The UK fibre market is a hive of activity, with altnets securing investment while the operator of the country’s rail network is looking for £1 billion to upgrade its telecoms network.

Network Rail on Monday issued an invitation to private sector companies in invest in the rail telecoms network in return for the right to commercialise spare capacity on that network. Essentially, the rail infrastructure operator needs to upgrade its telecoms network, but says it doesn’t require all of the capacity that fibre would bring, therefore it wants to someone else to pay for the work and use the extra capacity.

“There will be sufficient capacity for a third-party to run its own telecoms services – making use of the significant geographical reach of the national rail network to meet demand for improved fibre connectivity across Britain, and taking advantage of the lower cost of fibre deployment along the railway when compared with other deployment methods,” Network Rail said, in a statement.

It has 16,000 km of cables adjacent to the railway lines, which carry information needed for running the railway: signalling for trains, trackside sensors, CCTV, and Internet for trains, depots and offices. These cables are due an upgrade, and this way the firm aims to do it without either government funding or subsidies from passengers. You could write reams on the price of rail tickets in the UK and the impact asking passengers to fund the new network would have, but we’ll resist that temptation. Suffice it to say that, taking this plan at face value, it seems like a good idea.

Whether or not the economics of it stack up well enough to attract third parties remains to be seen; the firm is looking for £1 billion, and while that is not a king’s ransom in the context of fibre network rollout, it’s not small change either.

“This proposal makes good business sense for all parties,” said Network Rail CEO Andrew Haines. “We get a cutting-edge, future-proof telecoms infrastructure; the investor gets a great business opportunity; train passengers in Britain get an improved service for years to come; and the taxpayer saves a significant amount of money.”

Network Rail also believes that if its plan works out it could be beneficial for consumers living in rural and hard-to-reach areas.

We should find out if there are any takers later this year. Network Rail said it aims to review expressions of interest and finalise a deal with its preferred bidder before the end of 2021.

In the meantime, there is plenty more going on in the market.

Late last week Lincolnshire’s Lightspeed Broadband announced the start of its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) rollout across 10 towns in South Lincolnshire and West Norfolk: Boston, Bourne, Holbeach, King’s Lynn and South Wootton, Long Sutton, Market Deeping, Skegness, Sleaford, Spalding and Stamford.

“We are looking forward to working in partnership with Plancast and RCU Solutions, who both have extensive experience in designing, planning and building telecoms infrastructure in a sustainable, efficient and high-quality way. Significant investment in digital mapping tools, and the strength and scalability of our partners, has enabled us to move rapidly, mobilise more than one hundred engineers and deploy simultaneously across ten towns,” said Dave Axam, Operations Director for Lightspeed Broadband. “We will be collaborating with the local authorities and communities in each town to build the network and to minimise disruption and environmental impact.”

The firm aims to cover 100,000 homes and businesses across the East of England by 2022, rising to 1 million homes by 2025.

Meanwhile, neighbouring operator Quickline, which serves Lincolnshire and Yorkshire with fibre and wireless-based high-speed broadband, announced that funds managed by Northleaf Capital Partners have agreed to acquire a majority stake for an undisclosed sum. Existing owners, the company’s management team, Bigblu Broadband and Harwood Capital will retain minority stakes, it said.

Quickline, which secured four grants under the UK government’s BDUK scheme last year, said it hopes the deal will help it to reach its target of passing 500,000 premises with its 5G and FTTP infrastructure in a the rather vague timeframe of “the coming years.”

And in one final news snippet, London-based broadband provider Cuckoo announced that it has raised US$6 million in a funding round that attracted RTP and JamJar as new investors. The company is not rolling out network: its mission, which it launched in July last year, is to provide a simple broadband tariff to customers. It says it will use the new investment to reach more customers and hire new staff, although it is not just about the cash: it clearly hopes that JamJar, which has backed brands like Bulb and Deliveroo, will help it to create a strong challenger brand in the market.

