The loss of Crissi is unfathomable and deeply felt by all of us here at the ITP. Crissi was our straight-talking and down to earth CEO, and not only have we lost an inspirational leader, but a mentor and friend. For many, Crissi was a role model; living and breathing the values she so passionately promoted. She openly discussed the fact she left school without any qualifications but demonstrated that with hard work and determination anything was possible. Crissi originally joined the ITP in 2008 as Office Manager having worked in various recruitment roles before that…

The loss of Crissi is unfathomable and deeply felt by all of us here at the ITP. Crissi was our straight-talking and down to earth CEO, and not only have we lost an inspirational leader, but a mentor and friend.

For many, Crissi was a role model; living and breathing the values she so passionately promoted. She openly discussed the fact she left school without any qualifications but demonstrated that with hard work and determination anything was possible.

Crissi originally joined the ITP in 2008 as Office Manager having worked in various recruitment roles before that. Only recently she told us that she certainly didn’t aspire to be a CEO. It’s not that she didn’t think she could be; it just wasn’t something she had envisaged. But thanks to two female mentors, Ann Potterton and Lucy Woods, her eyes were opened to the opportunity, and she was encouraged to step up to the mark.

And step up she did…. achieving many things. Most notably, launching an apprenticeship scheme creating hundreds of jobs that would never have existed without her. She championed diversity and advocated apprenticeships for everyone – irrespective of background or gender. Over the past few years, she had become a familiar face in the trade press and industry events raising awareness of diversity and addressing the skills gap. She was passionate about her work in STEM and making a difference to young people’s lives, particularly women and championed that through her work with ITP.

The results of her work are everywhere you look in our industry. From the jubilant winners of the ITP Awards to the apprentices now in senior roles who are members of the ITP Journal Board. Her down to earth demeanor meant she was accessible, able to communicate with everyone from school leavers to senior industry professionals. She was admired and respected by both.

Josh Fowler, one of the first apprentices recruited by the ITP back in 2013 summarises perfectly how we all felt about Crissi, and her legacy:

“I was lucky enough to have met Crissi way back in 2013 being one of the first ever apprentices via the ITP scheme. Crissi soon became one of my biggest cheerleaders and believed in me as my career started in telecommunications. She was never far away cheering me on and as the years went by our relationship grew on a professional level, formed a great friendship and in a way, a form of extended family, as is the whole of the ITP.
If I had one word to describe Crissi, it would be: authentic. I know she touched the hearts of many with her authenticity. She remained true to herself, her values and lived them every, single, day. Admirable. Her laughter was infectious, and she had a cracking sense of humour, which I will never forget. Her passion for the telecoms industry showed, along with her passion of equality and providing a platform for women in tech and apprenticeships. “

Since the announcement of her death, tributes have flooded in via the condolence board, emails, social media, messages and drop ins to ITP HQ for a (strong!) cup of tea and a chat with her ITP family. All reinforce how well respected and loved she was, with recurring comments about her kindness, determination and of course, her ever-changing hair colour.

Crissi had many plans for the ITP in 2022, including a campaign to challenge perceptions around apprenticeships. She planned to continue matching mentors with mentees, celebrate individual achievements at the annual awards and get back to meeting members face to face at ITP events. We will proudly carry on this work in her name.

The ITP wasn’t Crissi’s only passion. She was a wonderful and dedicated mother to Jack and Lizey, a devoted wife to Tony, a pub landlady, godmother, aunty, sister, best friend and rock to many. She loved a cold glass of Pino Grigio with absurd amounts of ice, being with family and friends and laughing, you could pinpoint her location from the sound of that cackle.

She was real, tenacious, loyal and unapologetic; never afraid to speak up or speak out. But she was also kind and compassionate, she put other people first and went out of her way to help people, no matter who they were.

That was Crissi Williams, and we will miss her forever.

A new partnership between IoT company Kerlink and Vietnams VIoT Group, a pioneer is enabling rollout of Vietnam’s first nationwide LoRaWAN® IoT network, and VIoT’s plan to support Helium’s “The People’s Network”.
 
