Back in October last year, Singtel announced that it had sold a 70% stake in its wholly owned mobile infrastructure subsidiary, Australian Tower Network (ATN), to Australia’s largest pension fund, AustralianSuper, for $1.43 billion.
ATN’s assets comprised around 2,300 mobile network towers and rooftop sites. As part of the agreement, ATN also pledged to build a further 565 new towers in the coming three years…

Back in October last year, Singtel announced that it had sold a 70% stake in its wholly owned mobile infrastructure subsidiary, Australian Tower Network (ATN), to Australia’s largest pension fund, AustralianSuper, for $1.43 billion.

ATN’s assets comprised around 2,300 mobile network towers and rooftop sites. As part of the agreement, ATN also pledged to build a further 565 new towers in the coming three years. 

Optus, Singtel’s Australian operator subsidiary, would continue to use ATN’s passive infrastructure to support their mobile services under the terms of a long-term lease agreement. 

Now, a consortium led by AustralianSuper and ATN has announced they have won an auction to purchase Macquarie’s Axicom for A$3.58 billion (US$2.68 billion).

Axicom is Australia’s largest independent mobile tower operator, operating roughly 2,000 sites in metro and outer-metro locations across Australia. Thus, following the deals conclusion, ATN will own around 4,300 towers in total. 

For comparison, Telstra’s InfraCo Towers, which became Amplitel last year, owns around 8,000 towers.

« This acquisition is a unique opportunity to scale up ATN’s operations and expand its customer base, » said Singtel Group’s Chief Corporate Officer, Lim Cheng Cheng. « It also reinforces Singtel’s commitment as a long-term investor in the Australian telecoms space. »

The purchase means that Singtel’s stake in ATN has been somewhat diluted; AustralianSuper will hold an 82% stake in ATN, with Singtel owning the remaining 18%.

Investor appetite for mobile tower infrastructure has been enormous over the past few years, with firms viewing these assets as reliable sources of steady long-term growth. Enormous deals are being made all over the world, perhaps most notable among them Cellnex’s purchase of all of CK Hutchison’s European towers in 2020 for roughly €9 billion.

For AustralianSuper, it seems that this surge of investment is highly likely to continue, with the company targeting additional digital infrastructure businesses for M&A over the coming years.

« AustralianSuper is looking to double its infrastructure portfolio over the next five years from its current A$31 billion, » said AustralianSuper’s head of infrastructure, Nik Kemp. « We believe that there will be significant growth in demand for digital infrastructure and will actively consider future opportunities in this space. »

Want to keep up to date with the latest developments in the world of telecoms? Subscriber to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter here

Also in the news: 
Startup Stories: We are the future of loyalty
« The introduction of 5G capabilities in real production are enabling new connected mobility services »
FCC places Russia’s Kaspersky on US security risk list

Tell us about your start up Sytronix is a high-performance computing company specializing in the designing and manufacturing of storage and compute servers. The main products we manufacture are NAS (Network Attached Storage) servers for data storage and GPU (graphics processing unit) servers for high intensity computational workloads. Our NAS servers allow for storage of large amounts of data, collaborative working and will provide security to prevent loss of data, making them perfect for business environments, places where stored data is critically important or power users such as video editors…

Tell us about your start up
Sytronix is a high-performance computing company specializing in the designing and manufacturing of storage and compute servers. The main products we manufacture are NAS (Network Attached Storage) servers for data storage and GPU (graphics processing unit) servers for high intensity computational workloads.

Our NAS servers allow for storage of large amounts of data, collaborative working and will provide security to prevent loss of data, making them perfect for business environments, places where stored data is critically important or power users such as video editors.

The GPU servers can be used for computational workloads such as deep learning, AI, video rendering/compression or engineering and physics simulations. These servers can also be rented out to others who require the computational power for their own work, allowing the owner to generate a passive income which makes these products very appealing to investors.

The majority of our customers are based in the North West of England as our clients being local to us allows us to provide fantastic in person tech support very quickly when required.

