News

The deal with Telkomsel’s parent company Telkom will see the mobile operator merged with Telkom’s wholly owned broadband arm, IndiHome

Today, Indonesian wireless operator Telkomsel has announced plans to merge with fixed broadband operator, IndiHome.

The deal, worth roughly $3.9 billion, will see Indonesia’s largest mobile operator combined with the country’s largest fixed broadband provider.

Both Telkomsel and IndiHome are owned by the same parent company, multinational telecoms conglomerate PT Telkom Indonesia; Telkom wholly owns IniHome and owns a 65% stake in Telkomsel, with Singapore’s Singtel holding the remaining 35%.

Following the merger, Telkom will hold 70.4% of the combined entity, with Singtel holding the remaining 29.6%.

“We believe this is a rare opportunity for Telkomsel to tap into the high-growth fixed broadband market in Indonesia by partnering with the country’s largest broadband operator which is profitable and cash-generating,” said Yuen Kuan Moon, CEO of Singtel. “Given the post-pandemic demand for high-quality broadband and the global shift to fixed mobile convergence, this move will help Telkomsel entrench its position as Indonesia’s leading integrated telco and greatly enhance its growth prospects.”

The scale of the fixed broadband opportunity itself also cannot be underestimated. Indonesia has a broadband penetration rate of just 14%, leaving over 200 million people without access. In additional, fixed broadband ARPU is six-times that of mobile customers, offering a huge opportunity for revenue growth.

Telkomsel hopes that by offering converged fixed–mobile services, their dominant position within the Indonesian market will be secured for years to come.

The deal will be subject to all the typical regulatory oversight and will require the approval of Telkom’s shareholders.

The Indonesian telecoms sector has been undergoing significant consolidation recently, most notably with the combination of CK Hutchison’s H3I and Ooredoo’s Indosat, which was finalised at the start of 2022.

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Bouygues Telecom and Altice France (SFR) have began legal proceedings with the Administrative Court of Paris, seeking to gain compensation from the state for having to remove and replace Huawei radio equipment

At the height of debates surrounding 5G and national security in 2019–2020, France, like many European countries, refused to issue an outright ban on Huawei equipment, as was done by the UK and Sweden.

Instead, the country took a more indirect route, with 2019 Constitutional Council ruling ordering its operators to remove the Chinese vendor’s equipment in densely populated and strategically important areas.

Perhaps more importantly, this new law also stipulated than any new or renewed mobile equipment licences would need to be given the green light by ANSSI, France’s cybersecurity agency. Not long after this announcement, ANSSI indicated that it was unlikely to give such permission for Huawei equipment, in effect issuing a de facto ban on the vendor’s technology by 2028.

With Huawei equipment comprising a significant chunk of French mobile networks – around half for SFR and Bouygues Telecom – this new law presented operators with the unenviable and expensive task of removing and replacing the Chinese vendor’s equipment.

After around two years of unsuccessful legal challenges attempting to amend the law, SFR and Bouygues began removing Huawei equipment in March 2021.

Now, according to French news media L’Informe, the two operators are preparing to take the French government to court in attempt to recoup these rip and replace costs.

In a filing presented to the Administrative Court of Paris, Bouygues Telecom said that its costs amounted to roughly €82 million, though notes that this does not cover the entirety of the 3,000 towers it said will need to be re-equipped by 2028.

SFR did not reveal the specifics of its own expenses but, given it has over 8,000 affected towers, its own claim is likely to be significantly higher than those of Bouygues.

The media report notes that, while legal challenges against the so-called ‘anti-Huawei’ law were rejected by the French justice system in 2021, the rejection did accept that the new law impacted the operators’ property rights, thereby opening the door for potential compensation discussions.

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Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and UScellular have sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announcing voluntary commitments to meet aviation safety concerns

At the start of 2021, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon spent nearly $80 billion on C-band spectrum at the FCC’s 5G auction. This spectrum was pegged to be the focal point of the trio’s respective 5G networks, offering the ideal balance of high speed, low latency, and broad coverage.

By the start of 2022, however, a storm was brewing within the US aviation industry, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) fearing that the new 5G spectrum could interfere with sensitive flight instrumentation, such as altimeters.

While most of the telecoms industry ­– and, indeed, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency – believes these fears to be largely unfounded, it did not stop the US mobile operators from initially delaying their initial 5G rollouts and limiting their deployments near airports.

The FAA, meanwhile, said that it would begin requiring updated altimeters that are unaffected by the C-band spectrum to be fitted in its commercial aircraft.

Since then, discussions between the aviation and telecoms industries have been ongoing. In February 2023, the FAA said that it was now formally engaged in discussions with the nation’s leading wireless providers, saying they hoped to reach an amiable solution by July.

Now, it appears that just such a conclusion has been reached, with the mobile operators sending a joint letter to the FCC, having agreed voluntary concessions with the FAA to allay aviation safety worries.

“These voluntary commitments will support full-power deployments across C-Band, and are crafted to minimize the operational impact on our C-Band operations,” said the letter, signed by Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and UScellular.

