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The consultation is currently being carried out by telecoms and digital infrastructure specialists such as the Wireless Broadband Alliance, London borough authorities, and other international cities that have already completed similar projects.
The report is set to publish its recommendations early this year.
The Mayor has allocated a budget of £20,000 to create a plan to improve the city’s connectivity. If the scheme is approved, it will form part of the Mayor’s “Digital Access for All” mission, which aims for every Londoner to have access to high quality connectivity, basic digital skills, and the device or support they need to be online by 2025.
“I want every Londoner and visitor to have the very best experience possible and in our connected world that means having access to fast, reliable, seamless internet access,” said Khan.
“This consultation will be the first step towards delivering better digital services for all, building a better and more prosperous city for everyone.”
Similarly, the Mayor has been bolstering London’s mobile connectivity on the city’s transport networks. Since forming a 25 year-long strategic partnership with Boldyn Networks (previously BAI Communications) in 2021, Transport for London (TFL) are deploying 4G and 5G connectivity on the London Underground. Currently, 18 out of 121 underground stations have coverage, which is set to grow steadily under the partnership.
Boldyn Networks have also partnered with the city of Sunderland to expand the city’s free public Wi-Fi infrastructure, ultimately seeking to make Wi-Fi coverage citywide –although this is on a much smaller level than London. Residents and visitors within the range of the Wi-Fi can benefit from connection speeds of up to 500Mbps.
Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter
Also in the news:
Nokia won’t reach end of year financial targets for 2023
How 5G standalone can help our shift to Net Zero
BT misses Huawei equipment removal deadline
We started the week with the question of consolidation targets in the US, and now it’s time for the other side of the coin. What network operators are most likely to be consolidators in 2024? We’ll take it as a given that ‘infrastructure funds’ would top the more general list of likely buyers, of course, but let’s focus on the existing network operators looking to expand inorganically in the US. Last year the perennial favorite Zayo topped the list with Crown Castle and Lightpath in 2nd and third. … [visit site to read more]
The chairman of Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), Dr Sarana Boonbaichaiyapruck, has outlined a plan to create more MVNOs in the country.
The plan, which includes a scheme entitled One Region, One Mobile Virtual Network Operator, aims to create four more MVNOs by 2026, in addition to the country’s three existing mobile phone operators.
The regulator also plans to bring in free access to state digital services nationwide by 2026. This means all Thais will be able to use basic state services without internet charges on their mobile tariffs. This will be implemented in collaboration with mobile phone operators, according to the NBTC chairman.
The NBTC office will start implementing both the One Region, One MVNO scheme and free government digital services policies this year.
Will market demand sustain these new entrants against True Corporation, Advanced Info Service (AIS) and National Telecom (NT)? The Bangkok Post points out that the combined subscribers of AIS and True Corp represent more than 96% of total subscribers in the market.
It is also not clear that major operators will want to rent their network capacity to MVNOs at a low fee. However, the NBTC’s proposed regulations imply they may have little choice. That said, major mobile operators can hold a share of the regional MVNOs – but no more than 25%.
As for opportunities, MVNOs may have trouble competing with larger rivals in the mass market but there could be business opportunities in the 5G private network market.
All of this remains to be seen, however. So far The WhiteSpace, the owner of the Penguin SIM brand, is the only MVNO in Thailand. The Bangkok Post suggests its subscriber base is a little over 40,000 in a country of nearly 70 million people.
Altice Portugal, which is part of Altice Group and serves customers using the brand name Meo, is owned by French billionaire Patrick Drahi, who indicated his intention to sell the unit in summer last year.
Since then, Altice has reportedly received interest from numerous buyers, with Drahi set to narrow down the current pool of bidders into a shortlist at some point early this year.
It is widely known that Saudi Telecom Company (STC) are in the running, but some other companies involved have asked not to be identified. Portuguese business newspaper Jornal Económico has reported that Altice has received three non-binding offers, but did not disclose any further details.
Discussions on this deal are ongoing and nothing has been decided as of yet.
Meo is currently the leader in the Portuguese telecoms market, with a 48% market share of the mobile segment and a 41% share of the fixed broadband segment. While valuations for the business have not been disclosed, sources suggest that current bids range between €7 billion to €9.5 billion.
Altice Group itself is currently laden with a debt pile of around $60 billion, which Drahi is seeking to rectify with Meo’s sale and other divestments. Altice announced its intention to sell off the control of its data centre business in November, entering into an agreement with Morgan Stanley to sell a 70% share of the business for €535 million to create a new venture named UltraEdge.
