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Back in February, TPG and Telstra struck a major network sharing agreement, set to provide both parties with key mobile assets they are currently missing; Telstra will allow TPG access to roughly 3,700 of its mobile towers in various parts of the country, with TPG in turn allowing Telstra to share 4G and 5G spectrum.
The operators heralded the deal as a boon for customers, with Telstra able to provide its customers with greater speeds and capacity, while expanding TPG’s 4G coverage from 96% to 98.8% of the country.
Not all of the market agreed, however, with the duo’s local rival Optus arguing that the move disincentivise them to invest in the more rural parts of Australia.
“This arrangement is not a sharing arrangement,” said Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin earlier this summer. “It is an arrangement where TPG withdraws from rural Australia and gets access to a network owned and operated by Telstra, paying Telstra for every customer it onboards to Telstra’s network.”
Optus countered by proposing to the ACCC that they should be the preferred partner a potential network sharing agreement with TPG, suggesting that this would provide better value for customer and maintain market competition.
Last month, Optus said that a network sharing deal with TPG was a “real commercial likelihood” if the ACCC were to reject the TPG–Telstra deal.
The ACCC regulator has proved relatively receptive to these arguments, leading TPG and Telstra to propose some concessions in earlier this month – most notably reducing the length of the sharing deal from ten years to eight.
This week, however, TPG has kyboshed the suggests of teaming up with Optus instead, saying in a letter to the ACCC that Optus was simply outcompeted by Telstra in this regard and was now seeking to force a less favourable deal upon TPG.
“Now, having had the benefit of seeing the proposed transaction and its terms, Optus wishes to use the authorisation process to remove Telstra as a competitor in relation to network sharing and leave it free to impose a less attractive, alternative transaction on TPG,” read the letter, which noted that Optus had been in the process of formulating its own network sharing proposal with TPG when the Telstra deal was announced.
“In light of the above evidence, it would be a perverse outcome and dangerous precedent for a competitor in the position of Optus to ultimately be successful in having the ACCC reject an otherwise pro-competitive transaction by threatening to withdraw their investment in the face of increased competition.”
A decision by the ACCC is expected to be made by the end of the year.
Also in the news:
Vestager: Restricting “high-risk” vendors a “matter of urgency” for EU
UKRI selects BT consortium for intelligent drone project
IRIS cable set to link Iceland and Ireland
A new CLS, some M&A activity, a technology upgrade, and a broad FTTH expansion move to keep an eye on: … [visit site to read more]
Pan-African payments provider Cellulant is back in the news again, this time thanks to a financial services partnership with micro, small and medium-enterprise (MSME)-focused B2B digital platform Solv Kenya.
The two companies have signed an agreement that will enable Solv Kenya’s expanding base of MSME partners to access digital payment and collections services offered by Cellulant.
Following the announcement of Solv’s commercial operations in Kenya last month, this partnership will enable MSMEs using the Solv Kenya platform to conveniently reconcile, receive and view all their payments on the go.
MSMEs employ over 15 million people in the country but they struggle with access to finance, due mainly to financiers’ limited and unclear information about their operations.
According to Sheila Kimani-Omukuba, CEO of Solv Kenya, the collaboration will enable efficient and seamless transactions for the various business enterprises in the Solv marketplace. « Processing and tracking transactions have historically been a problem for many small businesses and financial institutions have to deal with this gap,” she says.
She adds: “This partnership gives us the chance to handle financial services more quickly and effectively to support their daily operations, which supports our goal of utilizing digital capabilities to enhance MSMEs’ profitability, enable growth, and operational efficiency.”
More than 5,000 MSMEs and over ten multinational corporations have joined Solv Kenya, and the company plans to sign up 10,000 businesses by the end of the year. Cellulant has come on board as a technology payments partner.
Cellulant joins a growing list of partners in Solv Kenya’s portfolio. Through its supply chain financing solution, the platform has targeted giving over 100,000 Kenyan MSMEs access to funding by issuing over Kes 10 billion (a little under US$82,000,000) in working capital credit each year.
