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Xavier Niel mulls acquiring LatAm mobile operator Millicom for $4.1bn

Annie Turner
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Xavier Niel mulls acquiring LatAm mobile operator Millicom for $4.1bn

French billionaire’s group is the operators biggest shareholder but a rise of 33% in Millicom’s share price this year also ups the ante in financing the deal

French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel is considering the acquisition of Millicom International Cellular. Niel’s group is already Millicom’s biggest shareholder with a 29% stake, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group, cited by a Reuters report. Millicom provides telecom services in Latin America through its TIGO brand (see graphic below).

The report says Niel is investigating finance options for an offer price of $24 per common share which would value Millicom at $4.1 billion (€3.788 billion). The transaction would be through Atlas Investissement, which is a wholly-owned unit of Niel’s NJJ Holding which, in turn, owns the stake in Millicom.

Niel’s possible move was reported originally by Bloomberg News which suggested that rises in Millicom’s share price could make it harder for Niel to finance the deal: Millicom’s shares have gained about 33% this year.

Official confirmation

After reports in the media, Atlas issued a statement saying, “In light of media reports, Atlas Investissement announces that it is exploring a potential all cash tender offer for Millicom securities. In connection with such preliminary efforts, Atlas is exploring financing options to support an offer price of 24.0 USD per common share, and its SEK equivalent per SDR.”

Millicom, which has its headquarters in Luxembourg, also put out an official statement: “The Board of Directors of Millicom International Cellular confirms that it received today a non-binding expression of interest from one of its shareholders, Atlas Luxco… The Board of Directors will carefully review any offer, should one be made. There is no certainty that a transaction will materialize nor as to the terms, timing or form of any potential transaction.”

Long term goal

Niel’s Luxembourg-based telecom firm was said to be in talks with Apollo Global Management and Claure Group about a potential bid for Millicom last year. During the discussion, Niel upped his stake in Millicom.

The talks ended in June 2023.

Niel has telecoms investments in nine countries in Europe with nearly 50 million active subscribers combined and more than 10 billion euros of revenues, Atlas said.

Atlas Investissement said it was independent of Iliad Group and Iliad Holding.

The billionaire is the founder and owner of Iliad, which has opcos in Poland (through the Play brand), France and Italy (under the Free brand).

Telefónica, Vodafone and Masorange to share 700MHz for rural 5G

Annie Turner
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Telefónica, Vodafone and Masorange to share 700MHz for rural 5G

This first such agreement between the major players will deliver greater spectral efficiency and speed, as well as keep costs down

Telefónica, Vodafone and Masorange have reached a milestone agreement to improve 5G rural coverage by sharing their collective 30MHz in the 700MHz band. This frequency is best suited to wide coverage from a single antenna and indoor coverage.

This is according to the Spanish newspaper Expansión [subscription needed]. Their intention is to make network deployment more efficient and less costly. It is also a reflection of the recent and ongoing shifts in the Spanish market.

Masorange is the merger of MasMovil and Orange, while Vodafone is in the throes of exiting the market, selling its business and assets to Zegona Capital.

The newspaper article notes that agreements to share resources are common in offering services across fibre infrastructure. Sharing has been agreed previously in mobile, but never by the three main players.

The three will act on this agreement in areas covered by the government’s Unique Active Networks (Unico Redes Activas) programme, backed by the European Union. It subsidises the high cost of rolling out coverage to populations of 10,000 or fewer.

The operator that rolls out the network within such an area can exploit the spectrum of all three players to guarantee throughput of at least 100Mbps, as stipulated by the government. The maximum speed, in theory, from combing the spectrum is 450Mbps.

Europe’s smartphone shipments finally grow again 

Simon Dux
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Europe’s smartphone shipments finally grow again 

Samsung regained top spot from Apple in Q1 2024 after the S24 launch but low-cost handsets are also taking market share

Europe’s smartphone shipments finally returned to growth in Q1 2024, increasing by 10% YoY, according to Counterpoint Research’s Market Monitor Service. This marked the region’s first YoY increase in shipments since Q3 2021, suggesting the worst is over – for handsets at least, but 5G core equipment makers are still facing “an ominous downward trend”.  

