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UPDATED: Telkom South Africa confirmed the sale of its tower unit Swiftnet for ZAR 6.75 billion (US$355 million) to infrastructure-focused private equity firm Actis, a move to pay down debts and balance its books. 

In a stock exchange announcement, Telkom South Africa said: “​​The reduction of Telkom debt through application of the disposal proceeds will strengthen Telkom’s balance sheet and enable Telkom to release free-cash-flow for investment in Telkom’s core businesses and deployment in pursuit of growth opportunities.”

It added it has growth plans for other units including wholesale infrastructure provider Openserve and Telkom Consumer, its fibre broadband provider. 

Actis said in a separate statement, the deal was made to acquire 100% shares in Swiftnet and its footprint of 4,000 sites across South Africa. It made the acuistion with backing from Royal Bafokeng Holdings,a soverign wealth fund. 

The company said: “The deal allows Actis to invest in a growing sector, with strong secular tailwinds and an increasing need for tower densification driven by increasing internet penetration and the transitions from 3G and 4G to 5G.”

The acquisition of Swiftnet aligns with Actis’ strategy, as the unit has a “unique tower footprint” and is well positioned to meet demand from MNOs looking to connect rural locations. 

This acquisition will mark Actis’ second buy into telecom towers this year following its acquisition of sites in the Western Balkans. The deal was for 1,800 macro towers in Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Montenegro.

The company also bought South African fibre provider Octotel in 2020. 

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Stephen M. Kowal, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at Nextivity

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Telecom Egypt says it has added European fibre backbone and transatlantic subsea cable infrastructure provider EXA Infrastructure to its WeConnect ecosystem in its latest move to establish Egypt as a major regional interconnection hub.

Through a partnership signed by both companies earlier this week, EXA Infrastructure will combine multi-route solutions to become a one-stop-shop for traffic from the Middle East and Asia into Europe.

The deal also enables EXA to provide protected capacity solutions from Egypt via Telecom Egypt’s infrastructure and WeConnect model to hundreds of endpoints in Europe and North America. This means that EXA Infrastructure will serve as the European and North American-based service provider to access WeConnect.

Mohamed Nasr, MD and CEO at Telecom Egypt said the partnership with EXA enables its customers to pick their traffic from Egypt to any point of presence (PoP) in Europe via Telecom Egypt’s Mediterranean cable landing stations.

“Using [the] WeConnect ecosystem, 19 subsea systems can easily and seamlessly scale-up and extend their reach to major PoPs in Europe hopping on EXA Infrastructure’s well-established network,” he said.

As we previously reported, the WeConnect model – which Telecom Egypt launched in September 2023 – enables users to mix and match connectivity between subsea cable systems in the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea using an open and neutral model.

Telecom Egypt said the EXA partnership is another step in its strategy to position Egypt as the main gateway to Asia, Africa, and Europe, and as an emerging intercontinental interconnection hub as demand grows for international connectivity coming from the Far East and Africa.

The telco says it enables more than 90% of international Eurasian traffic, and accounts for more than 200 Tbps of international traffic across Egypt.

As part of that strategy, Telecom Egypt said it is actively expanding its international infrastructure by establishing new landing stations on the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts, which are connected via diverse terrestrial and subsea routes.

Hormuud Telecom launched 5G in key locations across Somalia with 4G customers receiving free upgrades to the next generation technology starting from today (March 21). 

Subscribers will see their connectivity upgrade to 5G at no extra cost in the following locations: Mogadishu, Kismayo, Galkayo and Baidoa, Dhusamareeb, Beledwayne, Afgoye, Merca and Dhobley. The operator noted its 5G coverage across these locations is up to 81%. 

Hormuud highlighted how the the faster speed and reliability will be a significant tool for subscirbers that rely on mobile money services for business and leisure. 

The 5G service will provide speeds of 10Gbps/100Gbps/200Gbps/400Gbps based on request per single wavelength with a total capacity of 0.96Tbps/9.6Tbps/19Tbps/38Tbps.

Hormuud will offer customers an unlimited data plan that costs US$20 per month which it claimed rivals the most affordable in Africa. Hormuud customers use on average 5GB monthly, which is up from 1-2 gigabytes two years ago.

The new technology will support deployment of IoT products that will upgrade Hormuud’s disaster management systems, enabling the platform to monitor environmental conditions in real time through sensors. 

Hormuud noted 70% of Somalia’s population has access to 4G connectivity following the operator’s 4G network deployment that began in 2015. The company is aiming for 88% coverage in urban areas and 70% in rural locations. 

Minister of Telecommunication for the Federal Government of Somalia, Jama Hassan Khalif, said: “As Somalia strides towards stability, the launch of 5G services by Hormuud Telecom emerges as a critical milestone. This initiative is more than just a technological advancement; it’s a symbol of our nation’s commitment to growth and constant improvement.

“Enhanced connectivity is pivotal for Somalia, underpinning the growth of a resilient economy and empowered citizens – it’s about giving every Somali, their family, and their business, access to the digital tools they need to thrive.”

