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Marika Auramo to be CEO of Vodafone Business

Annie Turner
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Marika Auramo to be CEO of Vodafone Business

She will take up the role at the start of July, replacing interim CEO Giorgio Migliarina

Vodafone today announced that Marika Auramo will become CEO of Vodafone Business on 1 July and join Vodafone’s executive committee on the same date. She is replacing Giorgio Migliarina who has been acting CEO since the departure of Vinod Kumar last September to join the Everstone Group, “one of Asia’s premier investment groups” as Vice-chair.

Auramo has worked in the global IT industry for more than 25 years, most recently at SAP where she was Chief Business Officer for the EMEA region.

In this role, she was responsible for the go-to-market strategy of SAP’s product portfolio across 89 and managed 14,000 employees. Prior to that, she held a variety of senior roles at SAP since joining in 1999. They include COO EMEA North, Managing Director for the Nordic and Baltic region, Global COO of SAP Database and Data Management in the US, and Interim President of the EMEA region.

Vodafone Business reported service revenue growth of 5% at the Group’s Q3 trading update in February. Apparently, it is “growing across all segments due to strong public sector demand and increasing customer adoption of new digital services, such as Cloud, Security and IoT”.

Telefónica reportedly in bid for MásOrange’s 5G spectrum

Annie Turner
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Telefónica reportedly in bid for MásOrange’s 5G spectrum

Spanish newspaper says operator keen to acquire 3.5GHz spectrum which the merged entity must sell as part of the pro-competition remedies imposed on it

Telefónica is said to be negotiations with the newly merged operator MásOrange to acquire spectrum assets it must sell to comply with the terms on which the European Commission granted it permission to merge.

Unnamed sources are cited by the Spanish business newspaper Expansión saying that negotiations are on-going. Telefónica’s 5G coverage (under its Movistar brand) covers about 85% of Spain and the additional spectrum would boost its already strong position.

However, since the merger, Movistar has the second-largest customer base of 20.1 million (at 31 December 2023) as Orange and MÁSMOVIL’s combined total is 30 million.

Remedies and regulation

The European Commission approved the merger in February but imposed remedies to foster competition The merged entity exceeds Spain’s regulation that a single carrier cannot hold more than 140MHz holding of 3.5GHz hence post-merger, it must divest itself of the excess.

In a complex agreement, MVNO Digi Spain, acquired 20MHz. The MVNO is owned by Romania’s Digi Group and has ambitious plans to expand in Spain and become the fourth operator.

Once the dust is settled on the Digi deal, 30MHz MásOrange must still divest itself of 30MHz in the 3.5GHz band.

On the fixed front

At the end of last week, Expansión also reported that MásOrange is in negotiations with Telefónica about a fixed access deal. Apparently the two pair hope to strike a deal that would allow each to offer fixed broadband services using the other’s infrastructure.

Bagnasco confirmed as CEO of Sparkle, Pansa becomes Chair

Annie Turner
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Bagnasco confirmed as CEO of Sparkle, Pansa becomes Chair

The sale of a stake in Sparkle to private funds is still in negotiation

Sparkle’s shareholders met to approve the 2023 financial statements and to renew the Board of Directors. It appointed Alessandro Pansa as Chair and confirmed Enrico Maria Bagnasco (pictured) as CEO.

He has held the post since November 2022, having previously been CTO at Sparkle since 2019. Overall, Bagnasco has worked within the TIM group for almost 30 years.

The new board comprises seven members with a 40% female representation and met for the first time after the Shareholders’ meeting.

Sparkle is TIM Group’s global operator arm which offers infrastructure and global connectivity services. They include capacity, IP, SD-WAN, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming and voice. Sparkle’s customers range from to national and international carriers, to ‘over the top’ service providers, ISPs, media and content providers, and multinational enterprises

Sparkle owns and manages a network of more than 600,000 km of undersea fibre linking Europe to Africa and the Middle East, the Americas and Asia. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed across 33 countries.

The sale of a stake in Sparkle to private funds has been under negotiation for months. TIM is in the throes of separating its domestic infrastructure business into a NetCo, a complex process and transaction, largely driven by American asset fund KKR.

Nokia and SURF hit 800Gbps in Hadron Collider upgrade tests 

Simon Dux
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Nokia and SURF hit 800Gbps in Hadron Collider upgrade tests 

Trial was conducted over 1648km existing fibre link connecting research facilities at Nikhef, CERN, and SURF

Nokia and the collaborative organisation for IT in Dutch education and research SURF have successfully reached a single carrier 800Gbps optical transmission over SURF’s existing cross border, multi-vendor research and education network infrastructure. The transmission, based on Nokia’s photonic service engine technology, will help accelerate the massive data exchange between the CERN particle accelerator – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – and the NL Tier-1 (NL T1) research IT facilities at SURF and Nikhef, the Dutch National Institute for Subatomic Physics.  

The upgrade has become necessary because according to CERN, the four main LHC experiments have so far produced more than 1,000 petabytes of data and this data is accessed and analysed by thousands of scientists and ICT companies around the world, who are studying disciplines such as high-energy physics, radio astronomy, meteorology and biomedicine. 

By reaching 800Gbps per channel on older fibre varieties, Nokia and SURF prove that existing infrastructure still has tremendous potential, and that legacy optical fibres can be used to meet future capacity demands of the huge data streams generated by international scientific research instruments. 

The trial was conducted over a 1648 km point-to-point fibre link connecting Amsterdam and Geneva, crossing Belgium and France. The fibre link is part of the SURF-network, which connects national research and education institutes in the Netherlands, such as Nikhef. Additionally, the SURF-network is also well connected to other research networks and experiments worldwide, including the LHC Optical Private Network (LHCOPN). The LHCOPN provides access to data at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. 

For this trial, CERN, Nikhef, SURF and the ATLAS LHC experiment have collaborated to include real production workflows that are expected when the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) is operational. 

More data, deeper insights  

SURF is preparing its network for CERN’s LHC upgrade to the HL-LHC that will become operational in 2029. The discovery of the Higgs boson by the LHC has already revolutionized the world’s understanding of the universe. Expectations are that the future HL-LHC will reveal even deeper insights into the fundamental building blocks of the cosmos.  

This upgrade will not only provide more insightful research results and improve the potential for groundbreaking discoveries, but it will also produce enormous amounts of scientific data. The HL-LHC is expected to generate data at a rate of five times the speed of its predecessor. Therefore, it depends on advances in SURF’s high-performance network, as demonstrated in this trial, to enable fast and reliable data transfer to the NL T1 for further scientific exploration. 

“This trial is an important milestone for us as we prepare our network for the future demands of scientific research and education, including the upgrade of CERN’s particle accelerator. By emphasizing testing and the adoption of advanced technology, SURF ensures optimal service and support for its research partners’ innovative, data-heavy projects and applications,” said SURF board member and chief innovation officer Ron Augustus. 

“We are committed to helping SURF prepare its network for the upgrade of CERN’s particle accelerator, and look forward to working with other research and education networks around the world to advance their missions and enable cutting-edge discoveries,” said Nokia VP and GM optical networks James Watt. 

Nikhef  IT-Architect Tristan Suerink added: “The 800Gbps technology demonstrated together with SURF and Nokia, shows us that getting the data from the HL-LHC at CERN to Amsterdam will be very feasible. Nikhef is working hard to design and build the detectors that will be part of the HL-LHC and therefore it’s crucial to be able to transfer the massive amounts of data that will be generated by the experiments.” 

Kit used by Nokia 

Nokia’s sixth-generation super-coherent Photonic Service Engine (PSE-6s) was deployed on the Amsterdam-Geneva link, in combination with SURF’s line system with equipment from a third-party on an older fibre link. It showed that the partners were able to achieve 800Gbps transmission using 16QAM-shaped PCS modulation.  

The trial needed to cross four countries – from CERN in Switzerland, through France and Belgium – to reach the data hub in Amsterdam. Never before had these large data volumes been tested over such a large physical distance using outdated fibres. The trial also needed to take into account that the line systems and transponders used by SURF came from two different suppliers. 

To cope, the existing data stream was transferred to an upgraded connection where the data points were equipped with the latest Nokia transponders, high-speed network equipment and servers. New amplifiers from supplier Ribbon were also installed on the fibre to facilitate the test. 

Oman-IX officially launched by Awasr, AMS-IX and Alliance 

Simon Dux
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Oman-IX officially launched by Awasr, AMS-IX and Alliance 

Middle Eastern traffic routes and internet exchange points continue to proliferate, threatening Egypt’s dominance

Oman telco Awasr has joined forces with regional digital infrastructure services company Alliance Networks, Amsterdam internet exchange AMS-IX to launch the Oman-IX internet exchange point at Equinix’s neutral carrier data centre, in MC1 in Muscat. The partners said they had been working on getting operational for at least a year – they went public with their collaboration in September last year. 

The move is part of the overall acceleration of fibre cable connectivity being built or proposed as operators seek potential alternatives to passing through Egypt which has traditionally been an expensive route.  

