News

Sources suggest Italy’s new government wants control of TIM’s wholesale submarine cable network business, considering it a strategic national asset

Back in October, Giorgia Meloni took over as Italian Prime Minister, a move that had major implications for beleaguered incumbent operator TIM.

For over two years now, the Italian government has been pressuring the operator to merge its fixed network assets with those of its rival Open Fiber, aiming to create a single national network.

All of this was taking place against a backdrop of TIM’s relatively poor performance in a competitive market, resulting in a change of leadership at the start of the year.

The Meloni administration, however, has been far more forthright in their support of a single network plan, so long as the government, via investor state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), could secure control

Today, according to a report from Reuters, the government is in fact considering going one step further, with sources suggesting that the government is now seeking control of TIM’s submarine cable unit, Sparkle.

Sparkle owns and operates various submarine cable systems in the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic, its networks spanning over half a million kilometres.

According to the report, the government is seeking control of Sparkle due to the sensitivity of data it carries over these networks, with the networks being considered a major strategic asset for the nation.

In total, Sparkle could be worth around €1 billion.

It is worth noting that the submarine cable unit is not the only one of TIM’s assets that could be on the chopping block.

Earlier this week, TIM CEO Pietro Labriola said at an industry conference that the company “cannot solve Telecom Italia’s debt issue organically”, saying that they needed to “sell assets”. At the same time, the government announced that it had initiated talks with TIM’s largest investors, CDP and Vivendi, to explore “market-friendly options” for the operator.

How would the sale of Sparkle to the Italian government reshape submarine cable network dynamics in the Mediterranean? Join the experts in discussion at the upcoming Submarine Networks EMEA conference early next year

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News

Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nadia Calviño is once again calling for European regulators to introduce legislation forcing major tech firms to help subsidise network

The ‘fair share’ debate continues to rage on across Europe, with this week seemingly the Spanish government’s turn to speak on the controversial topic.

At a meeting with the Secretary General of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Mathias Corman yesterday, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nadia Calviño said that having tech giants subsidise telco networks would be “indispensable”.

“If we want to continue making the necessary investments in technological infrastructure, we need everyone who uses and benefits from them to contribute to financing that investment,” said Calviño, who is also Spain’s Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation; i.e., head of the nation’s telecommunications policymaking.

The debate as to whether major tech companies, like Amazon and Google, should help pay for telecoms networks has been around for many years, with network operators complaining that these players were growing rich off the back of the telcos’ network infrastructure investments.

But while this may be true to a certain degree, regulators have been reluctant to force these companies to help subsidise network costs. The tech companies argue that the network operators are already being paid for the use of their networks by subscribers, and to implement some form of targeted tax would be to see the operators paid twice for the same service.

Earlier this year, however, a report from the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) helped to reignite the debate, showing that top six tech companies generated over 55% of all telecom networks’ traffic globally.

Since then, the European Commission has said it will investigate the concept of a ‘fair share’ tax, launching an official consultation back in September.

As such, the recent comments from Calviño should come as little surprise. Alongside France and Italy, Spain has been one of the biggest European advocates for introducing some form of tax, with the trio making their position known via a joint paper back in August.

Other European nations, however, are far less enthusiastic about such a tax, noting its unclear long-term implications, particularly for European net neutrality, as well as difficulties in implementation.

Back in July, seven countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, sent a letter to the European Commission urging caution.

It is also worth noting that, while the majority of this debate seems to be taking place in the European theatre, similar discussions are taking place all over the world. In India, for example, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has recently called on big tech companies to pay a “usage charge” for the telecoms infrastructure they benefit from.

Want to keep up to date with all of the latest international telecoms news? Sign up for Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

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Launched in 2011, the Asia Communication Awards (ACAs) recognises the region’s leading communication service providers and telecom operators as well as OEMs, suppliers, and other service providers based within the region or offering products and solutions specifically targeting the region.

For 2022, Total Telecom is delighted to be able to bring back the ACA with a totally refreshed line-up of awards categories, a carefully selected panel of expert judges, and an exciting new virtual format to recognise the finalists and winners for this year’s awards.

You can watch the Awards Ceremony itself here

ACA Winners 2022

5G Deployment Award: KT – Ubiquitous 5G

AI Innovation Award: CITIC Telecom CPC – Cognitive Object Recognition (“COR”) Technology

Best Enterprise Business Service: Singtel – Software-defined Network

Best Payments Initiative: PROGRESIF CARE+

Best SME Service (Operator): Globe Business

Cloud Technology Initiative: Bridge Alliance – Bridge Alliance Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) solution with Globe Telecom, Singtel, and Telkomsel

Crisis Response Award: Globe Telecom and Amdocs

Cyber Security Award: CITIC Telecom CPC – AI Visual Security

Digital Transformation Project of the Year: Huawei Technologies – Mobile VPN Solution