The new Australian 5G uplink record, which follows on from a number of Australian 5G speed records announced by Nokia earlier in the year, will enable Nokia and its customers such as TPG Telecom to offer ultra-high-performing, low-latency services for Industrial and IoT applications which are heavily reliant on high-speed uplink connectivity. The solution is expected to be fully deployed next year as devices that support this capability become available.
The live demonstration involved a commercially available Nokia AirScale 5G mmWave base station utilising TPG Telecom’s 26 GHz spectrum to connect, over the air, to a 5G device powered by a Snapdragon® X65 5G Modem-RF System featuring fourth-generation Qualcomm® QTM545 mmWave antenna modules. Additionally, Nokia deployed its industry-leading Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology to fully leverage the available spectrum assets. The CA setup included four component carriers of 100 MHz each in the 26 GHz band.
The demonstration also leveraged Nokia’s 5G Core to provide the speed, intelligence, and security for testing the delivery of new advanced 5G services.
Once deployed, 5G mmWave technology will create new service opportunities for both consumers and industries. For consumers it will allow real-time multi-user 8K ultra-high-definition bi-directional video streaming, and augmented reality content for smartphones or wearable devices for immersive experiences.
For industries it will enable streaming of massive amounts of data directly from embedded IoT sensors and industrial robots over 5G, allowing the real-time control of industrial processes using powerful 5G connected Edge Compute Nodes. This concept of processor offload across 5G was also demonstrated at the event using “Spot” – the 5G connected Robot Dog – developed in conjunction with academics at the University of Technology Sydney.
Dr Robert Joyce, Chief Technology Officer at Nokia Oceania, said: “Super-fast uplink speeds are critical to fully realise the huge benefits of 5G networks, particularly as we look to emerging technologies like augmented intelligence, machine learning, advanced sensors and robotics that are set to transform industries and economies with huge safety, productivity and efficiency outcomes as we move towards the metaverse era. For consumers and industries alike, the future is exciting. Pushing the boundaries of 5G with innovative customers like TPG Telecom in Australia is a big part of this journey forward.”
Giovanni Chiarelli, Chief Technology Officer at TPG Telecom, said: “We are very proud of this achievement and other mobile technology innovations we continue to develop with Nokia. This demonstration is important as it shows the huge potential of 5G mobile technology and gives a glimpse of the high-speed services that will one day be available to customers and businesses right across Australia.”
A migration, a couple of technology partnerships, and a new network launch: … [visit site to read more]
This sponsored thought leadership article was authored by Chris Menier, President – VIA AIOPS for Vitria Technology
5G is revolutionizing the network and IT landscape for telcos, multi-system operators (MSOs) and enterprise IT. Telcos and MSOs are implementing new architectures, new patterns for managing networks at scale with increasing pressure on attracting and retaining talent. The expected spend by telephony service providers is expected to be $240 billion. In the meantime, telcos are struggling with … [visit site to read more]
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This week, Anacom has issued over €15 million in fines to Meo (Altice Portugal), Nos, Vodafone, and Nowo, saying that they did not clearly communicate to customers that they could terminate their contracts before price increases were applied back in 2016.
The regulator said that the changes in prices had impacted “a high number of subscribers”, many of whom had not been suitably informed of the price increases until they were no longer able to cancel their contracts free of charge.
“In particular, the behaviour adopted by these operators is related to the lack of information, within the contractually foreseen period, on the right of subscribers to be able to terminate their contracts free of charge, in case they do not agree with the proposed price increase. by operators,” said Anacom in a translated statement.
Anacom also complained that in many cases customers were only informed that their contracts would increase in price but were not clearly told by how much.
As a result of this ruling, Anacom has fined Meo €6.7 million, Nos €5.2 million fine, Vodafone €3.1 million, and Nowo €664,000.
Nos, Vodafone and Meo have each said that they disagree with Anacom’s ruling and will legally contest the fines.
Also in the news:
Vestager: Restricting “high-risk” vendors a “matter of urgency” for EU
UKRI selects BT consortium for intelligent drone project
IRIS cable set to link Iceland and Ireland
Arelion has extended its North American fiber reach south across the US/Mexico border. The independent global network operator which we formerly called Telia Carrier has deployed two fully diverse new routes down to the city of Monterrey.
