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Orange, Vodacom said to be exploring African infra agreement

Annie Turner
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Orange, Vodacom said to be exploring African infra agreement

According to a report from Bloomberg UK, the two groups are looking at where they could cooperate

Vodacom and Orange are reportedly in talks to see how they can work together to lower infrastructure costs in Africa. The African opcos are important drivers of growth for both of the European parent companies: Vodacom is majority owned by the British group Vodafone and Orange has headquarters in Paris.

The two have already been collaborating on shared Open RAN and vRAN in Romania.

According to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg UK, the two companies are looking at markets in which they both have opcos, such as Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are exploring the possibilities of sharing infrastructure and jointly building out networks in rural areas.

As yet no final decisions have been made and indeed the parties stress that they may not reach an agreement.

Orange declined to comment specifically, but stated that the company views “sharing certain network infrastructure with other operators in such large territories makes sense” on the grounds it “could facilitate improved coverage and network quality for customers.”

Vodacom’s scale

The report quoted a spokesperson for Vodacom saying, “We are looking at partnerships with other mobile operators and financial investors in countries where we operate.

“Our aim is to potentially alleviate the costs of roll-out and rural connectivity, helping to address cost to communicate and narrow the digital divide.”

Vodacom is the largest mobile operator in Africa, serving more than 200 million consumer and enterprise customers. From its origins in South Africa, Vodacom has opcos (highlighted in red in the map above) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania.

It operates in Kenya and Ethiopia through Safaricom (highlighted in the map above in green).  In total, its mobile networks cover a total population of more than half a billion people.

Vodacom said it would not discuss details until agreements were reached.

Iliad’s Scaleway ramps up virtual services globally 

Simon Dux
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Iliad’s Scaleway ramps up virtual services globally 

Service provider expands its cloud services globally, launching virtual private servers in 65 cities, and introduces an AI-focused “GPU Cluster On Demand” service

French cloud computing and web hosting company Scaleway, a subsidiary of the Groupe Iliad, has set its sights on becoming a leader in European cloud services. It has expanded its virtual private server (VPS) offering to cover 65 cities in 52 countries across six continents – up from three countries.

The company has also announced the availability of 1,000 new Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs, interconnected by Nvidia’s latest networking platform, Spectrum-X, to create a new “GPU Cluster On Demand” offering.  

Dedibox VPS gives companies full flexibility to deploy virtual infrastructure wherever their users are. It is ideal for services and applications that require geographic proximity, such as VPNs, CDNs and edge computing. “Rolling out our Dedibox VPS offering on a global scale is a real milestone for Scaleway, as it means we can now partner with our European customers in their international expansion,” said Scaleway CEO Damien Lucas.  

Since announcing, last September, that it had acquired an Nvidia DGX SuperPOD, Scaleway has been increasing the AI computing power available to its customers by regularly investing in many Nvidia GPUs. Using its partnership with Nvidia and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Scaleway is launching “GPU Cluster On Demand”. With this solution, Scaleway’s customers will be able to reserve the size of computing clusters they want, from a few GPUs to several thousand, for as long as they want – from a few days to several years – for AI use cases. 

Training cluster 

Scaleway has also just signed a deal to provide a large training cluster of Nvidia H100 GPUs to the “H” company, a stealth startup founded in Paris. Steered by CEO Charles Kantor, the “H” company brings together a founding team of former Google DeepMind leaders. The Paris-based company aims to develop foundational action models, and multi-agent models, whereby numerous AI systems interact with one another, leading to new close-to-AGI capabilities, according to the company. 

“Having already enabled European leaders like Mistral and Kyutai to train their state-of-the-art models on the continent’s most powerful cloud AI cluster, we’re excited to empower the foundational work of “H”, the sector’s next startup to watch,” said Lucas. 

“We’re delighted to be launching the next stage of AI, in France, benefiting from the strength of Scaleway’s European cloud AI, with the support of the Iliad Group. Our partners’ values are perfectly aligned with those of “H”, giving us incredible launch conditions for our essential new mission”, said Charles Kantor, co-founder and CEO of the “H” company. 

