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The deal covers Proximus’s three data centres in Evere, Mechelen, and Machelen, all of which are close to the Belgian capital

This week, Belgian telco Proximus has announced the sale of its data centre assets to local digital infrastructure player Datacenter United.

The sale, worth €128 million, covers Proximus’s three data centres in Evere, Mechelen, and Machelen, with a combined capacity of 11MW.

These sites will be added to Datacenter United’s existing footprint of nine data centres within Belgium.

Proximus itself will continue to be served by the data centres via a 10-year master service agreement. The operator will also lease office and telco space at both the Evere and Mechelen sites.

“While customers will continue to benefit from state-of-the-art datacenter infrastructure, with data stored in Belgium and managed by an expert partner, Proximus will continue to pursue its hybrid cloud strategy and further sharpen its focus on delivering value added services to customers as an IT integrator,” said Guillaume Boutin, CEO of the Proximus Group. “This transaction will bring close to EUR 130 million of proceeds and fits our goal of monetizing assets as part of our EUR 500 million asset divestment plan. We anticipate the closing of this transaction by Q1 2025.”

Back in September, Proximus announced its intention to dispose of €500 million in assets, in order to fortify its balance sheet and allow it to better focus on its core business.

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The funding will be used to help encourage take-up of the company’s fibre services 

UK altnet Community Fibre has raised £125 million from a consortium of lenders including JP Morgan, Alpha Bank, Barclays, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), and Sequoia, in its latest funding round. 

The funds, the company says, will primarily be used to help connect customers within their existing footprint, as well as expanding their network coverage.   

“Community Fibre has been and will continue to be highly focussed on delivering the best customer experience and the best value for money in the market. Our success here, growing from just 10k customers at the start of 2020 to over 310k in less than 5 years, has driven a strong lender appetite. We and our financial backers are aligned on driving acquisition growth and confident in overachieving our penetration targets,” said Graeme Oxby, Community Fibre’s CEO. 

“The lenders and our shareholders share the view that Community Fibre’s momentum will further strengthen its position as the best and largest full fibre only provider in London and is a vote of confidence in its strong management team and their ability to commercialise the large London network,” echoed Olaf Swantee, the company’s chairman. 

In total, Community Fibre has raised £1.1 billion since its inception in 2013, according to a Telegraph report. 

As of November last year, Community Fibre had passed 1.3 million homes across and around London.  

Its last large funding round, back in 2022, had secured a new finance facility worth £985 million, aimed at helping the company to expand its FTTP rollout to 2.2 million by the end of 2024.  

By late 2023, however, the company announced its intention to temporarily pause its network build, cutting jobs and shifting its focus to “deliver a stronger return to our investors by focusing even more on our already successful marketing and sales activities.”  

Indeed, this rollout deceleration was already prominent in the company’s 2023 financial results, which noted that residential premises passed totaled around 1.3 million.  

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The “5G am Gleis” (5G on the track) project will bring boosted connectivity to the country’s railway network 

The railway line between Hamburg and Berlin is set to receive ‘seamless’ 5G coverage, thanks to a declaration of intent signed by Deutsche Bahn, the federal government, and the German telcos 1&1, Deutsche Telekom, O2Telefónica, and Vodafone.  

The partners announced the deal at the Digital Summit in Frankfurt this week, , pledging to jointly test, develop, and install 5G masts across the 278km long Hamburg–Berlin route.  

This route is already scheduled for renovation between August 2025 and April 2026, providing a 9-month window in which to explore infrastructure deployment options and ensure gigabit-capable connectivity for passengers. 

The project, dubbed the Future Rail Mobile Communication System (FRMCS), will see the deployment of shared mobile masts besides the tracks, with the partners working together to overcome technical challenges.   

“Our gigabit strategy aims to enable gigabit bandwidths wherever people live, work and travel. With the MoU, we are setting an equally ambitious gigabit timetable alongside the ambitious schedule for the upcoming general refurbishment of the Hamburg-Berlin line. Through the joint rail and mobile expansion, we are realising considerable synergies and cost savings hand in hand. This will benefit all travellers, who can look forward to high-performance and uninterrupted mobile communications coverage in the future,” said Dr Volker Wissing, the German Federal Minister for Digital Affairs and Transport said in a press release. 