Trying to differentiate yourself in a crowded market for broadband provision? You’d have to be Cuckoo…

The 400G optical capabilities encompass a variety of formats, including Infinera’s point-to-multipoint XR optics.

Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) says it now offers the ability to use pluggable 400G coherent optical transceivers with its XTM Series and GX Series compact modular platforms. The 400G optical capabilities encompass a variety of formats, including Infinera’s point-to-multipoint XR optics (see “Infinera unveils XR optics single-source coherent point-to-multipoint transmission technology”).

The company has developed the XTM Series Enhanced 400G Flexponder module and GX Series CHM1R Open ROADM-compliant dual-400G sled to bring the coherent 400G pluggable options to market. Optical module options include 400G ZR+ as well as the XR optics modules.

Network operators appear ready to use the new capabilities. “The move to 400G in metro/regional optimized DWDM platforms is a major step that we welcome,” said Dave Eddy, COO at Neos Networks via an Infinera press release. “Our extensive UK network is built on the XTM Series, and 400G capabilities provide Neos Networks with another option for those segments in our network that see the highest demand. We look forward to capitalizing on this technology in our network to enable the company to maintain its position of running one of the most advanced optical networks across the UK.”

“Pluggable optics have always been at the heart of our metro strategy, and over the years we have achieved many industry firsts with the use of pluggable optics in transport platforms,” asserted Glenn Laxdal, senior vice president, global product line management at Infinera. “Expanding our capabilities to include the latest generation of 400G optics, combined with our industry-leading 600G/800G optics, provides customers with best-in-class solutions to address applications across their networks.”

UK tech companies are leading the hiring comeback with 1 in 6 jobs targeting young people, says the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

The tech  sector has over 122,000 advertised IT vacancies available accounting for 1 in 7 UK jobs, surpassing pre-pandemic levels with 1 in 6 UK tech vacancies target young people, equal to 20,000+ job openings.

Over 60% of leading UK tech companies plan to offer Kickstart placements in 2021. Established players like TalkTalk and Brainlabs, as well as startups including Bulb and Allplants are using the Kickstart scheme.

Read the full story here.

CityFibre’s Director of Regulatory Affairs Alex Blowers has spent the last 30 years working on telecoms policy and regulation and in January this year he was appointed Chair of the Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA).

With his INCA hat firmly on his head, Blowers explains how the industry body plans to influence policy with Government and Ofcom in the context of the Government’s ambitious targets for national coverage of gigabit-capable networks.

CityFibre’s Director of Regulatory Affairs Alex Blowers has spent the last 30 years working on telecoms policy and regulation and in January this year he was appointed Chair of the Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA). With his INCA hat firmly on his head, Blowers explains how the industry body plans to influence policy with Government and Ofcom in the context of the Government’s ambitious targets for national coverage of gigabit-capable networks.

The common thread throughout my career is basically the title of the Duopoly Review White Paper of 1991 – ‘Competition & Choice’. Telecoms is a hugely important sector, not just in its own right but for the health and wellbeing of the wider economy and society. A service-based economy needs world class digital infrastructure. And as individual consumers and citizens, more than ever we need reliable, unconstrained connectivity to fully participate in the economy and society.

I’ve always been clear that the best way to secure that outcome is through a competitive market. Both economy theory and bitter experience tells us that relying on the incumbent to do all the heavy lifting is a guarantee that we, as a society, will be slow to invest and innovate. Specifically, as we all now recognise, we are playing catch-up on the deployment of full fibre technology. Having started earlier than everyone else on the path to liberalisation back in the 90s, our poor performance in rolling out full fibre can only be described as a policy and a market failure.

