Press Release

Airtel plans to roll out Nokia iSIM Secure Connect technology in several African countries over the next year

Nokia today announced that Airtel Africa has selected its iSIM Secure Connect technology, in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model, as part of the operator’s wider digitalization efforts to offer its customers 5G and IoT-based on-demand services.

Nokia’s telecom SaaS, integrated SaaS SIM (iSIM) Secure Connect technology provides communication service providers (CSPs) and enterprises with the capability to securely manage machine-to-machine and consumer device subscriptions for eSIM- and iSIM-enabled devices.

Integrated SIM (iSIM) and embedded SIM (eSIM) will give Airtel the ability to remotely store and manage multiple subscriptions for authenticating users and devices on its network.
Nokia has already supported Airtel in deploying iSIM Secure Connect earlier this month in Nigeria. Airtel now plans to roll out the solution in ten other African markets over the next year.

Nokia and Airtel completed a successful pilot project at the end of 2022.

Razvan Ungureanu, Chief Technology Officer and Information Officer at Airtel, said: “We are very pleased to expand Airtel and Nokia’s long-standing partnership in this new area. Nokia iSIM technology gives us new network capabilities, including in the areas of verification and authentication services, while allowing us to offer new network service that our customers are increasingly looking for.”

Rajiv Aggarwal, Head of Central, East and West Africa (CEWA) Market Unit at Nokia, said: “We envision a world that is more productive with the digitalization capabilities we build for our operator customers. Nokia iSIM capabilities enable faster service delivery and time-to-value to our customers. With these capabilities, we are proud to help Airtel in Africa expand its digitalization efforts and provide its customers with new on-demand services, transforming their lives.”

Keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news with Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

Also in the news:
Viasat–Inmarsat merger gets provisional greenlight from CMA
Verizon shuffles executive team in search of growth
Ericsson to pay DoJ $206.7m over bribery scandal

News

The latest move to help reduce the Group’s cost could see Vodafone Italy’s workforce shrunk by around a fifth

In November last year, following a resoundingly poor set of financial results, then-CEO Nick Read announced that Vodafone Group would implement various cost cutting measures in an attempt to save €1 billion over the next thee years. Read hinted that this process would inevitably include job losses, though at what scale was left unclear.

By January 2023, however, the first signs of restructuring were beginning to show, with reports suggesting that the company would look to cut “sever hundred jobs”, with the company’s London office set to take the brunt of the cuts.

Last month, in February, Vodafone released its latest financial results, with new interim CEO Margherita Della Valle at the helm for the first time. While these results were once again uninspiring, the company did not lower its guidance, with Della Valle saying that around €500 million-worth of cost cutting initiatives were already underway.

“We’ve already taken action, including simplifying our structure to give local markets full autonomy and accountability to make the best commercial decisions for their customers. In addition, we now have initiatives underway to generate around half of our €1 billion cost savings target. There is more to do and our focus is to provide a better service to our customers, become a simpler business and deliver growth,” she said.

Now, one month later, it seems that some of these measures include job cuts in the highly competitive Italian market, with local union sources telling the media that around 1,000 jobs are being targeted for termination by the operator.

Vodafone’s Italian workforce totalled 5,765 this time last year, hence the loss of 1,000 jobs would mean cutting around a fifth of staff in the country.

According to the unions, negotiations over the cuts are set to take place in the coming weeks.

Italy has been a challenging market for Vodafone since 2018, when French telecoms group Iliad entered the market and trigged a price war that is still ongoing.

In related news, this week has not been all doom and gloom for Vodafone, with media sources today hinting that the long-awaited merger negotiations between Vodafone UK and Three UK could finally be reaching a conclusion.

Discussions were formally confirmed to be taking place in October last year, with sources from Bloomberg suggesting that a deal could be announced “as soon as this month”.

Sources expect Vodafone to own 51% of the joint entity, with Three’s owner, CK Hutchison, owning the remaining 49%.

Keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news with Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

Also in the news:
Viasat–Inmarsat merger gets provisional greenlight from CMA
Verizon shuffles executive team in search of growth
Ericsson to pay DoJ $206.7m over bribery scandal

News

Zzoomm is reportedly through to the second round of bidding to acquire its fellow altnet, which has also drawn attention from the likes of Virgin Media O2 (VMO2)

With the glut of investment in the UK fibre market finally beginning to dry up due to challenging economic conditions, consolidation appears to be on the horizon for the country’s altnet community.

Last month, reports suggested that altnet Trooli, which covers over 275,000 UK homes with fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), was being put up for sale.

It did not take long for the move to draw the attention of some of the market’s biggest players, with VMO2 being named in media reports.

Now, further reports from Sky News suggest that one of Trooli’s altnet peers, Zzoomm, could be interested in a merger. According to sources, Zzoomm has made it through to the second round of an auction being conducted by bankers at Lazard.

