STARTUP STORIES

Moflix provide a white label platform for digital services, that claims to win the new generation of customers – the digital natives – while differentiating from the competition and radically simplifying customer interactions. Their bold claim for telecom operators is “Be Digital in 100 Days”. They will be exhibiting in the Startup Village at the Total Telecom Congress in London this November.

Tell us about your start up
Moflix delivers a future-ready “Telco-in-an-App” solution for Operators and MVNOs. It’s a cloud-native, full end-to-end digital proposition in a lean operating model that can be integrated easily into your existing operation within 100 days.

Your customers can sign up and onboard themselves in minutes and manage their entire relationship with you through an intuitive mobile app. The whole service is managed by Moflix – so you don’t have to disrupt your existing IT roadmap to see the impact on your KPIs in just a few months.

We are proud of our start up already receiving industry allocates with McKinsey & Co’s “A Battle Plan for Telco’s Digital-Attacker Brands” report featuring the Moflix solution for Sunrise (yallo swype in Switzerland) as a best industry practice and our recent win of the “Consumer eSIM Solution of the Year” award with ICE Norway for NiceMobil.

What is your USP?
Moflix provides TelcoTech solutions that digitalize and automate traditional connectivity services and drive wide-scale adoption of digital lifestyle and financial services.

Our Digital Operator in an App solution delivers a sustainable All Digital experience to end-users

Through digital ID verification, we enable Telcos to leverage their Connectivity relationship to accelerate the adoption of services enabled by Web3 – including access to a digital service marketplace and to monetize their existing assets by tapping into new revenue streams.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
Our main customers are Telco Operators and MVNOs.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
We started with investments from our founders. Then continued bootstrapping with two initial operator customers.

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Why did you establish the business?
Moflix is the brainchild of an international group of telco veterans who wanted to create game-changing digital solutions designed to fix the most critical challenges that telecom operators face and transform how they do business for digital success today and in the future.

It was clear from conception that the telecom market in Europe needs and wants a light-weight, fully digital, simplified BSS replacement solution.

Who inspired you?
Marc Degen as founder is a motivational mentor for our company. He is an experienced entrepreneur with an unquenchable creative urge and a passion for people and business ventures with multiple exits.

As Board Member, Founder and Co-founder of various businesses in the fields of Digital Services, Telecommunications, and Web3, he focuses on growing ideas into profitable businesses by implementing digital services and maximising opportunities for revenue growth. Marc Degen was consecutively named Digital Shaper by Bilanz Magazine in 2018 and 2019 and won the Digital Innovation of the Year Award by SwissICT in 2018 with modum.io for their Blockchain and ML-based pharma supply chain monitoring solution.

Marc is currently supporting digital scaleups with their technology roadmap, marketing positioning, go-to-market strategies and investment & financial planning in his own venture studio.

We want to make onboarding and use of our products as intuitive, fast, and easy as Netflix, so we are inspired by disruptive digital start ups like Uber, Revolut, and WhatsApp as well as best practices from other brands that pivoted to better serve digital.

What does the future hold for your business
We would like to continue the “Moflix Momentum” and see rapid growth worldwide outside of our initial European focus.

COMPANY CV
HEADQUARTERS: Zurich, Switzerland and Tampere, Finland
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 15
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Pre-Seed (Founders investment)
URL: http://www.moflixgroup.com
FOUNDERS:
Founder, Marc Degen
Moflix CEO, Ryan Gold

MEET MOFLIX AT THE TOTAL TELECOM CONGRESS: London, 1-2 November 2022. Get your pass at www.totaltele.com/congress 

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NEWS

Reports suggest the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is in discussions with Telecom Egypt to acquire 20% of their holdings in Vodafone Egypt

This week, reports suggest that the QIA has entered into discussions with state-run Telecom Egypt to acquire 20% of the latter’s 45% stake in Vodafone Egypt.

The discussions are wider investment by QIA in undisclosed assets owned by the Egyptian state, with a total combined value of around $2.5 billion.

Vodafone Egypt is the largest mobile operator in Egypt with a market share of roughly 43%. Vodafone Group owns a 55% stake in the business, with the remainder held by Telecom Egypt. Telecom Egypt, in turn, is 80% owned by the Egyptian government.

A formal offer has yet to be made, but sources suggest that an agreement could be reached by the end of the year.

Rumours that the QIA was negotiating with Telecom Egypt first began to circulate last month, but the Egyptian operator was quick to deny that discussions were taking place.

The stake sale, if it is agreed, will be the latest step in the thawing of Qatar and Egypt’s frosty relationship. Back in 2017, Egypt, alongside Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, severed diplomatic ties with Qatar due to the latter’s alleged support of terrorist organisations.