Having started earlier than everyone else on the path to liberalisation in the ‘90s, our poor performance in rolling out full fibre can only be described as a policy and a market failure

Right now, alternative fibre builders are the tip of the spear when it comes to driving investment and competition. It is the alternative full fibre builders who have challenged the complacency of the incumbents and forced them to respond with their own network investment plans. INCA’s membership has stepped up and raised enormous amounts of money in a short space of time to make what are genuinely transformative investments. I want to be as closely involved as I can be as this plays out, hence my delight to be offered the chance to Chair INCA.

INCA was founded in 2009 to bring together operators, suppliers, community organisations, local authorities and others who were keen to see the development of new broadband services based on full fibre and wireless services. In other words, networks not dependent on the existing copper phone network. It was created by a small team associated with the Community Broadband Network led by Malcolm Corbett. INCA now has more than 160 organisations in membership from across the value chain.

The fundamental story is that the UK is now playing catch-up. The Government’s targets are hugely ambitious, but it is right to set a stretch-target to get as much of the country fibred up as fast as is humanly possible. But the public debate continues to be dominated by a ‘will they, won’t they’ dialogue around Openreach’s plans. Ofcom’s current market review rightly recognises that investors need some degree of certainty about the regulatory treatment of their investments. Obviously we need BT to play a role, but the most important thing for Ofcom to get right is a regulatory level playing field that allows the altnets – who are ready, willing and able to commit their capital without any special favours from Ofcom or the Government – to get on with their ambitious plans. If we can make the market genuinely competitive, achieving the Government’s targets will be a heck of a lot easier than if we are solely reliant on BT.

Altnets are currently being under valued and their importance to the overall policy objectives of Government and Ofcom not given as much weight and priority as they should. Having spent time in both the Government and Ofcom, I want to see if we can find a way to address this. It is basically about proselytising the scale of the inbound investments and why only a competitive market will deliver what the Government wants to achieve. It helps that this is all the stuff that I passionately believe in!

We can all learn from each other as we address the range of gnarly problems created by what is collectively a massive national civil engineering programme

Encouraging closer collaboration between the altnets themselves is key. Generally speaking, the altnets are not competing directly with each other, so we are able to collaborate pretty freely. I think for example that there is scope to work much more closely on common approaches to wholesaling our networks to ISPs. And we can all learn from each other as we address the range of gnarly problems created by what is collectively a massive national civil engineering programme.

Also key is securing a supportive framework from Government. There are two big things here: Making sure that the Government spends the money it has set aside to fund rural full fibre deployments in a way that gets maximum ‘bang for its buck’. No surprises that my view is that this will be achieved by making the awards process as open to altnet participation as possible.

We also need to bust barriers. What will slow us down is unjustified impediments to building at speed. The Government is consulting on reform of the rules on obtaining access to buildings to connect them to full fibre – this for me is a huge issue. More generally, we need to work in partnership with Government and other key stakeholders to make the positive case for this huge infrastructure upgrade. There is still a large amount of confusion about what full fibre is, and why we need it.

INCA can exert a greater influence on Government and Ofcom by speaking with one voice wherever we can, and we need to emphasise the scale of the investments now on the table. I’m optimistic that the Government gets this. I still think we have some work to do with Ofcom.

The recent publication of Ofcom’s market review disappointed many INCA members. Particularly in its treatment of altnet competition in rural areas it highlighted concerns that Ofcom still seems to see the altnets’ role as being just enough of a threat to goad Openreach into responding with its own investment plans. That’s fundamentally wrong, in my opinion.

The goal should be to pave the way to a genuinely competitive market throughout the whole country, not just urban areas. Without that competition in all parts of the market including more challenging rural areas, there is a risk that deployment is delayed and the Government’s targets are undermined.

The key for a body like INCA is to remain relevant to the membership. We can provide a unified voice in policy and regulatory debates that presents a collective view as opposed to a myriad of ‘special interests’. INCA can also do a lot of the donkey work on topics that are not a top priority for smaller, growing organisations, but will become very important.