However, handset shipments were still well below pre-pandemic levels, and given that Q1 2023 witnessed the lowest shipments in Europe for over a decade, market growth should be treated with caution for the year ahead. 

“The European market is showing signs of a recovery and consumer confidence is improving, helped by some interesting innovations around on-device AI,” said Counterpoint associate director Jan Stryjak. “But we are not out of the woods yet. Although we expect the market to grow by low single digits for the rest of 2024, this is still off the back of an extremely poor 2023, and we do not expect to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon.” 

Stryjak said it was “heartening” to see the European market finally return to growth, although one should not get too excited given how poor 2023 was. “Nevertheless, macroeconomic conditions in the region are improving, and some impressive new devices, especially from the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi and Honor, have brought renewed optimism to the market,” he said.  

“In particular, Samsung saw a return to form in Q1 2024, with its popular Galaxy S24 series helping it register YoY growth in shipments for the first time since Q4 2021. Elsewhere, Honor’s relentless march saw it overtake Oppo to capture the fifth position for the first time, while Transsion’s sub-brand Tecno grew significantly in Eastern Europe.” Transsion has in fact overtook Apple in the process.  

Market in detail 

Counterpoint found that Samsung’s 7% YoY in Q1 2024, ending a run of declines going back to Q4 2021. Samsung’s AI-powered S24 series was very well received, and the brand’s new A35 and A55 smartphones launched towards the end of the quarter should carry momentum into Q2. In Central and Eastern Europe, Samsung regained the number one spot from Xiaomi for the first time since Q1 2022. 

Apple’s shipments declined by 1% YoY as iPhone 15 sales continued to tail off due to seasonality. With no iPhone SE expected in 2024, shipments should continue to drop until the launch of the iPhone 16 later in the year. 

Xiaomi’s shipments grew by 11% YoY, continuing its recovery following a “difficult few years”. Xiaomi did especially well in Western Europe, particularly in Spain and Italy, largely due to the new Redmi Note 13 series. However, Xiaomi struggled in Central and Eastern Europe, where the growth of Samsung and Tecno led to the brand’s share dropping to its lowest since Q1 2022. 

Realme’s shipments rose 59% YoY, driven by growth in Western Europe and a sharp rebound in some of its key markets such as Italy and Spain. realme also registered growth in Central and Eastern Europe, especially in Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary – essentially recovering much of the share it lost in early 2023. Its C series smartphones continued as bestsellers, although the new realme 12 also had an impact. 

Honor registered a 67% YoY growth in shipments, overtaking Oppo to take fifth position in Europe for the first time. This was driven by Western Europe where its shipments more than doubled over the year thanks to some impressive new devices including the Magic V2, Magic 6 and Honor 90. This was Oppo’s first time outside the top 5 since Q2 2020 and Counterpoint put this down to its legal struggle with Nokia and the ongoing rise of Honor. 

Cyber-criminals using AWS, Google and IBM services to steal data by SMS  

Simon Dux
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Cyber-criminals using AWS, Google and IBM services to steal data by SMS  

Using SMS, threat actors are exploiting these cloud platforms to redirect users to malicious websites, with the ultimate objective of stealing their information

An investigation by telco software and cyber specialist Enea has revealed how SMS scammers are using AWS, Google Cloud and IBM Cloud Services to steal customer data. 

“A number of criminal campaigns that exploit cloud storage services like Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Backblaze B2, and IBM Cloud Object Storage, have recently come to Enea’s attention,” said Enea threat intelligence manager Manoj Kumar in a blog post. “Threat actors are using these storage platforms to redirect users to malicious websites, with the ultimate objective of stealing their information, and it all starts with the humble SMS.” 

According to Kumar, the attackers coordinating these campaigns appear to be prioritising two basic objectives: to ensure scam text messages are delivered to handsets without detection by network firewalls; and convince end users to perceive delivered messages or links as trustworthy.   

Exploiting cloud storage 

Cloud Storage enables organisations or Individuals to store, access, and manage a range of files. It can also be used to host static websites, by storing the website’s HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other assets in a storage bucket and configuring the cloud storage service to present these files as a website. This approach is suitable for static websites that don’t require server-side processing or dynamic content generation.  

