Page 103 - SAMENA Trends - June-July 2020

WHOLESALE UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Lawmakers Approve National Automatic Roaming Bill

Chile’s upper house has approved the municaciones, Subtel) the legislation will of their infrastructure. To that end, oper-
National Automatic Roaming (Roaming provide access to voice, messaging and ators must create public wholesale offers
Automatico Nacional, RAN) Bill, which es- mobile internet services to users in 3,200 for the use of their facilities, on a cost-ori-
tablishes an obligation for mobile network underserved locations. The regulations will ented and non-discriminatory basis. The
operators (MNOs) to share their networks allow users in such areas to utilize the net- Ministry of Transport and Telecommu-
to provide connectivity to users in remote work of any operator with coverage of the nications (Miniseterio de Transportes y
and/or rural areas. According to sector area, regardless of their service provider; Telecomunicaciones, MTT) will issue new
watchdog the Department of Telecom- the service provider in question would then regulations governing these offers, which
munications (Subsecretaria de Teleco- compensate the network operator for use will be subject to approval from Subtel.

Macquarie-Backed Onivia Launches Wholesale FTTH Service Using

ex-MASMOVIL Networks

Macquarie Capital, Aberdeen Standard of supporting symmetrical transmission Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Malaga.
Investments and Daiwa Energy & speeds of up to 1.24Gbps. In November Onivia will operate as an independent
Infrastructure have launched a new fiber- 2019 Macquarie signed an agreement wholesaler providing capacity to ISPs
to-the-home (FTTH) wholesale service in with Grupo MASMOVIL to acquire an FTTH looking to supply broadband to homes and
Spain under the Onivia brand name. The network passing around 940,000 building businesses, while MASMOVIL itself signed
new company claims to preside over a units in a deal worth EUR218.5 million a long-term access agreement as part of
2,900km fiber network that passes 966,000 (USD242 million). The network covers five the transaction.
homes; the GPON infrastructure is capable of Spain’s largest cities, namely: Madrid,

T-Mobile Inks 5G Roaming Pact with and other fiber-served communities. GCI President and COO Greg
Chapados commented: ‘GCI and T-Mobile have a long history
GCI in Alaska to Secure Coverage in of “firsts” together. GCI and T-Mobile launched the nation’s first
all 50 States LTE roaming partnership in 2014 and were the first providers to
partner together to deliver VoLTE service.’

T-Mobile US and GCI have announced a partnership which will
allow T-Mobile customers with 5G smartphones to access 5G
connectivity while roaming in Anchorage, Alaska – making
T-Mobile the first and only wireless provider to offer 5G coverage
in all 50 US states. The new partnership also gives GCI customers
roaming access to T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G network, which
covers more than one million square miles and nearly 6,000 cities
and towns. TeleGeography notes that GCI launched Alaska’s first
5G service in Anchorage on 17 April 2020. The telco notes that
future 5G ‘expansion opportunities’ include Juneau, Fairbanks

KPN Loses Appeal in Mobile Termination Surcharge Case

Rotterdam District Court has upheld a regulated maximum rates. In March 2019 which confirmed that ACM’s order was
decision of the Netherlands’ Authority ACM ordered KPN to charge only standard correctly imposed. An earlier appeal saw
for Consumers & Markets (ACM) which wholesale rates for terminating calls on the fine issued by ACM to KPN halved to a
ruled that KPN was overcharging rival its networks with retroactive effect from maximum of EUR500,000 (USD565,000) in
operators to terminate calls on its mobile July 2017. KPN’s appeal against the October 2019.
network by adding surcharges to the main decision was rejected by the court,

103 JUNE-JULY 2020