Paris home data centre 

Like the vast majority of the GPUs that Scaleway has purchased over recent months, the additional GPUs will be installed at the heart of the Iliad Group’s DC5 data centre located in the Greater Paris region. With its adiabatic cooling system, Iliad claims the data centre is one of the most efficient in Europe in terms of electricity and water consumption – it uses 30%-40% less electricity and is over twice as water-efficient as conventional data centres, according to the company. 

Huawei Cloud launches Cairo Region with an Arabic LLM 

Simon Dux
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Huawei Cloud launches Cairo Region with an Arabic LLM 

The vendor partners Orange Egypt to become first to launch public cloud zone in Egypt, while LLM hits 100bn parameters

Huawei Cloud announced its Cairo Region and a new data centre at the company’s Cloud Summit in Cairo, promising support for 28 countries in Africa. The announcement of the Cairo Region brings Huawei Cloud’s total number of regions to 33 worldwide. 

The company also released its new Arabic large language model (LLM), which it said offers automatic speech recognition (ASR) service supports functions covering over 20 Arabic speaking countries, with accuracy rate reaching 96%.  

Huawei claims it is the first 100-billion parameter Arabic LLM in the industry and that is a big deal given how little Arabic is on the internet for training material. To put the achievement into perspective, Microsoft recently announced it will invest $1.5 billion in UAE company G42, which created the Jais Arabic LLM, in collaboration with Cerebras, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), and Med42 LLM, a generative AI model to streamline medical reporting. Jais is now available in the Azure AI Model Catalog. Jais was aiming for 30 billion parameters as of October last year as was seen as one of the leading Arabic LLMs.  

SK Telecom’s global telecom alliance will also release an Arabic version telco-specific LLM in collaboration with member e&. The South Korean operator has suggested the first version of its model could be available as early as June although it hasn’t commented on which versions that would be.   

Huawei Cloud’s Pangu model has been trained with native Arabic data, ensuring an accurate understanding of the local culture, history, knowledge customs and more of the Arab world, rather than relying on a body of English work and translating. The training of the model is based on industry datasets covering digital power, oil and gas, finance and more, according to the company. Huawei Cloud has been offering services on its platform including the DataArts data governance pipeline including the GaussDB database, and the ModelArts AI development pipeline. 

“With the Cairo Region, we are bringing our most innovative technologies to the country to further support Egypt to unlock the potential of digital transformation,” said Huawei Cloud president of global marketing and sales services Jacqueline Shi. “Furthermore, the launch of the Cairo Region is an important step in Huawei Cloud being able to enhance our services to customers across 28 African countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia and Algeria.” 

Working in the cloud with Orange  

Last month, Orange Egypt and Huawei announced a strategic partnership to launch Huawei Cloud services in the Egyptian market. The Chinese company said it would be providing a range of cloud computing services such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS).  

Orange said it would provide and operate integrated cloud services, which will “contribute to providing customers with professional services through Huawei Cloud platforms and Orange Business Cloud”.  

“Orange latest partnership with Huawei comes in line with the renewal of the current agreement between the two parties in providing Orange Business Cloud solutions,” said Orange Egypt chief business officer Hesham Mahran at the time 

Deeper ties with Egypt  

Huawei Cloud has been steadily expanding its global footprint, opening new data centers in Turkey and Saudi Arabia last year and operating a total of 93 availability zones over 33 regions globally. Just as the US tech giants concentrate on ties with the UAE and more latterly, Saudi Arabia, Huawei has deepened its ties with Egypt. The company previously announced that it will invest $300 million to establish the first public cloud region in Egypt, offering more than 200 cloud services including AI platforms, data platforms, and development platforms.  

Huawei added that it will invest $200 million to support 200 local software partners, to support 1,300 channel partners and “eventually to build a prosperous local software and application ecosystem”. In the region, Huawei said it will invest $30 million to train 10,000 local developers and educate 100,000 digital professionals.  

