News Analysis Robert Clark 3/3/2021
Asia-Pacific operators are leading the world in the transition to next-generation PON, analysts say.
They are being driven by their huge installed base and the growing demands on existing networks, but are also attracted by widening PON use cases and long-term strategic planning, experts told the Light Reading Next-Gen Broadband APAC event conference. What we re seeing now in the region is a very strong shift and a very clear shift toward 10G, said Jeff Heynen, Dell Oro VP for broadband access and home networking.
There was a clear trend line of new 10G ports of all kinds as operators look to expand their gigabit offerings, he said.
In 1BC (before coronavirus), when Donald Trump was tussling with the Chinese, KPN did a very unusual thing. As Trump s campaign put the heebie-jeebies up Europeans, prompting a few operators to back away from Chinese suppliers, the Dutch telco incumbent struck a 5G deal with Huawei. Its counterintuitive decision meant that Ericsson, the Swedish vendor now profiting in Europe at Huawei s expense, would have to be removed from KPN s existing radio access network.
It was an old-fashioned move that seemed driven by commercial reality rather than geopolitics. The decision on our mobile modernization was via a very solid RFQ [request for quotation] process, says Babak Fouladi, KPN s chief technology officer. We choose our partners based on technology and interoperability.
News Analysis Robert Clark 3/2/2021
Broadband operators can expect higher upstream traffic post-COVID, even as downstream returns to previous levels.
That s one of the lessons from Australia and New Zealand, where the pandemic is mostly contained and lockdowns have been lifted.
Look up: If Australia and New Zealand are anything to go by broadband operators can expect upstream to stay up post-pandemic.
Ray Owen, CTO of NBN Co., said while downstream traffic was returning to where we expected it to be, upstream data volumes were still significantly higher.
There was a residual in the upstream which will remain for quite some time as people are still working from home. there s been a structural change there.
News Wire Feed Light Reading 3/1/2021
LOS ANGELES Boingo Wireless, Inc. ( Boingo or the Company ) (NASDAQ: WIFI), the leading distributed antenna system ( DAS ) and Wi-Fi provider that serves carriers, consumers, property owners and advertisers worldwide, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement and plan of merger to be acquired by an affiliate of Digital Colony Management, LLC ( Digital Colony ). Upon completion of the transaction, Boingo will transition from a public company to a privately held company.
Under the terms of the agreement, which has been unanimously approved by Boingo s Board of Directors, Digital Colony will acquire all the outstanding shares of Boingo common stock for $14.00 per share in cash through a merger, in a transaction valued at approximately $854 million, including the assumption of $199 million of Boingo s net debt obligations. The acquisition price represents a 23% premium
Try as he might, Timotheus Höttges simply cannot enthuse shareholders about the performance of Deutsche Telekom, the company he manages. 2020 was a record year for Deutsche Telekom, he proclaimed on a call with reporters today, reeling off a list of impressive achievements. Sales and profits have soared, customer numbers have grown and dividends are still paid. Yet the German incumbent s share price remains about 5% lower than it was five years ago, when Höttges was far less ebullient.
Net debt remains a worry. At 120.2 billion (US$145.6 billion), it exceeds Deutsche Telekom s market capitalization by around 49 billion ($59.4 billion) and is outside its own safety zone. That constrains the company s ability to invest in higher-speed networks, acknowledged Christian Illek, its chief financial officer, although he expects leverage to fall in the next two to three years.