For instance, INCA’s work with the OTA and industry planners on GPL Switching. Another example is the development of industry standards for full fibre and fixed wireless networks. These activities need to be clearly member-led, supported by a dedicated executive team and pool of specialist contractors on a shared cost basis.

We aim to foster a common understanding of the sector’s role and potential in meeting Government objectives in a way that makes a strength of the sector’s diversity, operators’ ability to respond effectively to local needs, plus of course the altnets’ impressive track record in attracting more than £8 billion of new investment in a very short space of time.

When we look beyond the immediate challenges – Ofcom’s market review, the Government rural programme, barrier busting – I see an important goal as being to drive take-up and adoption of the full fibre networks we are building. There is a lot of stakeholder and consumer confusion, and this is not helped by the Government adopting ‘gigabit capable networks’ language in its own target. Let’s be clear about this: For all practical purposes, the achievement of its target will be via the building out of full fibre networks, for the very good reason that full fibre networks are the gold standard for a modern digital communications platform. 

It’s also a long-standing concern of mine that a lot of consumers already think they have the gold standard, because they have been told that part-fibre products are best in class. When someone gets a marketing message that an FTTC product is ‘the ultimate fibre broadband’ it’s understandable that they will be sceptical about claims that full fibre will be ‘beyond ultimate’. There is a huge effort required to increase awareness of the differences between full and part-fibre products and the superiority of the former. INCA has made a start on this with its kitemarking initiative, but for me this is something that Ofcom in particular needs to get to grips with.

One other issue that we need to be aware of, even if it some way in the future, is eventual industry consolidation. I don’t want to set any hares running, but it seems to me an obvious and probably a necessary development in the medium term. When the cable industry went through its consolidation phase in the late 1990s it suffered from the absence of collaboration beforehand which created huge practical problems with consolidation of different networks and systems. I think INCA can be a useful forum to collaborate, not just because this is a good thing in its own right, but because it may increase our collective value proposition if consolidation does take place.
 
INCA’s key priority for the next period is to support the independent operators – the altnets – as they scale up to meet the challenges of delivering gigabit capable, full fibre networks throughout the UK, playing a full role in the government’s ambitious agenda. That includes working hard to ensure Government policy and Ofcom regulation recognise the vital role of the sector.

The £31bn 50-50 joint venture will create new ‘national champion’ to challenge BT.

The UK’s competition watchdog has provisionally cleared the £31bn merger of Virgin Media and O2, paving the way for the creation of a “national champion” to challenge BT.

Last May, Liberty Global, which owns the UK’s largest cable company, Virgin, and Telefónica, which owns O2, announced a deal to merge their UK operations in a 50-50 joint venture.

The deal will create a new telecoms heavyweight and a stronger competitor to BT. Virgin Media has 5.3 million broadband, pay-TV and mobile users, while O2 has 34 million mobile customers.

In December the Competition and Markets Authority launched an in-depth investigation into the deal over fears it could lead to a lessening of competition in the UK telecoms market that could result in higher price rises or a drop in service quality.

“Given the impact this deal could have in the UK, we needed to scrutinise this merger closely,” said Martin Coleman, the chair of the CMA’s inquiry panel into the deal. “A thorough analysis of the evidence gathered during our phase 2 investigation has shown that the deal is unlikely to lead to higher prices or a reduced quality of mobile services – meaning customers should continue to benefit from strong competition.”

Companies such as Vodafone and Three lease lines from Virgin Media to support their mobile networks, while O2 provides companies such as Sky the use of its network to run separately branded mobile services.

The CMA had been concerned that after the merger Virgin Media and O2 might have had incentive to raise prices or reduce the quality of those services, “ultimately leading to a worse deal for UK consumers”.

The CMA has concluded there is enough competition for wholesale deals from rivals, such as from BT and its Openreach subsidiary as well as smaller players, to require Virgin and O2 to keep offering fair deals.

