What’s up with… Vodafone, MWC25, Orange

• Vodafone forms European satellite-to-smartphone joint venture
• MWC25 is up and running and absolutely heaving
• Orange launches its API business unit

In today’s industry news roundup: Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile’s new satellite service business to offer 100% geographic coverage across Europe; MWC gets underway in Barcelona with, unsurprisingly, AI messaging and demos dominating the show floor; Orange Livenet is the identity of the giant French telco’s new network APIs unit; and much more!

Vodafone Group is looking to capitalise on its work with low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation operator AST SpaceMobile to take advantage of the growing demand for satellite-to-smartphone communications in Europe. Just over a month ago Vodafone announced it had, in partnership with AST SpaceMobile (in which the telco is a stakeholder), “successfully made the world’s first space video call using normal 4G/5G smartphones and satellites” and that it was aiming to offer “the first commercial direct-to-smartphone broadband satellite service in Europe from later in 2025 and 2026”. Now Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile, which has developed its constellation specifically for so-called ‘direct-to-cell’ services, have struck a deal to create a jointly owned European satellite service business – currently simply dubbed as SatCo – in order to “serve mobile network operators (MNOs) in all European markets. SatCo will seek to provide 100% geographic coverage in every part of Europe to give consumers and businesses access to secure space-based cellular broadband connectivity via their domestic MNO.” The venture will “exclusively distribute AST SpaceMobile’s satellite services to European MNOs under a single turnkey arrangement. This will be underpinned by a full network management and network operations centre capability, based in Europe, drawing on Vodafone’s advanced engineering expertise.” In addition, “SatCo will build and run a network of ground stations to provide backhaul services from these MNOs across Europe to the satellite network… SatCo’s solution will fully support European digital sovereignty. AST SpaceMobile’s satellites already operate as remote radio heads where the core network capability remains with the MNO. SatCo builds on this by providing fully sovereign backhaul capabilities under Vodafone co-ownership, with European headquarters and management. Vodafone Group CEO Margherita Della Valle stated: “Vodafone’s space-based mobile broadband will mean our customers can stay connected, wherever they are. Our new satellite company will be able to offer this pioneering technology to other European mobile operators through a turnkey service that combines Vodafone’s leading network and engineering with AST SpaceMobile’s ‘antennas in the sky’,” she added. 

That wasn’t Vodafone’s only announcement to herald the raising of MWC25’s curtains (of which more in a moment)... It has also unveiled a collaboration with IBM that aims to protect customers and their data from what the operator describes as “future risks related to quantum computers when browsing the internet on their smartphones”. The partners have developed a proof of concept (PoC) using the IBM Quantum Safe technology to enhance Vodafone Secure Net, Vodafone’s mobile digital security service that is already used by millions of the telco’s customers in several European markets, in order to provide protection against anticipated quantum security risks. For the PoC, Vodafone is using IBM Quantum Safe technology to “implement new post-quantum cryptography standards to the existing encryption methods used by Vodafone Secure Net”, explained Vodafone in this announcement. Vodafone and IBM are demonstrating the PoC with support from Akamai Technologies at MWC25….

Speaking of which! Monday was the first official day of the Barcelona-based show where AI, the evolution of 5G and its related use cases, 6G strategies, geopolitics, telco cloud developments, network APIs and the quality of this year’s sloppy tortilla de patatas (and espreso doble) were all shaping up to be key talking points for the 100,000 or so people set to tread the floor at the Fira showgrounds (you can see how busy the show floor was just a few hours after the doors opened in the picture below). Some companies used the weekend (and, of course, the weeks running up to the show) to share their latest developments: Nokia is a prime example, unveiling its latest AI-RAN developments with the likes of SoftBank, T-Mobile US, KDDI and Nvidia during a press and analyst briefing in Barcelona on Sunday – and, as ever, the first official day of the show comes with a tsunami of industry press releases, the vast majority of which have an AI angle: We’ll do our best to pluck out some of the more compelling announcements over the course of this week.

Orange has launched its API business unit, Orange LiveNet. The new business unit will focus on creating offers for developers and businesses to gain secure access to advanced network functionalities using network APIs. “As Orange increasingly opens up its networks, functioning as commercial platforms, network APIs will be the gateway for the development of new customer experiences across many industries, allowing real-time and secure access to personalised connectivity,” noted the operator in this announcement about its plans for MWC25. “With this business unit, Orange aims to support the acceleration of its Camara API catalogue, an open-source project of the Linux Foundation and the GSMA OpenGateway initiative, supported by 69 operator groups worldwide,” it added. The first commercial APIs made available via Orange LiveNet are identity and anti-fraud APIs, followed by geolocation and quality-on-demand APIs. These network APIs will be made available via an Orange online portal (developer.orange.com) and via partner channels, including the Aduna joint venture that was founded last year by Ericsson and a dozen major telcos, including Orange. 

