NEWS

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have announced how the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funds will be divided among U.S. states and territories

President Biden, Vice President Harris and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced the allocations at the White House on Monday June 26. “What this announcement means for people across the country is that if you don’t have access to quality, affordable high-speed Internet service now – you will, thanks to President Biden and his commitment to investing in America,” Raimondo said. Mitch Landrieu, Senior Advisor to the President and White House Infrastructure Coordinator said, “simply put, high-speed Internet is a necessity in today’s society” and emphasized that the Biden-Harris administration is “committed to leaving no community behind”.

Drawing comparisons to President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1936 Rural Electrification Act, the Biden administration acknowledged that the goal of providing high-speed internet to all Americans is “bold” but by no means impossible. The BEAD program is part of President Biden’s sweeping Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and aims to close the digital divide.

The money allocated to each state was determined by the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) national broadband availability maps. An initial version of the map was published in November and was followed by a challenge process. States, internet service providers, and other parties were able to officially challenge the accuracy of the FCC’s data. The second version of the map was released May 30 and the NTIA used this to determine how to divide BEAD funds.

A senior administration official reported that the maps show that 8.5 million locations in the U.S. and its territories – about 7% of the country – do not have access to high-speed internet. Once states receive formal notice of their allocation on June 30, they will have six months to submit initial proposals for how they will spend the funds.

State governments will coordinate with county and local governments to formulate spending plans and correct any additional errors in availability data. After the NTIA approves states’ initial plans, state authorities can access 20% of their allocated funds. The remaining 80% will be available after states submit their final plans in spring 2025.

Tyler Cooper, editor-in-chief of BroadbandNow, said that “there weren’t any shockers” in terms of allocation amounts. Texas won the largest allocation at $3.31 billion – unsurprising given the vast scale of the state and the number of rural areas outside of the main urban hubs. California is set to receive $1.86 billion, closely followed by Missouri ($1.74 billion), Michigan ($1.56 billion), and North Carolina ($1.53 billion). All 50 states, along with Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, will receive at least $100 million.

President Biden also stressed that the BEAD program will create new jobs for Americans as there are requirements for construction materials to be American-made. While the Build America, Buy America Act, part of IIJA, aims to stimulate the U.S. economy and create jobs, there are concerns that the requirement could delay broadband deployment efforts. Paul Atkinson, CEO of Optical Network Business at STL wrote on Telecoms.com that, as admirable as the intentions are behind Build America, Buy America, putting limitations on the production and supply of equipment will slow the rollout of American broadband networks, especially in the case of fiber optic networks.

You can hear more about investment in US broadband at next year’s Connected America which is being held in Dallas on March 12 & 13 2024 – secure your place here!

Indian operator Vodafone Idea (aka Vi) says it is in advanced talks with various network vendors for finalisation of its 5G rollout strategy and has concluded device testing of all major OEMs on its upcoming next-generation mobile broadband network.

According to comments in its latest annual report, Vodafone Idea says it remains committed to ramping up 4G coverage and introducing 5G services “once funding is in place”.

The company has pointed to 5G clusters in Delhi and Pune where it has partnered with various OEMs to test the compatibility of available 5G handsets.

As India’s Economic Times points out, rival operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have been expanding their 5G coverage since last October with both now looking to launch next-generation services nationally by December 2023.

By contrast, Vodafone Idea has yet to announce its 5G launch timeline, most likely due to the ongoing fundraising issues mentioned in the report. It has been trying, with limited success, to raise around 200 billion rupees via a mix of debt and equity for over a year. That’s about US$2.44 billion, though gross debt is more than ten times that figure at about $25.5 billion.

In the report, Vodafone Idea’s chairman Ravinder Takkar cited another problem: that telecom tariffs remain unsustainable, and need to increase significantly to generate reasonable returns for operators to promote investments.

Also, of course, the company still has some creditors to appease. For example, another story in the Indian press says that tower company Indus Towers has said Vodafone Idea is now paying 100% of its current monthly charges but won’t be able to clear outstanding dues without its pending fundraising.

