News

EE has unveiled a new look for its flagship store, located in Westfield London, White City.

‘The EE Studio’ is a 4,230-square-foot retail space and is the first of EE’s new “Experience” stores. Three more ‘Experience’ stores will also be opening in the coming months in Cardiff, Manchester Trafford Centre, and Bluewater.

The launch of ‘The EE Studio’ is a key part of the company’s new retail strategy. Bridget Lea, Managing Director of Commercial, EE described the new store as the “antithesis of the traditional mobile store”.

The retail space includes experience zones including the Welcome Zone, a dynamic shopfront with a changeable digital window canvas; a Digital Spa, aimed to show customers how to better balance their technology use; a Gaming Zone; a Stage which will host events, pop-ups, and skills workshops; and a Tech area for showcasing new devices and products. There are also various room sets displaying technology applications in kitchen, children’s bedroom, and home office settings.

The store has been designed to be inclusive and “welcoming for all”, explained Lea. She also added that EE are working with partners to make the space accessible to the local community.

Speaking at the new store this morning, BT Group’s CEO Consumer, Marc Allera described the store as “a glimpse into the new world of EE” and the company’s renewed brand identity. EE’s new strategy will see the company focus on more than just delivering the best connectivity for customers and will see the brand focus on supporting customers to better understand how to navigate an increasingly complex digital world.

When asked about yesterday’s announcement of a planned merger between Vodafone and Three in the UK, Allera was confident about the strength of EE’s brand commenting: “We’re treading our own path and our own plan. The great thing is that we’re many years into an integration and they’re very hard things to execute. When you have big brands, big customer bases, IT, cultures, everything is different. What you’re starting to see now is the fruits of many years of hard work to pull those capabilities together to create something that’s stronger than when we were apart…Our belief is that we’re in a really strong position if you think of our assets; we’ve got the best fixed network, the best mobile network and when you think about the experiences you can create with bringing mobile and fixed networks together, we get really excited about that”.

Startup Hello Space, described as Turkey’s first commercial ‘pocketqube’ satellite venture, has launched what it describes as the world’s tiniest satellite – with the help of SpaceX.

Hello Space aims to send a pocketqube constellation into space and offer uninterrupted end-to-end IoT data services from space to businesses in agriculture, logistics, energy industries, and many more.

Istanbul, the first Hello Space, test pocketqube, with dimensions of 5cm x 5cm x 5cm, was launched into space this week from California, with the SpaceX Falcon-9 Transporter-8 mission.

Established in May 2022, Hello Space completed software and hardware production followed by a space launch in under 13 months. Concurrent with the pocketqube satellite production process, the Hello Space Ground Station was built to serve as the management and control center for the pocketqube satellite constellation.

Through its advanced narrowband data communication technology, Hello Space will provide continuous and reliable data services globally by providing coverage from space. Hello Space will be able to offer IoT services, even in remote areas with low population density and uncovered regions such as oceans and remote but significant agricultural lands.

If everything goes to plan, the services offered will include the provision of location data from containers shipped in the ocean, humidity data from remote agricultural lands, and end-to-end temperature data in long-distance cold-chain food logistics. Consistent, accurate data from space will improve the efficiency of businesses, says Hello Space.

Hello Space says is now getting ready for the deployment of four new test pocketqube satellites, planned to be launched in October 2023.

News

Dutch-based United Group is working with US-based Parallel Wireless to trial Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) technology in Bulgaria on the Vivacom network.

Vivacom is a major MNO in Bulgaria and is one of eight countries in which United Group operates. Collectively the group services more than 15 million users and has nearly 15,000 employees.

The trial in Bulgaria is a combination of lab testing and field testing on Vivacom’s existing network and seeks to demonstrate successful implantation of ORAN networks in both urban and rural environments. The aim is to showcase that ORAN across 2G, 4G, and 5G can deliver equivalent or improved performance compared to traditional radio access networks (SRAN).

Vivacom CEO, Nikolay Andreev, flagged that “ORAN brings opportunities for greater vendor diversity and much-needed innovation in the mobile radio network sector,” and further commented “This technology will provide flexibility and competitiveness for operators, and improved services for customers. We hope this trial will be the first step in delivering ORAN technology to Bulgaria.”

Steve Papa, Founder & CEO of Parallel Wireless commented that “Bulgaria is a great place to showcase the benefits of ORAN demonstrating its flexibility and agility, allowing United Group & Vivacom the freedom to choose its vendors without being locked in with one specific vendor”

The Netherlands is not only HQ for United Group but is also the location of this years Total Telecom Congress. Join us for the Technology Congress on the 22 November for the panel discussion “Open RAN for network efficiency and better services”. Find out more at totaltele.com/congress

News

The company aims to upgrade the companies’ existing hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) networks to fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP)

In summer last year, Belgian operator Telenet formed a partnership with utility company Fluvius to set up a fibre joint venture, aimed at deploying full fibre throughout the Flanders region.

