A bunch of interesting infrastructure news items from EMEA: … [visit site to read more]

News

After receiving complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) told the ISP that its adverts were “misleadingly implying that a sixth-generation mobile network existed and was able to be used by consumers”

This week, the ASA has announced that it has banned a number of adverts from UK ISP 6G Internet, after receiving a complaint that the company’s name could lead consumers to believe the company was offering non-existent 6G mobile services.

After an assessment, the ASA ruled that 6G Internet may no longer use its adverts in their current form, saying customers could easily be confused into believing 6G mobile services were being offered.

6G Internet said they were not aware of any complaints from consumers or regulatory bodies about the confusion, arguing that their adverts made clear that the service being offered was home internet, not mobile services.

Regardless, the company has agreed to comply with the ASA’s decision regarding their adverts and has made minor changes on their website to hopefully clarify their service offerings.

“We make clear in all of our advertising the download speeds of our services and that we provide home broadband, as opposed to mobile broadband delivered using generations of cellular technologies,” explained 6G Internet in a statement. “Whilst we have not found, or been presented with, any evidence that our advertising has caused confusion, it is never our intention to mislead customers.”

6G Internet, which provides home broadband services using fixed wireless technology connected to local wholesale fibre networks, was founded back in 2013, at a time when even 5G mobile services were still but a glimmer in the wireless industry’s eye.

Nonetheless, the company’s brand name was always going to draw comparisons to the future mobile technology 6G, which is gradually growing more prominent in the public consciousness despite being unlikely to mature until 2028 at the earliest.

For now, 6G Internet has not indicated any intention of changing its brand name but, when the 6G mobile era arrives towards the end of the decade, further confusion on the part of consumers seems inevitable.

Ultimately, UK broadband consumers still have a very poor understanding of what technologies are being used to provide services. Earlier this year, for example, Ofcom found that only 46% of customers who believed they were receiving ‘full fibre broadband’ actually had fibre-to-the-home available to them. As a result, the regulator is currently pressing operators to clarify their broadband offerings and be more careful with the terminology used in advertising.

Are the UK’s ISPs doing enough to ensure customers understand what they are paying for? Join the network operators, regulators, and the wider telecoms industry in discussion at this year’s upcoming Connected Britain conference   

Also in the news:
Sky Business considers buying up TalkTalk B2B unit
Australian govt launches Telecommunications Disaster Resilience Innovation programme
SK Telecom to invest $100m in AI firm Anthropic  

Hard on the heels of yesterday’s news about its sister company Vumatel’s success in the South African FTTH market, fibre infrastructure provider Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) has launched a R400 million (about US$21 million) fibre network infrastructure expansion project.

The news came in the form of a statement from Maziv, the parent company of both DFA and Vumatel.

Quoted in a number of local news outlets, Maziv says the reason for the expansion was to enhance provision of connectivity hardware to allow high-speed connectivity to more businesses and contribute to South Africa’s digital transformation efforts, “enabling greater access to online services and improving economic growth”.

This isn’t unexpected. The project has apparently been in trial phase since February and is now being rolled out at scale.

News resource MyBroadband says DFA will deploy 800 additional dry underground distribution cabinets (DUDCs) as part of the upgrade project. These units have been developed and manufactured in South Africa to DFA’s specifications.

Maziv says the additional units will dramatically shorten the distance data travels from the customer and over the network using dedicated cables, ensuring the shortest possible installation times and, Maziv suggests, reduced downtime during repairs and maintenance activities. The infrastructure upgrade will be carried out in three phases over roughly 18 months.

The project should also accommodate future growth and demand on the network, with the ability to scale up fibre deployment to meet demand as it increases.

This news comes a week after South Africa’s Competition Commission blocked a Vodacom takeover of Vumatel and DFA, though the proposal may now be taken to the country’s Competition Tribunal.

News

The drafted legislation would see a mechanism created to share spectrum between the military, state security services, and commercial operators, even granting the military emergency powers to shut down networks

A new draft of Russian’s 2035 telecommunications strategy could see the Russian military gain significant powers over civilian mobile networks, including the right to disable them if a state emergency is declared.