 Kumar said cybercriminals have now found a way to exploit the facility provided by cloud storage to host static websites (typically .html files) containing embedded spam URLs in their source code. The URL linking to the cloud storage is distributed via text messages, which appear to be authentic and can therefore bypass firewall restrictions.  

“When mobile users click on these links, which contain well-known cloud platform domains, they are directed to the static website stored in the storage bucket,” he said. “This website then automatically forwards or redirects users to the embedded spam URLs or dynamically generated URLs using JavaScript, all without the user’s awareness.” 

Kumar details the procedure using the URL “storage.googleapis.com” – the domain used by Google Cloud Storage. “Attackers are using a URL constructed with this domain to link to a static webpage being hosted in a bucket on the Google Cloud Storage platform. The spam website is then loaded from that static webpage using the “HTML meta refresh” method,” he said. HTML meta refresh is a technique used in web development to automatically refresh or redirect a web page after a certain time. 

On the blog he provides examples of spam messages linking to Google Cloud Storage. The key is that each has a tag that will instruct the browser to refresh the page and redirect to the specified URL in 0 seconds. “That means without our consent,” he said. Users end up on a fraudulent website pretending to offer gift cards to trick users into revealing personal and financial information.   

“We have also observed SMS spam messages containing links to static websites hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM cloud and other storage platforms, with similar techniques being used to redirect the user to a scam website,” he added.    

Mitigating these SMS scams 

Since the main domain of the URL contains, for example, the genuine Google Cloud Storage URL/domain, it is challenging to catch it through normal URL scanning. “Detecting and blocking URLs of this nature presents an ongoing challenge due to their association with legitimate domains belonging to reputable or prominent companies,” said Kumar.  

He added that user behaviour can be used to help address this challenge. “We know how URLs linking to storage platforms are used in normal circumstances. It will often be an individual sharing a specific link with another individual or small group of individuals – friends sharing photos, a colleague sharing a file, etc,” he said. “Therefore, we know that URLs of this kind being used for genuine purposes are not going to be associated with the aggressive SMS traffic linked to spam campaigns.” 

He explained: “Enea’s detection of suspicious activity related to URLs is facilitated through the analysis of traffic behavior, in addition to proven URL inspection methods. This analysis involves reviewing the origins of the traffic as well as the specific destinations it targets. Additionally, consideration is given to the nature of the content being accessed and the underlying intentions of the webpages in question.” 

Some of the traps that can successfully be used to capture suspicious traffic leverage metrics such as traffic volume, content and behavioral patterns to identify and address potentially malicious activity. 

Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer named as Telenor’s new President & CEO

Annie Turner
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Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer named as Telenor’s new President & CEO

Sigve Brekke will step down on 1 December after more than nine highly successful years in the job

Telenor says that after “an extensive process to identify the right candidate”, its board of directors has carried has appointed Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer as President & CEO (pictured). Sigve Brekke, the current CEO, has a contract that stipulates retirement at the end of 2024.

She joins the growing number of women leading telcos in Europe, including Keri Gilder at Colt Technologies, Allison Kirkby at BT Group, Christel Heydemann at Orange group and Margherita Della Valle at Vodafone Group – backed by the swelling ranks of women in other senior positions.

Sigve Brekke has been CEO of Telenor since August 2015. Since Sigve Brekke’s commencement date, Telenor has outperformed the S&P European Telecommunications index by 50% on a dividend-adjusted basis. Telenor is the only operator with a solid footprint in all Nordic markets and has delivered 5% mobile service revenue growth in the Nordic region for six consecutive quarters.  

Tough act to follow

Chair of the board, Jens Petter Olsen, noted, “Telenor is an institution of great importance for the 200 million customers in our footprint and for the societies we empower. We need a CEO with great leadership skills, who understands how technology will enable us to deliver secure and superior customer experience and someone who will ensure profitable growth.”

The board has been searching for the right success to Brekke since last this winter, considering internal and external candidates. 

