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Sustainability was, as ever, a major focus at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, will operators and vendors alike keen to show off their green credentials when it came to energy usage and carbon emissions.
However, it was a perhaps less headline-grabbing – but no less important – element of sustainability that was the topic of an insightful panel discussion on day three of the conference, seeking answers to the crucial question: what should we do about the billions of mobile devices that are discarded every year?
A circular approach to the device lifecycle
The scale of the issue at hand should not be underestimated. According to the GSMA, over 5.3 billion devices ended up in drawers or landfills in 2023. At the same time, each time a new smartphone is manufactured, around 80kgs of carbon is introduced into the atmosphere.
This unsustainable cycle clearly needs to change, but to do so requires not only buy-in from the entire mobile ecosystem but also changing the mindset of customers.
For Kingfisher, a company that works with partners to help facilitate second lives (and beyond) for devices, the key lies in making trade-in programmes more flexible.
“We allow customers the opportunity to return and upgrade their device at any time, in any condition, for any reason,” explained Georgiann Reigel, CEO of Kingfisher. “The benefit of that is obviously that device has now been handed back in, so we’re able to take that phone get it back to a good condition through repair or refurbishment, and then get that device back out to another customer and begin a second life.”
This represents a fundamental shift from the typical customer journey, where a customer buys a phone and is trapped with it until the end of their contract, regardless of whether it becomes damaged, or a more desirable device becomes available.
Indeed, building this concept of device trade-in into the very first steps of the customer journey is one of the main drivers for the World Phone Amnesty initiative, which aims to see 100% of devices returned, repaired, repurposed, or recycled.
“It’s a very simple concept: when you get a new phone, hand in your old phone,” said Reigel, noting that circularity rates are only at 5–10% on global scale. “We need to push for a 1:1 trade-in rate to make the industry truly sustainable and we’re a long way from that right now.”
Changing the consumer mindset
Of course, while customers are increasingly aware of the environmental impact of their activities as a consumer, incentivising people to make more sustainable choices remains a challenge.
“The core hook for all of this of course comes from the planet and the sustainability agenda, but I think ultimately customers want value as well,” said Varun Krishnan, Managing Director – FinTech & Connected Devices Tech at Vodafone. “This ecosystem around trade-in, financing, and extending device lifetimes actually gives a lot of value back to customers.”
Vodafone itself has introduced more flexible 36-month contracts, helping to extend the life of purchased devices beyond the norm. In addition, Krishnan noted that Vodafone’s global footprint also plays a role in repurposing these devices; a returned three-year old device may not be particularly attractive to a customer in the European market, but in less developed markets like Africa these devices can still be a major upgrade for consumers.
Meanwhile, Daniel Hernandez Ortega, SVP Devices & Consumer IoT at Telefónica, emphasised the importance of creating new ways to communicate the impact of device decisions to customers.
“We want to emphasise the use of the devices in a more responsible way,” said Ortega “We’ve launched very innovative solutions based on blockchain, Web3, and tokenomics, dealing with how people can compensate their carbon footprint.”
In Spain, for example, Telefonica’s Living Apps help the customer track the carbon emissions from their device activity, allowing them to make more sustainable decisions. They also reward the customer with tokens for making these sustainable decisions, which can then be spent to support local or international sustainability programmes that the consumer is particularly passionate about.
Both of these approaches encourage customers to think, at the point of purchase, about what will happen to their device when they no longer need it.
Push and pull: New technology versus longer device lifecycles
At the core of this discussion around device sustainability is something of a paradox. Operators and device manufacturers, naturally, want customer to upgrade to the latest models so that they can take advantage of the latest services. On the other hand, a more sustainable device lifecycle would see customers stick with their existing devices for increasingly longer periods of time. How do you reconcile these seemingly disparate drivers?
For Reigel, the solution lies in making the latest devices more affordable, a quality that will seem move on to their secondary and tertiary lives more quickly. Currently, devices being returned are three- to four-years old in typical exchange programmes. By contrast, Kingfisher’s programme in Australia, which has been running for three and a half years, is seeing one- and two-year-old devices returning to market.
