This has been a big week for data center builders in the financial markets. Four data center development companies separately tapped into big money for expansion: … [visit site to read more]

16 JANUARY 2025 – High-speed broadband provider LightSpeed has joined forces with Neos Networks, one of the UK’s foremost business connectivity providers, to expand its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) and wholesale services. This collaboration highlights LightSpeed’s commitment to delivering Gigabit broadband to underserved communities while bolstering its network infrastructure.

LightSpeed sets high standards for Ethernet performance with its existing 10Gbps XGS-PON technology, ensuring high bandwidth and capacity services are available across its network. Greater availability of these services is now being developed utilising Neos Networks’ extensive UK-wide network, providing its wholesale customers greater access and choice when purchasing connectivity.

The LightSpeed Group operates through two entities: LightSpeed Networks, which builds and manages the infrastructure for its retail and growing wholesale services, and LightSpeed Broadband, which provides Gigabit-speed connectivity directly to homes and businesses across the Midlands and East of England.

Neos Networks is providing LightSpeed with high-performance connectivity solutions, including dark fibre, 100Gbps and 10Gbps optical links, and backhaul services. This partnership enables LightSpeed Networks to expand into new regions like North Staffordshire and connect to critical data centres in London, Manchester, and Birmingham. As a result, LightSpeed can offer bespoke wholesale services and managed solutions to other service providers, delivering alternatives to incumbent providers.

Additionally, Neos Networks supports LightSpeed Broadband’s ability to deliver FTTH services to a broader customer base. By quickly and efficiently extending connectivity into new areas, LightSpeed Broadband can bolster pre-sales, street cabinet deployments, and customer sign-ups, accelerating its rollout of high-speed broadband.

This partnership represents an important step in both LightSpeed and Neos Networks’ missions to bridge the digital divide, offering gigabit broadband to communities in need and cementing their positions as key players in the UK’s connectivity markets.

“Partnering with Neos Networks allows us to bring faster, more reliable connectivity to homes and businesses in the East Midlands and beyond,” said Chris Tagg, Chief Technology and Information Officer at The LightSpeed Group. “This collaboration equips us with the flexibility and scalability to expand rapidly into new markets while staying true to our commitment to exceptional service delivery – especially in areas where traditional options like Openreach are unavailable.”

“Our collaboration with LightSpeed is a prime example of how advanced network infrastructure can support providers in reaching underserved areas,” said Lee Myall, CEO at Neos Networks. “By delivering tailored connectivity solutions, we’re enabling LightSpeed to expand their footprint and bring high-quality broadband to more communities and businesses.”

ENDS

About Neos Networks 

Neos Networks has the UK’s largest business-dedicated network. With over 600 points of presence and 90 data centres nationwide, Neos provides high capacity critical connectivity for businesses, from telecoms and energy to banking and emergency services.

Agile and customer-focused with almost limitless scale, Neos enables emerging technologies like AI, 5G and IoT, making connectivity work for Britain. 

For more information please visit: https://neosnetworks.com

About LightSpeed

LightSpeed is an independent, full fibre broadband network that offers industry-leading speeds of up to 2,000 Mbps. As the East and West Midlands’ leading and most trusted broadband provider, it’s bringing the power of Gigabit to parts of the UK that other providers have overlooked, with plans to connect 150,000 new premises in these regions and a target of 400,000 total homes & businesses by 2027.   

Backed by investment partner Kompass Kapital, the brand is focused on building a portfolio of value-added services powered by its ultra-fast broadband, designed to enhance customers’ in-home experiences, from security to smart home technologies.   

For more information please visit: www.lightspeed.co.uk

UAE-based satellite firm Space42 said on Wednesday it has successfully deployed the second of its Foresight earth observation LEO satellites in partnership with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation operator ICEYE.

The Foresight-2 satellite, supplied by ICEYE, was launched on Tuesday aboard the Transporter-12 Rideshare mission with SpaceX. The satellite has established communication, and early routine operations are underway, Space42 said. The launch also included four satellites for ICEYE’s own constellation.

