Week 26 in Telecoms, Internet, Media

CORPORATE

• Deutsche Telekom: Bloomberg: starts sale process of T-Mobile NL, EUR 4.5b, candidates: Apax Partners, Apollo Global Management, BC Partners, Providence Equity, Warburg Pincus
• Orange PL Strategy Update 2024 (.Grow): 4 pillars: 1. create value in core business (fiber, convergence); 2. create new solutions for business using the latest technologies (5G); 3. further transform the company thanks to digitisation; 4. responsible management; raises guidance 2021; guidance 2021-24: rev CAGR LSD, EBITDA AL CAGR LSD-MSD, capex/annum PLN 1.7-1.9b, resume div from 2021 (payable 2022), floor PLN 0.25, LT target net debt/EBITDA 1.7-2.2x; focus on core (75%) of rev, 3 main growth engones (convergence, ICT, wholesale), convergence rev growth CAGR minimum 8%, ICT growth CAGR ~10%; targets 8m HP with FTTP by 2024 (currently 5.2m)
• Telia: Sells 49% of tower business (4700 towers, 2020 rev EUR 88m, EBITDA 56m) in FI & NO to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (= Brookfield AM) & Alecta; enterprise value 100% EUR 1524m (EV/EBITDA 27x 2020), cash proceeds EUR 722m for debt redux (net debt/EBITDA to 2.1x), to close 21Q4; total towers & rooftops Nordics & Baltics 25k
• Telstra: Sells 49% of Telstra InfraCo Towers (8200 towers, passive infra only) to Future Fund, Commonwealth Superannuation Corp, Sunsuper at AUD 5.9b valuation, with 15 yr lease-back, cash proceeds after costs AUD 2.8b, to close 21/22Q1, to return 50% of proceeds to shareholders (div or SBB)
• Salt: Reuters: plans IPO autumn 2021, valuation CHF 2.5b (incl debt), to raise CHF 700m from new shares
• OneWeb raises $500m from Bharti Global, raises stake to 38.6% (UK gvt, Eutelsat, SoftBank 19.3% each)
• RTL
• Sells RTL BE (3 free TV channels in Wallonia: RTL-TVI (family, general interest), Club RTL (children, sports, classic movies & series), Plug RTL (fiction, young culture, reality TV); 3 radio stations: Bel RTL (talk, general interest), Radio Contact (music), digital station Mint (pop rock music); streaming service RTL Play; news website RTLInfo.be) to DPG Media (50%; VTM, Het laatste nieuws) and Groupe Rossel (50%; Le Soir), EUR 250m, to close 21Q4
• Fremantle acquires Unscripted Business (12 companies in SE, NO, DK, FI) from NENT Group

NETWORKS

• CLOUD
  • Telefónica Tech acquires Altostratus Cloud Consulting (GCP partner)
  • Ericsson partners with GCP for 5G & MEC for telcos & enterprises
  • AT&T partners with Microsoft Azure to move 5G Core to cloud, Microsoft acquires AT&T’s Network Cloud platform tech, engineering and lifecycle management software
  • Gartner IaaS report 2020: market $64.3b (+41%), Amazon #1
  • Facebook partners with AWS to integrate Magma with AWS’s edge computing services to enable service providers to deploy 4G & 5G networks faster by obtaining AWS infrastructure preinstalled with Magma - Facebook partners with Baicells, Marvell, MaxLinear, Sterlite Technologies for Evenstar (Open RAN program)
• TRAFFIC
• OpenSignal report on Covid-19 & 5G impact on mobile data consumption
• FIXED
• TIM: Expands FiberCop to cover 968 new towns (already covers 1610)
• Liberty Global market research into FTTH interest (up to 20 Gb/s) as FibreNova (= FNBCom, 4 countries, fibrenova.co.uk, fibrenova.be, fibrenova.nl, fibrenova.ch)
• Open Dutch Fiber plans FTTP in Zoetermeer (first in areas Seghwaert and Buytenwegh De Leyens), activation from end 2021, complete end 2022; innovative roll-out up to 5x faster
• 5G
• DT demos e2e network slicing for cloud VR gaming, with Ericsson (SA 5G), Samsung (Galaxy S21 5G device)
• Telekom DE launches Open RAN in Neubrandenburg (O-RAN Town, 25 sites, 4G & 5G, with Massive MIMO), with Mavenir, NEC
• NTT DoCoMo whitepaper 5G Open RAN Ecosystem
• VIAVI report The State of 5G on 5G coverage: total 1662 cities in 65 countries
• GSMA report The Mobile Economy: 5G connections 500m YE 2021E, 1.8b by 2025 (= 21% of 8.8m SIMs excl IoT)    
• LEO
• Starlink reaches 1500 sats, operations in 12 countries, 69k subs; proposes backhaul for remote mobile sites; CPE currently $500 (incurs loss of $500), expected to drop to $250-300; plans cash flow breakeven after $5-10b more investments; cumulative investments may reach $30b

SERVICES

• COMMUNICATION
• Slack: Adds 4 features for paying subs (no price increase): Slack Huddle (digital equivalent of water cooler), voice & video recordings, scheduled send, Slack Atlas (visual directory of teammates); aimed at hybrid working (post pandemic)
• Zoom: Acquires Kites (DE): real-time translation solutions
• Discord: Acquires Ubiquity6 (AR)
• SEARCH
• Neeva launches: paid service (5 $/mo), privacy-first
• HARDWARE
• ViacomCBS: Plans Nickelodeon-branded kids smartwatch NickWatch (made by Watchinu) 2022
• SMART CITY
• Berg Insight report on smart streetlights globally: 16.2m YE 2020, 48.8m YE 2025E (CAGR 25%); leading vendors Telensa (UK), Signify, Sensus

REGULATORY

• SPECTRUM
• Court NL in case Inmarsat vs Min EZK: orders changes to spectrum plan for interruption of Inmarsat's Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS, maritime distress signals) network, operating in 3.5 GHz band from Burum (Inmarsat plans move to Greece from 2024)
• PLATFORMS
• Facebook: Federal district court US dismisses FTC's antitrust complaint alleging Facebook engaged in anticompetitive practices; also dismissed parallel antitrust lawsuit brought by a coalition of state AGs [see 201209]
• 130 countries agree to global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% for multinationals with rev >EUR 20b ($24b) & PBT margin >10%, to decline to EUR 10b; to take effect from 2023