News

Nepal’s Ministry of Communication, Internet and Technology (MoCIT) has requested that the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) stops removing internet cables from its utility poles

This week, the ongoing conflict between Nepal’s internet service providers and the NEA has escalated yet further, with the MoCIT formally asking the NEA to stop removing internet service cables from its utility poles.

For many years, Nepal’s ISPs have been using the NEA’s utility poles to host internet and TV cables, a highly efficient strategy for rapidly deploying networks across the country at minimal cost.

However, around a year ago, the NEA announced it would be increasing the rent on the use of its utility poles to host internet cables – in some cases by up to 700%.

Naturally, this price hike posed a considerable concern to the ISPs, who took to legal channels to complain.

Shortly after the increase was announced, the ISPs told the Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) that they would need to pass on these costs to customers, raising monthly subscription prices by around 150 Rs (~$1.13) in rural areas and 300 Rs (~$2.27) in urban areas to handle this increased rental price.

According to The Internet Connectivity Index-2021, the average monthly charge for broadband services in Nepal in 2021 was 1,600 Rs (~$12.10).

By October 2022, the ISPs were still disputing the new pricing and refusing the pay the increased fees, hence the NEA began removing internet cabling from their utility poles in various regions in, causing significant disruption to internet services.

The move was met with condemnation by both the ISPs and the NTA, with the latter suggesting that the NEA could potentially be punished by law for obstructing services.

This week, with the cables’ removal still ongoing, the Internet Service Providers’ Association of Nepal (ISPAN) has called for government intervention to stop the NEA, arguing that the ISPs were being unfairly pressured to pay the unilaterally increased fees.

The NEA, on the other hand, says it is simply following legal procedure, removing the cables from its infrastructure due to lack of payment.

Now, the MoCIT itself has been forced to weigh in on the conflict, requesting that the NEA cease removing the cables due to the internet’s integral role in public life. It urged the NEA and the ISPs to come to a speedy compromise, noting that internet access is key to the Digital Nepal Framework, the government’s 2019 plan to increase digital literacy and ICT access throughout the country.

The MoCIT has officially requested that the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, which oversees the NEA, order the energy provider to cease its disruptive activity.

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Press Release

Orange is announcing the signature of a memorandum of agreement with Reservoir Sun, a leading player in self-supply solar electricity systems for companies and local government, to set up a photovoltaic power station in Bercenay-en-Othe (Aube)

The station is due to go online in 2025. The project’s first major milestone is the environmental impact analysis.

To fulfill its environmental commitments, Orange is increasingly turning to renewable sources of energy and wishes to accelerate this transition by making the most of solar energy on its tertiary and technical sites. The Group will therefore deploy its first solar farm in France and in Europe[1] on the strategic satellite communications site at Bercenay-en-Othe. The farm will cover a surface area of 50,000 m², or the equivalent of seven football pitches.  With an installed capacity of 5 MW (1MW for self-consumption and 4MW for reinjection), the power station will supply 20% of the site’s energy needs and surplus electricity can be fed back to the grid. This locally generated, low-carbon electricity corresponds to the annual energy consumption of 1,700 homes and will save over 100 tons of CO₂ every year.

The first milestone, starting today, is the environmental impact analysis required to carry out the project, in agreement with the DREAL (Regional Directorate for the Environment, Planning and Housing). This study will be carried out over a period of up to 12 months, or four seasons, to determine the potential impact of the project on living species on the site. The study of the natural environment aims to minimize the impact of the facilities and to recreate, if required, species’ habitats.

Michaël Trabbia, interim CEO for Orange Wholesale and International Networks, declared: “We are happy and proud to launch an ambitious local solar farm project at our Bercenay-en-Othe site. This solar farm reflects our additionality approach and is fully in line with our strategy to develop the use of low-carbon energies, in order to contribute to our environmental commitments. This project thus contributes to securing our energy supply while decarbonizing our activities. »

Mathieu Cambet, Managing Director of Reservoir Sun: “Reservoir Sun is very proud to have been chosen by Orange as a trusted partner for its first solar power project on one of its own sites. We hope that this shared project will mark the start of a strong collaboration to take on the challenges of decarbonization and local energy production.”

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News

Bullitt Satellite Connect will reportedly ensure that customers are connected “wherever you have a clear view of the sky”

This week, at the CES show in Las Vegas, UK-based rugged phone manufacturer has shed light on its much-anticipated Bullitt Satellite Connect service, a two-way satellite messaging service.

Using proprietary software and service components, Bullitt Satellite Connect will provide text messaging services via an app, Bullitt Satellite Messenger. Messages will be relayed via satellite, allowing customers assurance that they will never be without signal so long as they are outside.