Altice’s financial woes have not been helped by an ongoing scandal involving co-founder and COO Armando Pereira, who was arrested in July on suspicion of tax fraud, corruption, and money laundering.
This deal with Morgan Stanley is not yet completed, but if approved by regulators, is expected to close in the first half of next year.
Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter.
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Streamlining success: The crucial role of order management
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Could Vodafone Idea hand Elon Musk the keys to India?
Two bits of inorganic activity, and a new subsea cable alongside some other M&A talk over in Europe: … [visit site to read more]
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The company noted that intense negotiations between the relevant parties (including Vivo and Amazon) and courts are ongoing, saying it will prioritise protecting the value of its patent portfolio over achieving results within certain timeframes.
Nokia also cited challenging market conditions for their results, Including reduced customer spending and global economic instability.
“The quarter has proved somewhat more challenging than expected given on-going customer spending constraint and the recently communicated customer purchasing decision. Profitability in Nokia’s networks businesses is however expected to remain solidly within the comparable operating margin assumptions the company had previously communicated,” said Nokia in a press release last week.
Nokia’s Q3 results showed the company’s net sales were down 40%.
In an attempt to combat their poor performance, the company is aiming to shrink its costs by €1 billion by 2026. As part of this process, Nokia has recently announced that it will cut 14,000 jobs, reducing the company workforce to around 72,000.
Speaking on its third quarter results, President and CEO Pekka Lundmark said: “We continue to believe in the mid-to-long-term market, but we are not going to sit and wait and pray that the market will recover anytime soon…we simply don’t know when it will recover.”
In related news, last month America’s AT&T selected Ericsson over Nokia to become the operator’s main Open RAN equipment vendor. Nokia described the decision as “disappointing”, with their share price plummeted 8% upon the news.
Contracts with AT&T represented 5-8% of Nokia’s mobile networks net sales in 2023.
Keep up to date with the latest telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter.
Also in the news:
How 5G standalone can help our shift to Net Zero
BT misses Huawei equipment removal deadline
Could Vodafone Idea hand Elon Musk the keys to India?
Happy New Year to all! Last year’s fiber/network M&A activity wasn’t that, well, active in the USA. And based on the responses to last year’s poll that didn’t surprise too many people, as there was little consensus as to who might be a target. The Cox/UPN/Segra and Shentel/Horizon deals did land, and on the FTTH front there were some small deals, but the big action was over in Europe in 2023. Will 2024 be any busier on this side of the Atlantic? Who you think are the likeliest candidates to be sold (in part or in whole) in 2024. (Not including already pending transactions). … [visit site to read more]
Network testing and benchmarking is an important way to improve operator performance and reputation.
Independent mobile network testing was developed during the 1990s to provide objective measurements of network quality. First used by operators in Europe and North America, it is now well established in emerging markets. Independent network testing has become an essential part of strategic reporting in addition to being a key element of customer experience and customer retention programs and marketing to attract new customers.
MNOs must ensure that they can deliver the levels service performance required by their licenses, regulators, shareholders and supervisory boards, in addition to being able to substantiate marketing claims made to existing and new customers.
There are a number of independent testing and benchmarking providers, including Ookla, Opensignal and Umlaut (formerly known as P3). Different methodologies are used by these providers; Ookla and Opensignal both exclusively use crowd sourcing, while Umlaut (P3) uses a mixture of drive tests, walk tests and crowd sourcing. These providers all offer high quality and reliable testing and benchmarking solutions for a range of connectivity and performance optimisation challenges. This article looks in more detail at the latest Umlaut score, released in November 2023.
The Umlaut score, which claims to be the de-facto global industry standard for MNOs, is a measure for management to compare their networks with others around the globe to enhance strategic decision making. Although the examples below relate to Western Europe, the framework used by Umlaut is based on a rule set applied globally, to provide a fair, transparent and independent evaluation of all networks. Umlaut conduct benchmarks in 70 countries with more than 180 mobile networks being evaluated with the Umlaut score.
The independent framework is the basis for measuring the actual customer experience as well as mobile network performance and capability, allowing technical analysis with a high level of detail. The Umlaut testing methodology and scoring models are regularly updated in response to technical developments.
The Umlaut score also takes into account growing customer expectations, expanding data volumes and rising data speeds by raising the requirements and thresholds of the tests each year. Despite this, most operators are able to improve their performance, demonstrating that Umlaut ’s challenging network tests contribute to the improvement of the networks.