“These are 4G and 5G devices, helping them meet the demand that the second-hand market has,” explained Reigel. “We’ve seen a 15x increase in the rate of returned devices by having a flexible ownership programme in the market […] We’ve seen the success of that programme without even telling people this is green, this is sustainable – we didn’t even communicate that. Customers were just 15x more likely to bring in that phone. If we can take that and scale it around the world, we’re going to be in a much better place.”
“It’s actually the supply that’s the challenge,” she added. “The demand globally dramatically outstrips demand.”
You can view the full panel session on the Kingfisher YouTube channel from the link below.
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Also in the news:
BT wins £26m contract to connect UK schools
Apple fined €1.8bn by European Commission over Spotify row
Japan to reduce regulatory pressure on incumbent NTT
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Colorado-based Vantage Data Centers, a global provider of large-scale data centre campuses, has announced that is has secured a $64 million loan from two Taiwanese banks (CTBC Bank and Cathay United Bank) to support the development of its first data centre in Taipei, Taiwan.
The announcement marks the first financing deal for a hyperscale data centre in Taiwan and is Vantage’s first collaboration with Cathay United and its third transaction with CTBC globally.
The company’s Taiwan data centre campus was initially announced in December last year, and is currently under development, expecting to open in the summer. The campus will offer 16MW of IT capacity across a 215,000 square foot facility, catering to hyperscalers, cloud providers, and large enterprises, contributing to Taiwan’s emergence as a significant digital infrastructure hub in the region.
“Vantage is proud to lead the way in marking the first financing of a greenfield data centre project in Taiwan,” said Joel Cheah, Vantage’s CFO in the Asia-Pacific region in a press release. “We appreciate CTBC Bank’s continued confidence in Vantage’s data centre platform and are pleased to have the Cathay United Bank team join us in this innovative financial milestone in the next phase of Taiwan’s growth as a regional data centre market.”
According to Vantage, the Taipei data centre market is expected to more than double from $1.42 billion in 2022 to $3.21 billion by 2028, which it says is driven by growing cloud service adoption and demand for AI.
Throughout 2023, Vantage raised $10 billion in incremental debt and equity to support the growing data centre demand from the world’s largest hyperscalers.
“In 2023, we entered emerging and high-demand data centre markets to meet the needs of our customers as artificial intelligence and other innovative technologies continue to advance,” said Sureel Choksi, president and CEO of Vantage Data Centers.
Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter
Also in the news:
BT wins £26m contract to connect UK schools
Apple fined €1.8bn by European Commission over Spotify row
Japan to reduce regulatory pressure on incumbent NTT
Some data center, fixed wireless, and IX news to end the week. … [visit site to read more]
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Today, Vodafone UK has become the first operator in the country to launch a large language model (LLM) chatbot, introducing the novel technology for its VOXI customers.
The chatbot, which has been developed in conjunction with Accenture UK, is built on ChatGPT architecture and will reportedly be used to deliver more nuanced customer service.
According to Vodafone, the new chatbot can successfully handle ‘sophisticated consumer requests’ delivered in naturalistic language. The example provided below shows the chatbot handling a relatively sophisticated request around pricing, which would typically be hard for a more generic chatbot to answer accurately.
“VOXI is using generative AI to fundamentally reinvent its business. The customer experience is only the start of how this technology can be adopted at scale across the organisation,” said Accenture UK’s Generative AI Lead, Mark Farbrace.
Vodafone also notes that the AI has been developed using an AI safety framework aimed at protecting customers and ensuring ‘the responsible and ethical deployment of AI technology’.
The chatbot will initially be trialled with a small number of customers, with a wider rollout expected to follow once any initial issues have been identified and corrected.
Chatbots are certainly nothing new for the telecoms industry, which has used them to various degrees of success for many years. GenAI-based chatbots, however, are potentially far more exciting, offering not only a more flexible and personable experience for the customer, but also the potential for individually personalised consumer offerings.