Vodafone Idea accounts for around 40% of Indus’s revenue. Its total dues to Indus are estimated at around 70 billion rupees (about US$854 million).

News

The GSMA have announced the addition of China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom to the Open Gateway initiative, a global network of operators using Application Programmable Interfaces (APIs) to provide universal access to operator networks.

The aim is to help developers and cloud providers enhance and deploy services more quickly across operator networks via single points of access. Early test programmes have centred on areas including online financial crime and more immersive gaming experiences.

Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA said “This will help unlock further value from 5G connectivity which will flow into the global economy and strengthen future investments, bringing transformational benefits of connectivity to all,”

Li Jun, EVP, China Telecom, said “We believe collaboration and common frameworks between mobile operators, developers and cloud providers will create new opportunities and drive forward new industries and experiences.”

Whilst Gao Tongqing, EVP, China Mobile, said they were “committed to opening up network capabilities and driving positive contributions to promoting the development of the digital economy.”

Launched earlier this year, there are now 29 signatories to the MoU including America Movil, AT&T, Axiata, Bharti Airtel, BT Group, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Du, e& Group, KDDI, KPN, KT, Liberty Global, MTN, Omantel, Orange, Singtel, Swisscom, STC, Telecom Argentina, Telefónica, Telenor, Telstra, TIM, Veon, Verizon and Vodafone.

One bit of M&A and two fiber expansion projects to catch up with: … [visit site to read more]

News

At a press tour of Analog Devices (ADI)’s Catalyst facility in Limerick, Ireland, the semiconductor specialist walked visitors through numerous tech demonstrations, from telco innovations to connected cars

Geopolitics and the semiconductor subsidy boom

Last month, semiconductor specialist ADI announced it would be investing €630 million to expand its operations in its European HQ in Limerick, Ireland. The influx of funding is set to triple the site’s fabrication capacity over the coming two years, as well as expanding the site’s workforce by around 600 people.

The funding comes as part of the European Union’s Important Projects of Common European Interest on Microelectronics and Communication Technologies (IPCEI ME/CT) initiative, one of a number of funding schemes designed to help develop Europe’s domestic chip industry. Undoubtedly the most significant of these schemes is the European Chips Act, which pledges to deliver over €43 billion of project-driven investment until 2030, with the ultimate goal of increasing Europe’s semiconductor production capacity to 20% of the global market.

This surge in European investment has led to a boom in European semiconductor projects, drawing interest from major players like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel. Indeed, just earlier this week, Intel announced a $32 billion investment to open two chip fabs in Germany, as well as another $4.6 billion to build a fab in Poland – all of which are being subsidised with EU and government funding.

But for ADI’s head of Systems & Technology, Cloud & Communications, Joe Barry, this geopolitical focus on chip technology and the resulting funding is no reason to change strategy.

“We were one of the first companies to secure some of the funding really targeted at building up wafer fabrication in Europe. This is definitely driven by the desire to have more resilience and control,” explained Barry. “But while the funding is nice, this doesn’t really affect our strategy. We operate on a hybrid manufacturing model, where we have our own manufacturing but outsource certain pieces. We’ll continue to do this as we continue to scale to meet rising demand.”

ADI’s Catalyst Centre shows the scope of cross-industry innovation

Following the announcement of ADI’s new investment in Limerick, journalists were last week invited to take a tour of the adjoining ADI Catalyst Centre – a €100 million ‘collaboration accelerator’ launched last year as a focal point for customers, business partners, and suppliers to co-create new solutions with the semiconductor specialist.

The tour shone light the enormous breadth industries impacted by ADI’s technology, including telecoms solutions, automotive advances, wearables/extended reality consumer devices, and smart factory tech.

In the telecoms space, key demonstrations included an open radio unit (O-RU) reference design platform, including ADI’s fifth generation 8T8R RadioVerse® System on Chip (SoC), which offers customers an end-to-end solution that allows for hardware and software customisation for macro and small cell RUs.