The Foresight-2 satellite joins Foresight-1, which was launched in August 2024 by Bayanat and Yahsat prior to the finalisation of their merger as Space42. With Foresight-2 now in orbit, Space42 said the second phase of the SAR constellation will boost its geospatial insights and capabilities with increased speed and precision.

The Foresight satellites use an SAR active sensing system to produce high-fidelity images of the Earth’s surface around the clock, regardless of weather conditions or solar illumination, at the highest resolution in the industry for small satellites. According to Space42, this allows smaller objects and minute surface changes to be tracked from space, which can address critical challenges such as disaster mitigation, maritime surveillance, and urban mobility.

Space42 MD Karim Michel Sabbagh added that Foresight constellation will support the UAE’s Earth Observation (EO) Space Program, which was created in 2023 to build up the country’s satellite remote sensing and EO capabilities.

“With cutting-edge technology, this spacecraft enhances our capacity to deliver precise, real-time geospatial insights, advancing the UAE’s earth observation capabilities,” he said in a statement.

The launch of Foresight-2 comes a month after ICEYE and Space42 announced a JV to manufacture SAR satellites in the UAE.

Space42 plans to complete the Foresight SAR constellation by 2027.

Three items of subsea infrastructure going on this week, two within EMEA and one on the other side of the globe. … [visit site to read more]

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News

Two and a half years after acquiring the spectrum at auction, the Indian conglomerate has yet to make use of its airwaves

Reports this week suggest that Adani Group is considering surrendering it 5G mmWave spectrum after failing to turn its dream of deploying private 5G networks into reality.

According to the reports, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has sent multiple requests to the company asking how it intends to use the currently idle spectrum, as well as penalising it for failing to meet minimum rollout targets.

Adani Group purchased the spectrum for $27 million at India’s first 5G auction back in 2022. At the time, Adani said it would use the 400MHz of 26GH (also known as mmWave) spectrum to deploy private 5G networks for its own digital subsidiaries, as well as offering it to enterprise and industrial customers.

As part of the deal, Adani was obligated to begin offering commercial services using the spectrum within a year.

“The Adani Group’s foray into the industrial 5G space will allow our portfolio companies to offer a set of new add on services that capitalises on all the other digital segments we are building,” said Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group, after acquiring the spectrum.

Adani Group’s participation in the spectrum auction initially caused concern in some corners of the Indian telecoms sector, with onlookers speculating that success with private networks could lead to Adani’s entry into the consumer mobile space.

The reality, however, appears to have been quite different, with Adani Group having failed to make a single deployment using the mmWave 5G spectrum.

Adani has reportedly told the DoT that the spectrum’s deployment across its own industrial operations – including ports, airports, power stations, and logistics – had proven commercially unviable.

If the company continues to fail to meet rollout obligations, the company will be forced to pay fines to the DoT. As such, Adani is considering returning the spectrum licences to the DoT.

It is also worth noting that Adani did not participate in India’s latest 5G spectrum auction, which took place in summer last year and generated a lukewarm response from the country’s mobile network operators. The acquisition of additional spectrum could have made the company’s private 5G network offering more attractive and would likely have allowed them to also offer 5G fixed wireless access services, for which mmWave spectrum is typically well suited.

Failures to meaningfully commercialise mmWave spectrum is nothing new for the mobile industry. While offering considerably lower latency and capacity than typical mid-band spectrum 5G services, mmWave’s shorter range limits often limits its viability and increases deployment costs.

Indeed, even in South Korea, typically viewed as one of the most advanced mobile markets in the world, the country’s mobile operators had failed to make mmWave commercially viable at scale. After four years of lacklustre deployments, all of the nation’s operators ultimately had their mmWave licences revoked by the government.

Keep up to date with all the latest global telecoms news with the Total Telecom newsletter

Also in the news:
VEON and Starlink to launch Direct-to-Cell Satellite connectivity in Ukraine
Swisscom completes acquisition of Vodafone Italia
Equinix to buy BT’s Irish data centre business for €59m

Interesting items from the data center, interconnection, and quantum realms. … [visit site to read more]

News

The list sanctions companies assessed as posing a potential threat to US national security or operating adversely to US foreign policy interests

On January 6, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced the latest wave of companies to be added the so-called ‘Entity List’.