The service will first attempt to connect to Wi-Fi or a cellular network, but when these are unavailable it will connect via satellite. Messages sent from Bullitt Satellite Messenger can be received as a simple SMS on smartphones without the app; the receiving party will, however, need to download the app in order to reply.

In addition to messaging, the service will also offer more typical satellite services, such as location tracking and SOS assistance.

Subscriptions for the service will begin at $4.99 a month, with the SOS assistance free for the first year.

“Bullitt Satellite Connect solves a real connectivity problem. American’s send 6 billion SMS text messages each day* but, due to the sheer scale and topography of the country, no single carrier covers more than 70% of the US land mass and around 60 million Americans lose coverage for up to 25% of each day**,” said Richard Wharton, Co-Founder at Bullitt Group.

“That means hundreds of millions of instances where people who want to communicate via their phone cannot. Coverage blackspots persist to a greater and lesser extent the world over. We have a truly international solution. Bullitt Satellite Messenger provides total reassurance that you will have a connection wherever you have a clear view of the sky.”

These capabilities have reportedly been developed over the past two years working alongside partners including chip giant MediaTek, satellite partner Skylo, critical event response specialist FocusPoint International, and others.

The first smartphone to support this new messaging service will be the next device in Motorola’s Defy range, the full details of which have yet to be announced. Bullitt and Motorola first struck a strategic alliance back in January 2021.

Bullitt says the new service is set for commercial launch later this quarter.

*Source: CTIA

**Source: https://www.opensignal.com/2019/09/24/mobile-experience-in-rural-usa-an-operator-comparison

What role will non-terrestrial networks play in the wider telecoms industry in the coming years? Join the experts in discussion at this year’s live Connected America conference in Dallas, Texas

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News

Supply chain issues resulted in Germany’s newest mobile network operator only narrowly meeting its goal of launching 5G services in 2022

This week, new German mobile operator 1&1 has announced the expansion of its 5G coverage with the activation of 50 additional 5G sites in Hamburg, Essen, Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Munich, and Freiburg. These new sites will be used to make 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) services available to customers in those locations.

These new sites join the three already activated in Frankfurt am Main and Karlsruhe in the final days of December last year – three sites which crucially allowed 1&1 to claim to have met its goal of launching commercial 5G services by the end of 2022.

Mobile 5G services, however, will have to wait until later in the year, with 1&1 in fact lagging significantly behind its initial 5G rollout plans.

1&1 was originally aiming to have rolled out 1,000 5G mobile sites by the end of the 2022, as per its regulatory obligations, but in September the company moved to rein in these expectations, blaming a then-unnamed partner for delays that could take up to six months to resolve.

The partner in question was subsequently revealed to be Vodafone’s recently spun-off mobile tower company Vantage Towers.

As a result, in an update this week, the company said that just 235 sites are currently under construction, though CEO Ralph Dommermuth said he was confident that the company could still reach its obligated coverage target of 50% of all households ahead of its 2030 deadline.

Achieving such targets will reportedly require “around 12,600 radio masts and over 500 regional datacentres,” according to Dommermuth.

In the nearer term, 1&1 is required to have passed 25% of the German households by the end of 2025.

It is worth noting here that 1&1 is one of the few operators in the world building a network entirely on Open RAN architecture, with its network being build and managed by Open RAN specialist Rakuten Symphony.

Other vendors involved in various parts of the network include Dell, Supermicro, Cisco, Mavenir, Altiostar, NEC, and Communications Components (CCI).

As such, the performance of 1&1’s network will be closely scrutinised by the international telecoms community, with Open RAN advocates surely hoping it will prove something of a European trailblazer for the burgeoning technology.

How is the German telecoms industry evolving in 2023? Join us at this year’s Connected Germany conference to hear the experts discussing the industry’s hottest topics

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News

Government-run 5G wholesaler Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) says it has exceeded its original plan to cover 40% of the country’s populated areas with 5G

On Monday, DNB kicked off the New Year with an announcement that it’s growing 5G network now covers just under half (47.1%) of Malaysia’s populated areas. The state-operated 5G wholesaler said that it had 3,900 sites operational across the country by the end of last year, serving roughly 15 million people.

This puts DNB somewhat ahead of schedule, having only originally planned to reach 40% coverage by the end of last year.

However, today this claim is being challenged by the Malaysian Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil, who noted that these figures had yet to be independently verified by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

I think @DNB_Official must explain how they arrived at these figures.@MCMC_RASMI has not yet verified this info.

Next time I don’t think DNB should publish prior to verification. https://t.co/JHjCipq6LJ

— Fahmi Fadzil 🇲🇾 (@fahmi_fadzil) January 3, 2023

Indeed, these figures from DNB do seem somewhat strange. Last year the company said it was aiming to deploy 4,018 5G sites to attain its original target of 40%. However, by December the company said that supply chain issues and difficulties in attaining approvals from local councils meant that it would not be able to deploy all of the planned sites by the end-of-year deadline.