VIoT specialise in smart urban &&…

VIoT specialise in smart urban & industrial park development in Vietnam, first launching smart-city applications in 2018 with a LoRaWAN® streetlighting project. They now offer a range of applications such as smart utility metering, end-to-end air-water-quality monitoring, and early flood-incident management systems. 

FullFibre, the altnet committed to delivering gigabit infrastructure to communities overlooked by larger telecom companies has announced that their Midlands South region is to expand to offer homes and businesses in Bewdley and Shipston…

FullFibre is installing high-speed telecoms equipment that is usually only connected across dense urban areas to increase the speed and quality of broadband coverage across rural towns. They state that their objective is to decreasing the digital divide between rural and metropolitan regions and so create equal opportunities across all regions in the UK.

Oliver Helm, CEO at Full Fibre commented:

“Fast and reliable connectivity is more important than ever before and at Full Fibre, our main goal is to close the digital divide between rural and urban areas so that all regions across the UK, have equal opportunities. The new service will connect those in Bewdley and Shipston-on-Stour who currently lack access to fast and dependable digital networks to a high-quality service.

Area General Manager Gareth Yardley at FullFibre says:

“The extension of our Midlands South region is yet another indicator of our rapid and successful growth as a business. Moreover, we are proud to be giving the power of ultrafast, gigabit capable internet to the local residents of Bewley and Shipston-on-Stour.”

Full Fibre has the goal of reaching over 500,000 premises by 2025.

Back in 2020, buoyed by an international campaign led by then-President Donald Trump, numerous countries around the began to ban Huawei from their telecoms networks to various degrees, citing national security fears. Countries adopting this hard-line approach include the US, UK, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, most of which have plans to phase out any existing Huawei equipment from their networks over the next decade…

Back in 2020, buoyed by an international campaign led by then-President Donald Trump, numerous countries around the began to ban Huawei from their telecoms networks to various degrees, citing national security fears. Countries adopting this hard-line approach include the US, UK, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, most of which have plans to phase out any existing Huawei equipment from their networks over the next decade. 

Far more countries, however, have decided to take a more indirect route to tackling the issue of untrusted vendors, with most countries rejecting outright bans on companies like Huawei and ZTE in favour of increased regulation.

India too falls into this category. In summer last year, India’s Ministry of Communications gave permission for telcos to begin running 5G trials with a select list of vendors from which Huawei and ZTE were notably absent. This is tied to new procurement rules introduced for the sector last year, which limits the equipment operators may deploy to that approved by a specially appointed National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC). 

Though not quite the infamous US Entity list, which bans all equipment from listed vendors, this measure is nonetheless close to operating as a de facto ban for Chinese equipment suppliers in India. 

India is planning its first 5G auction to take place later this year.

Now, reports suggest that Vodafone Idea is in discussions with Finnish vendor Nokia to replace the company’s existing Huawei 4G RAN equipment.

According to a report from Reuters, the deal will see Nokia deploy 12,000 5G-ready radio sites and 4,000 small cells in Delhi.

Operators in other markets around the world, such as BT in the UK and Orange in Belgium, have conducted similar swaps of Huawei equipment for Nokia’s in recent years. 

The replacement process for Vodafone Idea could reportedly start next month. 

Huawei has continuously denied that it represents a security risk, saying that it is complying with all relevant regulations surrounding telecoms security. In some countries, like Sweden and Estonia, the Chinese vendor has event launched legal challenges against their exclusion from national networks, claiming that they are being discriminated against on the basis of their country of origin. 

Huawei also supplies equipment to Vodafone Idea’s rival Bharti Airtel, alongside Ericsson. Airtel has not yet announced if it will look to swap out Huawei from its own networks.

India’s largest telco, Reliance Jio, does not use Huawei equipment in its networks. 

In related news, Vodafone Idea earlier this year converted all of the debt it owes the Indian government into equity, equating to a roughly 35.8% stake.

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The TWF was established back in 2016 with the stated goal of increasing the value of state-owned assets in its portfolio. By 2020, it had acquired public shares in 22 companies, including airlines, banks, oil and gas, and satellite companies…

The TWF was established back in 2016 with the stated goal of increasing the value of state-owned assets in its portfolio. By 2020, it had acquired public shares in 22 companies, including airlines, banks, oil and gas, and satellite companies. At the end of September 2022, the TWF acquired a 26.2% in Turkish mobile player Turkcell. 