What is your USP?
We offer fully customisable storage servers bespoke to our customer’s needs. We allow customers to buy pre-built machines, configure their own specification if they are aware of what they need, or simply talk to us and tell us about their requirements and we will go away and design the perfect server for them, minimising the amount of time a customer must spend researching. Most other NAS suppliers only sell pre-built servers with no buying advice which leads to many customers purchasing devices unsuitable for their needs. Sytronix ensure that a customer never purchases a product unsuitable for their requirements.
Decentralised computing is an emerging technology that has only began challenging contemporary computing methods in recent years. We are the first company in the UK that is selling a decentralised computing server that will generate passive income. There are other high performance machines that generate passive income such as cryptocurrency mining rigs, however they can only be used for that one purpose. Our servers are built to perform a multitude of different revenue earning tasks, prolonging the profitability of the machines in future. Sytronix GPU servers can also perform various tasks simultaneously, providing multiple income streams from one server which is yet to be offered in other products such as mining rigs.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
Networks with high reliability and fast speeds are critical to our core products, whether it be for accessing and transferring data stored on our NAS servers or performing complex computational workloads over a network with our GPU servers. It is vital that Sytronix as a company as well as our customers have a network provider that provides a high quality service.

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How have you got to your current stage of development?
Sytronix’s Managing Director has decades of experience working within the high-performance computing sector and is highly respected amongst industry professionals. His experience has helped Sytronix analyse the tech industry effectively to outline areas with substantial opportunities to take advantage of. His knowledge has aided the design process of our products, allowing us to create IT equipment that can outperform our competition, while still maintaining an affordable cost.

Why did you establish the business?
We knew there were areas of IT in the UK with serious skill shortages and technical deficiencies regarding certain types of computing which have also been highlighted by the government as areas in need on upskilling. We plan to provide hardware and support to these growing industries and help the UK become a front runner in the decentralised compute market which is currently dominated by the US and China.

What does the future hold for your business?
Decentralised computing is a massively growing industry that has begun seriously challenging contemporary centralised computing (such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, etc.) in recent years. Our aim is to be at the forefront of the decentralised computing revolution and be a leading company in the industry that is considered the go-to supplier of decentralised computing hardware.

HEADQUARTERS: Manchester
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 4
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Government grants
WEBSITE URL: www.sytronix.co.uk
FOUNDERS:
James Walsh 
Jordan Harris 

You will find Sytronix in the startup zone at Connected North in Manchester – 25-26 April 2022. Book at www.totaltele.com/connectednorth

Can you introduce yourself and your current role?
As Technology Advisor I´m translating the requirements and needs of professional users into technologies and innovations. With 5G, this starts in standardization, in which the requirements of the industry e…

Can you introduce yourself and your current role?

As Technology Advisor I´m translating the requirements and needs of professional users into technologies and innovations. With 5G, this starts in standardization, in which the requirements of the industry e.g. in the field of positioning where defined and introduced. Second step is the development of special algorithms for advanced positioning in industrial environments and the necessary application testing in our testbeds as well as the support of first rollouts. Furthermore, I help companies to identify and set-up the right technological roadmap to support their business models. 

What have been the most interesting developments in 5G innovation within Germany in the last year?

In Germany, many hidden champions are highly innovative and are already developing completely new solutions for their production and their products with 5G. They are pursuing the path of digitization purposefully and making good use of the opportunities offered in Germany by e.g. reserved campus licenses. 

However, when it comes to using the multifunctionality 5G a lot of potential can still be exploited. Especially if you want to combine 5G-based communication and positioning. Application-oriented research institutions that exist in Germany like the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft can help to discover these new areas.

What are you most looking forward to at Connected Germany?

To meet and develop new ideas together with all the creative minds in 5G. I think we have not yet raised all the potential that is hidden in the use of mobile technologies in companies; I think we have only been scratching the surface. Especially at a trade fair like Connected Germany, we can dig a little deeper, discuss new challenges and team up to create new values.

5G innovation and research & development are huge topics at this year’s Connected Germany. You can hear more from Karin and the rest of our amazing speaker line-up by clicking the link and registering your place.