“Liberty Global and Telefónica note the CMA’s publication of its provisional findings as part of its review into the proposed merger of their UK businesses,” a spokeswoman said.

“We continue to work constructively with the CMA to achieve a positive outcome and continue to expect closing around the middle of this year.”

Last week, Lutz Schüler, the chief executive of Virgin Media, was appointed to head up the new joint venture.

The appointment of Schüler means that Mark Evans, who has run O2’s owner Telefónica UK for the last five years and was also vying for the role of chief executive of the new company, is to leave when the merger completes in May.

Schüler, who was appointed chief executive of Virgin Media in 2019, was considered to have the edge to land the top job having worked at both Telefónica and Liberty Global in Germany during his two-decade career.

The deal values Virgin Media at £18.7bn and O2 at £12.7bn.

This week, the UK Government finally published its long-awaited Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy that highlighted ‘building ships in Scotland’, and a commitment to move away from a previous policy of ‘‘competition by default’.

The document also revealed new details about a planned new Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship for the Royal Navy and reaffirmed prior plans to develop a new class of Type 32 Frigates as well new Fleet Solid Support Ships. 

The IR said the new Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship would demonstrate the UK’s ‘more integrated approach in practice’ with the vessel being tasked with protecting critical national infrastructure at sea such as undersea cables and ‘improving our knowledge of the maritime environment.’

The document also said: “The Royal Navy’s Offshore Patrol Vessels, alongside the UK Border Force, will continue to support border surveillance, shipping safety, maritime environmental protection, fishery activity control, search and rescue operations and customs enforcement.”

The document also said spending would ‘deliver’ the UK’s plans for eight new Type 26 Frigates being built by BAE Systems and five new Type 31 Frigates that are to be built by Babcock. 

In a statement, Babcock – makers of the Type 31 Frigate – told Naval Technology: “We welcome the themes of the Integrated Review, including the recognition of a shift to a more technology and innovation-based defence strategy. 

“It’s also good to see that there is a clear aim to build on the UK’s relationships with key partners such as France, Australia, Canada and New Zealand; all countries in which Babcock has defence operations today.”

The IR also promised to implement a new defence and security industrial strategy – set to be aligned with the Government’s plans for growth. On this, the document reads: “It will constitute a more strategic approach to our core industrial base, from building ships in Scotland and armoured vehicles in Wales to manufacturing aircraft in England and satellites in Northern Ireland.”

Unions respond

The document also said the UK would move away from the 2012 ‘competition by default’ policy to prioritise ‘UK industrial capability’ where necessary for national security or operational reasons. 

Read more here.

Virgin Media is trialling Infinera’s XR Optics technology with the possibility of using it to deliver multi-gigabit speeds to customers.

Jeanie York, Chief Technology and Information Officer at Virgin Media, said:

“Our next-generation network already offers gigabit connectivity to more than seven million homes, but with data use and demand for hyperfast speeds surging, we’re continually investing in our network to prepare for whatever the future brings.

Innovations like this ensure our customers continue to benefit from the UK’s fastest widely available speeds, pave the way for future network upgrades and help support the rollout of multi-gigabit broadband and mobile services.”

XR Optics claims to “break the inherent limitations of traditional point-to-point optical transmission solutions” with improved coherent optical subcarrier aggregation and a pluggable and software-enabled architecture designed to reduce the cost of deploying and operating optical networks.

Traditional network transceivers are replaced with cutting-edge versions which split a single fibre optic cable into multiple connections:

The upgraded transceivers use standard passive fibre optic access network (PON) technology which means they can be remotely configured and enable the network operator to make changes in the future.

Virgin Media installed Infinera’s technology in Reading and found the equipment – which can be plugged into the existing network – was able to reach transfer rates of up to 400Gbps in a single fibre.

Dave Welch, Chief Innovation Officer and Co-Founder of Infinera, commented:

“The trial with Virgin Media provides a solid proof point that Infinera’s XR optics technology can be seamlessly applied to existing networks.

