AI, Open RAN, and combinations of the two, are among the big announcements in the run up to MWC.
A week in telecoms: AI and Open RAN push
Orange and MásMóvil get green light for merger in Spain
In what has been a long-awaited decision, Orange and MásMóvil finally received clearance from the European Commission to combine their operations in Spain.
The regulatory approval means that the two groups can form a joint venture company to compete against Telefónica and Vodafone Spain; the latter is also in the process of being sold to Zegona.
As things stand, the deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2024. However, merger remedies are required to allay the Commission’s concerns that the merger will have a negative impact on the mobile market in Spain, primarily because MásMóvil currently manages a wide range of low-cost service providers.
The two parties have therefore agreed to divest 60MHz of spectrum assets (pending approval from the Spanish government) to Romania-based Digi Communications and to propose an optional national roaming agreement at market conditions. This will enable Digi Spain to transform itself from an MVNO into an MNO, creating a new fourth player.
Orange and MásMóvil say the combined entity will have estimated revenues of above €7.4 billion and EBITDAaL of over €2.3 billion, with an enterprise value of €18.6 billion and expected synergies of more than €450m per year. It would serve over 7.3 million fixed, more than 30 mobile and 2.2 million TV customers.
Meanwhile, Alejandra García Hoyos, Competition Counsel at Telefónica Group, criticised EU antitrust authorities for ultimately deciding to impose merger remedies on Orange and MásMóvil. Writing in a blog, she said the move raises questions over whether EU merger rules are still fit for purpose.
The Commission “has prioritized regulatory intervention over the laws of free competition in a well-functioning market and has missed the great opportunity to promote an investment-friendly market structure for telecommunications operators in Spain,” García said.
Microsoft plans Spanish AI and cloud investment
Also in Spain, Microsoft plans to invest $2.1bn over the next two years in expanding its AI and cloud infrastructure within the country as part of "a framework for collaboration in the application of artificial intelligence in the public administration and the reinforcement of national cybersecurity" signed by the country's president, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of Microsoft, Brad Smith. As part of the announcement, Microsoft says it will open a cloud region of data centers around Madrid, and plans to build a data center campus in Aragon to serve European companies and public entities.
Vodafone deploys open RAN in Romania
Vodafone announced that it has started the commercial rollout of open RAN technology in 20 cities across Romania in collaboration with Samsung.
The rollout follows tests that Vodafone started with Samsung and other partners last year in the country. For example, Vodafone Romania and Orange Romania conducted a pilot to test 4G calls over a shared network based on open RAN technology, again with support from Dell, Samsung and Wind River.
Vodafone has also carried out other European open RAN trials, such as a 5G open RAN pilot in Italy with Nokia, and a commercial rollout of open RAN to 2,500 sites in the UK, which started in August 2023 in collaboration with Samsung. The operator aims to equip 30% of all its European sites with open RAN by 2030.
Alberto Ripepi, group chief network officer at Vodafone, said the momentum behind open RAN is building, citing the need to support new technologies like generative AI as they become “embedded within businesses, factories, and every day online interactions.”
Latest projections from Dell’Oro group say open RAN is set to account for 20% to 30% of worldwide RAN revenues by 2028, up from 7% to 10% in 2024.
Liberty Global revamps European operations
Liberty Global unveiled some strategic changes after reporting a loss of $3.87 billion for 2023 on a like-for-like basis, as well as a 1.5% year-on-year decrease in revenues to almost $7.5 billion and a 10.8% decrease in adjusted EBITDA to $2.37 billion.
In a strategy presentation to accompany the results, the group announced five key changes as it aims to maximize “the inherent value of our core assets.”
In no particular order, it plans to list Sunrise in Switzerland and spin off 100% of the shares to Liberty Global shareholders in the second half of 2024.
It has created Liberty Holding Benelux as a strategic holding company for its interests in Telenet in Belgium and VodafoneZiggo, its joint venture in the Netherlands.
In the UK, it plans to create a new NetCo to house the fiber activities and assets of Virgin Media O2. The new company will be separate from the recently formed nexfibre venture and will also be positioned as a wholesale rival to BT Openreach, as well as a potential driver of consolidation in the fragmented UK fiber altnet market.