Hormuud Telecom CEO Ahmed Yusuf added: “We aim to ensure that the benefits of 5G – faster internet, improved services across sectors such as healthcare, education, and agriculture – become accessible to all, fostering a future where everyone can benefit, in myriad ways, from this advanced technology.

“This initiative is about more than just connectivity; it’s about empowering our communities, stimulating progress, and paving the way for a thriving, digitally inclusive society. »   

Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) is an attractive play for many operators, and Nokia believes its potential can be further enhanced with the arrival of 5G FWA solutions using higher millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum.

5G mid-band FWA already supports a number of different deployment scenarios. Fixed broadband operators are using it to complement fiber deployments, plugging coverage gaps and quickly building out their footprint to increase market share. Mobile operators are taking advantage of its fast time-to-market and low start-up costs to compete with fixed-fiber services.

Like all technologies, FWA comes with its challenges. In a recent operator study, Nokia found that mid-band FWA deployments are leaving 19 per cent of subscribers with low signal levels, resulting in wasted network capacity. Around 29 per cent of capacity in such cases could have been restored to the operator just by having the CPE device correctly positioned, either indoors or using an outdoors device, for optimal performance. Using outdoor antennas rather than indoor CPE at the cell edge could achieve a 62 per cent gain in network capacity, says the company.

As FWA users consume around 20 times more data than mobile uses, managing capacity is a key consideration in FWA deployments, to ensure neither FWA nor mobile services are compromised, and to protect an operator’s valuable investment in spectrum. Conserving radio resources from the start is far more efficient than later investments to upgrade the network or change devices to regain that lost capacity.

Employing 5G mmWave FWA at and above 24 GHz, with its resulting benefits in capacity and performance, is becoming increasingly attractive for operators, says Nokia.  

mmWave has already been successful at delivering wireless capacity in hot zones and high-traffic urban environments where limited range and signal attenuation don’t present a significant problem. This signal attenuation has led to a long-standing belief that mmWave is only for urban areas and it can’t really be used in other scenarios.

Not so, says Nokia. By advocating the deployment of mmWave as a capacity overlay to mid-band spectrum, Nokia says it can add much needed capacity for FWA subscribers that are within mmWave range from the base station, while freeing up the mid-bands for mobile broadband and more distant FWA subscribers. The operator study mentioned earlier found that 50 per cent of suburban FWA subscribers would be able to connect to and benefit from a mmWave capacity overlay.

Nokia is busting the myths around FWA mmWave with their advances in antenna technology and device intelligence. These advances mean that mmWave FWA can be deployed in non-line-of-sight locations (NLOS) and over far greater distances, says Nokia. The company has announced a new outdoor mmWave device, the FastMile 5Gmm Receiver that does exactly this. A 27dBi gain antenna overcomes propagation loss and weak signals. It also scans the environment in 360 degrees, using advanced analytics to create a fingerprint of the radio environment, and directing itself to the best signal that it receives. This means it can connect to signals from any direction, whether they are direct or reflected.

So, if something comes along that blocks the signal, such as a tree growing, the antenna can find another signal path including reflections, and continue to connect. This dispels another myth, says Nokia: that mmWave FWA doesn’t work in non-LoS conditions.

However, when LoS isn’t an issue, mmWave has another very attractive use case. In Australia, nbn is deploying Nokia’s mmWave technology in rural areas and achieving broadband speeds up to 1 Gb/s over a 7km range. Nokia has shown that its FastMile FWA technology can drive mmWave signals out over 12km. This makes FWA a compelling choice where the economics of deploying fiber broadband don’t make sense.

Ensuring a brilliant end-user experience is a key concern for Nokia. Network planning tools enable operators to look at radio capacity and cell site locations to know where to market their FWA services. The same data is then used at point of sales to validate the service levels for every new subscriber. An intelligent mobile application then guides the end-user or a technician to install their FWA CPE in the best position to maximize broadband performance and optimize capacity usage of the radio network.

Nokia FWA devices also enable operators to drive new revenues beyond connectivity. The Corteca software within Nokia devices uses application container technology so that enhanced features, such as cyber security or low-latency performance for gaming, can be downloaded to the FWA CPE and sold to subscribers as add-on services that increase ARPU.

When thinking about deploying FWA to connect homes and business, the mid-bands are still going to be the first choice for operators in most scenarios, says Nokia. But as FWA deployments continue to accelerate – industry experts expect 250 million FWA subscribers by 2028 – mmWave FWA is becoming a vital tool for preserving capacity and maintaining service levels. It will also prove valuable in helping operators meet their regulatory service coverage commitments and as a tactical deployment tool where fiber can’t be deployed, as nbn is demonstrating with its rural FWA service.

Nor will an mmWave FWA solution of the kind being deployed by nbn work for everyone, and it probably won’t be widely repeated. The need for a long-distance rural application meant that nbn had a specific network that they built for rural connectivity using 4G, and which was upgraded to mmWave. They had that total LoS environment, and in that kind of scenario it can be economic.

So even though deployment scenarios for mmWave over FWA may be very specific, Nokia is showing that this is a much more useful tool than everybody thinks.

Click here to know more about Nokia’s 5G mmWave FWA solution.

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