Is AI going to reshape what it means to be a telco in 2024? Join the discussion at Connected North 2024, live in Manchester
Also in the news:
BT wins £26m contract to connect UK schools
Apple fined €1.8bn by European Commission over Spotify row
Japan to reduce regulatory pressure on incumbent NTT
One M&A, one contract win, one technology partnership, and a leadership change: … [visit site to read more]
Demand for fixed-line telephone services has reportedly spiked in North Korea’s North Pyongan Province due to the easing of border restrictions with China, which has also led to a spike in installation prices.
According to Daily NK, citing anonymous sources, the relaxation of border controls has led to an increase in traffic in provincial areas like Sinuiju, Ryongchon, Uiju, and Cholsan. As much of that traffic is commercial (to allegedly include smugglers), wholesalers in those areas are starting to install two phones at home, as fixed-line services cost less than mobile phones.
The report also said that demand for fixed-line in North Pyongan has been driven by an increase in families who want to install their own home phone instead of sharing one with another family, mainly due to privacy concerns.
Consequently, post offices in the province have been swamped with requests for phone installations since the beginning of this year – so much so that the North Pyongan Province Post and Telecommunications Bureau has brought forward its annual revenue targets, the report said.
However, this also means provincial post offices have raised installation costs to take advantage of the spike in demand and hit those targets. The report claims the cost of fixed-line phone installation now costs between US$350-450 in Sinuiju and US$400-500 in Ryongchon. By comparison, installing a telephone in the capital Pyongyang costs between US$100-250.
The report’s source said the price of installation is particularly high in Ryongchon County because it has become a major bottleneck for shipping, as goods imported from China must pass through customs in Sinuiju before being distributed throughout the country.
“Since it’s the area where goods are distributed the fastest and wholesale prices are set, home phones are in high demand and installation prices are also high,” the source said.
The source also told NK Daily that Ryongchon County residents filed a complaint with the provincial party committee over the price hike, “but the matter was closed without results.”
According to the latest available figures from the CIA’s World Factbook, North Korea had 1.18 million fixed lines at the end of 2021, which works out to a market penetration of 5%. Figures from the World Bank (also for the end of 2021) say there are 6 million mobile subscriptions in North Korea, which comes to 23% market penetration.
Cellnex revealed late last year that its Irish unit was likely to be sold
Florida-based wireless infrastructure company Phoenix Tower International (PTI) has announced a deal with Cellnex to acquire 100% of the latter’s Irish business for €971 million.
Cellnex has been operating in Ireland since 2019, when it when it acquired tower operator Cignal as part of an agreement with CK Hutchinson to acquire its infrastructure portfolio in six European countries (which included Ireland). Since then, the number of towers Cellnex owns and operates in Ireland has grown to around 1,900 sites all of which will now be handed over to PTI.
“The sale of our business in Ireland – at an appropriate valuation– is one further step within the company’s ‘Next Chapter’, in line with our strategy, to achieve the goal of consolidating, simplifying our corporate structure and focusing our efforts in the existing growth opportunities in the main markets in which we operate,” said Cellnex CEO Marco Patuano in a press release.
Cellnex is on a mission to get its finances in order after its major M&A activities in recent years have left it with a debt of €17.2 billion.
This new focus was one of the main topics at Cellnex’s Capital Markets day in London this week, outlining its plans for the year ahead as the company switches its focus towards capital preservation. The company unveiled four new strategic pillars for their future organic expansion:
The full Capital Markets Day details can be found here.
For PTI, on the other hand, appears to be on the opposite trajectory, with this purchase the latest in a number of moves in the European tower sector.
Back in September, PTI announced the acquisition of 2,000 cell sites in urban France, now making it the largest market of the 21 in which PTI operates. In 2020, the PTI also struck a deal with Bouygues Telecom to build and operate 4,000 new tower sites in France over the next 12 years.
The closing of the deal is subject to standards regulatory approvals.
Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter
Also in the news:
BT wins £26m contract to connect UK schools
Apple fined €1.8bn by European Commission over Spotify row
Japan to reduce regulatory pressure on incumbent NTT
