What’s up with… MásOrange & Vodafone, AT&T, Verizon

• MásOrange and Vodafone map out fibre JV in Spain
• FCC lambasts AT&T over nationwide outage
• Verizon continues to lose wireless customers in second quarter

In today’s industry news roundup: MásOrange & Vodafone reportedly mull a 40% stake sale in a new optical fibre joint venture; FCC reveals that a nationwide AT&T outage in February blocked millions of calls, including to emergency services; Verizon posts modest revenue growth in the second quarter amid further loss of wireless customers; and much more!

MásOrange and Vodafone are reportedly in advanced discussions to create a joint venture to offer an optical fibre network in Spain. Local newspaper Expansión has reported that the two operators plan to put up for sale a 40% stake in the new entity for a targeted amount of between €1.5bn and €2bn. It added that this will help the telcos reduce their debt pile while keeping a majority stake in the new company. The new JV will reportedly have a total value of between €7.5bn and €10bn. In terms of shareholding, MásOrange is set to take the lion’s share with an approximate stake of 50%, while Vodafone is expected to have a 10% shareholding. According to local media, a post-negotiation agreement is set to take place by the end of July.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reported that a nationwide AT&T wireless service outage in February blocked more than 92 million phone calls and prevented some 25,000 emergency calls. According to the telecom watchdog’s findings, the outage on 22 February affected all 50 states, as well as Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, disrupting access to voice and data services for at least 12 hours. Following its investigation, the FCC further discovered that more than 125 million devices were affected by the incident and that services were also cut off for customers of other wireless providers that use AT&T’s network (such as mobile virtual network operators). The outage also disrupted services to devices operated by public safety users of FirstNet, the public-private partnership that involves AT&T in developing a nationwide public safety broadband network. “AT&T prioritised the restoration of FirstNet before other services but did not notify FirstNet customers of the outage until three hours after it began, and nearly one hour after service was restored,” FCC noted in its report. The cause of the outage was an implementation by AT&T of a network change with an equipment configuration error. “This ‘sunny day’ outage prevented consumers across the country from communicating, including by blocking 911 calls, and stopped public safety personnel from using FirstNet. We take this incident seriously and are working to provide accountability for this lapse in service and prevent similar outages in the future,” stated FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel. The incident has now been referred to the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau for potential violations of the commission’s rules. The regulator is also investigating AT&T for the recent disclosure of a security breach in which the data of “nearly all” AT&T wireless subscribers during a six-month period in 2022 was affected earlier this year.

Verizon has been losing a significant number of its wireless services business customers. It reported 624,000 wireless retail prepaid net losses in the second quarter of 2024 (which is more than double the 216,000 net losses reported in the opening three months of 2024). The US operator said the shutdown of the Affordable Connectivity Program, a government scheme that provided financial support for broadband services to those in need, was responsible for the loss. The situation was not so gloomy, however, with its wireless retail postpaid figures, with the telco reporting 8,000 net losses, a figure that fades into insignificance when compared with the 136,000 net losses it reported in the second quarter of 2023. On the flip side, Verizon reported gains in its fixed wireless access (FWA) services, which saw net additions of 378,000 in the period. This brought the total base to more than 3.8 million fixed wireless subscribers, up almost 69% year on year. Additionally, FWA revenue in the three months ending in June stood at $514m, up by more than $200m from the same period last year. The US telco giant’s total operating revenue was a mere 0.6% higher year on year, though, to $32.8bn, while net income fell slightly from $4.8bn in the second quarter of 2023 to $4.7bn in the latest reported period. Read more.

Telefônica Brasil has reportedly announced that its subsidiary TCloud has agreed to acquire cloud service firms IPnet and IPnet USA for up to 230m Brazilian reals (US$41m). The deal’s value will depend on IPnet achieving certain financial and operational targets. Telefônica Brasil has further claimed that the transaction will expand TCloud’s portfolio, and will enhance its professional and managed services. You can find out more from the Brazilian telco’s statement, available in Portuguese here.

The venture capital arm of Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco has invested $15m in South Korean AI chipmaker Rebellions. The investment was made through Wa’ed Ventures as part of a Series B extension round. In a LinkedIn post unveiling the move, the venture capital fund noted that Rebellions specialises in AI inference accelerators that offer “superior energy efficiency and low-latency performance”. In a separate post on social media platform X, Rebellions explained that the move will see the two companies collaborate “to advance the AI industry in Saudi Arabia”. Support for Rebellions seems to be gaining traction: At the start of the year, the chipmaker raised $124m in a financing round led by South Korean operator KT, while last month, Rebellions reportedly agreed to combine its business with Sapeon Korea, a division of KT’s telco rival SK Telecom.

Cybersecurity company Wiz has reportedly ended talks about a potential $23bn acquisition by Google’s parent Alphabet. According to a Reuters report citing a staff memo from Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport, instead of a takeover by the tech giant, the startup would now opt for an initial public offering, as it had previously planned, with the goal of achieving a recurring annual revenue of $1bn. He reportedly added that rejecting “such humbling offers is tough”, though did not refer to Google or Alphabet in the memo. Discussions between Alphabet and Wiz were reportedly in advanced stages earlier this month and, at the time, it was said that the deal would represent the largest ever takeover by Google.

- The staff, TelecomTV