Speaking of Aduna… It has announced Middle East giant e& as its latest equity investor. The move provides e&, which has operations across 20 markets in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and central and eastern Europe, with the opportunity to add its network APIs to Aduna’s rapidly expanding global platform. This, in turn, will “broaden Aduna’s reach in emerging markets and strengthen its vision of accelerating the adoption and innovation of common network APIs by developers on a global scale,” noted Ericsson (which holds a 50% stake in Aduna). Harrison Lung, group chief strategy officer at e&, noted: “We are delighted to join Aduna as an equity partner in this new industry-changing ecosystem that will empower developers and enterprises to connect, innovate, and scale by tapping into platformisation as the next growth engine. We’re looking forward to exploring this new business model with Ericsson and global telecom operators to unlock additional growth opportunities for e& as a technology group – and [for] our enterprise customers – accelerating digital transformation across industries in all of e&’s markets.” Aduna’s founders included 12 telecom operators. Japan’s KDDI came on board as a stakeholder last month and e& takes the total number of telcos that will hold equity in Aduna to 14.   

Hyperscaler Amazon Web Services has unveiled two offerings specifically for telecom operators: AWS Outposts racks are for on-premises 5G workloads that require low latency and high throughput; and AWS Outposts servers provide cloud-native infrastructure and services for cloud RAN workloads. Both offerings will be generally available later this year to support the hosting of 5G core user plane function (UPF), RAN centralised unit (CU), and RAN distributed unit (DU) workloads. AWS Outposts, you might recall, is a managed service that offers the same AWS infrastructure, AWS services, APIs and tools to virtually any datacentre, co-location space or on-premises facility for a consistent, hybrid experience. “With the new AWS Outposts offerings, the AWS Cloud Continuum can now extend to the furthest edge of the 5G network, allowing telcos to run their entire 5G network including 5G core and 5G RAN on AWS cloud services,” stated Dave Brown, VP of compute and networking at AWS. “The AWS Outposts rack offering features a new architecture that allows cost-efficient capacity scaling to meet the growing throughput demands on the most densely populated 5G networks globally. The AWS Outposts server offering supports both open and virtual RAN architectures with complete feature and performance parity with appliance-based 5G RAN. These offerings will empower telcos to build a future-proof cloud infrastructure to support 5G and beyond. The breakthrough innovations will enable superior end-customer experiences, faster network deployment, better price performance, and reduced cost of ownership,” added Brown. Read more. 

India has more than 1 million telecom towers, tens of thousands of which are in remote rural areas where it is extremely difficult to keep services running 24/7 when the power supply from the electricity grid cuts out. That can happen even in India’s cities, let alone in the depths of the countryside. India has set itself some ambitious green and renewable energy goals and is weaning itself off polluting and expensive diesel-powered standby generators. Accordingly, India’s Ministry of Science and Technology is backing the introduction of clean energy, plug-and-play, hydrogen-based fuel cells to ensure the uninterrupted supply of electricity to telecom towers during power outages and so guarantee continuing subscriber connectivity. Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells are highly efficient and generate electricity while producing only water vapour as a by-product. The hydrogen gas used to power the towers is easy and safe to transport and can be stored long term in depots that require minimal maintenance compared to diesel-based technology. PEMs work via an electrochemical reaction where hydrogen gas is fed into the anode and oxidised to release protons. These travel through a polymer membrane to the cathode, where they react with oxygen to produce electricity and water. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)’s green energy strategy, first published back in 2012, mandates that at least 50% of rural telecom towers and 33% of urban towers transition to hybrid renewable energy sources. In accordance with this, the Centre for Fuel Cell Technology (CFCT) at India’s International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), which is an autonomous body within the Department of Science and Technology, has developed the plug-and-play solution which, unlike fixed installations, allows the power-generation unit to be shared among multiple towers, thus providing backup electricity wherever and whenever needed. According to a release from India’s Press Information Bureau, given the sub-continent’s expanding digital infrastructure and the growing focus on sustainability, the fuel cell technology breakthrough is a “game changer” for the country’s telecom sector.

Microsoft is pulling the plug on the non-business iteration of Skype, the once ubiquitous video-calling service on which it splashed $8.5bn in 2011 when Skype had well over 170 million users. Skype will be junked on 5 May, after which, bereft users will be ‘encouraged’ to use the details of their Skype account to log in, for free, to Microsoft Teams videoconferencing apps, whether they like it or not. Skyper, as it originally was called (from ‘Sky peer-to-peer’), was developed by a small group of computer scientists in Tallinn, Estonia, in 2003. Led by Niklas Zennstrom, a Swede, and Janus Friis, a Dane, the six-strong team pioneered VoIP (voice over internet protocol) and utterly disrupted the landline telecom sector. At first the application was voice only but video calling came when, in 2005, eBay bought Skype for $2.6bn (as you can see Skype has had a few big name owners in its time!). In a 2019 survey, Skype was found to be the sixth most-downloaded mobile app of the decade from 2010 to 2019, but those days are over. Microsoft refuses to say how many Skype users still use the service but estimates put the number at about 36 million. Microsoft does, however, openly boast that Teams has more than 320 million active users and says no jobs will disappear along with the Skype public app. Skype for Business will continue, for the time being at least. We asked our in-house poet, Honeygander Gooseboote, to commemorate the passing of a legend… 

In Memoriam

So, farewell then Skype,
You came from Estonia but
Worked in English, which was just as well.
Otherwise you would never have had 170 million users.

You were very bright 
Then slowly faded away
Until Covid-19 brought you back to life
For a while.

You suffered from congestion
And dropped a lot of calls
Now Microsoft has dropped you
And you’ll soon be gone.

Like Steve Ballmer

The End

– The staff, TelecomTV