This represents a radical shift in the way networks can be built, promising a more flexible and sustainable way to meet the ever-increasing need to transmit more data at higher speeds.”

The latest trial follows on from one Virgin Media conducted in 2019 where it achieved 10Gbps symmetric broadband in Papworth, Cambridgeshire. Virgin Media’s latest trial blows that away by proving its PON network can achieve 400Gbps.

With data consumption rapidly increasing, a trend which is only expected to gain further pace as more 5G traffic is carried to-and-from masts, trials such as this one will be vital to support growing demand.

A year after it was announced, the Shared Rural Network programme took one step closer to actually happening with the publication of a transparency notice.

Leaving aside questions about why it took a year to draft, you may also be wondering why a such a thing is a prerequisite at all. The answer lies in the UK’s new trading relationship with the EU, following its departure from the bloc. This kind of state aid would previously have required a green light from the European Commission and, while that’s not longer the case, we are still bound by the terms of our new trade agreement.

One of a cornerstones of global trade is that countries shouldn’t favour their own companies over foreign ones in commercial matters and that, in principle, public money shouldn’t be used to give companies an unfair trading advantage. Of course everyone tries to bend those rules, some more flagrantly than others (cough, China, cough), but that’s tough to do with such a high profile bit of state subsidy as this.

Which brings us to the Shared Rural Network (SRN) – transparency commitment publication. “The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) is publishing information in relation to the SRN programme, as required by Article 3.7 of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA),” opens the document. “This transparency notice provides information on how the programme meets subsidy principles set out in Article 3.4 of the TCA…”

There follows a bunch of very dull bureaucratic legalese, which the European Commission will presumably pore over to see if it can find anything to moan about. “The programme will pursue better coverage to remedy market failures in a proportionate way, and how the subsidy will mitigate any negative effects to EU–UK trade and investment,” concludes the press release in anticipation of EC meddling.

“The Shared Rural Network is a key part of the government’s infrastructure revolution to level up and unlock new economic opportunities in every corner of the UK,” said Minister for Digital Infrastructure Matt Warman. “Mobile firms are making great progress boosting 4G services in countryside communities as part of their side of this landmark agreement. With the publication of this notice, we shall now push on with making patchy or poor coverage a thing of the past as we build back better from the pandemic.”

Hopefully. It’s not clear whether or not we need to wait for the EC to respond to this publication before going ahead with the subsidy, but that could take years. Beyond telecoms, the way this is handled on both sides of the Channel will set a precedent for the new trading relationship. Let’s hope the EC does a better job than its abject performance over the matter of Covid vaccines.

CityFibre has identified 216 additional towns and villages that are to benefit from FTTP rollout, completing the list of locations in its £4 billion nationwide investment programme.

The locations selected will see CityFibre extend its networks to much smaller conurbations, bringing FTTP to communities outside the UK’s major towns and cities. These new rollouts will reach in excess of 3 million homes and represent more than…

Read the full story on Total Tele.

Industry will pick up the rest of bill… yep, this old chestnut again

The UK government is set to release £500m of funding for the Shared Rural Network to improve mobile access in far-flung areas by adding new infrastructure and convincing operators to share their antennas with rivals.

Formally announced in March 2020, the deal also includes the UK’s four mobile providers – EE, Three, O2, and Vodafone – investing in a network of new and existing masts that is administered by a new jointly owned company called Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited. The providers are expected to chip in around £530m of their own money to facilitate this.

The aim of the project is to reduce the number of cellular “dead spots”, extending 4G LTE coverage to 95 per cent of the nation by the end of 2025, with Northern Ireland and Scotland expected to benefit the most. Work commenced in mid-2020, with Devauden in Wales the first rural settlement to receive a mobile upgrade. This was followed by Longnor, a Peak District village on the outskirts of leafy spa town Buxton.

Read the full story here.