In two other actions, Liberty Global and Warner Bros. Discovery have agreed to sell their 50/50 joint venture All3Media to Redbird IMI for £1.15bn, while Liberty Global plans to buy back up to 10% of its shares in the 2024 calendar year.
Following the strategy presentation, Liberty Global said is collaborating with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create a Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) framework that enables developers to use and access Liberty Global’s fixed and mobile networks as a platform for innovation.
Liberty Global and AWS said they “aim to create a simplified developer experience to engage with network APIs that nurtures the creation of network-aware applications on the cloud.”
The group also noted that VodafoneZiggo started trialling NaaS for a range of at-home services, including connecting remote-working employees to virtual private networks (VPNs).
Telus picks Samsung for open RAN in Canada
Canadian CSP Telus said South Korea’s Samsung is to help it build what it described as Canada’s first commercial virtualized and open radio access network (RAN).
The companies have been working together in 5G since June 2020 and are also expanding their collaboration from greenfield to brownfield deployments.
Nazim Benhadid, Chief Technology Officer at Telus, said this is an “exciting milestone” as the operator now has the “most flexible way to offer a diversified set of services to Canadians, unlocking new levels of mobile experiences. We are proud to be the first Canadian telecommunications company to integrate this cutting-edge technology, together with Samsung and our other partners.”
The companies said they have extensively tested both vRAN and open RAN rollouts in select Canadian markets “with excellent results.” Commercial deployment will begin in the first half of this year and a large-scale network rollout is expected to begin mid-2024.
Telus is also keen to adopt a multi-vendor approach to open RAN. Cloud infrastructure will be provided by Wind River, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise will deliver HPE ProLiant DL110 Gen11 servers.
Vodafone Turkey plans data center expansion
Vodafone Turkey has established a joint venture with United Arab Emirates-based Edgnex Data Centres by DAMAC to invest $100 million in the construction of a data center in the city of Izmir, with plans for further expansion in the region.
The joint venture is scheduled to be operational by 2025. According to Engin Aksoy, CEO of Vodafone Turkey, the goal of this strategic partnership “is to develop data center facilities in both Turkey and international markets. Additionally, the data center we are set to build in Izmir will be our primary joint project.”
The new data center will boast a 6-megawatt capacity and will be designed to boost capacity up to 12 megawatts. Vodafone already operates five data centers in Turkey, two in Istanbul, and one each in Adana, Ankara, and Izmir.
Vodafone noted that Izmir was selected for the new facility as it is located close to many subsea cable transit stations providing access to Europe, Africa and Asia. It added that owing to this strategic location, the ongoing undersea cable development work in the region becomes attractive for internet exchange points and content distribution network (CDN) providers.
Overall, the CSP aims to become a “one-stop shop” in the region for content producers, wholesale service providers, and enterprises needing disaster recovery services. It also wants to attract over-the-top ISPs and hyperscalers by offering alternative geographic routes for data center services.
DoCoMo, Nokia, NTT and SKT team on AI in 6G AI
Nokia, SK Telecom (SKT), NTT and DoCoMo joined forces to develop the 6G AI-native air interface (AI-AI), which they described as a “critical next-generation technology that could greatly boost network performance while increasing energy efficiency.”
The agreement builds on an existing relationship between Nokia, NTT and DoCoMo targeted at 6G innovation.
The aim is to develop proof-of-concept 6G AI-AI systems, which will then be put to the test using selected use cases and real environmental scenarios. These over-the-air validation tests will be conducted both in the lab and outdoors to best simulate real network results.
The companies also plan to cooperate on improving AI model performance by utilizing data generated from real networks or through simulation. This will be instrumental in developing AI training models for a best-in-industry AI-AI solution, they added.
...while Nokia partners with Nvidia on AI-ready RAN
Nokia also announced it is collaborating with NVIDIA on AI-ready radio access network (RAN) solutions. The agreement will cover NVIDIA on Cloud RAN solutions that leverage the NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip for Layer 2+ processing, Nokia’s high-performance, energy-efficient In-Line Layer 1 (L1) accelerator technology, and Cloud RAN software, according to the announcement. In addition, Nokia will use NVIDIA GPUs for AI applications and vRAN acceleration, with the aim of paving the way for AI-RAN.
Also noted…the landmark BT Tower is to become a hotel after it was sold to MCR Hotels for £275m.