Instead, DNB explained that it would reallocate equipment to other locations originally planned for deployment in 2023, saying they were confident they could still reach their 40% target using 500 fewer 5G sites than originally planned.

Based on the figures DNB announced this week, it would seem that they have managed to achieve 47.1% coverage using over 1,000 fewer sites than anticipated.

DNB says its next target is to expand its 5G coverage to 80% of the country’s populated areas by the end of 2024.

The news comes at a time when DNB is facing significant scrutiny from the new government under Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who was sworn in in November and immediately announced a plan to review the country’s single 5G network model.

The creation of DNB has always been deeply controversial in Malaysia. The country’s mobile operators had long argued that they would be able to rollout their own 5G networks more efficiently than the government wholesaler, which, they say, would make the 5G market competitive and create better value for customers.

They also complained about the business’s lack of transparency, bemoaning possible government corruption.

The government, on the other hand, disagreed, arguing that the single network model would prevent overbuild and allow more rapid deployment.

Over a year after the company’s official launch, none of the country’s mobile operators had signed up for DNB’s 5G services, with the government even threatening to offer its 5G services to foreign companies if the domestic players refused to play ball.

After much negotiating about the prospective ownership structure of DNB, all of Malaysia’s mobile operators – except Maxis – finally agreed to take a stake in DNB in August last year.

Maxis is awaiting shareholder approval for the 5G Access Agreement with DNB, which is expected to be granted later this month.

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News

The Competition Tribunal dismissed concerns from the Competition Commissioner that the deal would see customers face higher prices

Back in March 2021, Rogers Communications agreed to buy rival Shaw Communications for around C$21 billion, saying the tie-up would allow for increased investment in 5G rollout and create around 3,000 jobs.

However, as was to be expected from a merger of this nature, which would reduce the Canadian mobile market to just three national players, the deal quickly came under intense regulatory scrutiny. For over a year now, the companies have been negotiating with regulators to close the deal/

With Rogers already the mobile market leader in Canada, much of the regulatory discussion centred around the future of Shaw’s mobile unit, Freedom Mobile, the acquisition of which would make Rogers’ market dominance unassailable.

As such, regulators eventually ruled that Shaw must divest of the unit to facilitate the merger, with the operators ultimately agreeing to sell the business to Montreal-based wireless operator Vidéotron in August last year. Conditions were attached to the sale to ensure that Vidéotron would use Freedom Mobile’s spectrum and infrastructure to become Canada’s fourth national mobile operator, with Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, seeking to ensure that the company was “in it for the long run”.

But despite assuaging some regulatory concerns, Canada’s Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell still moved to block the deal in May last year, saying the deal would be bad for competition and drive-up prices for customers. He would also later argue that Freedom Mobile was a more effective market competitor under Shaw’s ownership than it would be under that of Vidéotron.

Now, however, the government’s Competition Tribunal has rejected this plea, saying it does not believe the deal will have the negative impacts Boswell describes.

“It bears underscoring that there will continue to be four strong competitors in the wireless markets in Alberta and British Columbia, namely, Bell, Telus, Rogers and Videotron, just as there is today. Videotron’s entry into those markets will likely ensure that competition and innovation remain robust,” said the Tribunal in its ruling.

Boswell said he was disappointed by the decision and would appeal the decision. As such, a Federal Court has issued an emergency stay temporarily suspending the Competition Tribunal’s dismissal of the case until the application for an injunction can be heard.

Nonetheless, this decision leaves very few roadblocks left for the merger. Champagne is expected to formally approve the transfer of Freedom Mobile’s spectrum to Vidéotron later this month, with the Rogers–Shaw merger itself likely to follow in short order if the Competition Commission’s appeal is rejected.

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Connected Britain Keynotes: CXO Spotlight

Total Telecom is delighted to share live footage of the Connected Britain 2022 Keynotes, featuring some of the UK telecoms industry’s biggest names discussing the sector’s most important issues

In the final Keynote session of Day 1 at Connected Britain, panellists set out to answer a fundamental question: how do we make a positive, meaningful impact to our customers lives?

CEO UK&I of Nokia, Phil Siveter, set the stage with a presentation, highlighting the difficult economic landscape facing UK customers right now, as well as how the telecoms industry can play a starring role in alleviating these pressures and improving lives.

Next, he was joined on stage by speakers from BAI Communications, Fibrus, CityFibre, and STL, to discuss the unique challenges being faced across each section of the telecoms industry and how they can collaborate to deliver positive outcomes for their customers.

You can view the full keynote session from the link below.