The methodology of testing has evolved as networks themselves have changed, from 2G through to 5G. Testing has also responded to changing patterns of network usage, for example by analysing and scoring networks on their ability to handle data downloading via HTTPS, FTP and other protocols. Both data upload and download speeds are tested. Recently the Umlaut test has also included specific tests related to OTT traffic generated by, for example, YouTube and e-Gaming.
The DACH (Germany /Austria /Switzerland) markets of Western Europe are recognised as pioneers in mobile network testing and tests have taken place in these countries on an annual basis for many years. The latest tests, performed in October 2023, cover a range of settings including drive and walk tests in all major cities, a large number of medium and smaller population centres, and in rural areas. Carrying out tests simultaneously in three separate countries means comparisons and benchmarks can be made cross border as well as within each country.
The tests look at both data and voice network performance in the different locations described, and also in specific settings including highway driving and rail travel. From this it is possible to identify the operators which have the best overall network performance in each country as well as in the individual settings. The ranking is a good advertisement for operators and provides regional consumers with useful advice while choosing a service provider.
In Germany the 2023 tests show that Deutsche Telecom won its 13th Championship in a row. Both Deutsche Telecom and Vodafone increased their overall scores significantly compared to the previous year, with the data category accounting for the largest gains. Third place operator Telefonica/O2 saw a more modest increase overall, but was able to improve its score significantly in Munich to become the leading operator in the city, overtaking country leader Deutsche Telecom and well ahead of Vodafone.
In Austria, Magenta extended its winning streak to six years in pole position. This is a remarkable achievement given that A1 and Hutchinson 3, Austria’s other two operators, have not been resting on their laurels; both have also seen improvements in their scores year-on-year in the 2023 tests.
In Switzerland all three operators Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt rank as outstanding networks. Swisscom and Sunrise are ranked in the top 5 operators worldwide, while Salt got its first ‘Outstanding’ result in 2023.
Apart from the reputational improvement to customers, these positive results show that operator efforts are paying off. In Deutsche Telecom’s annual report, the consecutive number 1 ranking of Deutsche Telecom (in Germany) and Magenta Telekom (in Austria) are referred on multiple occasions as one of the great achievements for the group, giving additional confidence to stakeholders.
The separate crowd test crowdsources user experience data from large numbers of customers, meaning every user may be a part of the test, and delivering network performance feedback from many devices. This test is intended to supplement the measured values of the drive and walk tests, which are aimed at assessing peak performance.
Crowdsourced data is analysed to assess the quality of the everyday mobile phone performance delivered to large numbers of customers. In addition to voice, assessed categories include broadband coverage, active download and upload speeds, latency and stability. The results of crowdsourcing account for 25 per cent of the overall rating. Crowd tests show the network performance received by end users although the devices and tariffs used also have an impact on these results.
The network reliability rating is not a separate category, but an additional view of the results of the other categories. For this purpose all measured values are divided into basic or everyday requirements, known as Qualifier KPIs, and values related to maximum performance, Differentiator KPIs.
The network reliability measurement only takes into account the Qualifier KPIs from the voice and data categories of the main tests as well as the basic results from the crowdsourcing. This makes it possible to investigate how well the networks fulfil the everyday requirements of end users.
The DACH market testing program uses four test vehicles in each country, each equipped with nine smartphones. One Samsung Galaxy S23 per network operator is used to carry out the voice measurements, another S23 is used for the data tests and a third to establish the connections for the “Conversational app“ test case. For all measurements, the smartphones are set to “5G preferred” mode wherever this is supported by the network.
Network operators are given access to the testing framework conditions at an early stage, including the smartphones used, parameters taken into account and the testing schedule. Regular dialogue is intended to ensure firmware versions used on test smartphones optimally support technologies such as carrier aggregation and 5G variants such as DSS, NSA or SA.
More than 200 mobile networks in over 120 countries have now participated in mobile network testing programs similar to the DACH region one, including over 100 in emerging markets. Recently tested or benchmarked operators include Airtel, Jio, Globe, Movitel, MTN, Ooredoo, STC, Telkomsel, Tigo, TMCel, Vivo, Vodacom, Vodafone, Yettel and Zain in countries including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Mozambique, Nigeria, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa and Zambia.
Mobile network testing and benchmarking aims to fairly and transparently assess the global development of networks, to improve network quality and performance, and ultimately to deliver better service for customers, while improving operators’ reputations and increasing their business.
