Showing posts with label Cellnex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cellnex. Show all posts

Friday, February 26, 2021

Polsat Group sale & lease-back with Cellnex Poland

  • Sells 99.99% stake (2,069,656 shares) in Polkomtel Infrastruktura (NetCo: passive & active layers), excludes Core network & spectrum
  • Polsat to retain 207 shares = 0.01%
  • Price: PLN 7.1b = EUR 1.57b (PLN 7,070,292,853.20 = 3,416.17 PLN/share)
  • 2020:
    • rev PLN 958m
    • EBITDA PLN 673m
    • EBIT PLN 116m
    • cash capex PLN433m
  • Assets:
    • 7k sites, 37k systems, 11300 km transmission network, microwave links
    • Polsat Group is committed to order in NetCo a certain number of incremental sites and additional emission systems under specified timeframes: Cellnex to invest EUR 600m to add 1500 sites + active equipment in 10 yr; (Cellnex total portfolio grows to 128k sites in Europe)
  • Break-up fees:
    • PLN 179,500,000 payable by Cellnex (if it fails to obtain the antimonopoly clearance)
    • PLN 718,000,000 by either (for failure to comply with any of key completion obligations)
  • Plans Master Services Agreement with Cellnex for MNO Plus (renewable for 15 yr); monthly remuneration dependent on the number of sites and active infrastructure systems used and additionally ordered in the future by Polsat Group
  • Open to cooperation with additional tenants

at 2:09 pm 0 comments
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Monday, October 12, 2020

Week 41 in Telecoms, Internet, Media

M&A

  • KPN: Bloomberg: EQT considers offer
  • IPKO (Telekom Slovenije): Attracts >10 potential buyers, to diclose Nov 2020
  • TalkTalk: Toscafund Asset Management (TAM, hedge fund, owns 28.5%) plans to offer 97 p/share, to deceid by 201105; Board supports
  • Telia: Sells Telia Carrier (019: rev SEK 5.39b, EBITDA excl IFRS-16 SEK 500m, capex SEK 396m; 530 employees) to Polhem Infra (= First AP Fund, Third AP Fund, Fourth AP Fund), SEK 9.45b (EV/EBITDA 18.9), capital gain SEK 7.00b, extra div 0.65 SEK/share; to close 21H1
  • 3 Group Europe (CK Hutchison): Rumor: 3 UK plans sale of rooftop locations (acquired from UK Broadband, 2017), to exit MBNL (macro sites JV with EE/BT) in order to sell
  • Virgin Media
  • Destiny: Acquires Voips (NL)
  • Vivendi: Canal+ increases Multichoice stake to 6.5%
  • Quibi: Rumor: 400-500k subs, offered company to Apple, WarnerMedia etc.

Corporate

Networks

5G

Fiber
Sharing
  • Kazakh operators (Beeline (KaR-Tel), Kcell, Mobile Telecom Service (Tele2-Altel) ) sign joint rural coverage pledge to cover 600k pops
Other

  • BT: Launches edge-based, open caching as a service, tech from Cisco, Qwilt, Digital Alpha
  • Cellnex plans IoT networks in IT, UK, IE, with Everynet, based on LoRaWAN tech (for Industry 4.0, Smart Cities, Smart Parking, Social & Facility Management, Environmental Management, Smart Utility)
  • Telefonica DE

Services

  • Nvidia launches Maxine: managed cloud AI (gaze correction, super-resolution, noise cancellation, face relighting etc; dramatically reduces how much bandwidth is required to 10% of H.264) videoconferencing service for developers

Hardware

  • Amazon: To launch eero for Service Providers (ISPs) in US/Canada Nov 2020: WiFi hardware & software: eero 6 Series Mesh Wifi System (WiFi 6), eero Insight (issue monitoring), eero Secure (security, privacy, parental controls; blocks blocks malware, spyware, phishing; ad blocking)

Regulatory

Spectrum

  • CTU (CZ) plans multiband (700 & 3.4-3.6) 5G auction, 7 bidders, encourages newcomers
  • EKIP (Montenegro) plans 5G multiband auction 21Q4: 700 (694-790), 3.4-3.8 GHz, 1 GHz in 26 GHz (24.25-27.5 & 26.5-27.5)

