Feb 6, 2024
China: The World’s Biggest 5G Market
With an estimated 750 million active subscriptions at the end of September 2023, China has the world’s largest 5G mobile market by far.
With an estimated 750 million active subscriptions at the end of September 2023, China has the world’s largest 5G mobile market by far.
French telco group Iliad has submitted a proposal to UK-based Vodafone Group regarding the potential merger of their respective operations in Italy.
If successful, the merger will have a big impact on the Italian mobile market, reducing it from five players to four, while also combining the fixed broadband operations of the two companies.
The deal is by no means guaranteed to go through, however. Even if Vodafone’s response is positive, regulatory authorities must then study its effects on competition.
I'm back with a new episode of TeleGeography Explains the Internet.
In the hot seat this time: Nokia's Paul Unbehagen. Paul has a deep history in the networking world, so he approaches his role at Nokia—NE Americas CTO—from the perspective of a network engineer.
Although our main topics this week are enterprise cloud and right-sizing cloud utilization, we use those as a springboard into many topics circling the state of the network in 2023.
Until recently, Ethiopia was one of the few telecom markets in the world that was still a monopoly, with no competition to state-owned firm Ethio Telecom.
This week on TeleGeography Explains the Internet, we welcome SmartCIC CEO Toby Forman to the show.
Following the sale of its local operations on October 9, 2023, Amsterdam-based multinational telecom group VEON has completed its exit from Russia.
Earlier this month, South African ISP Vumatel announced that its fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure now passes two million homes. One million of these homes are in traditionally underserved areas, such as townships.
This network footprint means that Vumatel now presides over a more substantial FTTH network than Telkom South Africa’s Openserve unit.
Fiber ISPs are very much on the rise in South Africa, with multiple players gaining traction with their regional rollouts.
Unusually, the majority of these operators use an open access business model, allowing dozens of smaller companies to market and resell fiber connectivity.
Today, we take a look at the main players driving fiber growth in South Africa.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) telco e&—formerly known as Etisalat Group—is slowly but surely building a presence in Europe.
Earlier this month, Brazilian regional ISPs Vero Internet and AmericaNet agreed to merge their respective operations.
Vero currently ranks as the seventh-largest ISP in Brazil; AmericaNet is eleventh. The enlarged entity will jump to fifth place in the fixed broadband market.
The deal seems highly likely to spark further consolidation. Regional fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) players have flourished in recent years, with a number of fast-growing ISPs snapping up operations in and around their regional strongholds.
As of May 2023 (most recent official data), 16 Brazilian ISPs served more than 250,000 subscriptions, suggesting the time is right for a sustained period of M&A activity.
Let’s take a look at the companies that have been driving M&A in Brazil in recent years.
Earlier this month, international telecom group Telefonica entered into its fourth Latin American fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) joint venture (JV).
The deal was sealed in Peru after Telefonica agreed to terms with investment firm KKR and Peruvian telco Entel.
This new fiber-based JV follows earlier agreements in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. Let’s take a closer look at Telefonica’s strategy and examine the scope of the networks in question.
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