Money talks, however, and Qatari investments have continued to trickle into Egypt in the past five years. The QIA, for example, already has various investments in Egypt, much of which is centred around the country’s vital tourist trade, which has been heavily impacted first by the pandemic and today by the war in Ukraine.

In closely related news, Vodafone Group itself currently in the process of selling its 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt to Vodacom Group, with the deal being valued at roughly $2.7 billion.

The deal’s journey through the regulatory process in South Africa, however, is taking some time. Recent reports suggest that the deal has received the green light from the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority but is still awaiting approval from the Financial Supervision Department of the Reserve Bank of South Africa.

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Press Release

Telxius, the leading digital telecommunications infrastructure operator, has teamed up with NJFX, the carrier-neutral Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus in Wall, New Jersey, to give customers on-demand access to redundant subsea cable infrastructure across the Atlantic and Latin America. This collaboration allows Telxius to provide its customers with fully diverse global solutions through submarine cables landing at or nearby NJFX and serve subsea cable restoration needs between cable systems landing at NJFX and the Telxius’ Virginia Beach cable landing station.

Telxius is now offering a direct terrestrial fibre route between its CLS in Virginia Beach to NJFX’s campus. This new, unique route is the most direct link between NJFX and Telxius VA Beach CLS, extending the capabilities and services related to Telxius’ Marea, Dunant and Brusa subsea cable systems. Customers in key hubs in Chicago, Montreal, New York, Richmond and Toronto will benefit from multiterabit capacity, a wide range of advanced services on next-generation subsea infrastructure and enhanced diverse connectivity across international digital hubs. This vital link bypasses Ashburn, VA, satisfying the requirements of customers seeking diversity from overly dense infrastructure in Ashburn.

“We are continually finding new ways to enhance the reliability and resiliency of our global infrastructure. Our collaboration with NJFX gives customers rapid access to critical infrastructure and satisfies the diversity and low latency needs of some of the most demanding customers in the financial sector,” said Gerardo Bonilla, Head of Sales at Telxius. “NJFX has a track record of supporting some of the largest players in international networking and is continually growing its ecosystem. We look forward to growing together and offering ultra-reliable global connectivity.

Telxius’ new presence at NJFX will provide NJFX’s customers with direct access to the Telxius global submarine network consisting of over 80,000 km of high-capacity fibre optic submarine cables with diverse terrestrial backhauls. This will allow NJFX’s customers access to Telxius complete array of services Including Tier-1 IP Transit, global capacity, colocation and security solutions. Telxius’ low latency, diverse and robust Atlantic routes are powered by almost 100 PoPs in 18 countries, 25 landing stations and two communications hubs connecting to world-leading data centres. By joining the NJFX interconnection platform, Telxius and its customers gain direct, on-demand interconnection with Havfrue/AEC-2, Seabras-1, TGN1 and TGN2, providing diverse connectivity across both the Atlantic and to Latin America.

“Telxius provides customers with fresh connectivity options to crucial European digital hubs as well as Latin American markets that are expanding quickly. The ‘trusted middle mile’ of interconnected independent networks is improved thanks to our cooperation with Telxius,” said Gil Santaliz, CEO of NJFX. “It’s wonderful to see new redundancy to boost service quality throughout the Atlantic and Latin America as we work to increase uptime and lessen the effects of service interruptions. We are thrilled to have Telxius at NJFX and to be collaborating with them to provide clients with the finest services.”

Enterprise, content, media, government, and communications providers can take advantage of redundancy, decreased latency, and high-quality connectivity with fewer global points of failure thanks to NJFX. Through a physical presence and access to the Meet-Me-Room (MMR) within its Tier-3 CLS campus, NJFX ensures that each carrier network interconnection is designed and maintained with reliable architectural diversity. NJFX is home to some of the biggest and most cutting-edge companies in global networking.

Want to learn all the latest updates from the world of submarine connectivity? Join the experts in discussion at the upcoming Submarine Networks EMEA conference

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INTERVIEW

With demands for digital connectivity at an all-time high in the UK, and so much fibre still to be deployed across the country, how do you deploy quickly with quality AND at scale? For test & measurement manufacturer VIAVI Solutions, the answer is simple – work smarter, not harder.

Tom Ronan, Director of Global Product Line Managers at VIAVI, joined us for a chat at Connected Britain to discuss the UK’s accelerated FTTH deployment, Smarter Testing technology, and how to become a Fibre Ninja!