US companies seeking to export to companies on the Entity List must first receive a specific. licence to do-so from the US government, most of which are reviewed with the ‘presumption of denial’.

This latest update saw BIS revise the Export Administration Regulations to include 13 new entities: 11 from China, 1 from Myanmar, and 1 from Pakistan. The list of companies added can be found here, while the full ‘Entity List’ can be accessed here.

The companies added are, for the most part, unsurprising. Chinese companies have made up the lion’s share of entrants to the Entity List for many years now – a symptom of the deeper of the technological tensions between the country and successive US governments. Here, the majority of the Chinese entrants are tech firms accused of supporting the Chinese military, alongside a handful of research institutes designated as working on ‘hypersonic weapons’.

The sole Pakistani entrant, Emerging Future Solutions Private Limited, was similarly added based on military connections adverse to US interests, including supporting Pakistan’s ballistic missile research efforts.

But perhaps the most interesting of the new additions is Myanmar’s Mytel, which has been accused of helping the ruling military junta prepetrate human rights abuses by assisting with surveillance and financial support.

Mytel was founded as a joint venture between the Burmese military and Vietnamese telco Viettel (itself owned by Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defence) in 2016.

The company’s military links have been a source of controversy since the company’s inception, with Mytel having been accused of corruption, cronyism, and carrying out government disinformation campaigns.

The company initially faced a broad wave of economic sanctions from various Western countries following the military coup in 2021, but the US was notably absent. Since then, the company has been accused of further misdeeds, including using Mytel SIMs to track soldiers’ movements and conversations, aiming to root out defectors.

However, exactly how effective these new sanctions from the US will be remains to be seen. The efficacy of the Entity List has been repeatedly called into question, with detractors arguing that many licences were still being issued. In 2023, for example, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul notably complained that BIS had approved more than $23 billion in tech licences to blacklisted companies in just a three month period in Jan–March 2022.

Keep up to date with all the latest global telecoms news with the Total Telecom newsletter

Also in the news:
VEON and Starlink to launch Direct-to-Cell Satellite connectivity in Ukraine
Swisscom completes acquisition of Vodafone Italia
Equinix to buy BT’s Irish data centre business for €59m

Indian space data company Pixxel says it is about to launch three of its six hyperspectral imaging satellites in a first for the private satellite market.

The satellites, part of the first network of its type in India’s private space sector, will take off aboard a SpaceX rocket from California today. The other three satellites are due to be deployed in the second quarter of 2025.

Reuters says that Pixxel’s founder and chief executive Awais Ahmed told the news service that it plans to add 18 more spacecraft to the six it has already developed.

Pixxel is a space data company, backed by Google, building a constellation of hyperspectral earth imaging satellites and the analytical tools to mine insights from that data. The constellation is designed to provide global coverage every 24 hours, with the aim of detecting, monitoring and predicting global phenomena. 

Pixxel aims to use hyperspectral imaging – a technology that captures highly detailed data across hundreds of light bands – to serve a number of industries.

Its satellites can apparently deliver insights to improve crop yields, track resources, and monitor oil spills and country borders in much better detail than current technology allows.

The satellite imaging market is projected to reach US$19 billion by 2029. Pixxel hopes hyperspectral imaging could claim US$500 million to US$1 billion of this, plus additional revenue from analysis.

The company can already boast about 65 clients, some of which are paying for data from its demonstration satellites. Contracts are also in place for future data from the Firefly constellation, as it is known.

The global commercial space market is a very competitive market already, and one in which India holds only a 2% share. The hope, however, is that private players can increase this share.

As Reuters points out, Pixxel hopes to overcome these challenges with its Firefly constellation, which boasts a five-metre resolution and a 40-kilometre swathe, more, apparently, than many competitors.

A new data center market, some longhaul fiber, and a bit of managed services M&A. … [visit site to read more]