The JV, then known simple as NetCo, would focus on upgrading the duo’s existing HFC networks in the region to full fibre, or to DOCSIS technology where FTTP would be unfeasible.

Telenet said that it would own 66.8% of the business, with Fluvius owning the remaining 33.2%.

Combined, the partners said they would invest up to €2 billion in the business over the following eight years to achieve the goal of providing everyone in Flanders with access to gigabit-capable broadband.

The JV received approval from the European Commission two weeks ago, paving the way for the company’s initial fibre deployments, which are scheduled to begin next month.

With this in mind, the company has now announced its new brand name: Wyre.

Aside from the obvious fibre-related pun, Wyre says that the ‘y’ in its name stands for ‘you’ – a reminder of the company’s pledge “to take everyone into the digital future”. A tenuous explanation, yes, but no doubt the title will be functional for SEO purposes.

Micha Berger (pictured), previously Telenet’s special projects lead, will serve as Wyre’s CEO.

In somewhat related news, Liberty Global formally began the process of buying out Telenet’s shares earlier this month, seemingly seeking to take advantage of the company’s depressed share price.

Join the telecoms community in discussion at this year’s Total Telecom Congress live in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Also in the news:
Final bids for TIM’s fibre network expected tomorrow
Let’s talk about the symbiotic relationship between data centers and submarine cables
Mexico’s high 5G spectrum price could see Telcel the only bidder in latest auction

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News

The cyberattack against the UK telecoms regulator reportedly jeopardised the personal information of 412 employees, as well as confidential data from various companies that Ofcom regulates

Today, Ofcom has confirmed that it is among an increasing number of companies to fall victim to a ransomware attack by cybercriminal organisation Clop, thought to be based in Russia.

Over the past couple of weeks, numerous companies including the BBC, British Airways, and Boots have announced that they have had sensitive data stolen by the ransomware group, affecting over 100,000 staff in total. In some cases, the data accessed included sensitive payroll.

Now, Ofcom says that it too has fallen victim to this cyberattack, resulting in the personal information of 412 employees being accessed, as well as confidential data belonging to companies being regulated by Ofcom.

Payroll data was not accessed in Ofcom’s case, according to reports.

In the attack on Ofcom, as was the case for the previously announced attacks, the breach relates to vulnerabilities in MOVEit, software being used by organisations to transfer sensitive information.

Researchers reportedly discovered a critical vulnerability on this software back in May, with attempts to exploit this vulnerability reportedly being revealed just a month later. However, it seems these revelations came too late to stop Clop from targeting major companies around the world.

Nonetheless, Ofcom says it has reacted quickly to minimise the impact of the attack, as well as notifying the Information Commissioners Office.

“A limited amount of information about certain companies we regulate – some of it confidential – along with personal data of 412 Ofcom employees, was downloaded during the attack,” said Ofcom in a statement. “The security of commercially confidential and sensitive personal information provided to Ofcom is taken extremely seriously. We took immediate action to prevent further use of the MOVEit service and to implement the recommended security measures. We also swiftly alerted all affected Ofcom-regulated companies, and we continue to offer support and assistance to our colleagues.”

According to reports, Clop is threatening to begin publishing the sensitive data of affected companies later this week if they are not paid a ransom fee. The scale of the ransom has not been made public.

Ransomware attacks such as this have been increasing at a meteoric rate in recent years, fuelled by an influx of new cybercriminal organisations and the expansion of existing operations since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Cyber extortion activity has reached a new high in the first quarter of 2023 and the recent MOVEit data breach is a stark reminder that threat actors are always on the lookout to wreak havoc. In this case, companies using the MOVEit software became potential targets as it appears that hackers affiliated with the Cl0p group orchestrated a mass attack to find and compromise their servers,” explained Charl Van Der Walt, Head of Security Research at Orange Cyberdefense.

“Accounting for a staggering 36% of all victims in 2022, it is not surprising that large organisations are becoming a preferred target for cyber extortion due to handling thousands of pieces of personal data. Whilst this remains true in the case of the MOVEit breach, medium and small sized organisations are not safe either, as cyber criminals are opportunistic by nature.”

Is the global telecoms industry doing enough to protect their customers’ personal data from ransomware attacks? Join the telecoms community as they discuss the hottest issues in cybersecurity at this year’s Total Telecom Congress live in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Also in the news:
Final bids for TIM’s fibre network expected tomorrow
Let’s talk about the symbiotic relationship between data centers and submarine cables
Mexico’s high 5G spectrum price could see Telcel the only bidder in latest auction