According to a report from Kommersant, the new bill includes a new mechanism through which Russian military and security services can share mobile spectrum with commercial operators. This shared spectrum will reportedly be managed by a dedicated third party, which the report suggests could be Russian censorship agency Roskomnadzor.

For the mobile operators, this shared spectrum could provide a boost in service quality for customers, providing much needed additional capacity. On the other hand, it will give the military far greater influence over public networks, both in terms of monitoring and service provisioning.

The report notes that the new telecoms strategy will also enable the military to seize control of civilian networks if a state of emergency is declared. This includes the right to shut off networks entirely if desired.

Overcoming spectrum struggles

The Russian military’s relationship with civilian mobile spectrum is already a complicated one, particularly when it comes to 5G. Years of disjointed spectrum policy have left many of the prime 5G spectrum bands, including the so-called ‘golden band’ of 3.4–3.8GHz, partly occupied by state apparatus, including the Federal Protective Service (FSO), the Federal Air Transport Agency, the Ministry of Defense, and the Russian space agency, Roskosmos.

Seeking to rectify this issue, the Russian mobile operators set up a joint venture in 2017, now known as New Digital Solutions, aiming to work together on 5G spectrum strategy and research.

“The lack of frequencies suitable for creating 5G networks in Russia is one of the most significant constraints. The JV has a very large amount of work ahead of releasing radio frequency resources, taking into account the whole range of issues – regulatory, organisational, technical, economic,” explained Rostelecom president Mikhail Oseevsky back in 2021.

But despite some progress in clearing certain spectrum bands, challenges in this area persist, with a Beeline (VEON) spokesperson last year noting that there was still “significant technical limitations in the use of existing radio services using the main spectrum band for the development of 5G mobile networks over the 3.4–3.8GHz band”.

Now, the new telecoms strategy is seeking to overcome this challenge by simply banning commercial operators from the 3.4–3.8GHz band, reserving it for state usage and pushing the commercial network operators towards alternative frequencies.

“Explicitly, the draft strategy will include a ban on the use of the golden band,” explained Maxut Shadayev, head of Russia’s Digital Development Ministry. “We will develop 5G. There are other available bands for 5G, for example, 4,400-4,990MHz.”

Challenges extend beyond midband

The Russian operators’ spectrum woes are not confined to the mid-band. Russian operators theoretically hold the rights to use the valuable 700MHz low-band spectrum for 4G and 5G services, but these bands are currently occupied by broadcasters. In fact, backed by a number of regulatory rulings, the broadcasters have proven loath to migrate their services away from these frequencies, attempting to charge the mobile operators exorbitant prices in exchange for doing so.

The government’s sympathy for the broadcasters in this battle may be wearing thin, however, with the government was now considering ordering the broadcasters to vacate the spectrum.

“They believe that the operator must pay. They made an assessment, received some estimated amount, and the number was quite high; the operators are not ready to pay that much for it,” explained Shadayev, noting the government was exploring the possibility of “removing the spectrum in principle”.

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Also in the news:
Sky Business considers buying up TalkTalk B2B unit
Australian govt launches Telecommunications Disaster Resilience Innovation programme
SK Telecom to invest $100m in AI firm Anthropic  

Kenya’s leading operator Safaricom says it has increased account limits on its wildly popular M-Pesa mobile money service to KSh500,000 (about US$3,477) following approval from the Central Bank of Kenya.

The higher account limit was effective from 15 August 2023, for all M-Pesa customers.

In addition to the higher account limit, M-Pesa customers are also set to enjoy an increased daily transaction limit of KSh500,000 per day. The current per transaction limits of KSh150,000 (about US$1,043) will remain. However, customers can make as many transactions up to the daily limit as they wish.

Safaricom suggests the move is set to be a boost for businesses in the country, especially SMEs, as the share of cashless transactions continues to rise. In the last financial year to March 2023, more than 606,000 businesses were receiving payments through Lipa Na M-Pesa, with a total of KSh1.625 trillion (about US$11. 3 billion) transacted in the 12 months.

M-Pesa transaction limits were previously increased in March 2020 when the Central Bank of Kenya approved the doubling of transaction limits to KSh150,000 and daily and account limits to KSh300,000.