Olsen adds, “Benedicte, together with all the talented employees in Telenor, will continue to deliver great results in the company’s next phase. Telenor’s financial targets stand firm, and there are no plans for any strategy shifts. Benedicte’s strong track record from technology and customer driven companies, and extensive top manager and board experience have impressed the board.”

Banking background

Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer is the CEO in SpareBank 1 SR-Bank, which is in throes of a merger, the biggest in the Norwegian banking sector in 25 years. Previously she was a Group EVP of the insurance company Fremtind Forsikring and a Group EVP in DNB Bank as Head of Corporate Banking.

In addition, she has capital markets experience including private equity, corporate finance and several banks including Citibank, as well as from the fast-moving consumer goods industry. Her board experience includes serving as the Chair of the Oslo Stock Exchange, a member of the Supervisory Board of the Central Bank of Norway, and being a board member of Vipps, Norway’s market-leading payment app.

Schilbred Fasmer commented,“I feel incredibly privileged to be given the opportunity to lead Telenor, which is in a class-of-its-own when it comes to profitable growth and customer experience in the European telecoms industry. I have been working with digital innovation and transformation for two decades, and in my opinion banking and the telco industry are facing similar disruptions. I am very much looking forward to contributing to continued growth and customer centricity in Telenor.

“Sigve has done a terrific job on behalf of Telenor for several decades. His nine years as CEO have been a very demanding period for European telcos. Nevertheless, the company has grown and outperformed the industry.”

Orange, Nokia collaborate on APIs to accelerate 5G applications in Europe

Annie Turner
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Orange, Nokia collaborate on APIs to accelerate 5G applications in Europe

Adding Nokia’s Network as Code platform with developer portal to Orange’s Developer Portal and commercial network APIs

Orange and Nokia are expanding their partnership to advance network programmability and monetization. Using Nokia’s Network as Code platform with developer portal, developers will be able to test and exploit Orange’s 5G network capabilities to create applications for customers in Europe.

Orange is already offering developers commercial, production-grade network API capabilities via the Orange Developer Portal. The plan is that working with Nokia will expand and accelerate progress, allowing developers to tap into capabilities like dynamic bandwidth allocation, real-time location insights, predictive maintenance and event-driven triggers for security and safety responses.

Nokia’s Network as Code platform with developer portal will give application developers access to software development kits (SDKs) and network API documentation. It will also provide a ‘sandbox’ enabling developers to generate code and simulate use cases; and testing and code ‘snippets’ that can be included in new applications.

As part of the first step in their network API collaboration, Orange and Nokia will co-host a Network as Code Hackathon today and tomorrow at France’s tech start-up conference, Viva Tech.

Future developments

In future, Orange and Nokia will engage with the developer community by providing support for pre-commercial use cases while developers leverage the network API expertise and capabilities from both partners. This pilot programme will become available in stages across certain European countries, starting through the Orange 5G Labs network (see graphic above). 

Nokia’s Network as Code platform uses technical standards produced through industry initiatives such as the GSMA Open Gateway initiative and the Linux Foundation CAMARA. Nokia and Orange contribute to both initiatives. Orange has already implemented Linux Foundation CAMARA’s guidelines and its first commercial-grade APIs are available in France and Spain.

Nokia has signed collaboration agreements with 12 network operators and ecosystem partners around the world to use its Network as Code platform with developer portal.

Laurent Leboucher, Group CTO, at Orange said,“We are very pleased to open another area of collaboration with Nokia that enables compelling business use cases to consume our network assets in ways that were not really feasible years ago. Today, the level of collaboration among operators, system integrators, developers, and partners, is a step change and this is positioning us to better tap the cloud-native capabilities built into Orange’s 5G network.”    

Raghav Sahgal, President of Cloud and Network Services, at Nokia added,“This is an important step in our relationship with Orange and further validation of the steps we are taking in the API journey to help customers achieve network programmability and monetization. We look forward to our continued close cooperation with developers to create and drive new opportunities that support Orange in delivering even more value from its network assets.”