Ahead of Submarine Networks EMEA 2022 in May, Total Telecom caught up with Crosslake Fibre’s CEO Mike Cunningham to hear more about their recently completed CrossChannel Fibre project as well as to understand what’s next for the business.
Congratulations on the recent completion of the CrossChannel Fibre project. Please can you tell us more about the system?
Many thanks, it is always an exciting time when you place a new system into service.  The launch of the CrossChannel Fibre system in 2021Q4 comes after two years of focused development and construction. It is a very challenging region of the world to develop a new system given the number of constituents and how busy the English Channel is…

Ahead of Submarine Networks EMEA 2022 in May, Total Telecom caught up with Crosslake Fibre‘s CEO Mike Cunningham to hear more about their recently completed CrossChannel Fibre project as well as to understand what’s next for the business.

Congratulations on the recent completion of the CrossChannel Fibre project. Please can you tell us more about the system?
Many thanks, it is always an exciting time when you place a new system into service.  The launch of the CrossChannel Fibre system in 2021Q4 comes after two years of focused development and construction. It is a very challenging region of the world to develop a new system given the number of constituents and how busy the English Channel is, which is one of the reasons why CrossChannel is the first new system that has been developed across the English Channel between the UK and France in over 20 years. The route was designed to provide physical diversity between these two large data centre hubs. At 550km, the 96 fibre pair system provides the shortest distance between Slough and Paris with 4 amplification sites along the route, which allows for a low total cost of ownership. 

What do the next 12 months look like for Crosslake Fibre?

This past year has been a very transformational one for the company and we expect that to continue this year. Our team has grown materially in size as we have expanded in Europe and we are focused on building a best-in-class operating platform. This will continue in 2022 as we further grow our team as we continue to grow our network. In addition to a number of smaller builds in metro regions to expand our network, we have begun development of the Maple Leaf Fibre system. Maple Leaf Fibre is a joint venture between Crosslake Fibre and Metro Optic, and will be a new, physically diverse longhaul system connecting Toronto to Montreal.

Crosslake Fibre has recently spoken about the importance of being a customer-centric carrier as a means of differentiation in a crowded market. Can you explain what this means for your business?

Our customers are the lifeblood of our business and in this in every aspect of our company. It starts at the design phase when we interact with customers to ensure that our design meets their requirements in terms of diversity, endpoints, methods of construction etc… When we contract with customers, we are always strive to have a fair and equitable agreement with clear expectations that we can easily meet. While contracts underpin our business and industry, we operate on trust where all that is really needed is our handshake as we don’t oversell. This approach inherently allows us to exceed expectations and provide a customer oriented service. In instances where we fail to, which can happen to any network provider through no fault of your own, we communicate with our customers in a transparent fashion to enable them to effectively plan. Our customers can always deal with a person that they know. Being a small, customer-focused network provider allows us to do this. We also strive to do things a bit differently in terms of product offering where we have listened to our customers to understand what their needs and drivers really are. The result is we have developed some very innovative offerings, like metered dark fibre, which is new to the industry and directly addresses customer needs.

At Submarine Networks EMEA in May, you’ll be joining a panel on “The changing landscape of the subsea industry” and discussing the evolution of commercial models within the subsea sector. Can you share some insights into the key issues you expect to come up during the discussion?

I think the subsea industry has changed significantly over the last number of years and it is still evolving, being driven by a number of factors. From a technological point of view you have higher fibre count repeatered systems where 24 fibre pairs are in a cable, versus a maximum of just 8 fibre pairs a couple of years ago. This change alone can have a very material impact on commercial models as the cost per fibre pair on a repeatered system drops materially and the amount of capacity that a repeatered system can support increases materially. The net impact is that you could have a greater than cost plus pricing model for fibre, and a dramatic quantity of new lit capacity supply entering the market on certain routes. While it is still early and few 24 fibre pair systems have been installed to date, it represents a big step forward in terms of the commercial models of repeatered systems being more akin to non-repeatered systems.  I think this change is still underappreciated in the industry and the true impact of higher fibre count repeatered systems will be seen in the years to come.

What are you most looking forward to about attending Submarine Networks EMEA?

