Page 125 - SAMENA Trends - September-October 2022

WHOLESALE UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Openreach Considering Lower

Wholesale Rates

BT Group’s infrastructure division Openreach is considering
lowering the wholesale rates which it charges to third party
providers for access to its network. A report from Bloomberg
says proposals being discussed include lower line rental costs, no
volume commitments for sellers, and a cut to the amount charged
for migrating customers from copper lines to fibre. Rivals such as
Vodafone, Sky and TalkTalk all use Openreach infrastructure to
provide retail services.

Malaysia 5G Wholesale Operator Finalizes Access Deals

The four major mobile operators in Malaysia worked out terms November. YTL Communications was the first to launch 5G service
of access agreements with wholesale 5G network management in the country earlier this year.
outfit Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) after months of negotiations,
with all detailing plans to launch services soon. In stock market
filings, Celcom Axiata, Digi Malaysia, Telekom Malaysia and U
Mobile detailed the signing of ten-year deals with DNB. The moves
come three weeks after all but U Mobile inked equity deals to take
stakes in the state-owned special purpose vehicle. Digi stated the
reference access offer is expected to be published after approval
by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.
It tipped the move to a single 5G wholesale network to lead to a
gradual shift from a traditional network ownership model towards
a leasing approach. Digi added it will continue 5G network
testing with its technology partners and DNB, and will soon offer
compatible services Celcom Axiata detailed plans to automatically
enable access to 5G services for customers on selected post-paid
and prepaid plans from 1 November. It plans to waive access fees
until 31 December. U Mobile’s 5G service will be available on 3

Ukraine Regulator Reports on Fall in Active Mobile Subscriptions; Rise of

Roaming

Ukraine’s National Commission for State al roaming demand has settled to average solution, the NCEC reported, enabling peo-
Regulation of Electronic Communications, around 4.2 million-4.4 million. Assisted by ple to get a mobile phone signal from other
Radio Frequency Spectrum and Postal Ser- preferential tariffs for refugees facilitated operators if their own provider’s local base
vices (NCEC) reports that the number of ac- by Ukrainian operators and their Europe- station was damaged or temporarily shut
tive mobile subscriptions on the country’s an network partners, average data con- down. The regulator reported stable na-
main mobile networks declined from over sumption on international roaming jumped tional roaming usage statistics of around
50 million in the early stages of Russia’s from a pre-war 500MB per subscription 700,000 SIMs per month. The NCEC also
full-scale invasion in February to around per month to 1.5GB in March-April before noted that despite significant losses of
44 million by the end of August. The NCEC reaching about 3GB in the summer months. income and capacity, not to mention dan-
also reported that Ukrainian users of inter- Average voice usage in international roam- gerous conditions, Ukrainian communica-
national roaming services peaked at five ing grew from nine minutes in January to tions providers have continued to restore
million per month in March as people were around 60 minutes by the end of the sum- damaged networks, including sections in
forced to flee to the borders, compared to mer. National roaming between Ukrainian newly liberated territories, and continue to
pre-war monthly averages of below two mil- networks – implemented countrywide in work on introducing new technologies for
lion, while in recent months the internation- March – proved to be a consistently useful the population.
125 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022