHz, 2.1GHz, 2.3GHz, 3.3GHz, and 26GHz – available to the operators for the first time. 

The Indian operators have been trialling the new technology for the past year, with Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi) all suggesting they would look to launch 5G services in 2022 as soon as the auction has concluded.

For a long time, however, the extent to which the Indian operators would want to compete in the 5G auction was unclear, with the telcos complaining that the spectrum’s reserve prices were too high. At time, Airtel had even threatened not to bid for spectrum at all if the price was not lowered. 

Ultimately, however, the government agreed to reduce prices by only a small margin, but instead introduced various measures to make the operators participation more viable. This included giving the operators the option to pay for the spectrum in annual instalments, surrender the spectrum back to the government after 10 years, and also completely removed spectrum usage charges.

As a result, this week the Indian operators have bid for spectrum with relative intensity, purchasing 71% of the spectrum available.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Reliance Jio has won the lion’s share of the spectrum, spending roughly $11.15 billion to acquire blocks of 700MHz, 800MHz, 1.8GHz, 3.3GHz, and 26GHz spectrum. 

« We will celebrate ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ [75th Year of Independence Day of India] with a pan India 5G rollout, » said Akash Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Jio. « Jio is committed to offering world-class, affordable 5G and 5G-enabled services. We will provide services, platforms and solutions that will accelerate India’s digital revolution, especially in crucial sectors like Education, Healthcare, Agriculture, Manufacturing and e-Governance. » 

Airtel was the second largest winner, spending $5.45 billion, focussing largely on the 3.3GHz and 26GHz bands. The company also bought spectrum in the 900MHz, 1.8GHz, and 2.1GHz bands and notably ignored the 700MHz band, which it still deemed to be too expensive.

Cash-strapped Vi purchased $2.37 billion-worth of 3.3GHz and 26GHz spectrum for limited deployment in certain circles. 

« We have successfully acquired mid-band 5G spectrum (3.3GHz band) in our 17 priority circles and mmWave 5G spectrum (26GHz band) in 16 circles, which will enable us to offer a superior 5G experience to our customers as well as strengthen our enterprise offerings and provide new opportunities for business growth in the emerging 5G era, » explained the company in a statement. 

The final bidder in the auction was wireless newcomer Adani Group, backed by billionaire Gautam Adani. 

Indian operators had initially complained to the regulator when it was announced that the spectrum auction would be opened to enterprise players, arguing that this could cost them valuable revenue and thereby impact their ability to roll out 5G efficiently to Indian consumers. They also worried that this would allow major corporations, like Adani Group, to strongarm their way into the consumer mobile market, giving them greater leverage to acquire or merge with mobile players.

However, it seems that their fears were largely unfounded. Adani Group proved the only non-operator to sign up to participate in the auction and has walked away with a meagre 400MHz of spectrum, spending just $26.84 million – surely too small a quantity to represent a threat to the existing mobile ecosystem. 

Adani Groups says the spectrum will be used to offer private network services to enterprise customers.

The conclusion of the auction marks a major step for the Indian telecoms industry, one that the government hopes will become the backbone of its booming digital economy. 

It is worth noting, however, that there is one more player that could yet play a supporting role in India’s growing mobile market: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). 

The government is currently attempting to reinvigorate state-run fixed line operator BSNL, recently announcing a $20.5 billion relief package for the company and giving it the green light to merge with Bharat Broadband Network Limited, the company deploying and operating BharatNet. 

Despite struggling to compete against Jio and Airtel in the fixed line market, BSNL has long had ambitions of becoming a major wireless player. So far, however, it only has a nationwide 3G network and a very limited 4G deployment, recording around 110 million subscribers in September 2021. The company’s long-awaited nationwide 4G launch could finally take place later this year – indeed, the government granted BSNL additional 4G spectrum as part of its relief package – but this would likely be after its mobile rivals had already begun to launch 5G. 

BSNL has been conducting its own 5G trials over the last year, but did not bid for any 5G spectrum at this week’s auction, meaning their potential 5G future is mired in uncertainty.