First and foremost I am very much looking forward to attending the Submarine Networks EMEA in person, as I know a lot of others are. People are itching to get back to life as normal and I think that many people are looking forward to attending the event in person. The subsea industry is relatively small, so it will be great to see so many familiar faces again for the first time.

Two years ago, after years of regulatory manoeuvring, T-Mobile and Sprint finally completed their enormous merger for $26 billion. As part of the conditions for the merger, T-Mobile agreed to sell Sprint’s pre-paid mobile business to satellite operator Dish, a satellite operator who had agreed to build their own 5G mobile network.  
By October 2020, T…

Two years ago, after years of regulatory manoeuvring, T-Mobile and Sprint finally completed their enormous merger for $26 billion. As part of the conditions for the merger, T-Mobile agreed to sell Sprint’s pre-paid mobile business to satellite operator Dish, a satellite operator who had agreed to build their own 5G mobile network.  

By October 2020, T-Mobile announced that it would be shutting down Sprint’s CDMA (e.g., 3G) network in January 2022, giving Dish around a year to migrate customers to 4G. 

Dish currently provides 4G services via various network services agreements, including with T-Mobile and, as of last year, also with AT&T.

Nonetheless, Dish complained that this shutdown was taking place too quickly, arguing that they had expected to transition the customers over three years and that a faster process would require some customers to upgrade their devices, potentially leaving them without service completely.

After much back and forth, in which both sides threw insults at one another, T-Mobile ultimately agreed to delay its CDMA shutdown until March 31st, 2022.

“Our reason for extending is simple: we want to give those partners who haven’t done the right thing for their customers every opportunity to step up now and do so,” said the company in a statement, likely aimed primarily at Dish. “There should be no more room for excuses. We have provided even more time and those partners can follow suit with the effort that is needed to ensure no one is left on the wrong side of the digital divide.”

But despite these strong words and the deadline rapidly approaching, T-Mobile may be in less of a rush to shut down Sprint’s 3G network than previously indicated. 

A report from TmoNews has confirmed that T-Mobile has sent an email to Sprint customers, confirming that a new shutdown date of May 31, 2022, has been agreed, with a statement on the website of Sprint’s previous owner, SoftBank, noting the possibility that this date too could be “rescheduled in future”. 

At present, it is unclear whether this date indicates the start of the two-month-long phasing out process, or the final date of service shutdown.

T-Mobile’s own 3G mobile service, unrelated to Sprint, has seen its own shutdown process delayed repeatedly, now pushed back to July 1, 2022, many months later than its initial target of October 2021. 

Their 2G services, meanwhile, are expected to remain available until the 31st of December this year.

Want to keep up to date with the latest developments in the world of telecoms? Subscriber to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter here

Also in the news: 
Startup Stories: We are the future of loyalty
« The introduction of 5G capabilities in real production are enabling new connected mobility services »
FCC places Russia’s Kaspersky on US security risk list

The Secure and Trusted Networks Act was first written into law in 2019, established as a mechanism through which equipment or services that posed a threat to US national security could be excluded from the nation’s networks. More specifically, the bill prohibits the use of federal funds to purchase equipment from companies added to a list of companies deemed a security risk by the FCC. 
This list was first compiled in March 2021 and contained five Chinese firms…

The Secure and Trusted Networks Act was first written into law in 2019, established as a mechanism through which equipment or services that posed a threat to US national security could be excluded from the nation’s networks. More specifically, the bill prohibits the use of federal funds to purchase equipment from companies added to a list of companies deemed a security risk by the FCC. 

This list was first compiled in March 2021 and contained five Chinese firms: Huawei Technologies, ZTE Corporation, Hytera, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company, and Dahua Technology Company.

Now, the FCC has announced its latest additions to the untrusted vendors list, including, for the first time, a non-Chinese company: Kaspersky. 

Two additional Chinese firms – major operators China Telecom (Americas) and China Mobile International USA – were also added to the list. These companies had already been barred from the US market by the FCC due to previous security concerns. 

