Monday, September 20, 2021

Week 37 in Telecoms, Internet, Media

CORPORATE

  • Infrastructure
    • Telefonica: Rumor: to sell 50% stake in Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure (CTIL, towerco UK), EUR 2b
    • GTT: Closes sale of infra division to I Squared Capital, $2.15b (pan-European, North American, subsea fiber network & data center assets, associated infrastructure services) to focus on serving the global enterprise market with  cloud networking & managed solutions that include SD-WAN, security, internet, voice, other vital telecommunication services; rebranded as EXA Infrastructure (500 PoPs in 31 countries, 14 datacenters, 300 co-location facilities, 3 submarine cables)
  • Vodafone: Vodafone ES plans 515 job cuts (12%)
  • Lyca plans expansion, GBP 250m in 3 yr; currently in 23 countries
  • Iliad: HoldCo II (Xavier Niel) expands stake to 85.23%
  • CETIN: Fitch assigns BBB, outlook stable
  • Telstra: Investor Day: launches T25 strategy, 4 pillars:
    • 1. exceptional customer experiences
    • 2. continued network and tech leadership
    • 3. sustained growth and value for shareholders
    • 4. the place you want to work
    • target 5G pops coverage 95% by 250630, grow 4G 75G footprint by 100k km^2, double # urban metro cells, 80% of mobile traffic on 5G by 250630, to add 250 towers + 700 tenancies
    • target CAGRs 2021-2025: adj EBITDA MSD, EPS HSD; plans AUS 500m cost redux 2023-2025; to increase NPS 25 points
  • Vivendi
  • Funding
    • Sportradar: IPO through SPAC merger, valuation $8b
    • Discord: Rumor: raises $500m from Dragoneer Investment Group, Baillie Gifford, Coatue Management, Fidelity Management & Research, Franklin Templeton at $15b valuation
    • GitLab: Plans IPO; rev 21Q2 $58m (+69%)
    • Picnic: Raises EUR 600m for expansion itno DE, FR from Bill & Melinda Gates.Fnd, Fentener van Vlissingen (SHV Holdings), Hoyer (Heineken-belegger), Van der Wal (Boni), De Rijcke (Kruidvat), Edeka; current covered pops footprint: 50% in NL, 5% in DE, <1% in FR; to add robotics distr centers, e-vehicles
  • Amazon: To hire 125k in US for fulfillment and transportation, average pay >18 $/hr (max 22.50 $hr in some locations), sign-on bonuses up to $3,000 in select locations - To hire 7500 in Arizona - Career Day attractes >1m applicants
  • Microsoft: Rumor: plans major acquisition

NETWORKS

  • Fixed
    • Open Dutch Fiber plans FTTP in Utrecht (city #3), <30k lines first in De Meern, Veldhuizen from Nov 2021, next Tuindorp, Vogelenbuurt, Tuinwijk, Pijlsweerd, Zeeheldenbuurt, Lauwerecht, Wittevrouwen; activation from Feb 2022; plans more areas in Utrecht and other cities
    • Comcast plans Docsis 4 (preparing with node splits, fiber deeper, mid splits (increases upstream spectrum to 85 MHz))
  • Funding
  • Open RAN
    • Telefonica plans Open RAN trials in ES, DE< UK, Brazil, with NEC (as SI); target 800 sites for commercial launch 2022
    • TIM launches Open RAN in Matera and Turin, with Mavenir, MTI, Dell, Intel, VMware
  • Market research
    • Cable.co.uk & M-Lab Worldwide broadband speed league 2021 report (224 countries, based on 1.1b speed tests): #1 Jersey (274 Mb/s mean download), #2 Liechtenstein (211), #3 Iceland (192), #4 Andorra (165), #5 Gibraltar (151), #6 Monaco (144), #7 Luxembourg (108), #9 NL (107), #10 HU (104)
    • FTTH Council publishes 2 reports: FTTH Forecast for Europe (Market forecasts 2021-2026) and FTTH/B in Rural Areas
    • Ookla Speedtest Global Index (Aug 2021) global average FBB 110/60 Mb/s, MBB 57/13 Mb/s; FBB: Sing #1 (262), HK #2 (254), Monaco #3 (243), CH #4 (222), Thai #5 (221), NL #24 (162); MBB: UAE #1 (196), S Korea #2 (192), NO #3 (174), Qatar #4 (169), China #5 (163), NL #14 (100)
  • Wireless
    • Starlink to launch out of beta Oct 2021    
    • Telenet trials FWA in 60 GHz band, with Pharrowtech and Unitron
    • Google: Project Taara demos 20 Gb/s in Africa (with Econet) using Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC, laser tech, requires LoS, developed by Project Loon) at 5 km, availability 99.9%

SERVICES

HARDWARE

  • CPE
  • GSA
    • 5G ecosystem report (device list) at 210831: 991 5G devics (o/w 645 commercially available) in 22 form factors from 154 vendors; total 478 smartphones (o/w 424 commercially availbale), 117 FWA devices (74 available), 137 modules, 65 enterprise routers, 45 hotspots, 18 laptops, 18 tablets, 11 in-vehicle routers, 8 USB-modems, 34 other
    • FWA market survey report: shipments 2021E: 14.3m hotspots (+23%), 25.5m indoor CPE (+30%), 4.6m outdoor CPE (+39%)
  • Apple

REGULATORY

  • FTC report on acquisitions by Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsft during 2010-2019: 819 deals were not reported (incl acquisitions of voting control of companies, partial investments, patent acquisitions, hiring events), 616 over $1m - FTC withdraws guidelines on how to review vertical mergers
  • Google
    • South Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) fines SKW 207b = $177m over OS market abuse (blocking rivals to enter, prevented device manufacturers, such as Samsung and LG, from customising Android OS)
    • CCI (India antitrust authority) finds market abuse with Android OS: reduced device manufacturing firms’ ability & incentive to develop & sell devices running alternative versions of Android (forks) [see 190510]
  • Amazon
  • Facebook
    • WSJ: program XCheck shields millions of VIP users from the company’s normal enforcement process, total 5.8m users in 2020
    • WSJ: internal research (March 2020) showed Instagram had negative effect on teen girl users (“Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse”, “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves”) - US Congress (Senate Commerce Committee: Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) & Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)) plans investigation
    • WSJ: internal research shows News Feed overhaul 2018 (meant to boost meaningful social interactions (MSI)) had opposite effect (increased misinformation, toxicity, violent content), CEO Zuckerberg resisted some proposed fixes
    • WSJ: internal research shows employees flag drug cartels and human traffickers, the company’s response is inadequate or nothing at all
    • WSJ: internal documents shows that antivaccine activists flooded Facebook, using Facebook’s own tools to sow doubt about the severity of the pandemic’s threat and the safety vaccines to combat it
    • Facebook disputes WSJ article series: "At the heart of this series is an allegation that is just plain false: that Facebook conducts research and then systematically and willfully ignores it if the findings are inconvenient for the company. "
  • Uber: Judge NL: drivers to be classified as employees (4k in NL)
  • TikTok: DPC (Ireland) starts investigation of TikTok over transfering data to China


at 1:20 am

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