 Huawei Egypt also announced it had signed an MoU with Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) to “boost cyber security practices and digital cooperation.” The MoU aims to “foster cyber defences, safeguard sensitive data, and ensure a secure digital ecosystem”. Both partners will exchange their expertise to address “emerging cyber threats and vulnerabilities”, along with developing capability development programs and organizing joint workshops. 

 “By partnering with Huawei, we are confident in our collective ability to address evolving cyber threats effectively and uphold the highest standards of cyber resilience,” said VP for cyber security affairs at NTRA Ahmed Abdel Hafez. 

Stephen van Rooyen appointed CEO of VodafoneZiggo

Annie Turner
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0
Stephen van Rooyen appointed CEO of VodafoneZiggo

Previously he held a variety of senior positions at Sky during a 17 year stint, most recently as CEO of Sky UK & Ireland

Vodafone Group and Liberty Global announced that Stephen van Rooyen has been appointed CEO of VodafoneZiggo and will take up the role this September. The previous CEO, Jeroen Hoencamp, is retiring. Ritchy Drost, VodafoneZiggo’s CFO will be acting CEO until van Rooyen takes up the reins. 

Previously, van Rooyen was CEO of Sky UK & Ireland and Chief Commercial Officer for the Sky Group. In his 17 years with Sky, he worked various roles in the UK, Germany, Italy, Austria, Ireland and Switzerland.

He contributed to several major product launches there, including Sky Mobile, Sky Broadband, NOW TV as well as the evolution of Sky’s TV platforms, Sky Q, Sky Glass and Sky Stream.

Growth and innovation

Mike Fries, Liberty Global’s CEO, comments: “Stephen is an exceptionally talented executive with a strong track record of driving growth and innovation over the last two decades with Sky. He brings with him deep expertise in brand, products and innovation which is exactly what we need in the competitive Dutch market.

“I’d like to thank Jeroen Hoencamp for his years of great service and friendship and wish him all the best on his next journey.”

“Having been based in London for many years, I look forward to a new experience, for both me and my family, living and working in the Netherlands,” van Rooyen says. He will be based at VodafoneZiggo’s headquarters in Utrecht.

The Dutch operator is a joint venture between Vodafone Group and Liberty Global.

Swisscom gets first green light in Italy to acquire Vodafone unit

Annie Turner
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0
Swisscom gets first green light in Italy to acquire Vodafone unit

Swisscom says the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers has unconditionally approved the acquisition “pursuant to the Golden Power legislation”

Swisscom has received approval from the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers to acquire Vodafone Italy. Swisscom and Vodafone announced they had reached a binding agreement in March for Swisscom’s Italian fixed infrastructure subsidiary, Fastweb, to acquire Vodafone Italy for €8 billion.

The approval from the Council does not override the so-called Golden Power legislation, which gives the Italian government the right to review investments or corporate resolutions that could threaten or prejudice Italian public interests.

Assuming the Golden Power is not invoked, the sale of Vodafone Italy is “on track” according to Swisscom, although it is subject to further regulatory and other approvals – including the Italian Competition Authority. If it remains on track, it is expected that the deal will close in Q1 2025.

Reshaping European footprint

The sale of Vodafone Italy and Vodafone Spain (to Zegona Capital, which has been fully approved and is expected to close by the end of this month) is part of what Vodafone Group’s CEO describes as “reshaping Vodafone’s European footprint” – a key part of the strategy Margherita Della Valle set out early in 2023.

In March this year, she added, “The new footprint with the sale of Vodafone Spain and Vodafone Italy, will also result in a step-up of Vodafone Group ROCE [return on capital employed] of more than 1 percentage point.” As James Beard, writing for the Motley Fool pointed out in a blog earlier this month, that amount would add €1.1 billion in operating profit.

Three UK asks Ofcom to free up more 3.9GHz for 5G FWA

Simon Dux
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0
Three UK asks Ofcom to free up more 3.9GHz for 5G FWA

The changes will allow the operator to deploy a dual-band massive MIMO solution capable of supporting with 3.4-3.8GHz and 3.9GHz band

UK regulator Ofcom has opened a consultation after mobile operator Three UK (Hutchison 3G or H3G) asked it to vary its existing 3.9GHz licence to enable it to broaden its 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) packages. The operator gained the FWA (3925 – 4009MHz) spectrum after its acquisition of UK Broadband (UKB) in 2017. 