One of the major challenges the FRMCS is seeking to tackle is how to get the 5G signal into the train carriages themselves. Currently, the metal coating on the train windows makes them difficult for 5G signals to penetrate, meaning mobile signal is often delivered to a carriage’s interior by a repeater connected to an antenna on the carriage’s exterior. However, new window technology, which works by etching tiny holes in the metal coating, could allow 5G signals to penetrate the carriage directly from outside.  

“Our goal is to make digital work and entertainment on the train as easy for customers as at home,” explained Valentina Daiber, Board Member for Legal and Corporate Affairs at O2 Telefónica, noting that it was a matter of “technical feasibility and identifying the most effective approaches”. 

In related news, earlier this month Deutsche Telekom shared that they had made significant improvements to mobile coverage across the national rail network roughly two years ahead of schedule. According to the operator, 99% of German rail passengers on ‘main routes’ can access speeds of at least 200 Mbps. 

Join us at next month’s Connected Germany, 5-6 November in Munich. Get discounted tickets here 

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Financial details of the deal were not disclosed 

Nokia has announced a strategic partnership with Lenovo to create data centre networking and automation solutions. The deal will address the significant and precise needs for compute, storage, and transit for AI, Machine Learning, and other demanding workloads. These solutions will be jointly marketed to businesses, telcos, digital infrastructure, and cloud service providers. 

The partnership combines Lenovo’s servers and storage with Nokia’s data center networking technology, which includes fabric, IP routing, and DDoS security. It also features Nokia’s new Event-Driven Automation (EDA) platform, which is designed to automate data centre operations.  

“Our partnership with Nokia to bundle AI solutions is a natural alignment,” said Charles Ferland, Lenovo’s Vice President of Edge and Communications Service Providers in a statement. 

“Together, we provide a robust platform that meets the needs of telecommunications and enterprise sectors, enabling them to deploy AI clouds and manage their data efficiently. With Nokia’s automated data fabric and Lenovo’s leading automated compute and storage solutions with industry-leading Neptune liquid cooling technology, enterprises can confidently deploy cutting-edge sustainable infrastructure,” he continued. 

The integrated solutions allow for easy automation of AI and other heavy workloads, improving flexibility and security for customers. Both Nokia and Lenovo offer built-in security solutions that detect and stop cyberattacks in real-time.  

According to the companies, the co-developed solutions will also priortise energy-efficient designs, both to reduce customer costs as well as promoting sustainability. 

“By combining Nokia’s Data Center Fabric and Event Driven Automation with Lenovo’s ThinkSystem AI portfolio, we deliver a high performance, scalable data center networking solution designed to efficiently manage and automate AI/ML workloads, with a strong emphasis on security and energy efficiency,” said Vach Kompella, Senior Vice President and General Manager of IP Networks business at Nokia. 

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The partnership is aimed at boost 5G development, innovation, and digital transformation across the Africa nation 

The Nigerian government has signed an agreement with Ericsson to collaborate on developing and deploying 5G technology. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed during a government visit to Ericsson’s headquarters in Stockholm late last week, led by Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima. 

Ericsson has been operating in Nigeria since 1978, helping to deploy networks, including the country’s first mobile network in 2001. Now, this new partnership aims to support Nigeria’s telecoms sector entry into the 5G era, improving public services and driving economic progress.  

The MoU includes plans for knowledge-sharing, establishing innovation hubs, and boosting digital skills in Nigeria, although specific commitments and financial details of the partnership were not disclosed. 

At the signing, Vice President Shettima was joined by key government figures, including Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Minister Dr. Bosun Tijani and Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, alongside other senior officials. The delegation was hosted by Patrick Johansson, Ericsson’s Head of Middle East and Africa, who highlighted Ericsson’s leadership in 5G and its potential to enhance Nigeria’s digital competitiveness. 

“It was an honor to show the Vice President, and his delegation colleagues, Ericsson’s leadership in 5G and technology capabilities at first-hand. We look forward to working in close partnership with the Nigerian government to develop the innovation potential of 5G for Nigerian businesses, citizens and for national digital competitiveness,” said Johnson in a statement.  

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The latest clash revolves around whether the government should auction off satellite spectrum or simply allocate it arbitrarily

Recent months have seen tensions flare between Elon Musk and Indian telecoms moguls Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal continue, with the trio clashing over the nation’s satellite spectrum policy.

