Eight million UK homes now have access to full-fibre broadband, a record rise of three million since last year. 

But fewer than a quarter of those have chosen to upgrade to a full-fibre package, regulator Ofcom’s annual Connected Nations report says.

Many could upgrade without paying more than they currently did, Ofcom said.

The number of upgrades was rising, with 750,000 homes moving to full-fibre services in 2021, but the rapid rollout meant take-up was likely to lag behind.

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Altice UK increased its stake in BT to 18%, up from the 12.1%‑stake Patrick Drahi’s business acquired earlier in the year.

In a note to the London Stock Exchange, Altice UK confirmed it was not currently interested in a takeover bid in BT despite the increase in shareholding. The company “does not intend to make an offer”, the statement read.

Billionaire businessmen and serial deal‑maker Drahi underlined “dialogue” with BT’s management, with the Financial Times reporting that Drahi notified new Chairman Adam Crozier of Altice UK’s increased position last night, after the market closed.

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Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory Department of Outdoor Advertisement and Signage said it had discovered over a thousand towers that had been erected in Abuja without permission from local authorities

Authorities in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, have announced that they have discovered around 1,300 mobile masts and towers operating illegally within the Federal Capital Territory. 

All of these towers have been erected without first obtaining permission from the relevant local authorities and will subsequently face appraisal and potentially decommissioning. 

“In fact, recently, without mentioning the company, we have to bring down 126 illegal towers without documentation for them,” explained Dr Babagana Adam, Director of DOAS. “So, we have to regularise them and where they don’t meet with the regulations, we have to decommission to the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC).” 

This find is not of insignificant magnitude, given that, at the start of the year, Nigeria as a whole had just 53,460 mobile towers deployed nationwide. Regadless of the total number of illegal towers throughout Nigeria, this finding alone would suggest that a significant number of Nigerian’s currently receive mobile connectivity via illegal infrastructure. 

Of course, installing telecoms towers illegally, without acquiring the prerequisite permissions, is nothing new for the telecoms industry. Indeed, telecoms operators often complain about the difficulties associated with gaining permission to deploy infrastructure, whether that is gaining access to multi-dwelling units for the deployment of fibre or rooftops for 5G small cells, so it should come as little surprise that in less well regulated, developing markets, infrastructure is deployed illegally. 

In fact, many of these installations go entirely unremarked upon for numerous years, often only being discovered when routine surveys are being carried out. This was the case in New Dehli, India, back in September, when 1,200 illegal towers were identified by a routine survey, leading to major fines being applied not only to the telecoms company or the contractor, but also the owner of the property.

EE is to upgrade 4G coverage in more than 200 rural locations across Wales by June 2024, as part of the Shared Rural Network (SRN) programme agreed last year.

The Shared Rural Network – an agreement between the UK’s four mobile network operators and UK Government – is aiming to extend 4G coverage to 95% of the UK’s geography by 2025.

The upgrades announced today are part of the first phase of the SRN programme, where EE will invest to significantly reduce ‘partial not-spots’ in mobile coverage.

EE has already upgraded its 4G network in 97 rural locations across Wales since the SRN deal was signed in March 2020. Today, EE has pledged to extend 4G in a further 123 locations in Wales, bringing the total to 220 in this phase of the programme. All sites have been made available for other operators to share under the SRN scheme.

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News summary:

• UK-based service provider is expanding ultra-fast broadband to more homes and businesses
• Compact and scalable ADVA FSP 3000 technology delivers new levels of reliability
• ADVA’s professional service team is providing end-to-end project management, maintenance and support

ADVA (FSE: ADV) today announced that KCOM is harnessing its FSP 3000 open optical transport technology to meet soaring data demand. The new infrastructure enables the UK-based communication and IT service provider to deliver highly reliable, ultra-fast connectivity to more residential and business customers across the Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire regions. Featuring ADVA’s QuadFlex™ line card, OpenFabric™ cross-connect and colorless, directionless, flexgrid ROADM technology, the solution empowers KCOM to remotely turn up new services with complete flexibility and control. After managing all stages of design, implementation, optimization and testing, ADVA’s specialist team will provide ongoing maintenance and support.

Read the full press release on ADVA’s website.

Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) announced today that G8 Telecommunications (G8) deployed Infinera’s industry-leading GX Series Compact Modular Platform on its long-haul DWDM network to increase network capacity to meet the growing needs of enterprises, network operators, and government companies across Brazil. Infinera’s solutions enable G8 to double capacity on its network and offer its customers a variety of high-capacity internet services. 