Platforms individually
Platforms general
  • Paris Court of Appeal to rule 201008 on whether competition authority has the power to require Google to negotiate with French press on neighbouring rights which allow online newspaper publishers to be remunerated for publishing extracts of their articles on Google News - Google and Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale (APIG, " Google accepts the principle of remuneration for our press titles") working on remuneration of neighboring rights - Paris Court supports competition authority for fairer negotiations between Google and publishers; APIG, FNPS, SEPM target Apple App Store, highlighting 30% commission & in-app payments, ringfencing of consumer data in media subscription packages purchased through the AppStore
  • Facebook and Twitter remove posts from POTUS Trump with false corona virus claim
  • US Congress (House Judiciary's Antitrust subcommittee) to report Oct 2020 on antitrust hearings 200729, delayed due to new info about Facebook's Instagram acquisition (from whistleblower) - Reports 201006: Amazon (most third-party sellers and many suppliers), Apple (distribution of software apps on iOS devices), Facebook (online advertising and social networking), Google (online search) all have monopoly powers (built on acquiitions), proposes break-ups - Republicans oppose: "Unfortunately, the Democrats’ partisan report ignores this fundamental problem and potential solutions and instead advances radical proposals that would refashion antitrust law in the vision of the far left." - Amazon disagrees - Apple disagrees
  • ECJ: mass personal data collection (mobile, internet) breaks EU law (unless in a situation of serious threat)
  • Ukraine considers tax on digital services (Facebook. Netflix, Amazon): 20% VAT
  • Global Privacy Control (NYT, EFF, DuckDuckGo) proposes setting preferences once for global opt-out

at 12:17 am 0 comments
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Wednesday, September 30, 2020

How to regulate near- or quasi-monopolies? (DEVELOPING)

Principles

  • The market creates competition.
  • Competition ...
    • ... creates choice
    • ... lowers prices
    • ... stimulates innovation
    • ... and good customer service.
  • Complicated value chains require competition at every node, i.e. not just at the retail level. It is not enough to check only if retail prices are going up (as per Chicago school).
  • Competition implies negotiating power, meaning there must be an alternative (at both the retail and wholesale markets) and not too high switching costs.
  • In case the market failes: regulation.

The problem

  • Highly concentrated marekt power among US internet majors, China internet majors and a few others.
  • ISPs have no monopoly, but there are near-duopolies. Regulation brought switching costs down.
  • Mobile site owners have no monopoly but switching costs are prohibitively high, creating a quasi-monopoly.
  • Same for MNOs vs. MVNOs, but switching costs are probably manageable. However, being unregulated and data traffic continuing its high growth, MNOs will be less eager to offer wholesale deals in the first place.
  • Internet platforms have near-monopolies (Google Search, Amazon e-commerce, Facebook social media) or near-duopolies (Android/iOS, Google/Facebook digital ads & news). There are alternatives (Bing, DuckDuckGo; Etsy; WT:Social), but are simply used very little.

Gatekeepers or 'structuring platforms' (2-sided businesses in red):

  • ISPs and operators: varying power balance
    • South Korean telcos (paid by consumers and possibly content providers) vs. Netflix et al bring up the case once more ("they are using my pipes for free") for content providers contributing to the cost of broadband access networks. Content providers have the upper hand and telcos can only win if the regulator steps in, because they have no monopoly on internet access.
    • Fox Sports (paid by consumers and operators) vs. Ziggo. Polish investigation: do broadcasters abuse their market power? The content owner has a stronger position than the telco, because Fox's content is unique and Ziggo, as a TV operator, has no monopoly.