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VIAVI Solutions is a world leader in test & measurement technologies across fibre, 5G and more. Find out more at viavisolutions.co.uk

News

The regulator’s latest announcement brings the number of private 5G licences allocated in France to 13

Back in March, French telecoms regulator Arcep announced a number of new measures to help manufacturers and other vertical industries to improve their access to 5G, including setting aside a block of spectrum in the 3.8–4.0 GHz band to be used directly for experimental industrial 5G use cases.

Since this announcement, Arcep has already allocated 10 localised spectrum licences to interested companies. Orange has the largest allocation, with three separate licences located in Charbonnières-les-Bains, Balma, and Paris

Additional licences are held by Bouygues Telecom, NTT, Transatel, Schneider Electric, Alsatis, EDF, and French research group CEA.

Each of these localised licences authorise the companies to use up to 100 MHz of spectrum in the dedicated band for a period of up to three years.

Now, French regulator Arcep has announced the new trio of companies to receive a licence following a successful applications process: the University Hospital Institute of Strasbourg, SNCF Réseau, and Capgemini.

The University Hospital Institute of Strasbourg is set to explore 5G’s ability to deliver “a new generation of smart operating rooms”, using private 5G to facilitate AI-assisted personalised and secure minimally-invasive operations.

The project is part of the wider “5G-OR” project, one of the four winners of the ‘Technical developments and application ecosystems for 5G private networks’ competition supported by the French and German governments.

SNCF Réseau’s application, meanwhile, relates to the ‘5G Living Labs” project, providing three separate locations within the city of Rennes for developers to develop 5G use cases.

Finally, Capgemini intends to enhance its existing 5G Lab in Issy-les-Moulineaux, using the additional spectrum bolster its current operations.

Arcep will continue to collect submissions for further allocations until the end of 2022.

Private mobile networks are one of the hottest topics in the telecoms industry right now. To find out more about this fascinating topic, join the experts in discussion at this year’s live Total Telecom Congress

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NEWS

The new Hornsea 2 offshore wind farm, situated off the Yorkshire coast, is the largest in the world

This week, Vilicom, a BAI Communications (BAI) company, announces the successful live deployment of a Vodafone 4G mobile network at the world’s largest offshore wind farm in operation, Hornsea 2.

The windfarm itself, built by Danish firm Ørsted, became operational at the end of August and spans around 300 square miles of the North Sea, roughly 90km east of the Yorkshire coast. It will provide 1.3GW of renewable energy to the UK, enough to power over 1.4 million homes.

The wind farm’s LTE network will provide connectivity to the hundreds of staff that oversee the operation and maintenance of the wind farm, with the network coving not only the wind farm itself but also the route to and from port.

“Building a complete mobile infrastructure on an offshore wind farm is a technical challenge, but I’m delighted we’re able to provide the connectivity that Ørsted’s Hornsea 2 needs to connect to the outside world and be efficiently managed,” said Vodafone UK’s Business Director, Nick Gliddon. “It is testament to the great collaboration between us and Vilicom.”

The specific spectrum being used to operate the network has not been announced.

Vodafone and Vilicom have reportedly been working closely with the Ørsted team on the Hornsea 2 project for the past two years, including providing a temporary LTE solution throughout the project’s construction phase.

Offshore wind farms, naturally, present a difficult challenge when it comes to connectivity. Historically, offshore locations largely relied on very high frequency (VHF) radios or very small aperture terminal (VSAT) satellite technologies for their communications needs, but these carried inherent limitations when it came to bandwidth, latency, and reliability, particularly in rough weather.

More recently, however, it is mobile networks that are growing in popularity for offshore energy plants, being able to overcome their predecessors’ latency and bandwidth shortcomings.

Indeed, Ørsted itself appears particularly fond of using private mobile networks for their latest wind farm deployments, having worked with Chunghwa Telecom and Ericsson to deploy a private LTE network at their Greater Changhua 1 & 2a Offshore Wind Farms in the Taiwan Strait just last year. They also deployed a similar private LTE network in partnership with Norwegian connectivity specialist Tampnet for the Hornsea 1 wind farm, Hornsea 2’s smaller predecessor, earlier this year.

How is the telecoms industry stepping up to the sustainability challenge? How are connectivity choices for challenging geographies evolving? Join the experts in discussion on these topics and more at the upcoming Total Telecom Congress

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Press Release

The companies say the multi-year strategic partnership will help expand mobile service availability across the continent

American Tower Corporation’s (American Tower) African operations (ATC Africa) and Airtel Africa plc (Airtel Africa, or the Group) today announced that they have entered into a multi-year, multi-product agreement, leveraging ATC Africa’s vast portfolio of communications sites and new site and product development capabilities across its footprint in Kenya, Niger, Nigeria and Uganda in support of Airtel Africa’s network rollout. Through their combined efforts, the companies expect to substantially increase connectivity on the continent, extend digital inclusion to underserved communities and advance their mutual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction objectives.

