• Lumen lines up consumer broadband unit sale
• NTT Docomo applauds a significant 6G milestone
• Cellnex completes sale of Austrian assets

In today’s industry news roundup: US operator reportedly is seeking to offload its consumer broadband business for more than $6bn; a milestone has been reached on the road towards the development of 6G specifications, according to NTT Docomo; European towers firm Cellnex has sold its business in Austria; and much more!

Lumen Technologies, the US network operator that has reinvented itself as a provider of high-capacity datacentre-to-datacentre connectivity to the big tech community, is reportedly looking to sell its consumer broadband business, which is no longer core to its new strategy, reports Reuters. Lumen, which this year has reported multiple major deals with likes of Meta, AWS and just this week datacentre operator Prometheus Hyperscale, that have fuelled a 220% increase in its share price since the start of the calendar year, is believed to be working with Goldman Sachs on identifying potential bidders for the retail broadband business, which generates about 20% of its revenues (based on the operator’s third quarter earnings report), or about $2.5bn per year. Reuters reports that the value of such a deal might be between $6bn and $9bn, depending on how it is structured and which assets would be included. At the end of September, Lumen’s mass market (consumer) broadband access network reached 22 million properties (of which 4.1 million were with a fibre line) across 16 states (mainly in the north and west but also in Florida) and it had 2.6 million mass market broadband customers, of which just over 1 million were fibre broadband customers.   

Anyone not keen on the idea of 6G should look away now, because it’s on its way… At last week’s 3GPP TSG-RAN meeting in Madrid, a 6G RAN level study item supported by 56 co-signed companies was approved, “which achieves a significant milestone of [the] 6G standard,” reports Japanese telco NTT Docomo. “This study item aims at interacting with ITU on 6G technical performance requirements. In the future, deployment scenarios, requirements and potential directions of 6G radio access technologies will be further identified and investigated in 3GPP,” added Docomo, which noted that support for 6G’s development is widespread and that it is “expected that 6G will serve as a critical enabler of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by advancing network capabilities to drive innovation”. Takaaki Sato, the senior executive VP and CTO at NTT Docomo, noted: “Developing [the] 6G global standard is an important opportunity to provide new values such as sustainability, higher efficiency, network for AI, connectivity everywhere, and new/improved customer experiences. These values have great potential to change our life and industries with IOWN (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network) for adapting to the environment [globally]. NTT Docomo is willing to lead this activity in 3GPP together with other great contributors in diverse regions, as there are global common demands and issues 6G should address,” added the CTO. Yago Tenorio, Verizon’s recently-appointed CTO and senior VP of strategy and technology enablement, added: “Verizon is committed to driving innovation and collaboration within the global technology community. A unified global technology standard is essential for unlocking the full potential of 6G, enabling seamless and secure connectivity, and fostering an inclusive digital society. By working together with industry partners, we can achieve ambitious global objectives and ensure that the benefits of next-generation connectivity are accessible to all.” Read more. 

Pan-European towers infrastructure operator Cellnex Telecom has completed the €803m sales of its business in Austria, including 4,600 tower sites, to a consortium comprising Vauban Infrastructure Partners, EDF Invest (the investment arm of utility giant EDF) and MEAG, the asset manager of German insurance giant Munich Re (and its subsidiary ERGO). The deal was first announced in August. Cellnex initially acquired the assets as part of its massive €10bn acquisition of European towers from Hutchison Group, which was announced in late 2020 and completed in 2021.  Marco Patuano, CEO of Cellnex, noted that “the closing of the sale of our Austrian business will allow us to further consolidate, simplify and focus our efforts on growth opportunities in the main markets in which we operate, as well as on the balance sheet and the acceleration of shareholder remuneration, thus fulfilling our commitments to the market.”

The European Commission (EC) has awarded grants totalling €128m under its Connecting Europe Facility (CEF Digital) programme to support 31 new 5G infrastructure projects, adding to the €93m previously doled out to 35 5G projects. The EC notes that the “newly funded projects will support the roll out of 5G standalone infrastructure in local communities and along European transport paths.” In total, 24 5G for Smart Communities projects, which will integrate 5G infrastructure with edge-cloud computing, and seven 5G Corridor projects, which “will deploy standalone 5G infrastructure along cross-border corridors of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), such as highways, railways, or maritime paths, thus ensuring seamless interoperability of national 5G systems,” will receive grants. A further £205m of CEF Digital funding is to be awarded in 2025 to large scale 5G projects. 

Eye-Net Mobile, a subsidiary of 3D perception systems specialist Foresight Autonomous Holdings, has entered into a multi-phase agreement with SoftBank and an unidentified leading Japanese vehicle manufacturer to “evaluate Eye-Net’s cutting-edge cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology as a key component in advanced driver assistance systems, potentially setting a new standard for road safety.” Read more.

– The staff, TelecomTV