“Last year, for the first time, the FCC published a list of communications equipment and services that pose an unacceptable risk to national security, and we have been working closely with our national security partners to review and update this list,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Today’s action is the latest in the FCC’s ongoing efforts, as part of the greater whole-of-government approach, to strengthen America’s communications networks against national security threats, including examining the foreign ownership of telecommunications companies providing service in the United States and revoking the authorization to operate where necessary.  Our work in this area continues.” 

The addition of Russian cybersecurity software company Kaspersky to the list should not come as too much of a surprise. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia is facing enormous sanctions on a global scale, but the US’s distrust of Kaspersky technology actually dates back much further. 

In 2017, the US General Services Administration announced that Kaspersky was being removed from its listed of trusted government suppliers, meaning it would no longer be used for government systems, citing security concerns. At the heart of this issue was that Kaspersky is required by law to cooperate with the Russian intelligence agencies if directed to do so by the state.

Kaspersky, naturally, has argued that it is a privately-managed company with no ties to the Russian government. The company called their addition to the security list as “disappointing”, saying the decision was driven by geopolitics rather than evidence. 

The US is not the only country that has been growing increasingly wary of Kaspersky. Two weeks ago, Germany issued a warning to users of Kaspersky products, saying that the technology could provide a gateway for cyberattacks and advising them to uninstall the software.

Want to keep up to date with the latest developments in the world of telecoms? Subscriber to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter here

Also in the news: 
New UK Telecoms Innovation Network targets Open RAN and other ‘disruptive tech’
Airtel Africa asks IFC for $194m for network expansion
Newly rebranded e& deepens ties with Microsoft

CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre platform, has awarded a £21m contract to Trust Utility Management Ltd. to deliver its network rollout in Lincoln, a project which has sparked the creation of more than 80 local jobs.
 
The latest milestone has incited a recruitment drive with new workers needed to support throughout the build process. CityFibre and employment agency Carbon60 are supporting Trust Utility Management Ltd in hiring across various roles…

CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre platform, has awarded a £21m contract to Trust Utility Management Ltd. to deliver its network rollout in Lincoln, a project which has sparked the creation of more than 80 local jobs.

The latest milestone has incited a recruitment drive with new workers needed to support throughout the build process. CityFibre and employment agency Carbon60 are supporting Trust Utility Management Ltd in hiring across various roles, from technical and construction, to supervisory, and administrative positions.

Works commenced in Lincoln in March and real progress is already being made. The rollout is progressing into new areas with construction underway in Abbey Ward while work in areas such as Glebe Ward is set to start in the near future. Once the city-wide rollout reaches completion in 2024, almost every home and business locally will have access to full fibre services from a choice of internet service providers.

Neal Wright, City Manager for Lincoln, said: “CityFibre is investing £21m in a full fibre roll out which will benefit residents and businesses across the city with broadband of up to 900mb. In Trust Utility Management Ltd, we have found a partner that recognises the importance of this project, knows what is needed to deliver for the people of Lincoln and can grow with us as we move into new areas of the city.

“In addition to future-proofing Lincoln’s digital capabilities, this project is providing a welcome boost to the jobs market. It has sparked the creation of 83 new roles, with local talent needed to help us carry out this important project.”

Liam Coyne, Commercial Director, Trust Utility Management Ltd., said: “We are pleased to have been appointed by CityFibre to construct full fibre networks in Lincoln and support its wider plans of transforming the digital infrastructure of cities and towns across the UK.

“We are certain that with our vast utility contract management experience and the high calibre team that we are building, this project will prove to be a success for Trust Utility Management Ltd. and our client, CityFibre.”

In Lincoln, the team is using a range of construction methods while working in close partnership with Lincoln City and County Council and local communities to deliver a fast rollout while managing potential disruption.

As work is completed in each neighbourhood, CityFibre will designate the homes ‘ready for service’, which means residents can choose to connect to full fibre-enabled broadband services when they go live in their area.

In Lincoln, services are not yet available, however, as soon as they go live, customers will be able to access full fibre enabled services via CityFibre’s UK launch partner, Vodafone, on selected Vodafone Pro Broadband plans, with TalkTalk, IDNet and other providers expected to join the network soon.