ADI suggests that this comprehensive reference design will help accelerate the development of Open RAN solutions and promote the evolution of Open RAN ecosystem.

The company also had its chip technology on show in the context of 5G Massive MIMO (multiple input multiple output). Working alongside Marvell Technology, the latest MIMO solution demonstrated power savings of 40% versus competing solutions, not only making the solution more sustainable, but also considerably lighter, allowing for faster deployment.

Key to these energy savings was the solution’s microsleep capabilities. According to ADI, 20% of telco base stations carry 80% of network traffic at any one time, meaning large portions of the network are consuming power while unused. By rapidly switching these elements of the RU on and off as needed, as well as optimising scheduling, sites can ultimately reduce their power consumption significantly.

With the RAN consuming between 70% and 80% of the network’s total power usage, its clear to see how widespread adoption of this technology could lead to significant cost savings for operators.

Conquering the energy challenge

Joe Barry, VP of Systems & Technology, Cloud & Communications at ADI

Following the demonstrations, Barry explained why reducing energy consumption was such a critical focus for the company.  

“Our customers’ customers are ultimately operators and whatever challenges they face are ones we face – that means energy consumption. In recent years, energy consumption has grown very significantly as an operating cost, so [the operators] are looking for ways to control that,” he said. “5G was a major step forward in terms of picojoules per bit, but when you’re facing an exponential growth curve these things catch up with you very quickly.”

Reducing power consumption is a major challenge for the semiconductor industry itself. Moore’s Law – a long-held tenant of the industry that the number of transistors in integrated circuits will double every two years as they become more complex – remains broadly accurate and these more powerful chips are typically more energy hungry.

This can be combatted in a number of ways, with Barry pointing to two areas of focus: static and dynamic power usage.

The static power consumed by the chips can be somewhat countered architecturally and algorithmically – essentially helping to optimise the power usage of the chip itself. But perhaps more important here is the dynamic savings, throttling energy usage in intelligent ways so that the device only consumes a high amount of energy when it really needs to.

“Both static and dynamic power savings are a technical challenge. Bringing down the static power requires a lot of innovation in terms of the algorithm and linearising power amplifiers to get more efficiency. Meanwhile, saving power dynamically requires turning things on and off very quickly – and high-power circuits don’t like being turned on and off very quickly! – so there’s a challenge here too in terms of efficiency and not degrading components,” he explained.

Looking to the future, these energy challenges are only going to grow as the user demand for connectivity continues to increase and we move forward towards the 6G era.

“In theory, 6G radio will potentially quadruple the number of antennas and the bandwidth used to meet the demand. If we stay on this trajectory, we’ll be looking at two-times or three-times the power consumption, which simply isn’t viable,” said Barry. “We need to innovate even more and that is an industry-wide effort. This is race we can win, but it has to be done through collaboration.”

Is the telecoms industry doing enough when it comes to building sustainable networks? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s Total Telecom Congress live in Amsterdam

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News

Elon Musk insists that SpaceX’s Starlink satellite services could be a connectivity game changer for India’s rural regions, but the company’s path to commercial services remains clouded by doubt over the government’s spectrum policy

Earlier this week, billionaire Elon Musk met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the latter’s diplomatic visit to the USA. According to reports, the discussion largely centred around Musk’s potential business ventures within India, with Musk outlining plans to potentially build a Tesla manufacturing base in India.

According to Musk, this could be just one of a number of “significant investments in India”, including launching SpaceX’s commercial LEO satellite service, Starlink, in the country.

But bringing Starlink to India is set to be a contentious process, not least because of SpaceX’s current clash over spectrum policy with India’s existing mobile operators.

The Indian government is currently planning to launch an auction for satellite-suitable spectrum in the near future, handling the spectrum in the same manner they would for 4G and 5G suitable bandwidths.

