Tag: Vodafone

Onecom snaps up IMS

Posted on January 13, 2023 by - News

Onecom has snapped up IT services provider IMS Technology Services.

The deal adds more than 600 customers to Onecom’s books, the Vodafone, Microsoft, Google, Mitel, Samsung, Apple, Gamma and Five9 partner said.

Onecom’s revenues increased by over 80 per cent to reach £169 million in calendar 2021 primarily due to its aggressive M&A strategy. Founded in 2002, it has been backed by mid-market private equity firm LDC since 2019.

OneCom CEO Martin Flick said the acquisition builds on OneCom’s mission to extend its geographic footprint and technical capabilities.

Rochford and Rayleigh next to get full fibre

Posted on January 12, 2023 by - News

CityFibre has named Rochford and Rayleigh as the next UK towns in line for a multi-million-pound investment in their digital infrastructure. This move will see the neighbouring towns join the nation’s growing list of full fibre-enabled communities.

CityFibre is set to invest £25 million in a new network that will bring fast and reliable full fibre-enabled internet services within reach of almost every home and business in the Rochford and Rayleigh areas, including the village of Great Wakering.

Across the UK, CityFibre is building new and better digital infrastructure for up to eight million homes and businesses through its nationwide full fibre rollout. 

Luton goes full fibre

Posted on December 20, 2022 by - News

CityFibre has put the finishing touches to its plans to network in Luton and Dunstable investing more than £45 million to make them two of the world’s best digitally connected communities.

This latest milestone sees thousands of homes in Luton, where the network rollout started, gain access to the best available digital connectivity. This includes premises in Stopsley, Wigmore, Round Green and Crawley, where residents can access broadband services from UK launch partner Vodafone, on selected Vodafone Pro Broadband, as well as a wide range of other internet service providers including Giganet, Air Broadband, Zybre, Yazi, No-one, IDNet, A&A, Octaplus, Link Broadband and Facto.

More of Brighton and Hove goes full fibre

Posted on November 10, 2022 by - News

Broadband users in Moulsecoomb & Bevendean, and in parts of Hanover & Elm Grove, Woodingdean and East Brighton can access some of the fastest internet services available thanks to CityFibre.

The outfit has completed its network rollout in these areas and homes have been designated ‘ready for service.’ This means residents can choose to connect to the fastest and most reliable internet services in the UK when they go live in their area.

In Brighton & Hove, residents can already sign up to UK launch partner, Vodafone, TalkTalk, Giganet, IDnet, Yayzi, Air Broadband, NoOne and Octaplus with other providers expected to join the network soon.

Vodafone switches on more 5G networks

Posted on April 12, 2022 by - News

Vodafone has switched on its 5G network in 12 more locations across the UK. The latest locations with access to the Vodafone 5G network are: Coventry, Dursley, Golborne, Keynsham, Llantwit Major, Lydney, Redditch, Rickmansworth, South Lackenby, Thornbury, Watford and Wigan.

5G also opens the door to smart wireless factories for UK manufacturers, which can dramatically improve efficiency by using private 5G networks, said Vodafone. The operator suggested that in the future, the faster response times of 5G could enable smart car parking, remote health services and even enable ambulances to communicate with community infrastructure, such as traffic lights.

Vodaphone and Amazon edge to be on the same wavelength

Posted on June 17, 2021 by - News

Vodafone has coupled with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC) services delivered with AWS Wavelength for Vodafone business customers in the UK.

The launch follows Vodafone trials with companies in a range of areas, including sports technology, autonomous transport, biometric security, remote virtual reality, and factory automation. Vodafone is the only telecoms operator able to offer business customers the combination of 5G and MEC services in the UK.

MEC infrastructure is better known as moving services ‘closer to the edge of the network’. AWS Wavelength brings AWS compute and storage services to the edge of Vodafone’s network, enabling applications that require increased speeds, massive bandwidth, and ultra-low latency, such as industrial automation, video analytics and machine learning inference (artificial intelligence) at the edge, and interactive live video streaming.

The pair said that hosting applications closer to the end-user means that data does not have to cross the internet to be processed in locations around the world. This approach means that lag, known as latency, can be almost eradicated as data is both captured and processed closer to the device, offering much faster response times and a much-improved experience.

Vodafone expands connectivity portfolio to channel

Posted on June 14, 2021 by - News

Vodafone has expanded its partner channel to include SoGEA and FTTP for business customers.

With traditional phone lines becoming redundant by 2025, Vodafone is now allowing SoGEA – Single Order Generic Ethernet Access – provides one connection, all through the Internet, with no need for a separate telephone line. Businesses will have everything they need for home and broadband connectivity in a single order. The other method will be FTTP – Fibre to the Premise – removes the need for traditional street cabinets and copper wires and enables the fastest available broadband speeds. It allows businesses to connect broadband directly, without a traditional phone line.

Velocix promotes Berkeley to CEO

Posted on February 18, 2021 by - Moving People

Video provider Velocix has promoted Anthony Berkeley to be its CEO.

Berkeley was most recently Chief Operating Officer at Velocix, and he has previously held senior leadership roles in sales, product, and professional services during his 11-year tenure with the company. Prior to Velocix, he held senior positions at Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia.

David Sharpley, Group Leader at Lumine Group, Velocix’s parent company, said: “Anthony is ideally-suited to drive Velocix’s continued expansion, with his deep domain expertise in the video technology market and proven track record of driving profitable revenue growth. With an expanding base of top tier customers and strong market momentum, Velocix is well-positioned to build on its success in 2021 and beyond.”