Now, the company is expanding its holdings in the country’s telecoms sector, buying a majority state in formerly state-owned Turk Telekom for roughly $1.65 billion.

« As (Turkey’s Wealth Fund), we believe that we will add extra value to telecommunication sector by contributing in the digitalisation process, while focusing on efforts to further strengthen the technological infrastructure of our country, » said CEO Salim Arda Ermut.

Turk Telekom’s ownership has been in crisis for some time. In 2013, OTAS, a unit of Dubai-based Oger Telecom, had taken a $4.75 billion loan to acquire a 55% stake in the business, but repeatedly defaulted. 

In 2018, , against the backdrop of the Turkish lira crash which left Turk Telekom floundering in billions of dollars of debt, a combination of Turkish and international creditor banks formed a special purpose vehicle to take control of the business. 

This banking consortium has been trying to sell its stake in the business since at least 2019.

As always, the share purchase is subject to regulatory approval. 
 

Back in November, Deutsche Telekom’s CEO, Tim Hoettges notably that the company was interested in finding for an industrial partner with which to potentially deconsolidate the company’s tower infrastructure. Both Vodafone and Orange were speculated to be viable options for some kind of partnership, with the former having spun off its own tower infrastructure unit to form Vantage Towers in 2020 and taken the company public in 2021…

Back in November, Deutsche Telekom’s CEO, Tim Hoettges notably that the company was interested in finding for an industrial partner with which to potentially deconsolidate the company’s tower infrastructure. Both Vodafone and Orange were speculated to be viable options for some kind of partnership, with the former having spun off its own tower infrastructure unit to form Vantage Towers in 2020 and taken the company public in 2021.

By December, the Deutsche Telekom’s willingness to sell a minority or majority stake in its towers had become more overt, with German media reporting that the company was looking to make a sale by Q1 of 2022. At the time, the media valued Deutsche Telekom’s tower assets – roughly 40,600 mobile towers – at up to €20 billion.

Now, a trio of inside sources speaking to Reuters are suggesting the sale process is already underway, with the company expecting indicative offers in the coming weeks. 

According to these sources, both Spanish infrastrucwww.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/exclusive-deutsche-telekom-launches-20-bln-auction-mobile-towers-2022-03-10/ture giant Cellnex and US-based American Tower Corp are both preparing to make offers for the towers. These are some of the largest independent tower operators in the world, with portfolios of roughly 130,000 and 220,000 towers, respectively. 

To say both of these companies have been on a shopping spree in recent years would be an understatement. In 2020, Cellnex agreed to purchase all of CK Hutchison’s European towers for roughly €10 billion; most of these deals have since closed, with the more complicated acquisition process in the UK being given the green light by regulators just last week. 

American Tower, meanwhile, bought Telefonica’s tower unit, Telxius, for $9.4 billion last year, as well acquiring data centre real estate investment trust CoreSite Realty for roughly $10 billion a few months ago.

However, it may not be just these independent tower operators that are interested in some form of tower deal. Vodafone’s Vantage Towers, with roughly 82,000 towers, and Orange’s tower unit Totem, with 26,000 towers, are also viable options for M&A. Both Vodafone and Orange have previously indicated that they would be open to merging their tower units with those of another European player.

Finally, private equity firms can also not be ruled out, having shown a strong appetite for investing in telecoms infrastructure in recent years, viewing towers as a reliable investment that will deliver predictable returns for many years.

If a tower sale does come to pass and overcomes the necessary regulatory hurdles, the funds raised by Deutsche Telekom will primarily go towards reducing the company’s debt pile of over €130 billion, as well as further expanding their 5G and fibre rollouts. 

Over two years ago, India’s government expressed its intent to set the reserve price for 5G airwaves at 4.92 billion rupees ($64.1 million) per megahertz of spectrum in the 3,300MHz to 3,600 MHz bands. 
 
