Week 28 in Telecoms, Media, Internet

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    

Broadband Cities - Day 1

Today the Broadband Cities 2007 conference started. Thanks Dirk for inviting me!
A great place to meet people, but above all to attend several great presentations. I will not attempt to present a summary, and instead encourage you to check out some material that is freely available on the internet (see links below). Euroforum will post the presentations on its site from November 16.

Here are some quick takeaways.

• Let's not forget that FTTH is more than 'just' superior download speeds. References were made to the symmetrical nature and the economic, social, environmental and cultural benefits.
• PacketFront displayed its 'living networks' vision, where off-net (ISP, telephony, TV) and on-net (local services, including gaming, education, storage and ehealth) are distinguished.
• Prof. Carlota Perez had a hugely interesting presentation on the nature of tech revolutions. This presentation is pretty close to today's and here is a paper. She also has a book out. I particularly liked the bit where she saw an end to (so called) dichotomies: high tech and custom made now merge into mass customisation; competition and co-operation merge into co-opetition; etc. The question now is: how will 'state' and 'market' learn to work together? Very relevant in a FTTH context.
• KPN's Eelco Blok was scoring points (again) on the telco 2.0 score card, talking about wholesale and Chinese Walls. Mr. Blok, as well as his companion Joost Farwerck (who I spoke with yesterday), have conspicuously changed their tone when speaking about the telco v. cable dichotomy. Unbundlers and wholesale are now fully embraced, and in the 'us v. them' battle, it is now KPN + unbundlers v. UPC + Zesko.
• Mr. Burgelman (an EC advisor) gave a fine Web 2.0 overview. His presentation leaned pretty heavily on this one.
• My cyberbuddy Benoit Felten (now at the Yankee Group) gave a detailed analysis of that exciting FTTH market, France.
• Taylor Reynolds of the OECD presented the latest broadband statistics (as of October), which led to several pretty stunning observations. Check out the October stats on the OECD Broadband Portal. The last one is especially funny.
• William H. Melody presented his analysis of the private equity takeover of eircom and TDC. The (shocking) TDC report was published before.