Week 48 in Telecoms, Internet, Media

CORPORATE

• Deutsche Telekom:
• Handelsblatt: plans FTTP co-investments in home markets, first in Austria (EUR 150m for Telekom AT and partner each), also Poland
• IFR: T-Mobile NL Term Loan B upsized to EUR 2.4b, plan EUR 1b high-yield bond
• TIM:
• CEO Luigi Gubitosi resigns, Pietro Labriola (TIM Brasil) appointed GM, with Salvatore Rossi (Chair) - Bloomberg: KKR considers joint offer with CVC - Reuters: union considers strike, wants to be involved (42500 employees)
• FiberCop signs co-investment deal with AfinnaOne: secondary access fibre network (between TIM's cabinets and customers' homes) to connect FiberCop homes based on purchase (based on IRU for 20 yr) of dedicated equipment (primary & secondary splitters & fibre-optic links)
• Reuters: Vivendi open to discuss IT gvt to get control of fixed-line network 
• BT:
• Rumor: Reliance Industries plans offer (denies)
• Publishes BT Group Manifesto: Responsible (We aim to become the world’s most trusted connector of people, devices and machines), Inclusive (50% gender split among employees by 2030, with 25% coming from a non-white background and 17% with a disability), Sustainable
• Proximus: Considers strategic options (incl IPO via SPAC) for TeleSign (2020: rev EUR 273 (+57%), direct marnin EUR 78m (+21%) [see 170425]
• Amazon:
• Report: benefits from investments in delivery (private cargo ships, making its own containers, leasing planes) to avoid supply chain issues 
• MWPVL Int: added >450 fulfillment & sortation centers in US in 2 yr, total >930 ("Amazon has relied on a system where many packages are boxed in one facility and then sorted and shipped at another"); ShipMatrix: 98% of parcels is delivered next day
• Facebook: CMA (UK) orders sale of Giphy [see 211129], considers appeal
• Twitter: Founder Jack Dorsey exits as CEO; CTO Parag Agrawal to become CEO; Bret Taylor (Salesforce) to become Chair
• Snap: Thornton Law Firm starts CLAS for share buyers (between 200722 and 211021) over misleading statements (impact form Apple's privacy changes) - Also by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check

CONTENT

• Bertelsmann: BMG acquires Mötley Crüe entire catalog, rumored price $150m
• Vivendi: Canal+ deal with producers guilds FR: to invest EUR 600m in local movie production 2022-24 in exchange for earlier exclusive 9 mo window 6 mo after cinema release
• Sony: Bloomberg: plans subscription bundle of PlayStation Now and PS Plus (codename Spartacus) spring 2022
• NPO: To add 3 broadcast channels 211215: NPO 1 extra (special events, archive), NPO 2 extra (docus, cultural), NPO Politiek en Nieuws (politics, news, events, press conferences, sports)
• Mediahuis: Acquires 50% stake in De Stroom (podcasts)
• Spotify: WMG SEC filing on 2020/21: Spotify payments $954m = 18% of total rev (2019/20: 17%; 2018/19: 14%; 2017/18: 14%), Apple $689m = 13% (2019/20: 14%), YouTube $583m = 11% - MBW: 78% of music-related streams in 2020 were of tracks distributed by the 3 majors or Merlin (2019: 82%; 2018: 85%; 2017: 87%)
• ViacomCBS: Pluto TV plans launch in SE, DK, NO 2022 via merger with Viafree (= NENT Group)
• Lionsgate: Plans Lionsgate Play expansion to total 13-15 countries in SE Asia YE 2022 (currently in 8, Philippines to follow 22Q1)
• Amazon: Prime Video plans expansion in SE Asia (office in Singapore, prodcos in Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore)
• Salto (France TV, M6, TF1): France TV considers pulling out because of proposed M6/TF1 merger
• Conviva State of Streaming report Content Discovery 2021    

SERVICES

• Microsoft launches Teams Essentials: new stand-alone version for SME, 4 $/user/mo (without Office)
• Telekom DE (DT) starts Hybrid 5G trial for 800 fixed-line subs: hybrid DSL/FWA, 5G as free add-on (max 500 Mb/s) until August 2022: outdoor 5G receiver (free), Speedport router (EUR 170 or 6 EUR/mo)
• Amazon (AWS re:Invent):
• AWS (Amazon) launches AWS Private 5G (preview in US for CBRS (3.5 GHz) spectrum): managed service for enterprises, AWS delivers & maintains small cell radio units, servers, 5G Core & RAN software, SIM cards; automates the setup & deployment of the network and scales capacity on demand; no upfront fees or per-device costs (customers only pay for the network capacity & throughput they request); to deploy in days instead of months; first customers: DISH, Koch
• Plans 18 new wind & solar energy projects in US (8), UK (1 wind in NI), FI (4 wind, total Nordics 950 MW), DE, IT (#3 solar), ES (4 solar), total 5.6 GW (total 274 projects for 12 GW or 33700 GWh, equivalent to 1 yr consumption by 3m US HH; targets 100% renewable energy by 2025) - Orders 116 MW wind power from Ørsted (DK) 
• Order from Gilead Sciences - And from Roche - And from United Airlines - And from AIG - And Meta - And Discovery - And Aurora - And Fannie Mae - And Rivian - And Pfizer