    • Passive telco infrastructure owners: power is with the owners; they have an incentive to find new customers to not be getting income from a single customer
      • Sale & lease-back constructions for passive infrastructure (esp. mobile sites) generate cash in the short term, but a huge lock-in and financial risk in the long term (generally after 15 years). Consider all the infrastructure deals from (cash-strapped or heavily indebted) telcos with the likes of Cellnex, InfraVia and others. The line between smart and not so smart is thin, where smart implies a sale of a minority stake (possibly through a spin-off or IPO). Cellnex may not be a monopolist, but the lock-in is huge.
      • Wholesale can be a monopoly (such as KPN NL in fixed) or a near monopoly (when switching costs are prohibitively high, such as in MNOs hosting MVNOs).
    • Internet platforms: quasi-monopolies (and duo-, oligo-), in need of sound negotiations
      • Google and Facebook are paid by advertisers (in cash) and by consumers (in personal data). The value of the personal data is only limited by privacy regulations - which the internet companies are trying to circumvent.
      • Amazon's e-commerce earns money from both consumers and third-party sellers. A clear case for chinese walls (if not bright line regulation i.e. structural separation). Apparently, Amazon is using information from its third-party sellers to support its own brands.
      • Apple (vs. Epic Games) controls the iOS ecosystem through its App Store, whereas Google (esp. with Android 12) allows third-party app stores, besides its own Play Store. Apple demands a 30% fee (dropping to 15% for subscriptions after 1 year). Google's Fundo gets a 20% fee. Bandcamp charges a 15% fee.
      • Amazon Channels is hardly a monopoly. CBS is a happy customer. The fee Amazon takes (if any) is not published.
      • Peacock vs. Roku (paid by consumers and content providers). Peacock has its unique content (quasi monopoly). Roku is not a monopolist, but is a gatekeeper to its user base (quasi monopoly) and as such Peacock doesn't want to pass it by. Apparently, Roku demanded 30% of the ad inventory, but it's unclear how much they ended up with.
      • ACCC vs. Facebook, Google: forced negatiations for the paid use of news snippets from news media (paid by consumers and possibly search engines and news sites), according to the News Media Bargaining Code. Internet services may claim fair use and directing traffic to news media, the ACCC look at it a Neighbouring Rights. The news media (supported by the regulator) thinks the internet services should pay, probably for the simple reason that they make money off of the snippets. In France, a court will decide on whether the regulator has the power to force such negotiations.
    Forces

    • Free market
    • Abuse of market power, monopoly, duopoly.
    • Allowing competitors to thrive, Prisoner's dilemma.
    • Network effect (the bigger the network becomes, the easier is it to attract new users), winner-takes-all, first-mover advantage, competitor can't enter the market.
    • Lack of antitrust enforcement.
    • The risk of outsourcing distribution to a wholeale monopolist; theaters were split from studios.
    • One-stop shop, lock-in (consumers & businesses become dependent on platform, no option to shop around, platforms set unfair ToS), high switching costs, high entry barrier.
    • Peronal data portability will lower switching costs and thus entry barriers.
    • Economies of scope allow easy expansion into adjacent areas.
    • Two-sided business model, double hats, chinese walls, structural separation
    • Fair use (content)
    • Forcing a company break-up to make the parts become competitors. Case in point: Facebook's acquisition of Instagram (could have been fierce competitors). Acquisition only to be allowed if expansion cannot be realised organically. A break-up shouldn't be enforced only to destroy it.
    • There appears to be a level of collusion among the platforms (Google has an unchallenged monopoly in Search, Gmail, Google Docs). But in certain areas they are challenging each other (Amazon in digital ads; Apple in maps; Google, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram in e-commerce, Facebook in gaming, Facebook in Hosting Services).
    • There's a fundamental (political) choice that everybody needs to make: may my personal data be used to a. Improve the service (Google Search, recommendations), b. Enable targeted advertising. Further: Can personal data by anonimised/pseudonimised? It looks like a and b require converting back to personalised data or otherwise service improvement and targeted advertising doesn't work.
    • Do the 'free' services need to be free? How much would Facebook (see it's reported ARPUs) and Google need to charge for an ad-free service? (See also price differential between tiers with and tiers without ads at VOD providers.) Without use of personal data, no personalisation or service improvement would be possible. hould platforms be forced to offer a data and/or advertiing free tier/variant? Also: are there options for consumers to NOT agree to the ToS and still use the service? There is a risk of ToS becoming some sort of private regulation.
    • Platforms provide great services in exchange for personal data.It makes them as powerful as a state-within-the-state. The political issue being: is that a bad thing?


    at 10:55 am 0 comments
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