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Presentation: Assumptions, Streaming and Positive Outcomes

Phil Siveter, CEO UK&I of Nokia

Panel

• (Moderator) Phil Siveter, CEO UK&I of Nokia
• Brendan O’Reilly, Group Chief Technology Officer at BAI Communications
• Conal Henry, Founder & Chair of Fibrus
• Elsa Chen, Chief Customer Officer at CityFIbre
• Ashwani Bakshi, Chief Sales Officer at STL

Missed out on the previous Connected Britain Keynote sessions? Catch up with the discussions here and here

Join us for more in-depth discussion about the UK telecoms industry at Connected Britain’s sister conference, Connected North, in Manchester next year 

Total Telecom is delighted to share live footage of the Connected Britain 2022 Keynotes, featuring some of the UK telecoms industry’s biggest names discussing the sector’s most important issues

After a series of shorter sessions outlining some of the biggest challenges in the UK telecoms industry, the sextet of CXOs took to the stage to locked horns over these key roadblocks to building a more connected Britain.

Led by the Financial Times’ Telecoms, Media, and Technology Correspondent, Anna Gross, the debate covered everything from government policy to the investment landscape and competition concerns.

You can view the full panel discussion, as well as a special Keynote Address from Ofcom’s Networks & Communications Group Director, Lindsey Fussell, from the link below.

[embedded content]

Panellists

• (Moderator) Anna Gross, Telecoms, Media, and Technology Correspondent at the Financial Times
• Katie Milligan, CCO of Openreach
• Lutz Schüler, CEO of Virgin Media O2
• Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre
• Ahmed Essam, CEO of Vodafone UK
• Tristia Harrison, CEO of TalkTalk
• Katherine Ainley, CEO UK&I of Ericsson

Ofcom Keynote Address

Lindsey Fussell, Networks & Communications Group Director at Ofcom

Keep your eyes peeled for our final Connected Britain Keynote video in which we’ll be sharing the final panel session from Day One, focussing on how to deliver truly positive outcomes for customers.

Join us for more in-depth discussion about the UK telecoms industry at Connected Britain’s sister conference, Connected North, in Manchester next year 

Total Telecom is delighted to share live footage of the Connected Britain 2022 Keynotes, featuring some of the UK telecoms industry’s biggest names discussing the sector’s most important issues

Connected Britain 2022 saw the UK telecoms industry’s leading voices take to the stage, introducing the UK’s ever-changing connectivity landscape and outlining the biggest challenges still to be faced.

In this opening Keynote session, the Financial Times’ Telecoms, Media, and Technology Correspondent Anna Gross sat down with a quartet of the UK’s largest fibre and mobile players, discussing everything from their rollouts so far to supply chain issues and the cost-of-living crisis.

The session also included fascinating presentations from Tristia Harrison, CEO of TalkTalk, and Katherine Ainley, CEO of Ericsson UK&I.

You can view the video in full from the link below.

[embedded content]

• (00:00) Introduction by Anna Gross, Telecoms, Media, and Technology Correspondent at the Financial Times
• (02:00) An interview with Katie Milligan, CCO of Openreach
• (10:30) An interview with Lutz Schüler, CEO of Virgin Media O2
• (18:40) An interview with Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre
• (28:20) An interview with Ahmed Essam, CEO of Vodafone UK
• (36:50) Keynote Presentation from Tristia Harrison, CEO of TalkTalk
• (45:20) Keynote Presentation from Katherine Ainley, CEO of Ericsson UK&I

Keep your eyes peeled for our second keynote instalment, sharing the full panel discussion between these six panellists, as well as a special keynote address from Ofcom’s Networks & Communications Group Director, Lindsey Fussell.

Join us for more in-depth discussion about the UK telecoms industry at Connected Britain’s sister conference, Connected North, in Manchester next year 

Interview

We were privileged to speak to Kyivstar CEO Oleksandr Komarov about the enormous upheaval caused to the telecoms industry in Ukraine following the Russian invasion and the incredible work he and his team are doing to keep people connected

It will soon be a year since Russia invaded Ukraine, plunging the nation into chaos and beginning a humanitarian crisis that continues to this day.

In the face of a myriad of new challenges, the Ukrainian telecoms operators have done an amazing job at keeping their infrastructure operational, working together with each other, the government, and international organisations to provide support for citizens at home and abroad.

In the interview below, Oleksandr Komarov, CEO of Kyivstar, shares the company’s journey over the past year, from the challenge of keeping nearly 8 million Ukrainian refugees connected to their loved ones, to maintaining an operational network as Russia continues to shell critical infrastructure this winter.

You can view the full interview from the link below.

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Earlier this year, Kyivstar won the coveted Crisis Response Award at the World Communication Awards for the brilliant work they are doing to keep people connected during, both at home in Ukraine and for refugees abroad. Learn more about the World Communication Awards here.