Sparkle lands BlueMed cable in Crete  

Simon Dux
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Sparkle lands BlueMed cable in Crete  

BlueMed, part of the wider Blue Submarine Cable System project launched in partnership with Google and other telcos, connects Italy with France, Greece and other countries in the Med

Sparkle, the international wholesale arm of Telecom Italia, announced the landing of the BlueMed submarine cable in Chania (Greece). BlueMed is Sparkle’s new cable connecting Italy with France, Greece and several countries bordering the Mediterranean. It is part of the Blue & Raman Submarine Cable Systems built in partnership with Google and other operators that stretch further in the Middle East up to Mumbai, India. 

Cable laying began in 2023 with the main Tyrrhenian trunk from Genoa to Palermo and with branches to Marseille and Bastia (France), Golfo Aranci (Sardinia), Pomezia (Rome). From Palermo, the cable crossed the Strait of Messina to reach the Greek island of Crete from where it will continue with further branches in the Mediterranean up to Aqaba in Jordan. The Tyrrhenian and the Middle Eastern terrestrial sections are in full operation, while further Mediterranean landings and the full operation from Genoa to Aqaba are expected by this year. 

With four fibre pairs and an initial design capacity of more than 25Tbps per pair, BlueMed offers high-speed internet connections and high-performance solutions to ISPs, carriers, telecom operators, content providers, enterprises and institutions to support their growing needs. 

New routes for Greece 

In Crete, BlueMed reaches Sparkle’s data centre in Chania, a cable landing station interconnected with the island’s terrestrial networks and Sparkle’s MedNautilus network (with connections to mainland Greece, Turkey, and Italy). Sparkle is further developing the hub to accommodate other submarine cable projects including GreenMed that will cross the Adriatic Sea connecting Italy to Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Turkey – creating a diversified, low latency route between Central Europe, the Balkans and the Central and Eastern Mediterranean countries. 

“With the landing of BlueMed in Crete, Greece is enabling a new digital route for internet traffic between Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia,” said Sparkle CEO Enrico Bagnasco. “We have been operating in Greece for more than 20 years and here we have the skills and infrastructures needed to develop it as a new internet hub of the Mediterranean, a role destined to grow further in the future thanks to the landing of new submarine cables.” 

“With BlueMed, we strengthen our longstanding presence in Greece and reaffirm our commitment to fostering the development of a digital ecosystem increasingly connected to the world,” added Sparkle chief marketing and product management and CEO of Sparkle Greece Daniele Mancuso. “With four data centres in the country and a wide portfolio of digital services including IoT and networking solutions, we ensure Greek enterprises and institutions efficient communications both within their sites and with their external ecosystems.” 

Lighting up the Med 

Last September, Sparkle announced the activation of the terrestrial section of the BlueMed cable connecting Aqaba in Jordan to Sparkle’s Mediterranean backbone as well as direct service availability between Aqaba and Milan using BlueMed new segments. When the Italian section of the cable went live, it brought 120Tbps of connectivity across four fibre pairs to Palermo, Genoa, and Milan. 

In Jordan, BlueMed lands in the carrier-neutral tier-3 data centre operated by Aqaba Digital Hub which hosts Sparkle’s PoP since 2019 and is already connected to the company’s international network and Tier 1 global IP backbone Seabone.

In January the operator announced it had landed BlueMed in Bastia, Corsica. The Blue & Raman project was announced in 2020 and represents $400m of investment. Once complete, the cable will provide a different route through the Middle East outside Egypt, which currently has a submarine cable stranglehold with Telecom Egypt moving quickly on its own cables to protect its market position.  

Pictured (front, right) Sparkle data centre director Nikos (Nikolaos) Konstantinidis at the landing.  

Telcos believe AI will transform network efficiency: Ciena 

Simon Dux
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Telcos believe AI will transform network efficiency: Ciena 

Global survey of telcos shows that unlike 5G, the vast majority say they will be able to monetise artificial intelligence

In the same week that SK Telecom (SKT) announced had developed and deployed AI Orchestrator to enable automation of all control and inspection tasks required for network operation, a global telco study commissioned by Ciena has shown that more than half of telecom and IT engineers surveyed believe the use of AI will improve network operational efficiency by 40% or more.  