Of the new limits, Peter Ndegwa, CEO of Safaricom, says: “We appreciate the role that the Central Bank of Kenya has played by constantly providing guidance on innovations and protections that we have put in place to strengthen M-Pesa’s adherence  to KYC, anti-money laundering and other financial regulations and safeguards. The increased account limits will provide customers and especially small businesses with increased convenience as the share of cashless transactions continues to rise.”

News

The operator has gained access to all of the spectrum it purchased at auction roughly four months ahead of schedule

Back in 2021, Verizon paid a whopping $45.5 billion at auction for 5G spectrum in the C-band, planning on using it at the backbone of their national 5G network.

However, there was a catch: some of the spectrum was currently being used by satellite operators, like Intelsat and SES, to provide video and radio services.

Thankfully, this issue had been foreseen well in advance by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which had introduced a plan in 2020 offering the satellite players incentives totalling almost $10 billion to clear the C-band spectrum quickly by December 2023. Since then, most satellite operators have moved swiftly to migrate their services off the C-band and therefore collect the sizable payouts.

Now, the roughly four months before the deadline for the satellite players to shift their services, Verizon has announced that the migration process is complete, and it now has access to the entirety of its C-band spectrum holdings.

As a result, it will begin to rollout the additional spectrum across the country, noting that this will allow 5G customers in some parts of the country double or even triple the current bandwidth.

“Early access to the remainder of the C-band spectrum puts us another four months ahead of schedule from our original projections. This additional spectrum will make 5G Ultra Wideband available to even more Americans and will open up more availability of our home and business broadband solutions,” said Joe Russo, EVP & President of Global Networks and Technology for Verizon. “The more spectrum we deploy on our network, the more capacity we add for our customers to connect.”

Making use of the newly freed-up spectrum is seemingly a simple task, with the operator’s existing 5G RAN only requiring a simple software update to integrate the additional airwaves.

Verizon had initially deployed 60MHz of C-band spectrum across 46 markets in 2022, a total that slowly expanded as the satellite operators gradually migrated away from the C-band. Now, full access to the company’s C-band holdings means the operator can provide a minimum of 140MHz of spectrum across the contiguous US, with an average of 161MHz.

In 158 markets in the US ­­– covering almost 40 million people – customers will have access to the full 200MHz of spectrum.

What impact will additional C-band spectrum have on 5G consumers in the US? Join the discussion at Connected America 2024, live in Dallas, Texas

Also in the news:
Cisco to buy-out Telenor from Working Group Two JV
Poland’s ‘largest ever’ broadband subsidy draws 300 applications
Italian government signs MoU to take minority stake in TIM’s NetCo 

Saudi Arabian service provider Zain and Red Sea Global (RSG), a multi-project developer, have unveiled what they call the world’s first zero-carbon 5G network at the Six Senses Southern Dunes resort at The Red Sea Project on the west coast of Saudi Arabia.

The Red Sea, as the project is known, is a vast land and property project focusing on luxury and ecotourism to attract visitors to the Red Sea coast. It is expected to be completed by 2030. Six Senses Southern Dunes is set to open during the first phase of development of The Red Sea, which is on track to be completed by the end of 2023.

The zero-carbon 5G network, designed exclusively for The Red Sea, will bring guests the highest speeds for 5G connectivity in the region and be powered by 100% renewable energy from over 760,000 solar panels that Red Sea Global has built to power the entire 28,000 square kilometre destination.

Designed using innovative 3D printing technology, the project will achieve three primary goals: preserving the environment, reducing emissions by utilizing renewable energy, and mitigating visual distortion. In addition the towers have been built to blend harmoniously with the landscape.

The creation of the 5G network aligns with Vision 2030’s goals of elevating clean energy reliance, curbing carbon emissions, and safeguarding the environment. Vision 2030 is a government programme that aims to increased economic diversification.

Due to open its doors to its first guests later this year, The Red Sea will consist of 50 resorts, offering up to 8,000 hotel rooms and more than 1,000 residential properties across 22 islands and six inland sites once completed. The destination will also include luxury marinas, golf courses, entertainment, F&B, and leisure facilities.

Red Sea Global is a closed joint-stock company wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia.