CORPORATE
Orange
Appoints Julien Ducarroz CEO Orange PL (from Orange Moldova) and Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière Head of Orange Europe (Romania, Slovakia, Moldova, Luxembourg)
Telefonica
Telefónica Innovation Ventures invests in Nozomi (cybersecurity)
Proximus
To merge Unbrace (app development) into Codit (IT)
Orange BE
Appoints Xavier Pichon CEO (from BCG; formerly Orange)
Tele2
Appoints Kjell Morten Johnsen (formerly VEON, Telenor) Pres & CEO to replace Anders Nilsson
Zain/Etisalat
Zain & Mobily (Etisalat) plan tower JV in Saudi Arabia
Alphabet/Google
GCP ordered by Deutsche Bank, 10 yr - Rumor: cancelled cloud project for China etc (project Isolated Region) - GCP ordered by Renault
Amazon
Reuters: to invest $100m in stock awards for Zoox employees (900), may cancel acquisition if large number of employees refuse job offer; to pay $1.3b, to close Sep 2020
Facebook
Sustainability Report: GHG emissions reduced 59% from 2017, 86% of ops powered by renewable energy, total energy usage 2019 +50%
Axios: Facebook boycott organizers share details on their Zuckerberg meeting, generally disappointed (not yet ready to address the vitriolic hate on their platform)
Delays Oversight Board to 20Q4 [see 200506]
Internal Civil Rights Audit report: doesn't do enough against hate speech & disinformation
Microsoft
Rumor: considers offer for Warner Bros games division
Spotify
Ad deal from Omnicom (agencies Hearts & Science, OMD, PHD), $20m: ads around podcasts
Sony
Acquires 1.4% stake in Epic Games (makes Fortnite, Unreal Engine), $250m; valuation $17.86b; total raised $1.83b
Sells Sony Pictures Television France (unscripted activity & Starling) to Satisfaction (renames to Satisfy)
Quibi
[History] - Sensor Tower: <10% of April 2020 sign-ups converted to paying subs (72k of 910k) - Denies
fuboTV
Sells stake to Credit Suisse Capital, $20m (2.1m shares at $9.25); 20Q1: reaches 287k paying subs (+37% yoy)
Nielsen
Plans 3500 job cuts
WPP
3 Units to merge into Finsbury Glover Hering (FGH), WPP to own 50.01%, FGH 49.99% through buy-back
Thomson Reuters
Rumor: Reuters plans paywall from Feb 2021
NPO
Minister finalises plans [see 190606]: to end advertising online & around children's programming 210101, extra state funding rises to 40m EUR/yr; to reduce ad load/income 20% per yr 2022-2027 (total reduction 50%); to add local programming to NPO 2 TV, NPO 3 TV remains youth focused
Vivendi
Canal+ fined EUR 3-5m for opt-out sale 2017
(NETWORK) EXPANSION
Deutsche Telekom
Magenta Telekom extends reach to >50 communities in Tyrol providing services over cablecos & munifiber
T-Mobile PL expands RSP coverage to full Fiberhost (= Inea) coverage: 1m HH
Iliad IT
Iliad IT to provide services on Open Fiber's FTTH network by 2024
Euskaltel
Euskaltel to provide services over Orange ES 1.8m FTTH lines
Google
Loon launches service (4G) in Kenya (31k miles^2, incl Nairobi) with Telkom Kenya (35k beta users); 35 balloon at 12 miles; down record 19 Mb/s, up record 4.7 Mb/s, latency 19 ms
Google Fiber plans FTTP in West Des Moines (Iowa), city to invest $35-42m in open access conduit network; Google Fiber to rent access for 2.25 $/mo (minimum $4.5m over 20 yr) - Confirms
5G
Elisa expands 5G in Helsinki
TDC plans Private 5G at Grundfos (pump manufacturer DK), with Ericsson
AT&T plans Private 5G for Phillips 66 (refinery), with Accenture
Fortum Power & Heat plans Private 5G in 2.3 GHz band (20 MHz) based on owned spectrum
Zain KSA expands coverage to 30 cities (in all districts)
Groupe ADP, Hub One, Air France plan Private 4G/5G at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly, Paris-Le Bourget airports.(1k employers, 120k employees), with Ericsson
India
India plans nationwide fiber (BharatNet) at panchayat (village council) level
Zambia
Fibrecom (= Zesco = gvt) to invest $50m in fibre in 2 yr
Ghana
Vodafone Ghana to migrate subs from copper to FTTH
Spotify
Rumor: to expand to Russia 200715
DAZN
To resume int expansion 200724 (beta)
SERVICES
Amazon
AWS launches AWS IoT SiteWise: managed service that collects data from the plant floor, structures and labels the data, and generates real-time KPIs and metrics to help industrial customers make better, data-driven decisions; first customers: Volkswagen, Bayer Crop Science, Pentair, Genie (= Terex), TensorIoT, Softing Industrial
Twitter
Rumor: plans subscription platform (codename Gryphon)
Disney
Fox Sports NL ends support for Smart TV apps (Samsung, LG) & Apple TV
Comcast
Peacock to focus on AVOD tiers; reaches 1000 employees; to invest $2b in 2020-21; target $2.5b rev in 2024 on 30-35m subs
Peacock content deal with NBU for free matches of NBC Sports’ Premier League from 200715, total 175 mathes in 2020/21 season
Sky Q adds features: new UI, voice discovery, bring together TV & apps more seamlessly, adds sports centers
AT&T
HBO Max to expand to Latam 2021
Crunchyroll orders new original series
Amazon
Prime Video adds user profiles (max 6 per account), with parental controls
Adds tuner to Fire TV Cube for OTA channels in US, Canada, UK, DE, FR
Naspers
Showmax adds live sports
TDC
YouSee (MSO, = TDC) plans stand-alone OTT service YouTv: live TV channels + 3rd-party OTT services
5G
Cable & Wireless Seychelles plans 5G launch July 2020 for smartphones, first in capital Victoria, Roche Caiman district & the airport; with Huawei
Taiwan Star plans 5G commercial launch Aug 2020, with Nokia
Traffic
ACM (NL) Telecommonitor 20Q1: mobile data usage (3G & 4G) 214b MB (+35% yoy), 20.257m mobile lines (+4% yoy), fixwed voice (PSTN & ISDN) 340m minutes (-21% yoy), #SMS -10% yoy, M2M connections 7m (+35% yoy), 7.45m BB lines, 2.76m FMC bundles (+8% yoy), fixed-only bundles 4.17m; market shares mobile data: T-Mobile #1 (>50%), KPN #2 (20-25%), Vodafone #3 (15-20%)
TECHNOLOGY
KPN
KPN demos 8.5/8.5 Gb/s (1 ms latency) over XGS-PON in real-world setting in Amersfoort
Compression
Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (with Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Intel, Huawei) developed H.266 = Versatile Video Coding (VVC); to halve bitrate requirement of H.265
2G/3G
GSMA: emerging markets will rely on 2G & 3G for another 5 yr
5G
3GPP finalises Release 16, adds or enhances NR–Unlicensed (NR-U), Integrated Access Backhaul (IAB), Sidelink (C-V2X, device-to-device), Time Sensitive Networking (TSN, replaces ethernet & cabling, suited for Industry 4.0), Precise Positioning (without GPS; based on round-trip delay, angle of arrival & other; precision <1 meter); enhances Release 15 (MIMO/beamforming, power efficiency, latency); [equipment based on enhanced Release 15 & Release 16 to be launched early 2021]; Release 17 (Dec 2021) may be delayed
Samsung launches vRAN for 5G (fully-virtualized); replaces dedicated baseband hardware with software elements on a general-purpose computing platform (scale capacity & performance more easily, add new features quickly, have flexibility to support multiple architectures), reduces maintenance costs (moves to a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) x86-based platform)
Motorola launches Moto G 5G Plus, EUR 350 (4GB RAM, 64GB storage) or EUR 400 (6GB RAM, 128GB storage) - VinSmart (= Vingroup, Vietnam) launches 5G smartphone Vsmart Aris 5G, based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G - OnePlus plans One Plus Nord 5G 200721, rumored price EUR 290
Verizon plans migration to SA core 5G 2020
PLATFORM (SELF) REGULATION, LITIGATION, LICENSING
Platforms
WSJ: EU plans platform regulations aimed at moniopolistic behavior, tax evasion & content liability (hate speech)
Google, Facebook, Twitter halt processing Hong Kong government requests for user data; TikTok blocks usage in Hong Kong (operates as Douyin in China) - US considers TikTok ban - Microsoft Telegram, Zoom also pause data requests; Apple considers - Amazon orders employees to delete TikTok app over security risks - Amazon says order sent by mistake, will not ban TikTok
Indonesia launches 10% VAT on Amazon, Google, Netflix, Spotify
Facebook and Twitter ban posts promoting conversion therapy
Alphabet/Google
Rumor: California plans antitrust investigation
Facebook
Rumor: considers blackout on political ads in the days running up to the US presidential election
Twitter
Bans >50 accounts linked to Identitarian movement (white nationalist)
Apple
Plans to require apps to seek additional permission from users before tracking them across other apps & websites
Amazon
Amazon, authors (John Grisham, Scott Turow, R.L. Stine, Sylvia Day etc) & publisher (Penguin Random House) sue Kiss Library (pirated e-books)
Spectrum auctions
Mexico to delay 5G auction to 2021
FCC: 271 bidders for Auction 105 (3.5 GHz band: 3550-3650, 7 Priority Access Licences (PALs) per county, 10 yr licenses), to start 200727
PTS (SE) proposes combined 2.1 (expires end 2025) & 2.6 (expires end 2023) GHz auctiom, consultation until 200901
China
FT: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to demand phasing out Huawei from UK 5G networks
Backdoor accounts discovered in 29 FTTH devices from Chinese vendor C-Data
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