Perhaps more surprisingly, Ciena’s survey – in collaboration with Censuswide, surveying more than 1,500 telecom and IT engineers and managers at CSPs in 17 countries – showed that 85% of respondents are confident they will be able to monetise AI traffic across networks. While this may seem fanciful, SKT may once more prove a model of what telcos can do with AI – its enterprise business has become a solid growth driver in the non-telecom space, with sales of enterprise AI expanding by more than 10% YoY.  

Globally, CSPs believe the sectors that will generate the most AI traffic, and therefore revenue opportunities, are financial services (46%), followed by media and entertainment (43%), and manufacturing (38%). Respondents also see multiple avenues to generate revenue from AI. 

Specifically, 40% believe it will be from opening their networks to third-party integrations; 37% believe revenue will come from security and privacy services; the same number (37%) believe it will come from new product offerings; 35% believe it will be from the creation of tailored subscription packages; and 34% believe revenue will be from differentiation on quality of service for connectivity. 

“Understanding emerging technologies like AI is an essential step toward staying competitive in today’s constantly changing digital landscape,” said Ciena international CTO Jürgen Hatheier. “The survey highlights the optimistic long-term outlook of CSPs regarding AI’s ability to enhance the network as well as the need for strategic planning and investments in infrastructure and expertise to fully realize the benefits.” 

 AI network benefits 

A key theme from the study – and the regular conclusion of many Mobile Europe operator panels – is the opinion that AI will enhance network performance. Participants believe new solutions across fibre network infrastructure and operations will be required. According to the study, the most popular strategies believed to improve performance include upgrading networks with new traffic and network analysis software (selected by 49% of respondents), along with upgrades in switches and routers (43%), and investment in 800G technology (40%). Almost all (99%) respondents believe they will need to upgrade fibre-optic networks to support more AI traffic. 

As telcos ponder putting more of their core network elements into the public cloud, doing the same for AI functions seems split – 43% of CSPs favor private cloud deployment for AI services, while 37% lean toward public cloud providers’ data centres. Meanwhile, only 21% of respondents plan to adopt a hybrid cloud model. 

Coming for your job or not? 

After Telstra announced a 9% workforce reduction this week local media linked the move to recent software engineering deals the telco had done with Cognizant and Infosys were raised to point out AI was coming for telco jobs. However, somewhat strikingly, two thirds (67%) of telcos anticipate AI to be a force for job creation and identified key areas of expertise necessary for developing and launching AI services including: cybersecurity (31%), machine learning (30%) and programming/coding (30%). The key question is where that job creation will take place.  

Mobile core network market falls 10% in tough economic climate

Annie Turner
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Mobile core network market falls 10% in tough economic climate

Dell’Oro Group describes the sector as having “developed an ominous downward trend for three quarters” – 5G is doing even worse

Dell’Oro Group says the growth of the mobile core network (MCN) sector continued to slow in the first quarter of this year. It dropped 10% compared with the same period in 2023.

The MCN is a transitional stage as part of the move from 4G to 5G with a new type of core network known as 5G Core Service Based Architecture (SBA) which was expected to be widely adopted. It is designed as a universal core – for 2G, 3G and 4G mobile, fixed wireless networks, fixed and Wi-Fi networks, and the IMS Core is expected to migrate into it too. The plan is that ultimately, a single core network will be required.

The 5G Core SBA includes the network slicing function, so operators can manage parallel networks within a single slice such as to support an MVNO or IoT network or connected cars, industrial robots, smart city applications and more.

A key feature of the 5G Core SBA is that it was designed from the ground up with separate control and user planes, allowing user plane compute to be pushed out closer to the edge for lower latency. Another motivation was to avoid incurring backhaul costs, moving data to and from the central core unnecessarily.

The combo of network slicing and edge can meet some of the extreme requirements that factories and enterprise have via, in effect, their own virtual network.

To enable NFV, the 5G Core SBA uses cloud-native network functions that disaggregate the hardware and software, operating in a stateless function with the data separated from the control function, among other things.

However, the pandemic, inflation, geopolitical tensions, high levels of debt and general uncertainty mean that MCN deployments are a lot slower than anticipated. So the arguments for are compelling, operators are not opening their wallets.

Dave Bolan, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group, comments, “The four-quarter rolling average [for MCN] has developed an ominous downward trend for three quarters as economic headwinds tighten their grip on the market, moving into negative territory in year-over-year growth rate in 1Q 2024.