Ofcom is proposing to vary the technical terms in the 3.9GHz licence in line with H3G’s request to support 5G technology. The regulator believes such a move can bring additional benefits to consumers without creating harmful interference for other spectrum users. In reviewing H3G’s request, Ofcom also identified an opportunity to update the terms of access to 3.9 GHz spectrum to better align with its policy objectives for the wider 3.8–4.2 GHz band. 

The regulator is therefore proposing to clarify how H3G can reserve spectrum under its 3.9 GHz licence, consistent with the first-come-first-served, shared framework for all users in the 3.8–4.2 GHz band. Specifically, it is proposing to introduce a requirement for H3G to use the spectrum ‘assignments’ that it requests. This is like the requirement already in place for Shared Access users in the band. Ofcom will phase in this requirement over five years.  

It is also proposing to change the technical assumptions used for coordinating H3G with Shared Access users. These changes will reduce the area “sterilised by each of H3G’s assignments.” By that Ofcom pointed out that H3G currently has around 26,000 assignments (at nearly 9,000 locations across the UK) in the 3.9 GHz spectrum. “These assignments are currently not in use and prevent other users from accessing this spectrum,” said the regulator. 

What the changes mean 

Following the variation, 3UK will hold 84MHz of contiguous spectrum in the band to improve and expand its FWA service in the UK. The licence variation would allow 3UK to deploy 5G and Adaptive Antenna System (AAS). The variations will also align the technical conditions of the 3.9GHz licence with UKB’s 3.6GHz holding but keeping the same power level as existing 3.9GHz licence. 3UK plans to offload 5G FWA traffic from 3.4-3.8GHz to dedicated 3.9GHz. 

The current conditions include an outdated and restrictive emissions mask, preventing 3UK from utilising standard equipment for any 5G deployment. Furthermore, the current licence lacks specific AAS conditions for base station maximum power and out-of-band emissions masks. Without these AAS conditions, 3UK will be unable to deploy massive MIMO. “Producing a UK-specific variant to meet our licence conditions is not justifiable due to low volumes and increased production costs. As a result, approving the proposed licence variation would allow 3UK to deploy a dual-band Massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive MIMO) solution capable of supporting with 3.4-3.8 GHz and 3.9 GHz band, thereby reducing the requirement for specialized equipment,” stated Ofcom. 

Shared access 

In the UK, the 3.8-4.2GHz band is mainly used by Shared Access licensees, satellite earth station, point-to-point fixed links, private network providers and FWA provided by 3UK. Ofcom has stated in its Evolution of Shared Access Licence Framework consultation that the popularity of the 3.8-4.2 GHz band reflects its suitability for a range of newer 5G use cases, with a developing 5G ecosystem and significant bandwidths available. However, with the current licence conditions, obtaining 5G equipment is currently difficult. 

Ofcom said the proposed variation licence will allow 3UK to align technical conditions with other 5G licences and with Shared Access Licences. It added this shouldn’t have an adverse impact because 3UK is proposing to vary the technical requirements of the 3.9GHz licence with other 5G licences such as 3.6 GHz but is not proposing to increase the base station power levels. In addition, in its Shared Access Licence Guidance document Ofcom already has in place a “parties should work together and reach a mutual agreement” clause on dealing with adjacent channels potentially causing interference.

Old Millicom licence

UKB is the latest in a long succession of companies to have held the 3.9GHz licence since it was initially granted in 1992 by the Radiocommunications Agency to Millicom. The licence originally gave access to 2 x 84MHz of spectrum at 3605-3689 MHz and 3925-4009MHz for use in FDD form and was subsequently partitioned into two separate licences as part of Ofcom’s decision to vary UKB’s spectrum access licence for 3.6GHz spectrum. 