Egypt has dominated Asia-Europe traffic with an estimated 17 to 30 per cent of all global internet connectivity running through the Red Sea and across Egypt. Egypt Telecom to its credit is already building out more cables and internet exchanges but new terrestrial cables are also being planned through Saudi Arabia which inevitably make Oman’s role pivotal in how things shape up from here. For example, already, SubCo’s 9800km, 48Tbps Oman Australia Cable is underway and Equinix is handling the cable landing station in Muscat. 

Oman incumbent Omantel offers connectivity to more than 20 subsea cable systems and operates five separate landing stations in Oman.  

Big IX plans 

The companies said the launch of Oman-IX aims to revolutionize digital infrastructure services in the region by establishing a neutral internet exchange and connecting leading telecom industry networks providers, hyperscalers, data centres and cloud services across the Middle East and beyond. Awasr, Alliance Networks, and AMS-IX will collaborate to build digital ecosystem and infrastructure services, leveraging Alliance’s and Awasr’s expertise in the region. 

“We are delighted to officially launch Oman-IX in collaboration with Alliance Networks and AMS-IX,” said Awasr chief commercial officer Eugen Comendant. “We are confident that we will open new horizons for Oman in the field of digital data, enabling efficient internet traffic exchange and enhancing digital innovation across sectors towards enriching the customer experience.” 

 “The collaboration between AWASR, Alliance Networks, and AMS-IX strengthens Oman’s digital landscape and accelerates the Sultanate’s interconnectivity to global networks through public peering, Oman-IX will serve as a vital hub for digital services, internet and data exchange, providing an enhanced user experience and promoting digital innovation,” said AMS-IX CEO Peter van Burgel (pictured, top).  

Alliance Networks CEO Adel Al Daylami added that the partnership with Awasr will contribute to enrich connectivity and facilitate seamless data exchange across borders. 

Regional aspirations 

Oman is not the first Middle Eastern foray for AMS-IX. Last month, Batelco renewed its partnership with AMS-IX to enhance MN-IX services in Bahrain, with the aim of further improving the Internet experience for users across the MENA region and beyond. 

Last October, AMS-IX signed a partnership agreement with datacentre specialist Wingu to launch a new Internet Exchange in Djibouti. That exchange is called AMS-IX Djibouti and will launch with the 20+ connected networks of Djix, Wingu’s existing IX in Djibouti, which will be consolidated in the new platform. 

Last week, on the other side of the Mediterranean, AMS-IX signed a reseller agreement with telco and DC operator Lancom in Greece. Lancom’s customers now have access to the AMS-IX network from their proprietary data centres, including Balkan Gate Thessaloniki and the upcoming Balkan Gate in Heraklion, Crete. Additionally, Lancom’s PoPs in third-party data centres throughout Greece are interconnected with AMS-IX. 

 The partnership extends to central Europe, with connectivity points in Telepoint Sofia, Equinix FR5 Frankfurt, MIX Milan, and Cineca Caesar Rome. This expanded reach offers Lancom customers enhanced network connectivity and access to global internet traffic. Interconnection to AMS-IX is powered by multi 100-Gigabit DWDM.  

Orange adds network AI to ops centres after production trial of Augtera

Annie Turner
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Orange adds network AI to ops centres after production trial of Augtera

Operator says it identified AI and ML operational use cases that will reduce Network Operation Centres’ alarms by 70%

Orange announced it is adding the Augtera Network AI platform to its Network Operation Centre (NOC) tools to apply AI and ML to daily network operations. Augtera specialises in AI and ML-powered network operations platforms,

They expect this move to reduce the number of alarms in the NOC have to addressed by 70% daily due to Augtera’s auto-correlation based on its knowledge of network topology.

Augtera’s Anomaly Detection should also help avoid network failures as it can predict incidents so they can be addressed before impacting customers. 

Completed by end 2024

This integration in Orange Global Network will start this month and completed by the end of this year. Orange Global Networks a worldwide IP network service that serves wholesale and B2B customers. It comprises thousands of IP routers in 800 Points of Presence across 100 countries.  

Incorporating the Augtera tech into the networks follows a two-year production trial of Augtera in multiple Orange networks including the French backbone, Orange Global Network and SD-WAN Network.

The trial involved thousands of backbone and provider edge routers and thousands of pieces of customer-premises equipment for SD-WAN. It evaluated Augtera Network AI technical capabilities along with quantifying the business value of AI and ML in multiple use cases. 

70% reduction

The 70% reduction in alarms by Augtera would allow Orange’s operations staff to focus on “true incidents and improve their proactivity, identifying network incidents before they are noticed by its customers, for improved customer experience,” according to the press statement. 