Exactly what these commitments are is unclear, but sources suggest that they may last until 2028, with the FAA having initially sought concessions up to 2033.

In a statement, Verizon explained that the decision would ensure they were able to “fully use our C-band spectrum for 5G by the previously agreed to deadline of July 1.”

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Stellium Data Centres and CBRE have released The North of England Data Centres Market Report. The free report, which was commissioned by Stellium Data Centres, can be downloaded here.

Focusing on the economic growth and data centre capacity available in the North of England, the report notes the UK’s Northeast as having the lowest carbon intensity of any UK transmission area – a crucial requirement it says for a cloud service provider or hyperscaler – and which will benefit further with the development of large-scale renewable power from Dogger Bank, the largest off-shore wind farm in Europe.

CBRE cites Stellium 1, the Newcastle-based data centre operator’s scalable 80MW, 4,264 square metres colocation facility, as the largest in the region and one of the few capable of offering hyperscalers and large enterprises a viable alternative wholesale solution to London/Southern England. CBRE also highlighted Stellium’s campus as suitable for meeting wholesale requirements.

Keith Breed, Senior Research Analyst, Data Centres of CBRE said: “Selected Northern data centres such as Stellium 1 are becoming a strong proposition as a connectivity hub by providing access to fibre, dark fibre, Internet Exchanges (IXPs) and subsea cables – offering low latency local, national and international communications.”

He added: “The lower cost base compared with London and substantial reserves of available renewable power, positions the North as a potential alternative to the power constrained and relatively high-cost London region, where wholesale capacity has traditionally been based.” Stellium 1 is the only UK data centre with a secure landing station for housing the world’s latest subsea cable networks. These include AquaComms (to/from the US on the North Atlantic Loop) and Altibox (to/from the Nordics/Mainland Europe on NO-UK). Stellium also hosts the NCL-IX Exchange offering multiple peering opportunities to customers to minimise latency and transit costs.

Additionally, Stellium owns a 40 km carrier-neutral metropolitan area optical fibre network (MAN), complementing the Newcastle City high speed network and supporting the Northeast’s digital economy by enabling local full fibre network (LFFN) and 5G services.

Paul Mellon, Operations Director, Stellium Data Centres, commented: “CBRE’s research findings are well-aligned to our vision and strategy of making Stellium 1 the go-to wholesale data centre in the North of England for large enterprise, cloud and hyperscaler organisations. We are the only data centre operator offering a totally secure low latency UK alternative to London for internet traffic from the USA, Europe and Nordics.”

Stellium Data Centres will be joining Submarine Networks EMEA 2023 as a Gold Sponsor and will take part in a discussion on “Building the communications eco-system: from subsea, to the data centre, and beyond” on 31st May. To join Stellium and 800 senior leaders from the global subsea cable industry, head to the event website to book your ticket.

News

According to reports, the deal could be worth over $4 billion

Vodafone has long lamented the highly competitive nature of the Spanish telecoms market, in which they compete fiercely with Movistar, Orange, and MasMovil in an ongoing price war.

For some time, the company had hoped that market consolidation would be the solution to their woes, with rumours of a potential merger with MasMovil rising and falling repeatedly in recent years.

Indeed, this focus on consolidation in competitive markets quickly became something of a bugbear for the multinational mobile operator. Championed by then CEO Nick Read, Vodafone explored numerous tie-ups in markets including Italy, Belgium, and the UK.

But while discussions with Three UK appear to now be bearing fruit, a dearth of other merger deals meant that this news came too late for Read, who resigned at the end of last year.

In Spain specifically, Vodafone’s dreams of consolidation were ultimately quashed when MasMovil instead signed a deal to merge with rival telco giant Orange last year.

As a result, it now appears that Vodafone may be looking to exit the Spanish market entirely, with sources speaking to Bloomberg suggesting that the company has been presented with takeover offers from various suitors, including  Apollo Global Management Inc.

The details of such offers have yet to be revealed, though the sources suggest that Vodafone Spain could be valued at over $4 billion.

Vodafone has not announced any formal intention to sell its Spanish unit, but the sources suggest that the operator will consider offers if the price is right.

The fact that Vodafone Spain is receiving unsolicited takeover offers should not come as too great a surprise given the unit’s perceived vulnerability.

Since the departure of Nick Read, interim CEO Margherita Della Valle has moved to reduce Vodafone Spain’s independence by aggregating it with the company’s wider European Cluster, a group that contains numerous smaller European units like Ireland and Greece. Della Valle says that this move will help to further simplify the Group’s management and revitalise business growth in Spain, with the Cluster under the direct leadership of CEO Serpil Timuray.

As a result of this strategic rebalance, Vodafone Spain’s CEO, Colman Deegan, resigned from his post at the start of this year.

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Also in the news:
NTT and Microsoft collaborate to enhance corporate cyber resilience
Vodafone to cut around 1,300 jobs in Germany
Ofcom raise automatic compensation payments for UK ISP connectivity failures