SpaceX, however, is currently lobbying the government to reconsider this strategy, arguing that the spectrum should simply be allocated to suitable companies in an equitable manner. The company said the auction process would drive up costs and impose geographical restrictions, therefore limiting the service’s reach and economic viability.

Reliance Jio disagrees, saying that foreign satellite companies like SpaceX could offer voice and data services to consumers and therefore directly compete with the rest of the telecoms sector. Thus, an auction is necessary to ensure a level playing field for the market.

Musk had previously tried to launch Starlink in India in 2021, with the company beginning to take preorders for the services prior to receiving regulatory approval to offer services. The Indian government ultimately cracked down on this practise, ordering SpaceX to return pre-order deposits and await full regulatory approval.

Starlink is still awaiting clearance from Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) and Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

The communications satellite space race in India is beginning to heat up in recent years, with Jio Platforms forming its own low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite business, Jio Satellite Communications, late last year. Earlier that same year, the company had partnered with satellite specialist SES for a joint venture called Jio Space Technology Limited, aiming to provide broadband services using a combination of geostationary orbit (GEO) satellites and middle Earth orbit (MEO) satellites.

India’s second largest mobile player, Bharti Airtel, meanwhile, already owns a significant stake in the UK government-backed LEO satellite operator, OneWeb.

Rumours also suggest that Nelco, a local satellite company owned by Tata, and Canada’s Telesat are interested in launching satellite services in India and will seek spectrum licences.

Finally, Amazon’s long-awaited LEO sat project, Project Kuiper, is also expecting to launch its first satellites next year, indicating that India will be a key market for the service’s growth.

How is the emergence of LEO satellite constellations changing the telecoms ecosystem? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s Total Telecom Congress live in Amsterdam

Also in the news:
Hyperoptic announces plans to cut 110 jobs
U.S. Huawei ban: A Pyrrhic victory spurring digital decolonisation
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News

The UK communications regulator Ofcom and seven of the country’s largest telecoms firms have today jointly committed to better supporting women in the industry to attain senior leadership positions

The gender imbalance in the telecoms industry is well established, with a stark disparity in the number of men and women in senior tech positions. Promoting gender equality has risen up the agenda for telecoms organisations in recent years, with various initiatives being put in place across the country, but progress remains in desperate need of acceleration.

Now, Ofcom and seven of the country’s largest telecoms operators – BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Openreach, Three, Virgin Media O2 (VMO2), Vodafone – have signed a pledge to improve this situation, committing to supporting the career development of more women within the sector.

Here is the pledge in full:

• We are committed to increasing the senior representation of women in technology-based roles in the telecoms sector over the next three years; and to increase the overall representation of women in our sector.
• We will invest our efforts in attracting and retaining women in our organisations, creating inclusive environments for them to excel and be their best.
• As an industry we will come together annually to share good practice and showcase, to the outside world, our talented women in technology in the telecoms sector.
• We will publish information on the impact our initiatives have made on our collective ambitions as well as against the diversity and inclusion strategies of our respective organisations. We aim to publish information on our initiatives, so we may inspire others in the sector.

As you can see, these commitments are fairly vague – it would have been nice to see some more concrete targets agreed for the end of the three-year period, for example. Nonetheless, this represents a step in the right direction, encouraging collaboration to solve one of the telecoms industry’s biggest social challenges.

“Having a diverse workforce is crucial to the success of any organisation. It drives creativity, innovation and ensures we as employers attract the skills we need from the widest possible pool. But for too many women, climbing that career ladder in a male-dominated industry can be a real challenge,” said Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom Chief Executive.

“We want the telecoms industry, including us at Ofcom, to lead the way in changing that. So it’s great to see so many companies getting behind this pledge, and committing to helping more women launch long-lasting and rewarding technology careers. We look forward to working together to achieve this.”

As you might imagine, most of the companies signing this pledge took the opportunity to highlight their individual successes and goals in this area. Sky pointed out that they had doubled female representation in their technology team since 2017, TalkTalk noted the creation of the North West Women in Tech awards; VMO2 highlighted its involvement in various projects to encourage women into STEM careers, while Three said it had already committed to a 50/50 gender split in leadership roles by 2030.