Back in 2021, India’s Department of Telecoms (DoT) announced that it was considering auctioning spectrum for satellite broadband players, going against the industry standard of simply allocating the frequencies.

This week, however, the issue appears to be resolved, with the Indian communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia confirming that the government has no plans to auction satellite spectrum, as feared by Musk.

The idea of auctioning satellite spectrum was controversial from the beginning. Detractors argued that the heavy price tags likely to be attached to the spectrum would dissuade smaller players from participating in the auction and provide the deep-pocketed mobile giants Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel with an unfair advantage.

Both Jio and Airtel have major satellite ambitions for India, with the market estimated to be worth $1.9 billion by 2030. Reliance’s Jio Platforms formed a joint venture with satellite operator SES back in 2022, aiming to launch their own satellite broadband services as Reliance Jio Satellite Communications. Airtel, meanwhile, is partnered with Eutelsat to use its OneWeb constellation, in which Airtel has been an investor since 2021.

As such, it should come as little surprise that the owners of Jio and Airtel – Mukesh Ambani Sunil Mittal, respectively – have been vocal proponents for the auction strategy. They argue that commercial satellite broadband players serving urban customers should be forced to pay for spectrum in the same way that traditional wireless operators do.

There is also an element of speed to market here. Both Jio and Airtel’s commercial satellite offerings are far less mature than Musk’s Starlink, hence there is a risk of Starlink capturing the lion’s share of the market before its rivals can adequately react. With the Indian government increasingly insistent on keeping control of the telecoms and tech industries in the hands of domestic companies, this outcome would likely be unacceptable.

Nonetheless, the comments from the Indian communications minister this week suggest it is unlikely that the government will eschew the conventional wisdom of the International Telecommunication Union and will stick with the typical allocation method.

Musk was quick to praise the decision earlier this week, saying thank you in a Tweet:

Much appreciated! We will do our best to serve the people of India with Starlink.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2024

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Vantage Towers owns and operates around 8,300 towers across the country 

Vantage Towers is considering the sale of its Spanish assets, according to a Bloomberg article published today, citing people familiar with the matter. 

According to the article, the company is working with Morgan Stanley to assess the interest of potential buyers. If successful, the TowerCo’s Spanish infrastructure assets could fetch around €1 billion at sale, although discussions are still at a very early stage, according to the sources. 

The new comes just one day after reports were published suggesting that Vantage is currently clashing with its largest customer, Vodafone Spain, over annual pricing.  

Zegona Communications, who purchased Vodafone Spain earlier this year for €5 billion, are reportedly considering terminating its long-term contract with Vantage over the prices being charged to use its towers. After “months in tense negotiations”, Zegona is reportedly asking Vantage to reduce its annual fees by at last €50 million, while alo exploring its options with alternative tower companies. Companies approached by Zegona reportedly include Cellnex, American Tower Corp, and Orange’s tower company Totem. 

If Zegona were to switch contracts, this would be highly unusual, as deals are usually decades-long, with large fines if broken. However, sources suggest Vodafone Spain could still potentially save money by becoming the second tenant on an alternative provider’s infrastructure. 

All the aforementioned companies have declined to comment. 

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The job cuts are wider restructuring to cut up to 14,000 roles by 2026 

Nokia has laid off nearly 2,000 employees in China, about 20% of its workforce in the country, with plans to cut an additional 350 jobs in Europe, according to a Reuters report citing two sources familiar with the matter.  

Speaking to Reuters, a Nokia spokesperson confirmed that discussions are underway regarding the European layoffs but declined to comment on the situation in China. 

As of December 2023, Nokia employed 10,400 people in Greater China and 37,400 in Europe, according to its annual report.  

The reduction in these workforces are part of a previously announced plan to cut up to 14,000 jobs globally by 2026, aiming to save between €800 million and €1.2 billion. By 2026, Nokia plans to have reduced its workforce from around 86,000 employees to between 72,000 and 77,000. 

This job cutting process has already begun in a number of key markets, with hundreds of job losses announced earlier this year in the company’s home market of Finland, as well as the US and other markets.  

 “Resetting the cost base is a necessary step to adjust to market uncertainty and to secure our long-term profitability and competitiveness,” said Nokia’s CEO, Pekka Lundmark in Q3 last year. 