Augtera is directly integrated with Orange International Networks in Orange Private Cloud to capture network topology and various network related data. The Augtera Network AI platform on-premises builds ML models using data from Orange via unsupervised and online learning.

The models include for anomaly detection on metrics, logs and models for auto-correlation built using auto-discovered network topology. 

Tech cap and business outcomes

Jean-Louis Le Roux, Executive Vice President International Networks at Orange, commented, “Over the past two years we have been evaluating Augtera AI in various production environments to assess both the technical capabilities and business outcomes. Through a systematic evaluation of multiple use cases, we have identified two initial ones that produced excellent results during the trial.

“We are pleased to be moving forward to integrate Augtera with our existing NOC tools to bring transformative efficiency and predictability to our operations. This aligns with our ongoing commitment to pioneering the adoption of AI/ML and innovating to provide the best-in-class experience to our customers.”

Rahul Aggarwal, Founder & CEO at Augtera Networks, said, “Orange has been a visionary in the adoption of AI/ML for network operations and was among the pioneers to trial Augtera.

“We are delighted to integrate our Network AI platform as part of Orange’s NOC tools following the excellent results from the production trial. This not only underscores the industry-leading AI algorithms, scale, and maturity of our platform but also highlights AI’s capability to deliver transformative business results for network operators.”

The Industrial Metaverse: A New Frontier for 5G Monetization | White Paper by COMARCH

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The Industrial Metaverse: A New Frontier for 5G Monetization | White Paper by COMARCH

Enter the Industrial Metaverse and Discover New Opportunities for 5G Monetization

With the arrival of 5G, telcos focused primarily on winning over the consumer market. Now they are seeking new use cases to monetize 5G, and the industrial metaverse offers great opportunities to do this. Harnessing AI/ML, the IoT, 5G MEC and URLLC, it offers new routes to human-machine cooperation, while promising to raise productivity in manufacturing.

However, unlike the relatively captive consumer sector, the manufacturing industry needs to be convinced that 5G and smart factories are more than about connectivity. Thus, telcos need to build and demonstrate persuasive use cases that prove the inherent business value and benefits of the industrial metaverse. Such use cases can pave the way for partnerships that benefit both sides – helping the telecommunications monetize the 5G networks and gain a return on their substantial investments in this area, while making manufacturing smarter, more efficient and more productive.

The capabilities and the technologies are already there to achieve all these goals and more, and will ultimately also open the door to innovative interaction between machines and humans, impossible until now.

The latest episode of Comarch’s 2023 telco excellence campaign is your guide to all of this and beyond. It consists of a short video introducing the industrial metaverse, and a free white paper that digs deeper into the concepts, technologies, challenges and opportunities behind it. With this expertise to hand, the door to the industrial metaverse will be wide open to you.

Watch the episode here, and download your free copy of the white paper today.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Case Study: Border Security | White paper by SS8

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Case Study: Border Security | White paper by SS8

Swisscom turns to Ericsson again to help automate its network 

Simon Dux
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Swisscom turns to Ericsson again to help automate its network 

From IP Multimedia Subsystem on the fixed side, to full RAN and Core upgrades on mobile, the two partners are now targeting network automation

Swisscom has beefed up its network automation and energy efficiency with the help of long-term vendor partner Ericsson. The telco has already made great strides in migrating to cloud native. In March 2023, Swisscom started a trial with Ericsson 5G Core applications running on AWS as it explored hybrid cloud as a complement to existing private cloud infrastructure – essentially doing things like offloading to AWS if high traffic is experienced during maintenance periods, for example.  

At the time, the operator and AWS said they will also look to migrate Swisscom’s 5G network built on current infrastructure to a new, standalone 5G network powered by AWS’s cloud platform. 

The operator’s journey to cloud native started even earlier than the AWS tie-up as it had already been collaborating with Ericsson using its Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI) solution to support its telecom applications. 

The work between Swisscom and Ericsson has always been a little bit different to other operator vendor relationships. In 2015, for example, they agreed to form a new team comprising an equal number of Ericsson and Swisscom employees to plan and drive further development of the mobile network. This consummation was agreed to run for an indefinite period.  

That’s a rAPPs  

The latest agreement will see the introduction of Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform (EIAP) to provide multi-technology network management and automation Swisscom’s network. Adopting it means means Swisscom can take advantage of the growing Ericsson portfolio of rApps, including AI powered Cognitive Software rApps, as well as rApps available from other contributors to the open EIAP rApp Ecosystem.  

