Eurobites: MDU law change hits Vodafone's German revenues in H1

Revenues at Vodafone's German unit took a hit in the operator's H1 earnings following a change in the law that prevents TV service charges being bundled into rental agreements at multi-dwelling units (MDUs). The law change meant the loss of around half of its 8.5 million MDU TV customers. Vodafone's German service revenues declined by 6.2% in Q2, though even disregarding the impact of the MDU law change, service revenues in Germany would have still shrunk by 2.4% in Q2 due to a reduced customer base brought on by price increases introduced in the previous year. Total group revenue increased by 1.6% in H1, to €18.3 billion (US$19.45 billion), with service revenue growth being partially offset by adverse foreign exchange movements. Adjusted EBITDAaL (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, after leases) increased by 3.8% on an organic basis, to €5.4 billion ($5.73 billion), helped by lower energy costs in Europe. Full-year guidance was confirmed.

Virgin Media O2 claims it's the first UK mobile operator to successfully build what it calls a Total Not Spot (TNS) site as part of the government-funded Shared Rural Network (SRN) program – in other words, bringing a reliable 4G mobile signal to an area that previously had no coverage from any mobile operator. The new site, located on the Scottish island of South Uist, will also cover most of neighboring island of Benbecula. The site was built in collaboration with WHP Telecoms.

Eutelsat has teamed up with smart-energy company Clear Blue Technologies to bring energy-efficient connectivity to remote African communities where access to stable electricity supply remains an issue. Eutelsat will integrate Clear Blue's energy technology capabilities into its Konnect and OneWeb platforms, offering, among other benefits, smart load shedding, which is a way of ensuring consistent critical connectivity even in scenarios with limited power availability to keep essential services running.

France-based SmartCIC Global Services has launched a managed low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite service, to be powered by Elon Musk's Starlink. Data plans will be set at 40GB, 1TB, 2TB or 3TB. SmartCIC has offices and facilities in 13 countries.

Nokia has partnered with Reflex and Net Nine Nine to expand broadband access for underserved communities across South Africa. Communities in the Gauteng and Free State provinces will be among the first to feel the benefit of the collaboration, which will draw on Nokia's Lightspan fiber access nodes, amongst other technology.

London-based Colt Technologies has announced the completion of what it says is the first ever 1.2Tbit/s wavelength transmission across the Atlantic. The link used Ciena's coherent technology running on Colt's Grace Hopper subsea cable.

Deutsche Telekom's Telekom MMS subsidiary has signed up to the NEAR ecosystem's Enterprise Node Operators (ENO) program to support the decentralization and security of the NEAR blockchain. One of the NEAR ecosystem's key focus areas is user-owned AI – by integrating AI and blockchain, NEAR aims to extend the concept of "data sovereignty" to AI projects.

Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, has published its final set of regulations relating to the coming auction of millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum. This spectrum is high frequency and suitable for carrying large amounts of data in densely populated towns and cities. The auction is due to take place sometime next year.