VENDORS, HARDWARE

• Qualcomm (Snapdragon Tech Summit) launches Snapdragon 8 Gen 1: mobile platform for 5G, 10 Gb/s, WiFi 3.6 Gb/s, 8K HDR video (max 3.2 gigapixels/sec), Hexagon processor, to be adopted by global OEMs & brands (Black Shark, Honor, iQOO, Motorola, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, Realme, Redmi, SHARP, Sony Corp, vivo, Xiaomi, ZTE) for Android devices from end 2021 - Partners with GCP (Google) for Neural Architecture Search (NAS), enabling to create & optimize AI models automatically rather than manually - Launches Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 Gaming Platform (Razer first customer) and Snapdragon 8cx and 7c+ Gen 3 Compute Platform processors
• Amazon (AWS re:Invent): Goldman Sachs launches GS Financial Cloud for Data with AWS for investment firms, giving access to market data & software tools - NASDAQ hires AWS to move exchanges N America to the cloud 2022 - AWS launches AWS Mainframe Modernization: migrate mainframe workloads to the cloud - Launches AWS Cloud WAN (for enterprises to build, manage & monitor a unified global network that seamlessly connects cloud and on-premises environments) - Launches gen-3 processor Graviton3    
• Google: Rumor: Pixel plans smartwatch 2022, based on Wear OS (codename Rohan) 
• Bytedance: Launches public cloud Volcano Engine
• Falcon V Systems (JV with Vector Group in PL) raises funding from Liberty Global and Charter Comms (Liberty Broadband (= Liberty Media) 25%) to develop disagggregated Distributed Access Architecture (DAA)
• GSA 5G Ecosystem update report (at 211130): 1154 devices (+16% qoq; o/w 790 commercially available; 654 support SA 5G) in 22 form factors from 167 vendors o/w 572 smartphones, 194 FWA devices, 160 modules, 74 industrial gateways, 53 hotspots, 21 laptops, 25 tablets, 11 in-vehicle routers, 36 other

GENERAL, REGULATORY

• Ericsson:
• Mobility Report (Nov 2021) (main)    
• Reaches 100 5G networks supported
• Ofcom (UK) publishes discussion document (report)  Unlocking the potential of Terahertz radio spectrum (The role of spectrum management) to propose Terahertz spectrum (100 GHz - 3 THz)
• ETNO calls for EU policy changes to support digital transformation, manufacturing sector, investment in gigabit networks, using EU Recovery Funds; proposes consolidation; calls on tech giants to contribute to network costs
• OECD Economic Outlook
• Amazon: Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) report (Amazon Toll Road): charges 3rd-party sellers $121b in fees (for advertising, referrals, shipping) in 2021 
• Meta Platforms: Meta Adversarial Threat Report: removed 6 adversarial networks for Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB; [fake news]; removed 4 networks in Palestine, PL, Belarus, China), Brigading (people work together to mass comment, mass post or engage in other types of repetitive mass behaviors to harass others or silence them; removed ant-vaxx network FR/IT linked to V_V), Mass Reporting (people work together to mass-report an account or content to get it incorrectly taken down; removed network in Vietnam for falsely reporting activists and other people who publicly criticized the Vietnamese government); shares data with independent researchers via platform built by CrowdTangle team
• Twitter: Bans sharing 'private' images & videos without consent (excl public figures); to remove content when reported - System abused by right-wing activists (accounts reported and locked for sharing publicly available images of anti-maskers, anti-vaccine protesters and suspected Capitol insurrectionists; Twitter corrected errors in enforcement
• Australia to compel social media companies to reveal the identities of users who post material considered defamatory (trolls)
• EP and EU Member States agree on EU Data Governance Act (proposed 201125); final approval in EP and EU Council next steps (for data sharing under privacy (GDPR), consumer protection and competition rules)
• EU Council shares first compromise text on EU draft AI Act, changes to definition (capacity to process data or other sorts of inputs to infer the way to achieve a given set of human-defined objectives through learning, reasoning or modelling - 8 high-risk areas), scope (AI systems developed exclusively for military purposes and AI systems developed for the sole purpose of scientific R&D excluded), social scoring (extend ban on social scoring from public authorities to private entities), biometric identification systems (authorisation must be requested without undue delay during its use, and if such authorisation is rejected, its use shall be stopped with immediate effect)
• Study from hubraum and Startups Association for DT: Startups and AI (Innovation Meets Responsibility)     
• EDPB adopts guidelines for safeguarding data transfers (in accordance with the GDPR)