“This suggests that the downward trajectory will last at least one more quarter after the market high in 1Q 2023 falls out of the four-quarter rolling average.

5G worse hit

He continued, “In addition, the 5G MCN market, based on the four-quarter rolling average, has now decelerated for five quarters in a row.

“Inflation has impacted the ability of some Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to raise capital, and it has also impacted subscribers when it comes to upgrading their phones to 5G. Many MNOs have lowered their CAPEX plans and announced that they have fewer than expected 5G subscribers on their networks which limits MNOs’ growth plans.

“As a result, we are lowering our expectations for 2024 from a positive growth rate to a negative one.”

Industry snapshots

Dell’Oro’s 1Q 2024 Mobile Core Network and Multi-Access Edge Computing Report found:

• As at the end of 1Q 2024, 51 mobile operators have commercially deployed 5G Standalone (SA), enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) networks and two more began roll-out during the quarter.

• Over the last year, North, Central and Latin America, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa are all “trending into negative territory” in terms of year-on-year rate of revenue growth. Only the Asia Pacific region, including China, was following an upward trend as of 1Q 2024.

Orange, Vodafone expand Open RAN sharing trial in Romania

Annie Turner
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Orange, Vodafone expand Open RAN sharing trial in Romania

After a pilot last autumn, the two expanded the project into rural areas, including integrated vRAN tech for 2G

After the first 4G call made on a shared Open RAN in Romania last October, Orange and Vodafone extended the trial into rural areas.

This includes fully integrated 2G virtualized RAN (vRAN) technology, which the two say is “an international first over a shared operational RAN.

The parties claim this is an important step towards migrating RANs to the cloud, with the eventual possibility of moving their entire traditional network to vRANs, spanning 2G, 4G/5G networks. This is in line with European requirements, especially where 3G networks have been closed down or about to be.

Virtualising 2G networks means operators would no longer need to run legacy 2G networks on specialised hardware and could operate virtualised 4G/5G networks as an overlay.

Power of partners

Orange and Vodafone worked with partners on this project. Samsung provided its vRAN software, supporting–2G, 4G and 5G with its O-RAN compliant radios. Wind River contributed the abstraction layer through Studio Cloud Platform on top of the hardware to deploy and scale the RAN software. Dell Technologies supplied Dell PowerEdge servers with Intel processors and acceleration cards.

Through the project both operators say they gained operational experience in managing an active Open RAN network used in real operating conditions, increasing their confidence in the maturity of virtualised networks. It has also enabled them to compare Open RAN and traditional RAN networks and demonstrate similar performance.

Real-life experience

The use of Open RAN in a real environment has allowed both operators to benefit from the advantages offered by this solution, such as a high degree of automation and reduced implementation time. Open RAN technology decouples software functionalities from hardware, enabling remote modernization of mobile base stations with new features and services, faster and more cost-effectively.

RAN sharing also gives operators more freedom and autonomy in managing their own virtualised RAN software on a common cloud infrastructure, while sharing network operating costs.

This approach also results in fewer site visits due to greater network automation although operators can still differentiate their services but with reduced maintaining cost and energy costs.

Important step

Marius Maican, Technology Director at Orange Romania, stated, “This first development of an operational Open RAN network in Romania represents an important step for Orange in its transition to more agile and automated, cloud-native networks. Orange will leverage this successful pilot to develop a center of expertise in Romania in the near future, to support large-scale Open RAN implementations across the Orange network in Europe in the coming years.”

Nicolae Vilceanu, Network Director at Vodafone Romania, said, “With focus on customer experience we are leveraging on the Open RAN momentum to move to cloud-native networks. Open RAN fosters faster innovation and development of new features and services by allowing multiple vendors to develop in the RAN space.

“This enables telecommunications operators to maintain a competitive edge and provide their customers advanced solutions. We are happy to join the Open RAN partners forces for taking further the developments, for a future proof digital society.”

Both operators reinforce their commitment to future Open RAN implementation through this announcement, they state. They are also looking at the possibility of infrastructure sharing in Africa.

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