Zzoomm currently has roughly 100,000 premises passed by its own fibre network and has ambitions of expanding this total to one million.

Any deal for Trooli is likely to be valued at over £100 million.

In related news, last month we saw altnet consolidation already underway, with Fern Trading Limited, owner of Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre, Giganet, and AllPoints Fibre, merging the four networks into a single FTTH player.

How is the UK fibre landscape evolving in 2023? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s live Connected North conference

Also in the news:
Viasat–Inmarsat merger gets provisional greenlight from CMA
Verizon shuffles executive team in search of growth
Ericsson to pay DoJ $206.7m over bribery scandal

An infrastructure expansion, a new IX, a couple of customer wins, and a strategic investment: … [visit site to read more]

VIEWPOINT

Microwave transmission is emerging as an important part of 5G deployment, especially so in European and Middle East markets, according to Huawei’s Perry Yang, President of Huawei’s microwave product line.

“Since the beginning of 5G deployment Microwave transmission has become a must for 5G deployment. It has been proven around the world that microwave has accelerated 5G deployment especially in markets such as Europe and the Middle East. It has become one of the most mainstream technologies for 5G backhaul in countries in these regions. And now the performance of Microwave has reached the same level as optical fiber cable,” said Perry Yang in an exclusive interaction with Total Telecom at Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, Spain.

Factors driving wide adoption of microwave transmission

There are several reasons for the growing relevance of microwave transmission. A key reason is that Microwave has evolved and is much more flexible technology now helping the service providers to address several new-age challenges. “The Microwave industry has witnessed several changes. For instance, it has evolved from single-band to multi-bands and also from single carrier component to multiple carrier components, thus helping service providers to increase capacity and improve network performance,” explains Perry Yang.

Further, microwave backhaul is able to meet the growing demand for capacity and low latency. It is also allowing service providers to provide services in areas where service providers are unable to deploy fiber. “Using Microwave for 5G deployment will help reduce the digital divide. For instance, in areas where fiber might be difficult to deploy Microwave will be the best and the most reliable way for people to access 5G connectivity,” says Perry Yang.

Further, microwave transmission is helping telcos bring down the power consumption. Huawei’s microwave range of solutions are empowering telcos in bringing down their power expenses while improving the efficiency of their network.

Even so, the most crucial reason for the growing adoption of microwave transmission in 5G is the use of E-band (71GHz–76GHz and 81GHz–86GHz) which has now emerged as the most crucial band for microwave deployment.

“5G demands almost 10 times the capacity as compared with LTE and that means that the operators need technology that helps in smooth evolution from 4G to 5G. We know that E band spectrum is as large as 10GHz which allows service providers to provide the required speed, capacity and coverage of 5G. Further, E-band adopts single band architecture and because of low power consumption it is very crucial for 5G,” explains Perry Yang.

He further highlighted the deployment Huawei LR E-band in Germany which demonstrated that Microwave transmission was able to cover a long distance of 7 km, thus helping the service provider in bringing down investment in fiber cable, which can now be used in some other areas. “The next generation of technologies will help telcos enjoy longer distance transmission and reduce cost because now they don’t need to pay that much for power,” said Perry Yang.

The traditional way to increase capacity for microwave transmission is to add more bands. However, that also leads to a more complex architecture and increased power consumption. Telcos also end up paying more for additional band licenses. However, now with the use of E-band for microwave transmission can truly empower the telcos.

Huawei recently introduced MAGICSwave range of solutions which is designed to help service providers address several challenges related to backhaul. Multi-T and multi-R construct with 50Gbps cross-band bandwidth capability ensures that the performance is similar to optical fiber. Further, Perry Yang elaborated that Huawei is also announcing the launch of MAGICSwave which will support the next ten years of evolution for service providers.

“These solutions are not just designed for 5G evolution but they are designed for 5G, 5.5G and will support the service providers with smooth evolution from 4G to 5G and then to 5.5G and even beyond,” says Perry Yang.

Helping Telcos Reduce Power Consumption

Huawei has taken a lead in helping service providers bring down power consumption without impacting the performance. “When the consumption is high microwave will need to provide more capacity but during idle time or at night microwave will not need to provide high capacity. We have technology that can dynamically sense the amount of traffic so during idle time or during night our solutions are able to shut down while ensuring that the services are not interrupted,” says Perry Yang.

“We are also innovating in the architecture of our hardware. These are the kind of innovation we have brought to the market to reduce overall power consumption,” he added.

Huawei hopes that with the launch of truly innovative microwave transmission solutions, it is giving confidence to the industry that microwave transmission technology will help them evolve seamlessly from 4G to 5G to 5.5G and even 6G.