Telcos warn that losing Huawei could damage the network

Posted on July 13, 2020 by - News

Executives from two of the UK’s largest telecoms providers told the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee last week that removing Huawei from the country’s infrastructure will be hugely expensive, and if done too quickly could lead to customers experiencing lengthy disruptions in service.

Having initially ruled that Huawei equipment could be present in up to 35 percent part of the country’s 5G network, the government has been backtracking after US pressure and a backbench rebellion and is expected to begin phasing out Chinese tech giant from the UK’s infrastructure as early as this year.

Kathy Quashie joins Vodafone

Posted on July 30, 2019 by - News

Vodafone today announced that Kathy Quashie had joined the company as Head of Partnerships & Alliances.  She will provide support to Vodafone’s partners.

She will help flog its mobile, fixed, converged and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to businesses of all sizes across the UK.

Quashie is looking to recruit new partners. Kathy joins from BT where she led the Major Business Team for nearly four years.

Vodaphone names partners of the year

Posted on July 8, 2019 by - News

Vodafone UK announced its top-performing partners at the Partner of the Year Awards at Sky Garden in London.

The winning partners were recognised for their outstanding customer service, impressive customer retention and growth, and strong sales across Vodafone’s portfolio of fixed, mobile, and unified communications.

The winners for Vodafone’s Partner of the Year Awards 2018-2019 were:

Microsoft UK boss got New Year’s gong

Posted on January 7, 2019 by - News

Microsoft UK CEO Cindy Rose was awarded an OBE for her services to UK technology over the holiday break.

Rose was appointed Microsoft UK CEO & Area Vice President in July, 2016. In this role, she is responsible for all of Microsoft’s product, service and support offerings across the United Kingdom, continuing the company’s transformation into the leading productivity and platform company for the mobile-first, cloud-first era.

Vodafone flogs its fixed-line operations in the Netherlands

Posted on November 4, 2016 by - News

Vodafone’s Dutch subsidiary has flogged off its fixed-line operations to Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Mobile Nederland.

More than 150,000 customers will be finding themselves with German overlords as part of the deal. It is not clear how much money changed hands in the sell off.

The whole thing is a sop to European Union watchdogs who otherwise would not be so keen on letting the much larger merger of Vodafone’s Dutch operations with Liberty Global’s Dutch subsidiary Ziggo go through.

Vodafone is the second-largest mobile provider in the Netherlands, while Ziggo is the biggest cable company so owning fixed lines would be a monopoly too far as far as the EU is concerned. Particularly as the pair will form a strong competitor to KPN, the former Dutch state telecommunications company.

The telecommunications industry is undergoing a period of consolidation in Europe making for a rapid shake-up of the sort of services suppliers can offer. Dubbed “market repair” by analysts there are moves to consolidate in countries such as France, Italy and the UK. The big idea is that it will be the best way for big companies to generate the billions of euros required to invest in next-generation networks.

On the other side stand antitrust regulators such as Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority. They are firm proponents of the view that national telecoms markets in Europe benefit from having four operators. In their critics’ eyes, I suppose this makes them champions of market disrepair.

Qualcomm sells UK spectrum

Posted on August 26, 2015 by - News

LPSpectrumChipmaker Qualcomm has sold  its UK spectrum rights to Vodafone and CK Hutchison Holdings for $313.8 million.

This is not bad really because the company paid only £8.3 million at auction in 2008 so it certainly got more than its money back.

The deal is subject to approval by communications regulator Ofcom.

Qualcomm in June announced that it was putting a chunk of spectrum up for sale in Britain, which could appeal to mobile operators grappling with demand for Internet access.

The chipmaker said in July it might break itself up as it delivered its third profit warning this year and said it planned to slash jobs and spending in a competitive environment.

When Qualcomm bought the spectrum it was believed to be a way to roll out its MediaFLO, the mobile TV broadcast system, a rival to DVB-H. But the mobile TV standards proved to be dismal failures Qualcomm didn’t have any use for the substantial chunk of spectrum.

 

Vodafone is back in the money

Posted on May 19, 2015 by - News

vodafoneBritain’s Vodafone posted a rise in its quarterly sales for the first time in nearly three years.

This was thanks to improving trends in its key European markets and demand for its 4G mobile services.

The world’s second largest mobile operator said the rise in fourth quarter revenue of 0.1 percent, which followed 10 quarters of declines, meant that its overall earnings could also stabilise in 2016.

Vodafone has been hit hard by the constraints on consumer spending in its big European markets and by regulator-imposed price cuts, forecast a range for 2015-16 earnings of £11.5 billion pounds to “£12 billion.

Compared to the £11.9 billion pounds it reported for the 2014-15 period the company could be heralding a return to growth following seven straight years of earnings decline.

Analysts say Vodafone has a tendency to set a cautious outlook so the figures might even be better than that.

Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said the company had seen increasing signs of stabilisation in many of its European markets, supported by improvements in its commercial execution and very strong demand for data.

Vodafone has 446,000 mobile customers in countries ranging from Albania to Spain, Qatar, India, South Africa and New Zealand. However, in the EU, customers cut back on using their phones at a time when Vodafone needed to invest in new networks.

With growth also slowing in its emerging markets, Vodafone embarked on a programme to either build or buy superfast fixed-line broadband networks to compete with rivals offering mobile contracts alongside television, broadband or fixed-line deals.