Residents interested in giving their home broadband a boost can find out more about the build and register their interest at www.cityfibre.com/residential

Tell us about your start up
In a world where modern enterprises face increasingly rapid data growth and high real-time requirements Xelera’s software platform enables the easy deployment of accelerator technologies, such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), to address these challenges. Big Data algorithms in data centres, clouds and edge clouds are accelerated to run up to 100 times faster as well as far more energy efficient. The guaranteed low latency enables completely new approaches to many application areas…

Tell us about your start up
In a world where modern enterprises face increasingly rapid data growth and high real-time requirements Xelera’s software platform enables the easy deployment of accelerator technologies, such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), to address these challenges.

Big Data algorithms in data centres, clouds and edge clouds are accelerated to run up to 100 times faster as well as far more energy efficient. The guaranteed low latency enables completely new approaches to many application areas, such as cyber security, fintech and virtualized RAN.

Customers are network and cloud solution providers, telecommunication network integrators and high-frequency trading companies all over the globe but with focus on Europe and the US. Currently operational customer deployments are in Germany, Switzerland and China.

What is your USP, how do you stand out from your competition?
Programming hardware accelerators is a whole different world from traditional programming and only very few areas, such as artificial intelligence, have frameworks that make them easily accessible to users. For everything else highly specialized software engineers are required. Xelera has both, extensive experience in hardware acceleration and common software engineering. That’s why the company can offer easy-to-use solutions, often requiring zero code-change, to massively accelerate processes.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
Xelera has close ties to telecommunication operators and suppliers due to past and current projects. Xelera acts as sub-supplier in the sector, offering high-performance software components for 5G Open RAN.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
Xelera started as a university spin-off financed by a government grant from the EXIST program in Germany. After establishing itself on the market as acceleration company it received a seed funding from the hardware accelerator producer and strategic investor Xilinx which allowed Xelera to significantly grow in size. Besides funding, Xelera is also engaged in business activities with Xilinx/AMD such as joint marketing and product offerings.

Why did you establish the business?
Two of the four founders have a strong FPGA (type of hardware accelerator) background. When Intel acquired Altera, one of the two big FPGA producers, in 2015, and announced the introduction of FPGAs into datacentres on a large scale, that was the perfect time to get into the market. There was little competition but lots of emerging demand for hardware acceleration in datacentres and clouds.

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Who are your mentors?
Our mentors are Prof. Andreas Koch from the TU Darmstadt and Prof. George Constantinides from the Imperial College London. Both are luminaries in the field of hardware acceleration and helped and inspired us to start this venture.

What does the future hold for your business?
With the upcoming 5G technology a new business opportunity emerges that plays a lot into Xelera’s strengths. Virtualized Open Radio Access Networks (Open RAN) has drastically increased bandwidth requirements that are only possible to process using hardware acceleration. Furthermore, Xelera has already developed a lot of the required technology during previous projects and product development. That’s why Xelera sees itself as one of the suppliers of core component for 5G in the not-so-distant future.

HEADQUARTERS: Darmstadt, Germany
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 10 full-time employees
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Seed funding by VC
WEBSITE URL: https://www.xelera.io/
FOUNDERS
> Felix Winterstein
> Andreas Duffner
> Andrea Suardi 
> Alexander Lange 

You can meet Xelera in the startup zone at Connected Germany, 5-6 April 2022, Mainz Congress – Germany. Find out more HERE

In early 2020, Ofcom announced that they would be appointing Dame Melanie Dawes as CEO, replacing Jonathan Oxley who had been serving as interim CEO since late 2019. At the same time, the UK regulator also announced that the company Chairman, Lord Burns, would stand down, with the government seeking a new Chair more suited to overseeing Ofcom’s increased regulatory powers over internet content…

In early 2020, Ofcom announced that they would be appointing Dame Melanie Dawes as CEO, replacing Jonathan Oxley who had been serving as interim CEO since late 2019. At the same time, the UK regulator also announced that the company Chairman, Lord Burns, would stand down, with the government seeking a new Chair more suited to overseeing Ofcom’s increased regulatory powers over internet content. 

