In today's regional round-up: Nokia secures core role at Telenor; Elliott Management eyes Telefónica; mobile subscribers in the EU have made the most of the abolition of roaming charges; Tele2 banks a NIM loan; and Synamedia tackles 'credentials sharing.'

December 17, 2018

3 Min Read
Eurobites: Telenor Uses Nokia for Cloud-Native Core

In today's regional round-up: Nokia secures core role at Telenor; Elliott Management eyes Telefónica; mobile subscribers in the EU have made the most of the abolition of roaming charges; Tele2 banks a NIM loan; and Synamedia tackles "credentials sharing."

  • Telenor Group (Nasdaq: TELN) is deploying a cloud-native mobile core platform from Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) that will serve its mobile operations across Scandinavia. The AirGile solution, which comprises packet core, data center, SDN, NFV, management software elements and support services, will provide core capabilities in Denmark, Norway and Sweden to support 4G and, soon, 5G services. Nokia had previously been selected by Telenor to supply mobile core technology for its operations in Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan. (See Telenor Opts for Nokia's Cloud-Native Core and Nokia Takes NFV Cloud-Native.)

    • News of that deployment comes as Dell'Oro Group placed Nokia as the number three supplier of cloud-native packet core technology (by sales) during the third quarter of 2018, trailing market leader Huawei and second-placed Ericsson but ahead of ZTE. The research house noted that cloud-native packet core vendor revenues reached a new high in the quarter, having grown by 145% year-on-year.

    • Activist investor Elliott Management, which is at the heart of an ongoing boardroom rumpus at Telecom Italia (TIM) , is reportedly keen on acquiring a stake in Telefónica , according to this report in Expansion (in Spanish, of course). However, a report in El Espanol cites a source saying Elliott has no "economic interest" in the telco giant. Never say never, though... (See Telecom Italia Caught in Clash of Clans While Rome Burns.)

    • Meanwhile, the battle for TIM's boardroom continues, with French media giant Vivendi seeking to overthrow Elliott, which currently holds sway over the Italian telco. For more, see this article from our sister news site, Telecoms.com: Vivendi doesn’t think the TIM board is independent enough -- hmm.

    • The abolition of roaming charges across the European Union member nations in June 2017 has led to a five-fold increase in the consumption of mobile data by roaming subscribers within the region, while the number of voice calls placed more than doubled, according to a report commissioned by the European Commission.

    • Tele2 AB (Nasdaq: TLTO) has secured a SEK 2 billion ($221 million) loan agreement with the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) for the financing of its merger with Com Hem, which closed in early November. The $3.3 billion deal, which was first announced in January this year, created an integrated services player with 1.45 million customers: The combined company will publish its first consolidated interim report in February 2019. (See Sweden's Tele2 to Swallow Com Hem in $3.3B Deal.)

    • Ahead of CES 2019, Synamedia has unveiled the details of a new product it has been teasing during the past few months. Credentials Sharing Insight is a new tool designed to help curb account sharing between friends and families "and turn it into a new revenue-generating opportunity." The same product can also be used to tackle large-scale credentials sharing operations run by fraudsters. The vendor, which was formerly Cisco's service provider video business, says the product "identifies, monitors and analyzes credentials sharing activity across streaming accounts" using "AI, behavioral analytics and machine learning" capabilities. Customers identified as those sharing credentials with friends or grown-up children who live away from home, for example, could be offered a "premium shared account service that includes a pre-authorized level of password sharing and a higher number of concurrent users," so boosting revenues for the service provider. Synamedia CEO Yves Padrines talked to Light Reading about the challenges facing video service providers in late November. (See Synamedia CEO Seeks New Video Service Tangents .)

      — Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

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