What’s up with… Telefónica & Vodafone Spain, Telefónica’s Q2, vandals in France

• Telefónica and Vodafone Spain strike FTTH JV deal
• Telefónica announces slight Q2 growth
• Saboteurs disrupt France’s telecom networks

In today’s industry news roundup: Two of Spain’s major operators are teaming up to form a fibre broadband joint venture; Telefónica reports a slight increase in sales and earnings for the second quarter; vandals have been attacking French telecom lines in what looks like the latest effort to disrupt the Olympics; and much more!

Telefónica and Vodafone Spain, which was recently acquired by Zegona Communications for €5bn, have struck an agreement to form a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) joint venture company (dubbed FibreCo) that will reach 3.5 million premises by combining certain fibre access network assets from each of the telcos. Financial details of the agreement were not shared. The resulting venture, which the operators expect to be formed in early 2025 pending regulatory approvals, will provide wholesale fibre access services to the two operators and is expected to have about 1.4 million connected customers when it starts its operations. The initial ownership split of FibreCo between the two operators will be based on their customer numbers within the footprint: The partners plan to attract a third-party investor to take a stake in FibreCo. Ultimately, Telefónica is expected to retain majority ownership of the venture, while Zegona will hold a 10% stake. Emilio Gayo, president of Telefónica Spain, stated: “With the creation of this FibreCo, Telefónica is capturing efficiencies and adding value to the available network, contributing to the development of digitalisation in the Spanish market for the benefit of consumers and businesses.” For Vodafone Spain, this is the second FTTH joint venture deal it has announced in the past few days, as on 24 July it unveiled a fibre access network sharing venture with MásOrange that will reach 11.5 million premises. The operator believes the combination of this new FibreCo with the MásOrange joint venture will give it “cost-efficient access to extensive all-fibre networks across Spain. These networks will deliver market-leading, high-speed services with the most advanced technologies,” it noted. Eamonn O’Hare, chairman and CEO of Zegona, stated: “Creating a new FibreCo in partnership with Telefónica is another key milestone in our plan to transform Vodafone Spain. This transaction fully complements the MásOrange FibreCo we announced last week and gives Vodafone Spain guaranteed access to future-proof networks with attractive economics. Moving Vodafone Spain to these new FibreCo structures is expected to create significant incremental value for all Zegona stakeholders,” added O’Hare. 

News of the FTTH deal came as one of a number of announcements that were bundled into Telefónica’s second-quarter earnings report, including news of a deal to offload its operations in Colombia for $400m to Millicom. Telefónica reported second-quarter revenues of €10.26bn, up by 1.2% year on year, and EBITDA of €3.2bn, up 1.8%. The telco confirmed its full year target of achieving revenue and EBITDA growth of about 1%, conservative goals that were unveiled by chairman and CEO José María Álvarez-Pallete when he introduced the telco’s new Growth, Profitability and Sustainability (GPS) strategy during its capital markets day in November 2023. The operator finished June with almost 365 million retail connections across all of its markets in Europe and Latin America, including 302.3 million mobile connections – of which 131.7 million are post-paid contract subscriptions, 127.5 million pre-paid and 43 million are internet of things (IoT) connections – almost 27 million fixed broadband connections (of which 17 million are FTTH) and almost 10.2 million pay-TV customers. The operator also has 27 million wholesale connections to take its group total to almost 392 million. “Revenues are growing, EBITDA is up and the customer base is larger and more satisfied with the service they receive. Telefónica is a more profitable and sustainable company, meeting the pillars of its GPS strategic plan,” noted Álvarez-Pallete in his comments on the second-quarter performance, during which he also highlighted the FTTH joint venture plants with Vodafone Spain and the planned sale of the Colombian operation. “As such, our strategic initiatives around building next-gen networks, putting customers first, and creating leaner future-fit operations are bearing fruit, giving us confidence to reaffirm our full-year financial guidance, to continue delivering stakeholder value and to capture the opportunities,” added the CEO. 

For most, the Olympic Games is an opportunity to wonder at the skill and grace of the world’s top athletes, but for a few it’s an opportunity to cause mayhem and disrupt the lives of the masses. Following the attack on the French railway system that plagued the official opening day of the Paris Olympics Games 2024 (aka the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad), saboteurs targeted multiple telecom networks and disrupted mostly fixed line but also some mobile services on the networks run by Iliad (Free), SFR (Altice France) and Bouygues Telecom, according to this report from Axios.  “Our long-distance fibre optic network was the victim of vandalism in several departments last night. Disruptions may persist in the most affected areas,” noted SFR in this post on X, while Free described the attack as a “multi-operator incident” in this X post.  

Philip Jansen, the former CEO of BT, has been appointed as non-executive chair of the board at advertising group WPP. Jansen will join the board on 16 September and will take over from Roberto Quarta as non-executive chair at the start of 2025. “Technology is changing the face of commerce, media and communications, and I am very excited to join a company at the forefront of this change,” said Jansen. WPP CEO Mark Read stated that Jansen will bring to the role “deep insight into our industry from his marketing background and roles with technology and consumer goods companies”. Prior to working at BT, which he left in January 2024, Jansen was CEO of payment services group Worldpay, and has held executive and senior positions at wholesale food supplier Brakes Group, food services and facilities management company Sodexo Group, and consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble.

Ooredoo Group has reported a 3% year-on-year rise in revenue for the first half of 2024, to 11.8bn Qatari riyal (QAR) (US$3.2bn), with chairman Sheikh Faisal Bin Thani Al Thani attributing the performance to the “sustained investment in our networks, strong market position and our commitment to customer excellence.” The company also highlighted “healthy operational performances” in its businesses in Iraq, Algeria, Qatar, Tunisia and the Maldives. The Qatar-based telco group reported net profit of QAR1.9bn ($520m), up by 14% year on year, while capital expenditure (capex) was 16% higher at QAR1bn ($274m). The telco’s total customer base was down by 4% to 150.6 million customers (including its Indonesian unit Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and excluding Myanmar where the group recently completed the sale of its operation to Nine Communications Pte). Looking ahead, Ooredoo noted that it is on track to meet its full-year targets. Find out more.

Public buildings powered by 5G-based technologies could cut energy consumption and save £580m of taxpayer money per year, according to new modelling by media company WPI Strategy for Vodafone UK. The UK telco noted in a statement that installing digital twins, IoT and smart sensors on buildings, such as schools, hospitals and leisure centres, could remove 1.43 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. The modelling enabled the company to demonstrate how 5G standalone (SA) can “seamlessly integrate many connected devices and sensors with IoT across heating, cooling and lighting systems to monitor energy use and identify efficiencies”. Innovative technology, such as digital twins, could be used by engineers to study buildings in detail remotely, to identify potential efficiencies and predict faults. The telco added, however, that these technologies require “the reliability, high capacity and low latency of a 5G SA network”. “Public buildings are critical to communities, and we want to propel them into the future – which is why, as part of our proposed combination with Three UK, we have committed to rolling out 5G standalone to every school and hospital across the nation by 2030,” said Andrea Donà, Vodafone UK chief network officer. Under its proposed merger with Three UK, the telco has pledged to deliver 5G SA to 95% of the population by 2030, and to 99% by 2034.

- The staff, TelecomTV