Ericsson said the EIAP ecosystem and Software Development Toolkit (SDK) will be an “essential tool” for Swisscom to enhance its subscribers’ service experience while “delivering operational savings through industrial scale automation in the radio access network.” As part of the overall renewal Swisscom will continue with Ericsson Expert Analytics which uses AI/ML to analyse and resolve potential subscriber issues in real-time.   

The new contract will also see the introduction of Ericsson’s energy-efficient lightweight dual-band Radio 4490, as well as a next-generation RAN processor from Ericsson’s RAN Compute portfolio. With the capacity to serve all new and existing radio technologies from a single box, Ericsson RAN Compute processor therefore has a smaller footprint and lower energy consumption, plus the ability to support real-time AI processing without capacity loss, according to Ericsson. Swisscom further aims to equip many sites with Ericsson’s Massive MIMO portfolio in the next three years as a part of the continued effort to expand mid-band TDD coverage further. 

Cloud Native with an AWS twist  

With this new deal Swisscom will now take on Ericsson’s Cloud Native Infrastructure solution (CNIS), expanding its ability to host cloud-native telecom applications from Ericsson as well as from third-party providers. The deployment will bring together a close collection of telecom partner companies such as Extreme Networks and Dell Technologies, which contribute components, infrastructure and capabilities to the solution.  

“We’ve been working closely with Ericsson for over 10 years with a great amount of trust and success. We are now taking the next step in this long-standing strategic partnership as we endeavour to turn Switzerland’s best network into its smartest one,” said Swisscom CTIO Gerd Niehage (above). “This will enable us to not only offer our customers the best customer experience, but also to place an even greater focus on sustainability and innovation.” 

Swisscom said its network is already fully powered by renewable energy and, with Ericsson, added it will go a step further with the launch of an Energy Sustainability Programme to intelligently reduce the energy consumption of their mobile communications systems. 

“We have already managed in recent years to set important benchmarks for the global development of the telecommunications market from within Switzerland,” said Ericsson head of customer unit Western Europe Daniel Leimbach. 

EdgeConneX secures further $1.9bn to expand EMEA facilities 

Simon Dux
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EdgeConneX secures further $1.9bn to expand EMEA facilities 

The oversubscribed, sustainability-linked financing will help fund its EMEA data centre footprint

Global data centre operator, EdgeConneX, has secured an additional $1.9 billion in sustainability-linked financing to support its EMEA digital infrastructure expansion. The latest deal, which was marked by significant oversubscription from existing and new lenders, adds to EdgeConneX’s $2.9 billion in sustainability-linked financing, initially issued in October 2022.  

With a growing European footprint of more than 20 facilities, EdgeConneX continues to expand its presence in the region, driven by strong global customer demand for cloud and AI infrastructure.   

The Swedish-based infrastructure investment company EQT-owned data centre operator has now raised more than $7 billion in total green investments over the past two years.  

The financing consolidates EdgeConneX portfolio across EMEA, transitioning it from stand-alone project-based funding to a more robust structured corporate debt package. The company said this latest transaction provides it with “enhanced financial flexibility” and a greater capacity to support projected growth throughout the EMEA region.  

Part of the latest deal includes sustainability-linked margin adjustments. This feature directly ties the interest rate to EdgeConneX achieving predetermined sustainability objectives. While PUE measures sometimes do not work that well for operational data and multitenant data centres, to its credit, EdgeConneX is also looking to eliminate its waste and water footprint as it moves to powering its entire data centre platform with renewable energy sources by 2030.   

Tripled capacity

Since EQT’s acquisition in 2020, EdgeConneX has more than tripled its capacity and expanded into Asia, Latin America and new European markets. Today, the company has a global footprint of 80 data centres in operation or development in more than 50 markets across North America, Europe, APAC and South America. 

“The reception of this transaction reconfirms our status as an industry leading data centre developer and operator and reinforces our belief that responsible growth and operational excellence go hand in hand,” said EdgeConneX CFO Joe Harar. 

“It showcases our ability to replicate this success on a global scale. This is a significant milestone in our journey towards leading the industry in sustainable practices, and we are excited about the future possibilities this opens up for EdgeConneX and our stakeholders,” he added.  

“With this latest sustainability-linked financing deal, EdgeConneX is rapidly ascending as one of the largest financing issuers in Europe, underscoring our commitment to sustainability and innovation in the data centre sector,” said EdgeConneX SVP corpoate finance Eelco Holst. “Our team’s exceptional achievement was accomplished through dedicated efforts in cultivating a broad range of lending relationships, as well as close cooperation with the coordinators, advisors and EQT Infrastructure.”  

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