All new site development under the agreement will comply with ATC Africa’s new green site specifications, which is expected to substantially reduce reliance on fossil fuels, while advancing American Tower’s progress toward achieving its science-based targets (SBTs). Furthermore, this strategic partnership is expected to reduce exposure to fuel price volatility for both ATC Africa and Airtel Africa. The parties have also committed to continue working together to convert existing telecommunications sites to ATC Africa’s green site specifications over time.

In addition, Airtel Africa and ATC Africa will partner to provide training around information and communications technology skills to underserved communities as part of their respective kiosks and Digital Communities programs. Under this partnership, it is expected that more than 200 Digital Communities will be deployed in these markets in the coming years.

“Over the last several years, ATC Africa has made forward-thinking investments to ensure we achieve tangible reductions in our on-site fossil fuel consumption in Africa,” Marek Busfy, SVP and CEO of ATC Africa stated.

To date, ATC Africa has invested approximately $300 million in energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy deployments and energy storage solutions to decrease on-site reliance on fossil fuels. The company has also earmarked additional investments to fund the implementation of future energy efficiencies.

“As we selectively extend the platform services we offer, we are demonstrating our commitment to introduce new and renewable sources of energy to power our sites, which protects the industry, our customers and consumers from ongoing and future volatility in fuel prices. Airtel Africa’s environmental goals are aligned with ours and, as we expand digital reach on the African continent, we remain committed to reducing GHG emissions in tandem with our growth.” Busfy adds, “Furthermore, through our Digital Communities program, we will be able to meaningfully improve quality of life in our markets through connectivity.”

Commenting on this landmark agreement, Segun Ogunsanya, CEO of Airtel Africa, said that “The company has once again demonstrated its commitment to creating value for customers and shareholders by subscribing to an environmentally sustainable growth model. Airtel Africa’s corporate citizenship requires us to extend coverage to increasingly remote areas – and meeting this obligation is necessary to establishing a sustainable partnership with a like-minded industry player. We continue to invest in infrastructure and distribution networks across the countries where we operate to support their economies and communities. Sustainability is at the core of our strategy, driven by our corporate purpose to transform lives across Africa and support people, businesses, and governments in getting access to better connectivity.”

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NEWS

National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has awarded 23 new grants aimed at deploying broadband on tribal land and improving accessibility

Back in November 2021, President Joe Biden signed the far-reaching Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) into law, pledging to invest around $550 billion in federal funding to improve America’s physical and digital infrastructure, from roads to fibre networks.

Of this total, around $65 billion has been earmarked to help extend affordable, reliable, and high-speed internet access to everyone in America, with a particular focus on helping the most digitally underprivileged demographics in the country.

One such group, facing a disproportionate risk of digital exclusion – particularly in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic – are the Tribal communities within the US. While Federal Communications Commission data from 2019 showed that fixed broadband services were accessible for 95.6% of the US population, just 79.1% of people on Tribal lands had similar access. To make matters worse, only 46.5% of Tribal households with access to broadband services had adopted these services.

As a result, the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) was set up in 2021, aiming to help improve not only the availability of broadband infrastructure in these communities, but also the digital skills to fully benefit from the technology.

The TBCP was backed by an initial allocation of $980 million from the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021, which was signed into law the same year. The aforementioned IIJA, which was codified a few months later, allocated a further $2 billion to the TBCP, bringing the total available funds to almost $3 billion.

Since then, the NTIA has been gradually releasing the funds to Tribal communities and organisations, following an application process (which was, ironically, criticised for being inaccessible due to lack of broadband availability).

This week, the NTIA has announced its latest batch of grants as part of TBCP, awarding 23 grants worth over $601.6 million.

Communities and organisations in fifteen states will benefit from the grants: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The largest grant, worth $52.5 million, was given to Calista Corporation, a Tribal organisation planning to help deploy fibre for 10 villages in Alaska.

“We are making an historic investment in Tribal communities to ensure reliable, affordable high-speed Internet for all,” explained Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “These grants – made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – underscore President Biden’s commitment to closing the digital divide in the United States, especially within Tribal lands. Today’s awards will not only build high-speed Internet capacity within Tribal Nations, but also bring digital opportunities for good-paying jobs, education, and healthcare.”

These latest grants bring the total of allocated funds to roughly $1.35 billion, with additional grants to be announced on a rolling basis over the coming months.

To what extent are Tribal lands at risk of falling below the digital divide? Join the discussion live in Texas at the upcoming Connected America conference

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