Initially, the incoming Chairperson was expected to be in place by the end of 2020. By early 2021, however, no decision had been made and the previous Deputy Chair, Maggie Carver, was raised to the position of interim Chair.

Throughout 2021, Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of DMG Media, which publishes the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, and other titles, caused a media storm when it was reported he would be applying for the role. In May, his application was rejected by the interview board, but the process was then controversially restarted, with all the other candidates for the role reportedly rejected by culture secretary Oliver Dowden. 

In November, however, before the second round of applications could be judged, Dacre withdrew his application, leaving the position once again with no clear frontrunner. 

Now, the government has announced that Conservative peer, Lord Michael Grade, has been selected as the preferred candidate for the position. 

Lord Grade, 79, has served in numerous TV and broadcasting roles over the years, including at ITV, the BBC, and Channel 4.

“Ofcom is respected across the globe as a first-rate communications regulator, so I am privileged to be asked to become its chair. The role of Ofcom in British life has never been more important with new responsibilities on the horizon regulating online safety, on top of the ever-changing broadcasting landscape. I look forward to my appearance in front of the DCMS Select Committee to outline what I can bring to this role and how I can help ensure Ofcom is fit for the future,” said Lord Grade of his nomination.

Lord Grade has been noted as an outspoken critic of the BBC, calling its coverage of illegal parties at Downing Street during lockdown “gleeful and disrespectful”.  He has also been an advocate for the privatisation of Channel 4, in 2015 calling it a “brilliant experiment” that needed to be “freed up”.

Furthermore, he has been vocally critical of  the £159 a year TV licence fee is both “regressive” and “excessive”. 

If appointed, Lord Grade will need to the cross-benches in the House of Lords and will give up any non-executive roles that could cause a conflict of interest.

What impact will Ofcom’s increased powers though the Online Safety Bill have on the UK’s telecoms sector?  Find out from the experts in discussion at this year’s live Connected Britain event

Also in the news: 
New UK Telecoms Innovation Network targets Open RAN and other ‘disruptive tech’
Airtel Africa asks IFC for $194m for network expansion
Newly rebranded e& deepens ties with Microsoft

Can you introduce yourself and your role?
I am head of the Digital Infrastructure Division at the Projects Directorate of the European Investment Bank based in Luxembourg. I oversee a team of sector experts involved in sector and technology analysis as well as project appraisal. I also works on the Bank’s business strategy with respect to financing of digital infrastructure…

Can you introduce yourself and your role?

I am head of the Digital Infrastructure Division at the Projects Directorate of the European Investment Bank based in Luxembourg. I oversee a team of sector experts involved in sector and technology analysis as well as project appraisal. I also works on the Bank’s business strategy with respect to financing of digital infrastructure, semiconductors, space, industrial policy and the economics of digital transformation in general. I have also contributed in defining new financial instruments for digital infrastructure and services jointly with European Commission, national promotional banks and private sector. 

You work across the European Union – how does Germany’s investment landscape differ?

Germany is Europe’s largest economy with knowingly many areas of excellence in various sectors of economic activity. As a result on many indicators of performance Germany is in a leading position in Europe, and not only. This has also been achieved by continuous investment in R&D, skills and of course in physical assets. Where Germany is underperforming compared to peers is in digital infrastructure with the result of hindering certain patterns of specialisation and technology adoption in the digital domain which are becoming fundamental for the economy. There is need to catch up in order to be able to fully embrace the trend of digital transformation of all economic activities.

What do you expect to be the biggest developments in investment over the next year or so?

The bulk of investment will still be in the build out of very high capacity digital infrastructure, in particular in areas of low population density and where unit costs are considerably higher. Moreover, there is still large investment need in data security and secure data centres.

What are you most looking forward to at Connected Germany?

The first significant life sector convention in Germany after two years of unwelcome social distancing. Though digital meetings have a large number of benefits, meeting and talking to real people opens up completely different domains of developing and sharing innovative ideas. I am looking forward to meet and discuss with interesting people with innovative ideas.