IoT in Action: Viettel – InnoWay platform

Network Transformation Initiative: Rakuten Symphony – Symworld

Operator of the Year: KT DIGICO

OSS / BSS Project of the Year: Tata Play Binge powered by Comviva

Satellite Connectivity Initiative: Singtel Satellite iSHIP

Smart Places Project of the Year: Chunghwa Telecom – 5G Intelligent Ports

The Customer Experience Award: Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison

The Social Contribution Award: SK telecom & TUAT – Sullivan Plus X NUGU

Wholesale Operator of the Year: Telin

CEO of the Year: Alfredo S. Panlilio, CEO of PLDT & Smart Communications

Total Telecom would like to thank the extensive judging panel for their expertise and support in judging the many entries this year. We would also like to extend huge congratulations to all of our winners this year and look forward to seeing you all again next year.

For more information about the Asia Communication Awards and to enter in 2023, contact Rob Chambers at rob.chambers@totaltele.com

Press Release

Nokia today announced that it has expanded its partnership with BT in a five-year deal for its AVA Analytics software for fixed networks that will help the UK operator strengthen its network monitoring through AI and machine learning, and improve its subscriber experience.

The deal enhances Nokia’s dashboard solution (“Homeview”) for BT to give its call center agents a real-time, full view of the operator’s network, from individual subscribers to devices, in order to quickly correct access and in home issues, and provide the best service across all its phone and digital channels.

Nokia’s AVA Analytics will provide BT with the use of automated workflows with deep analytics to deliver operational efficiency improvements and boost BT’s net promoter scores (NPS). NPS is a barometer of how likely a customer would recommend a provider or service to another user.

Along with AVA Analytics, Nokia’s Home Device Manager and Service Management Platform enables BT’s roughly 6,000 care agents to remotely manage over 10 million WiFi connections, with more than 100 million actions taken each day to optimize the home broadband experience for BT’s customers.

Nick Lane, Managing Director for Consumer Customer Services at BT, said: “Our expanded partnership with Nokia is another demonstration of our commitment to providing the best customer experience by investing in AI, analytics, and other state-of the-art technology. Our partnership will help BT’s customer service agents provide the best service across all phone and digital channels and continue to make BT the only network to answer 100% of customer calls in the UK.”

Hamdy Farid, Senior Vice President, Business Applications at Nokia, said: “Nokia AVA Fixed Network Insights is a critical component to helping operators improve network diagnosis and troubleshooting processes, while reducing unnecessary manual fixes. We are very pleased to be taking our partnership with BT to the next level with this agreement.”

Want to keep up to date with all of the latest international telecoms news? Sign up for Total Telecom’s daily newsletter

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News

The US government is mulling a nationwide ban on one of the world’s largest social media platforms due to national security fears

This week, Democrats and Republicans have joined forces to propose a new law that would see TikTok banned in the US.

The bipartisan bill would aim to block transactions from any social media company deemed to be under the control of China or Russia. The bill proposes that these foreign governments could use the apps not only to capture personal data from US citizens, but also to indirectly influence the population, particularly with regards to foreign policy and domestic elections.

“This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,” said Senator Marco Rubio, who introduced the bill. “We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.”

The announcement comes roughly a month after a hearing in which the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Chris Wray, suggesting that the platform continues to pose a threat to national security.

TikTok’s relationship with the Chinese government has been a source of debate for years now, with concerns first coming to a head in 2020 when President Donald Trump threatened a de facto ban on the platform in the US market.

While this ban was ultimately blocked by judges later that year, scrutiny over TikTok’s owner, Beijing-based ByteDance, has been a continuous focus ever since. Numerous US states have since taken the unilateral decisions to prohibit the use of TikTok on federal networks and devices.

TikTok, naturally, described the bill as “troubling”, in a statement calling it “politically motivated” and saying that it “will do nothing to advance the national security of the United States”.

The company also said that it continues to improve the security of its platform and is communicating these improvements to Congress.

If such a ban were to be implemented, the implications would be enormous. Globally, TikTok has over a billion users, over a 100 million of which are from the US.

However, the chances of such a ban ever materialising are slim. TikTok’s popularity in the US alone would make this bill hugely unpopular with the general public. Furthermore, the US government has been notoriously slow to change data privacy and content moderation laws, despite perceived threats; consider, for example, the ongoing debates around platforms like Twitter and Facebook and their influence over the US political landscape.

“From a privacy standpoint, simply preventing a company like TikTok from operating doesn’t close the gaps,” noted Caitlin Chin, a fellow at the Washington DC-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

On the contrary, it seems more likely that this bill will die a slow death in the bowels of bureaucracy over the coming years, with the current hubbub instead largely intended to restate the government’s continued crackdown on Chinese tech companies.

How is the regulatory landscape in the US set to change in 2023? Join the telecoms industry in discussion at the upcoming Connected America conference live in Dallas, Texas

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