The regulator is not currently proposing to change the level or structure of fees for the 3.9GHz licence for now, but it may be subject to review in the future. The consultation runs until 15 July 2024, and the regulator plans to publish its final decision in Q4 2024. 

Google planning $1.1bn data centre expansion in Finland 

Simon Dux
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Google planning $1.1bn data centre expansion in Finland 

The hyperscaler wants to tap into more renewable energy and Finland seems happy to oblige

Google has announced it is ramping up its data centre in Hamina on the shores of the Gulf of Finland and has partnered the local energy company Haminan Energia to feed excess heat into the network of pipes that’s used to warm up homes in the local area. The company completed the transformation of the Hamina paper mill into a data centre in June 2018 and connected it to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) as europe-north1, its 16th cloud region and fifth in Europe at the time. 

The latest move will see it increase staff by one quarter to around 500 people through this year and next and as AI-focused data centres are more widely deployed, Google is essentially looking to use the advantages cold weather countries like those in Scandinavia provide.  

Starting next year, the Hamina data centre is going to be both a hub for digital information and a source of sustainable heat for the district. The deal with the local energy provider is Google’s first offsite heat recovery project to reduce Google’s environmental footprint, as well as help warm homes and businesses in the historic port city. Heat coming out of Google’s Finnish data centre will be re-routed and provided free of charge by us to the district heating network in nearby Hamina, covering local households, schools and public service buildings. 

“We will be recovering heat at the Google Hamina data centre, which operates today with carbon-free energy at 97%,” said Google global head of infrastructure & sustainability Ben Townsend. “This means the recovered heat will also be 97% carbon free. It will represent 80% of the annual heat demand of the local district heating network according to Haminan Energia.” 

Google is not the first data centre operator in the Nordic region to offer its heat to local energy companies. Microsoft and Finnish utility Fortum in 2022 partnered to do the same. Stockholm is also using heat from data centres for the same purpose. In March, Telenor, Hafslund and HitecVision formed a new joint venture, called Skygard, to build a secure and energy efficient data centre in Oslo, which would also pass heat to the neighbouring district. 

To date, the heat from Google’s Hamina data centre has been captured and recovered to heat the offices and buildings on site. Starting next year, the warm temperature coming from the data centre will be recovered to optimise the district heating network energy efficiency and carbon emissions footprint. 

“Google is aiming to achieve net zero emissions across all of its operations and value chain by 2030, supported by an ambitious clean energy goal to run all its offices and data centres on 24/7 carbon-free energy,” said Townsend. 

Mixed blessings 

As Reuters points out, while data centre operators have been attracted to the Nordics due to climate, abundant renewable power and the small matter of tax breaks, there has been some rumblings in Norway and Sweden where some observers argue that those countries should instead be using their renewable power for green steel that could make a greater impact.  

However, according to Reuters, Finland’s wind power capacity has increased so rapidly in recent years, by 75% to 5,677 megawatts in 2022 alone, that on windy days prices have plummeted to negative, industry statistics showed. Therefore, there is still renewable capacity available for data centres such as Google’s, which acquires wind power in Finland under long term contracts. 

In addition to its Finnish investment, the search and cloud giant announced last month it would build new data centres in the Netherlands and Belgium.  

Telefónica Tech, Microsoft to offer security services to enterprises globally

Annie Turner
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Telefónica Tech, Microsoft to offer security services to enterprises globally

Organisations could benefit from protection against online threats, secure information, employees’ privacy and identity management

Telefónica Tech entered into an agreement with Microsoft to bring cybersecurity services to enterprises around the world at the RSA conference earlier this month.

This collaboration will combine Microsoft’s security and AI solutions with Telefónica Tech’s operational cybersecurity expertise. Telefónica Tech is a managed security services provider (MSSP) which was ranked second on MSSP Alert’s Top 250 Global MSSP list in 2023.

The collaborators claim customers will benefit from proactive, integrated, automated and real-time security management. 

With this move, Telefónica Tech is expanding its cybersecurity portfolio which comprises services like Detection & Response, Identity Access Management, Cyber Threat Intelligence or Data Protection. The aim is to improve its incident response and optimise security processes.