Since then, the Indian operators have repeatedly complained to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that this price was extortionate…

Over two years ago, India’s government expressed its intent to set the reserve price for 5G airwaves at 4.92 billion rupees ($64.1 million) per megahertz of spectrum in the 3,300MHz to 3,600 MHz bands. 

This proposed reduction of the reserve price, combined with the potential development of the Made-In-India 5G sub-standard called 5Gi, would be substantial in combatting the enormous costs associated with rolling out this new network technology. 

While some telcos have expressed concern with the costs of designing 5Gi networks, telcos like Jio have revealed their readiness to switch to 5Gi if vendors can promise lower prices for 5Gi-compatible hardware. 

The spectrum auction, due to take place in September or August, will determine whether India will begin catch up with its 5G competitors in other major Asian markets, such South Korea, Japan, and China. All three of these competitors having launched 5G services years prior, with China noting almost half a billion 5G subscribers in December last year. 
 

After copious delays spanning years, the first stage of South Africa’s long-awaited spectrum auction is now complete.
 
South African mobile operators have long been crying out for additional spectrum from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), having not been allocated new spectrum licences for around 17 years. 
 
This all changed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic…

After copious delays spanning years, the first stage of South Africa’s long-awaited spectrum auction is now complete.

South African mobile operators have long been crying out for additional spectrum from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), having not been allocated new spectrum licences for around 17 years. 

This all changed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when ICASA announced that it would allocate temporary spectrum licences to the operators. This not only served to alleviate the pressure of network demand during a national lockdown but has since allowed the operators to tentatively launch 5G commercial services. 

These temporary licences were set to expire in November last year, but pleas from the operators have seen the terms extended to June 2022.

Now, with the start of the spectrum auction process, South Africa’s operators will be reliant on this temporary spectrum no longer. 

The auction process is split into three stages, the ‘opt-in’ stage, the auction proper, and the allocation phase. 

The opt-in auction, which began yesterday, has already concluded, with Rain and Telekom emerging as winners; Rain acquired 2x10MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band, and 10MHz in the 2.6GHz band, while Telkom picked up 2x10MHz in the 2.6GHz band. In total, the pair paid roughly $175 million.

This phase of the auction was intended to allow South Africa’s smaller operators the chance to procure a minimum spectrum portfolio (MSP) of least two 10MHz blocks below 1GHz and 60MHz of spectrum above this frequency, including their pre-existing spectrum holdings. 

As such, only two bidders could win spectrum to achieve the MSP in this auction and the larger operators, MTN and Vodacom, were excluded from taking part. 

The main phase of the auction will begin tomorrow, with all six players allowed to participate. 

“The licensing of this spectrum through an auction has major economic and social benefits for our country, especially during this time when the economy is emerging from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. This process provides a critical stimulus for economic recovery and has the potential to stimulate employment by leveraging on ICT networks and digital platforms to deliver economic value for the South African society,” said Dr Keabetswe Modimoeng, Chairperson of ICASA.

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Since 2010, Brand Finance has been compiling an annual report on the most valuable and strongest telecoms brands. The company has assessed 5,000 of the world’s biggest telecom brands, including the leading 150 in their dedicated report, the Brand Finance Telecoms 150 2022.
 
Brand value is understood as the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market. Brand strength is the efficacy of a brand’s performance on intangible measures relative to its competitors.
 
Let’s take a look at some of the most notable results…

Brand value is understood as the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market. Brand strength is the efficacy of a brand’s performance on intangible measures relative to its competitors.

Let’s take a look at some of the most notable results. 
 

Most valuable telecoms brand: Verizon 

Verizon takes the top spot again this year, with the company’s brand value rising by 1% to $69.6 billion. This marks the third year running the company has taken first place in the report, having never fallen below third place since the report began.

Verizon’s rival’s Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) and AT&T take the second and third place positions, with valuations of $60.2 billion and $47 billion, respectively. 

That the podium spots are dominated by primarily by US brands should come as little surprise. The market is not only huge, it is highly profitable, with mobile and broadband plans in the US some of the most expensive in the world. Despite enormous spectrum auctions and the expensive rollouts of 5G and fibre, the US telecoms market continues to exhibit healthy growth, providing the US operators a fertile landscape in which to grow their brand.
 