Nokia’s sales in China have declined since Western countries began banning Huawei in 2019, leading to reduced contracts for both Nokia and rival Ericsson. Sales in China, which was once Nokia’s second-largest market, have dropped from 27% of the company’s net sales in 2019 to less than 6% in the latest quarter. 

Despite this, Nokia still has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and serves major clients like China Mobile. 

On Thursday, Nokia reported a 9% rise in its Q3 operating profit, primarily due to cost-cutting measures. However, its net sales fell short of expectations, causing a 4% drop in share value.  

Lundmark has stated that the cost-cutting measures will not impact Nokia’s research and development, and the company is slightly ahead of its savings schedule.  

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The move is part of a new strategic direction devised by the company’s new CEO, Kim Young-seop, who has been in the role since August 

South Korean telco Korea Telecom (KT) has announced a major restructuring programme as part of an increased focus on AI and cloud services.  

This strategic shift involves the establishment of two new subsidiaries and significant changes to the company’s workforce. 

According to the newspaper Business Korea, the company will create two new subsidiaries – “tentatively” named KT OSP and KT P&M – and implement a large-scale voluntary retirement scheme for employees with over 10 years of service or those nearing retirement. 

A board meeting was held this week to decide on the final details of the subsidiaries, which are set to be properly established in January next year.  

KT OSP will reportedly focus on field operations and network management, with an initial capital investment of 71 billion won ($52.7 million), while KT P&M will focus on customer service, with a smaller capital base of 10 billion won ($7.4 million). Nearly 3,800 employees will be transferred to these new businesses, which are set to begin operations on January 1, 2025.The reallocation of affected employees is expected to begin as early as this month. 

Alongside this restructuring, KT says that its voluntary retirement scheme will begin from next month. Exactly how many jobs are expected to be cut was not specified, but the total number of employees affected by the reallocation and voluntary retirement could reach “up to 5,700”, suggesting that around 2,000 jobs could be eliminated.
As part of its broader strategy, KT is investing heavily in AI and cloud sectors. The company has partnered with Microsoft to co-develop AI models and data center infrastructures, with a joint investment of 2.4 trillion won over the next five years. This move aligns KT with industry trends, as other telecom companies like SK Telecom are also investing in AI and offering early retirement programs. 

In related news, this week KT and Samsung have been chosen by the Korean Navy to deploy a private 5G network as part of its ‘Smart Naval Port’ project. The project, which is the first of its kind at a Korean naval base, began this summer with the goal to complete deployment by the end of next year.  

“The companies will build a more intelligent and fully independent network infrastructure to provide seamless coverage and enhanced connectivity for the Republic of Korea Navy 2nd Fleet,” the press release stated. 

The new ICT network will have use cases including intelligent security monitoring and battleship operation management.   

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The deal is set to drive cloud innovation across the Middle East 

UAE based operator e& has announced a $1 billion strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to drive cloud innovation across the Middle East. The collaboration follows AWS’s launch of its second Middle East cloud region in 2022, which was backed by a $5 billion investment.

The partnership combines AWS’s sovereign cloud infrastructure with e&’s network, catering to the public sector and regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, and oil and gas. The goal is to deliver cloud solutions that align with regional regulations, addressing the demand for secure and scalable infrastructure. There is an increased demand for cloud infrastructure services in the region, an issue that this partnership will directly address. 

The agreement between the two companies will see them accelerate digital transformation in the region, providing services like AI, cybersecurity, and networking. This will benefit both large enterprises and small businesses, with access to AWS’s services and marketplace helping companies modernise their operations. 

To do this, e& will use AWS’s technology to enhance its platforms, such as the streaming service Starzplay Arabia and the multi-service app Careem. e& also plans to expand its AI capabilities and smart home services, offering more customer-focused innovations. 

“This initiative aligns with the UAE’s Vision 2031, aimed at positioning the nation as a global economic hub while driving digital transformation across key sectors,” said Tanuja Randery, Vice President of EMEA at AWS in the press release. 

“Our investment in developing the skills of UAE nationals will have a positive impact on the region’s economic growth and technological leadership,” he continued. 

“Our partnership with AWS is a game-changer for our customers. By combining AWS’s advanced cloud capabilities with e&’s local expertise, we will empower businesses across the region with the tools and infrastructure to accelerate their digital transformation and become more agile to scale as they innovate faster,” echoed Salvador Anglada, CEO of e& enterprise. 

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