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A week in telecoms: BT's plans EV charging stations, while MTN and Axiata expand fintech ambitions.

BT, MTN, Malaysia's Axiata and Airtel detail plans to diversify revenues.

Anne Morris
11 Jan 2024
A week in telecoms: BT's plans EV charging stations, while MTN and Axiata expand fintech ambitions.

A week in telecoms: BT's plans EV charging stations, while MTN and Axiata expand fintech ambitions.

BT kicks off EV charging pilot for street cabinets

Last year, BT’s tech incubation unit Etc. launched a pilot to test how its green street cabinets could be repurposed as a charging network for electric vehicles (EV), and estimated that up to 60,000 of the 90,000 cabinets could be suitable for this purpose.

This week, the UK-based Group announced that it will switch on the first charging point in Scotland in the coming weeks, with more to come later this year.

The project offers a number of benefits. If successful, if would help meet UK government objectives to increase the number of EV charging stations from around 53,000 now to a targeted 300,000 in the coming years. In addition, it provides an alternative use for cabinets used to house broadband and phone cabling that are becoming increasingly redundant because of the deployment of fiber networks.

For BT, the move also burnishes its green credentials, enabling the operator not only to contribute to the nation’s EV charging network but also to support the conversion of its own fleet of 34,000 vehicles to EVs. BT’s network arm Openreach is responsible for about 29,000 of the vehicles and said it currently has 3,465 EVs in its fleet. It is targeting 4,000 by the end of March 2024.

Furthermore, the EV charging pilot represents one of the first major projects of Etc., which was established in 2022 to explore emerging technologies in areas adjacent to BT’s more traditional offerings. Initial focus areas are drones, fintech and health tech.

In May 2022, Etc. managing director Tom Guy said the unit had been “given a license to sit outside of the core offering, a responsibility that gives us a unique opportunity to drive positive change. We think of it as the other stuff. The undefined.”

MTN expands fintech ambitions with Ericsson

Pan-African operator MTN has expanded its partnership with Ericsson as part of its ongoing commitment to provide a wide range of mobile money services to customers throughout the continent. 

The aim is to broaden the scope of financial inclusion from first-time users to high-end business applications, utilising MTN’s Mobile Money (MoMo) service on the Ericsson Wallet Platform.

MTN noted that the platform places a strong emphasis on financial technology, or fintech, with focus areas including the growth of merchant and e-commerce payments, facilitating national and international money transfers among family members and others (remittance services), advancing banking solutions, and offering insurance services.

MTN is building platform businesses, including fintech, on top of its network as part of its Ambition 2025 goals and described the collaboration with Ericsson as a significant milestone in the execution of this strategy.

The operator said more than 63 million MTN active subscribers already use its MoMo platform in some form across 16 African countries. MTN MoMo’s annual transaction value has almost tripled since 2018, growing from $76 billion in 2018 to $204 billion in 2022. Transaction volumes increased by almost 300% during the same period, from 3.5 billion transactions in 2018 to 12.7 billion in 2022.

Malaysia’s Axiata gets approval for digital bank

Axiata Group’s fintech unit Boost and partner RHB Banking Group (RHB) received official approval from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Ministry of Finance to start operations as a digital bank with effect from January 15.

According the group, the newly formed Boost Bank becomes the first primarily Malaysian-owned digital bank with a digital bank app in the local market, and is designed to improve financial inclusion.

Fozia Amanulla has been appointed CEO of Boost Bank and said the new bank is “determined to propel Malaysia into an age of true financial inclusivity, by harnessing the untapped potential of embedded finance with our digital bank.”

The new digital bank already has its own web site and is currently in the alpha testing phase with select customers. The official date for the public launch has not yet been announced. 

The Boost-RHB Digital Bank Consortium was among five successful license applicants announced by BNM in April 2022.

Axiata Group CEO Vivek Sood also noted that Axiata will “continue to focus on its portfolio of assets including digital businesses to accelerate long-term value for our shareholders.”

HPE to acquire Juniper Networks in AI push

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is to acquire Juniper Networks for about $14 billion as part of efforts to increase its own AI-based networking capabilities.

The move unites the enterprise server specialist with a networking gear maker that focuses on network security and AI-enabled enterprise networking operations (AIOps).

HPE described the portfolios of the two companies as “highly complementary” and said the acquisition is expected to double its networking business.

It also noted that the “explosion of AI and hybrid cloud-driven business” is accelerating demand for secure, unified technology solutions that “connect, protect, and analyze companies’ data from edge to cloud.”

“These trends, and AI specifically, will continue to be the most disruptive workloads for companies, and HPE has been aligning its portfolio to capitalize on these substantial IT trends with networking as a critical connective component,” HPE said. 

Upon completion of the transaction, Juniper CEO Rami Rahim will lead the combined HPE networking business, reporting to HPE President and CEO Antonio Neri.

The proposed deal has sparked speculation about its potential ramifications, with some concerns over the impact on the telecoms market because of HPE’s focus on enterprise.

It’s also unclear how the new HPE-Juniper combination will impact Ericsson, which is a long-standing partner of Juniper. Others say it sets up a “battle of networking titans, with HPE going head to head with Cisco for dominance in the AI networking era.”

Airtel to help connect smart meters in India

Airtel Business, the B2B arm of Indian communications service provider Bharti Airtel, has announced that it will provide connectivity for over 20 million smart meters managed by Adani Energy Solutions Limited (AESL), which describes itself as the largest private sector power transmission company in India.

Airtel said it will commit to deliver reliable and secure connectivity for all AESL’s smart meter deployments. In addition, the CSP said its smart metering solutions, underpinned by NB-IoT, 4G and 2G, will help AESL to ensure real-time connectivity and uninterrupted transfer of critical data between smart meters and headend applications.

The solution is supported by Airtel’s IoT platform – Airtel IoT Hub – which enables smart meter tracking and monitoring with analytics and diagnostic capabilities, in addition to real-time insights and services to give customers control over their energy consumption.

Adani Energy Solutions said it has an order book of over 20 million smart meters from the power utilities of Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand.

The deal is also regarded as supportive of government initiatives in India such as the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme and the Smart Meter National Programme.

Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, CEO, Airtel Business (India), said: “India’s smart metering program is one of the most significant policy reform measures undertaken by the government. These meters are critical building blocks for smart grids and fundamental enablers for the digitalization of the power sector.”