What’s up with... Plume, Telenet, Deutsche Telekom, Apple

  • Plume banks yet more funding
  • Telenet set to sell its towers?
  • Deutsche Telekom must open up its fibre access network to rivals, says regulator
  • Apple plans pulped by chip shortage

Plume’s stratospheric valuation, and speculation of more European tower asset sales, top the bill in today’s news roundup.

AI-driven, cloud-based smart home services specialist Plume has raised another $300 million in funding, this time from SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, to take the total it has raised to $697 million and giving the company a valuation of $2.6 billion. The company, which says it works with more than 240 network operators and has more than 1.2 billion devices managed in over 35 million homes and small businesses around the world, says it will use the funds to “drive research and development, sales and marketing, new partnerships, and acquisitions.” Form an orderly M&A queue, please... For further details, see this announcement

Belgian operator Telenet, part of the Liberty Global group, is considering the sale of its 3,000 mobile towers in a move that could raise about €600 million, according to this unconfirmed report from Bloomberg. There’s a strong appetite for tower assets right now, so the opportunity would likely attract the attention of neutral host operators such as Cellnex and American Tower, as well as private equity firms. 

German regulator BNetzA (Bundesnetzagentur) has published its draft decision under which ISPs can gain access to Deutsche Telekom’s fibre access network under the same terms and conditions as its own broadband retail operations. “The Federal Network Agency is setting the course for accelerated fibre optic expansion in Germany,” stated the Federal Network Agency’s President, Jochen Homann, in this announcement. "Unlike the copper network, access to the fibre optic network of Deutsche Telekom is not regulated ex ante. This is a big step and the signal for Telekom to rapidly expand its fibre optic network. In return, it must allow competitors to use its fibre optic network under the same conditions like their own sales department. The Federal Network Agency reserves the right to intervene only in the event of anti-competitive abuse.” Homann added: “The Federal Network Agency expects Telekom and its competitors to use the new market regime to significantly increase their investments in fibre optics. This reduction in regulation is a paradigm shift that shows that the Federal Network Agency reacts flexibly and innovatively to new market developments.” Interested parties have until 15 November to respond to the draft. BNetz says it is “already announcing its regulatory proposals in anticipation of the Telecommunications Modernization Act, which will come into force on December 1, 2021, and intends to put the new instruments to use immediately in the interests of the best possible promotion of fibre optic expansion.”

The global chip crunch looks like it might hit Apple’s production of iPhone 13 devices, with the BBC (citing Bloomberg) reporting that the planned 90 million units production target for the fourth quarter could be cut by as much as 10 million.  

Nokia has unveiled its first 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) broadband gateway designed to operate with Japan’s local 5G specification. The FastMile 5G Gateway 3.2 Japanese model will be available in January 2022. Read more

Juniper Networks has been selected by Paltel Group, Palestine’s leading telco, to upgrade and develop parts of its network and infrastructure through the installation of a simplified and space/power-conscious network to deliver fixed and mobile services for its business and residential subscriber bases. Read more…

CityFibre has now laid 550km of full fibre internet cables beneath the streets of Aberdeen as part of its £40m plan to future-proof the city’s digital connectivity. The UK’s largest independent full fibre platform’s landmark achievement means there is enough full fibre cabling connecting the city’s homes to take in the 503 kilometres to Stavanger in Norway, as the crow flies, says CityFibre. Read more…

ETSI has released the test specification for the existing ETSI EN 303 645, the world leading consumer IoT security standard. This test specification, ETSI TS 103 701,  describes how a conformity assessment is performed in a structured and comprehensive way, thus allowing supplier organizations such as manufacturers, vendors or distributers, to assess the compliance of their devices against ETSI EN 303 645 in self-assessments or via testing labs. Find out how this will work in greater detail here. User organizations can also apply the test specification for in-house testing.

Anritsu has announced that Autotalks, a V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) communication solutions pioneer and leader, has endorsed its RF calibration and validation test based on Anritsu’s Universal Wireless Test Set MT8870A. The test solution covers all Autotalks Cellular-V2X chipsets designed for advanced safety use cases. The MT8870A s enables customers to address all wireless technologies required for autonomous driving system and minimize overall test cost from early development through mass-production. Read more...

Google Cloud Next ’21 is underway and Danielle Royston, founder and CEO at TelcoDR, has provided a useful guide to the sessions of relevance to the telecoms industry in this blog. Speaking of which...

How green is my cloud? Google has been busy buffing up its image this week with a slew of announcements around sustainability. One headline-grabber is Carbon Footprint, a service that tells you how much carbon emission your personal Google Cloud activity has generated. 

- The staff, TelecomTV

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