Ofcom invites other telecoms companies from across the sector to take the pledge and support the initiative.

How can we improve female representation throughout the UK telecoms sector? Join the telecoms ecosystem in discussion at this year’s Connected Britian conference

Also in the news:
Hyperoptic announces plans to cut 110 jobs
U.S. Huawei ban: A Pyrrhic victory spurring digital decolonisation
New advertising guidelines push for clarity over contract price hikes

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Kazakhtelecom JSC is working with A10 Networks to improve the reliability of broadband access for businesses and consumers nationwide.

The operator began the transition to a telco cloud environment in 2020, and A10 Networks has been a key facilitator of this, helping Kazakhtelecom JSC to establish cloud nodes on its network. At this time, the operator launched two cloud nodes using an Open Stack architecture in the largest cities of Kazakhstan.

The operator launched the first A10 virtualised carrier-grade network address translation (CGNAT) solution on a cloud node that serves 384,000 broadband subscribers, along with a second that serves 80,000 subscribers. These nodes provide a universal infrastructure for deploying virtual network functions (VNFs) that have numerous advantages, including deployment time, scaling, high fault tolerance, and manufacturer selection. This solution allows the telco to automate the operation of all VNFs, which has a positive effect on the quality of services for its customers.

Kazakhtelecom JSC is actively working to enter the information security market and has established a Security Operation Centre. A core element of the centre is its DDoS attack protection system, which Kazakhtelecom JSC launched with A10 Networks. The A10 Thunder Threat Protection System (TPS) provides the backbone to analyse all incoming internet traffic, detect anomalies and DDoS attacks and block or clear illegitimate traffic. The system has allowed Kazakhtelecom JSC to protect up to 500 zones of IP address spaces and analyses about 2 Tbps of traffic.

IPv4 addresses are almost fully allocated, causing difficulties for telecom operators as they grow subscribers. While IPv6 provides a solution, most of the internet today still uses IPv4, while transitioning to IPv6 brings its own set of challenges and costs. Network address translation (NAT) technologies are used as a near-term solution to connect hundreds of hosts behind one public address without the need to purchase more expensive IPv4 addresses.

Kazakhtelecom JSC successfully deployed A10 Thunder Carrier-Grade Networking (CGN) in the cities of Almaty and Astana, where a large number of its internet users are concentrated. The operator immediately saw the economic benefits compared to the acquisition of new IPv4 addresses. Kazakhtelecom JSC is looking to expand its use of Thunder CGN to other network locations.

“A10 Networks has been a valued partner and strong collaborator as we have set to transform our network, grow subscribers, and establish an information security services centre”, said Nurlan Meirmanov, chief innovation officer, Kazakhtelecom JSC. “We are actively working on creating new deployments for our telco cloud environment, and we are confident that with our anti-DDoS system, the resources of Kazakhtelecom JSC and its customers will be reliably protected from network attacks.”

“Kazakhtelecom JSC has faced a convergence of business challenges that many telco operators have faced in recent years: how to grow subscribers with limited addressing, how to secure its network against the rapidly expanding cyber threat landscape and how to transition to new-generation cloud technologies within its network, all while maintaining a secure and consistent subscriber experience. A10 Networks’ solutions have helped support Kazakhtelecom JSC’s business and technology objectives throughout this transition as we continue to work with them on their evolution to a cloud-based infrastructure,” said Dhrupad Trivedi, president and CEO, A10 Networks.

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Ulrich Schälling, VP Market Strategy at FNT Software

The push towards sustainability has many business benefits for telecom providers. Business can improve their sustainability by reducing energy consumption and using less resources, both of which tamp down carbon emissions. While that is good for the environment, these same measures are also good for the bottom line. Using less energy and fewer resources brings down energy costs and ongoing OPEX. … [visit site to read more]