The company will integrate Microsoft’s cybersecurity features, including Microsoft Copilot for Security tool, into its security operations.

Digital Operations Centres

This 24×7 protection is managed by Telefónica Tech’s teams with the highest qualifications and certifications in Microsoft technology. The teams will operate from Telefónica Tech’s Digital Operations Centres in Madrid, Spain, and Bogota, Colombia. 

María Jesús Almazor, COO of Telefónica Tech for Spain and the Americas, commented, “This global cooperation…is a key milestone. Companies around the world will take advantage of all the opportunities that technology offers to digitize processes and jobs, including tools based on generative artificial intelligence, with maximum security.” 

In 2023, Telefónica Tech was recognized by Microsoft as Partner of the Year in Spain, in addition to achieving the highest level of partnership in all of its designations, including security and Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP). In 2024, Telefónica Tech added Microsoft’s Cloud Security and Threat Protection to its capabilties.

MTN Group calls for pan-African regulation to boost digital investment

Annie Turner
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MTN Group calls for pan-African regulation to boost digital investment

Ralph Mupita, President and CEO of MTN Group, compared the scale of the continent to that of India, a single-country market

Not for the first time, MTN’s Group President and CEO, Ralph Mupita (pictured) has urged governments across Africa to consider harmonising regulations, particularly for the tech sector. He argues this would encourage increased capital investment in digital infrastructure which is needed to accelerate economic development.

Mupita was speaking at the opening of the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda. The theme of the event was At the table or on the menu? – A critical moment to shape a new future for Africa. It was attended by2, 000 business leaders, CEOs, investors, heads of state and ministers.

He highlighted the many, diverse regulations that apply across Africa, which has a population of similar size to India, a single country with one set of regulations. Mupita said harmonisation give investors more certainty, including being able to better anticipate their returns which encourages investment.

Only about 500 million of the 1.2 billion people living in Africa subscribe to mobile services and of them, 57% use 2G. This means only a quarter of Africans have access to the internet and most cannot afford smartphones and so are are digitally excluded.

MTN Group has mobile operations in 17 countries in Africa and “is working to extend digital inclusion in line with UN goals for universal broadband access”.

Elisa launches corporate subscriptions for 5G SA, fixed and mobile

Annie Turner
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0
Elisa launches corporate subscriptions for 5G SA, fixed and mobile

The operator describes the move as reflecting “a time of change for mobile working in corporates”

From June, Finland’s Elisa will offer businesses and other organisations mobile broadband and mobile phone services on its 5G Standalone (SA) network.

For wireless data, companies can opt for a 5G SA fixed wireless access that operates through an external router and network slicing, with a 5G SA dongle for mobile working. From autumn, companies will also be offered 5G SA networks running on network slices

Petteri Svensson, Director of Mobile Business within Elisa’s Corporate Business division, says, “We have mapped out Finnish companies’ needs for the way they use their subscriptions, and many companies already require more stable connections. At Elisa, we believe it’s important to be a pioneer – and one that our customers can trust to always provide them with the best possible technologies to use with our particularly high-quality network connections.”

AI will be part of mobile work 

Elisa says that the rapid adoption of AI and the use of automation in various mobile solutions will demand better connectivity. Svensson notes, “Devices are steadily getting new capabilities that require more and more bandwidth.…When you can use a device to help you search for product information, place orders and manage customer contacts smoothly by using AI alongside the physical work, it makes the work more efficient and improves the customer’s experience.”

He adds, “Better connections offer new ways of working. For example…where there is a shortage of skilled workers, specialised skills in high demand can be concentrated and utilised practically with advanced mobile tools…maintenance personnel can use augmented reality apps or devices while in the field and receive instructions in real time from a centralised control centre.”

Elisa was the first in Finland to offer 5G SA mobile phone subscriptions in February. It is adding a mobile broadband service that run on 5G SA this month. 5G SA phone subscriptions have up to 50% less delay, and the batteries of devices connected to a standalone 5G network last up to 20% longer.

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