G8 operates long-haul and regional networks in Brazil with presence in states with growing bandwidth demands like São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Goiás, Minas Gerais, and Bahia. As bandwidth demands increase exponentially driven by cloud applications, G8 has made massive investments in its infrastructure and optical backbone, with more than 3,000 km throughout the country with an aim to interconnect the major markets nationwide to support its wide range of customers. 

Leveraging Infinera’s GX G30 platform on its long-haul network, G8 benefits from a highly scalable 1.2 terabit transponder with individual channels up to 600 Gb/s per lambda and the ability to scale to 2.4 terabits in a single rack unit. The compact modular solution with simplified operations enables the company to rapidly modernize its network infrastructure to quickly deliver high optical performance on demand. 

“Infinera’s GX solutions provide us with robust solutions that deliver the high capacity we’re looking for on long-distance spans with ease and reliability and seamless operations in existing optical line systems,” said Rogério Fernandes, CTO at G8 Telecommunications. “Deploying Infinera’s solutions on our network doubles the capacity we’re able to offer today across all distances, setting us up for success against our competitors.” 

“We are pleased to work closely with G8 and our partner Arsitec to modernize G8’s networks to provide its customers with reliable, high-capacity services to meet the growing bandwidth needs in the region,” said Alexandre Salomão, Infinera Country Manager for Brazil. “By deploying Infinera’s innovative solutions, G8 is well-positioned to deliver fast service activation to its customers and remain competitive in the market.”

Read the full press release on Infinera’s website.

Shares jump as telecoms giant decides against pursuing joint venture to fund Openreach division.

BT has ditched plans to bring in an outside investor to boost its ultrafast broadband upgrade, as profits slipped ahead of a potential takeover bid by the French billionaire Patrick Drahi.

The chief executive, Philip Jansen, said he held talks with potential investors, but opted not to create a joint venture with its infrastructure builder Openreach to help bring the fastest connections to an extra 5m homes.

He said the decision was driven by the falling cost of upgrading its ageing copper network to faster full-fibre alongside a better-than-expected take up for the service.

BT’s plan to upgrade 25m homes and business to full-fibre by 2026 would now be solely delivered by Openreach.

Mr Jansen said: “We have conducted an extensive review and held discussions with prospective investors. However with fibre to the premise build costs coming down and take-up ahead of expectations, we have decided to retain 100pc of the project for shareholders and to remain fully focused on driving build and take-up.”

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Alpha Networks, Delta, Edgecore Networks, and UfiSpace are now part of the ecosystem.

ADVA (FSE: ADV) says it has paved the way for its Ensemble Harmony SDN/NFV platform to apply to white-box based disaggregated packet networking by adding relevant companies to its Ensemble Harmony Ecosystem. Alpha Networks, Delta, Edgecore Networks, and UfiSpace are now part of the ecosystem; each has white-box hardware platforms that are proven to interoperate with ADVA’s Ensemble Activator network operating system, according to ADVA.

Ensemble Activator, designed for use with bare-metal switches, is in trials with multiple mobile network operators, including Telefónica and Vodafone. ADVA sees Ensemble Activator as ideal for disaggregated cell site gateways (DCSGs), and the four new ecosystem members are active in the Telecom Infra Project’s DSCG project and related efforts (as is ADVA; see, for example, “Telecom Infra Project targets disaggregated cell site gateways,” “TIM Brazil, Vodafone announce suppliers for TIP Disaggregated Cell Site Gateway trials,” and “AT&T shows off Ufi Space white box cell site gateway router based on OCP specifications”).

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Africa’s biggest independent tower company operates over 30,000 towers in five African countries, as well as in South America and the Middle East

Over the last few years, telecoms companies all around the world have been offloading their mobile tower infrastructure at an incredible rate. Investor appetite for this infrastructure is at an all-time high right now, allowing for enormous deals to take place, such as Spanish giant Cellnex buying all of CK Hutchison’s European towers earlier this year for around €10 billion.

Now, IHS Towers, Africa’s largest independent towerco, is set to join this flurry of activity, proceeding with an initial public offering (IPO) that would value the business at around $7 billion.

In the filing made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, IHS said it would seek a price between $21 and $24 per share, with intentions of offering 18 million shares itself, with a further 4.5 million to be offered by shareholders.

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Over the past few years, fixed UK telecoms players have shifted their investment strategy from the old copper network to much more flexible, reliable and capable fibre networks

Ofcom stated in the 2020 Connected Nations report that 5.1 million homes have access to full-fibre services, but this is only 18% of UK premises. On the other hand, the UK Government expects industry to reach 85% of premises by 2025, which is a lot of work to do over the next 4 years, with approximately 19 million premises still to be reached: an average of about 4.7 million premises a year.

Read the full story here.