Fastest growing brand: Iliad Italia 

Iliad Italia launched in May 2018, becoming the fourth mobile player in the Italian market behind TIM, Wind Tre, and Vodafone. Since then, the company has grown quickly, in summer last year claiming a 10% share of the Italian market just three years after launch. It currently has roughly 8 million subscribers and launched a promising fibre-to-the-home offering earlier this year. 

According to Brand Finance’s report, the brand has risen in value by 109% to $447 million over the past year, making it the fastest growing brand in the telecoms industry. 

In second place is Etisalat (now e&)’s brand Moov, which saw its brand value increase 104% to $453 million in the last year. This rapid rise comes as a result of e& uniting 11 of its African subsidiaries under the Moov Africa banner at the start of 2021.

Strongest telecoms brand: Etisalat 

Using a combination of metrics including marketing investment, stakeholder equity, and business performance, Brand Finance has judged Etisalat to be the world’s strongest telecoms brand in 2022. Etisalat scored 89.2 out of 100 (an AAA rating) based on these metrics, having only broken into the top 20 in 2020.

Etisalat recently rebranded as e&, symbolising its corporate shift towards becoming a global technology and investment conglomerate.

“The transformation of e& from a telecom company founded more than four decades ago in the UAE into a global influence in digitalization highlights its role in upholding the UAE’s sustainable economic development and diversification plans,” said Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, deputy prime minister of the UAE.

Naturally, this increase in brand value was also supported by its unified rebranding of its African assets into Moov Africa, as mentioned previously.

Second place and third place were taken by Swisscom (88.8) and PLDT (88.4) respectively.  

Vodafone NZ has reportedly engaged financial services firms Barrenjoey and UBS to explore the sale of its New Zealand towers.
 
The operator has the largest tower portfolio in the country, with its roughly 1,500 towers providing mobile coverage to around 98% of the population. The company says it remains committed to building additional sites to “maintain its relative coverage and capacity position in the future&”…

Vodafone NZ has reportedly engaged financial services firms Barrenjoey and UBS to explore the sale of its New Zealand towers.

The operator has the largest tower portfolio in the country, with its roughly 1,500 towers providing mobile coverage to around 98% of the population. The company says it remains committed to building additional sites to “maintain its relative coverage and capacity position in the future” as part of the deal, noting that the tower company’s EBITDA for the 2023 financial year is $51 million.

According to sources, the tower sale could be worth up to $1 billion.

Vodafone NZ said that the deal will be beneficial for customers by bringing “more focused investment to the active mobile network assets”, as well as having major benefits for the company’s efficiency and environmental impact.

The announcement should not come as too great a surprise. Investor appetite for mobile towers has been surging around the world for a number of years now, with firms viewing the infrastructure as a reliable long-term investment delivering predictable returns. Meanwhile, operators are keen to offload these passive assets in exchange for cash, helping to lower their debt and fund the further expansion of their expensive 5G and fibre networks.

This trend has certainly been seen in neighbouring Australia, where both Telstra and Singtel have sold all or part of their mobile towers last year.

Indeed, the sale of the Vodafone NZ towers has been rumoured for weeks with Infratil, who owns half of Vodafone NZ alongside Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management, saying in a recent investor call that it was exploring the “possibility of network capital release options”.

« As the necessary infrastructure to support digital economies grows in importance, and as telecommunications companies look to unlock value that can be reinvested, separate ownership of passive mobile tower assets has become increasingly common, » said Vodafone NZ in a statement. 

Vodafone NZ’s rival, Spark, said just last month that it was exploring its own ‘TowerCo’ spin off.

But while these tower deals are becoming increasingly popular, the handing over of towers is not always an easy process. Back in 2020, CK Hutchison announced that it would sell all of its European towers to Spanish infrastructure giant Cellnex for roughly €10 billion. But, while the transition of assets went smoothly in most of the company’s European markets, the deal came under severe scrutiny in the UK market, where the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) suggested the deal was uncompetitive and would leave Cellnex in too dominant of a position within the market. 

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