What’s up with… Türk Telekom, FTTH investments, data centres in Brazil

• Türk Telekom has a new owner
• FTTH investments to ramp to record high in North America
• Vertiv teams with Elea Digital in Brazil

The Türkiye Wealth Fund (TWF) has agreed to buy a 55% stake in Türk Telekomünikasyon A.Ş. (Türk Telekom) from LYY Telekomünikasyon A.Ş. (LYY), a joint venture formed by the operator’s bank creditors, for US$1.65 billion. “This acquisition demonstrates TWF’s trust not only to the attractive long-term outlook of Turkish telecommunication industry but also to the sustainability of Türk Telekom’s strong market position, brand value, asset base, outstanding human resources, diversified business model resulting in strong financial and operational performance,” noted the TWF in this statement. Türk Telekom has almost 52 million customers and reported a turnover of 34.3 billion Turkish lira (US$2.3 billion) in 2021. As TelecomTV pointed out last year, this move looks like a slide towards the renationalization of the telecoms sector in Turkey.

The FTTH equipment market looks like a good one to be in right now, especially if forecasts from the likes of RVA Market Research and Consulting are anything to go by. RVA, which often provides reports and insights to the Fiber Broadband Association, expects investments in fibre broadband networks in North America to hit $125 billion during the next five years, which would be by far the highest five-year investment period in fixed broadband networks ever, it says. That’s good news for the likes of ADTRAN, Calix, DZS and Nokia, which should all be benefitting from such a surge in investments in the coming few years. 

Data centre operator Elea Digital has turned to power/cooling systems specialist Vertiv to support its edge data centre operations in existing key markets across Brazil with a view to further expansion across Latin America. Vertiv is to provide operation and maintenance services to Elea Digital’s six data centres in key Brazilian metro areas – São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Curitiba and Brasília. The data centre operator says Vertiv’s support will provide “accountability” and “automated and real time management of key infrastructure” in a data centre market that suffers currently from a “lack of experienced manpower,” especially outside the São Paulo region. Elea Digital says its aim is to “accelerate the standardization of its multi-location data centre platform and, at the same time, to assure to its colocation clients secure services aligned with global best practices.” Read more.