BT says FTTP fiber build is now 40% completed

BT reported full year FY23 revenue of £20.7bn, down 1% with the growth in Openreach more than offset by decline in the other units. Adjusted EBITDA was £7.9bn, up 5% due to growth in Openreach and Consumer offset by a decline in Enterprise.

Philip Jansen, Chief Executive, commenting on the results, said: “We have delivered our outlook for FY23: this year we’ve grown both pro forma revenue and EBITDA for the first time in six years while navigating an extraordinary macro-economic backdrop. Over the last four years we have stuck firmly to our strategy and it’s working.

“Openreach is competing strongly and it’s clear that customers love full fibre. The Openreach Board has reaffirmed its target to reach 25 million premises with FTTP by the end of 2026 and plans to further accelerate take-up on the network. In Consumer we’re delivering for customers with strong growth in FTTP and 5G, and we’re also seeing green shoots in B2B with a return to revenue growth in the final quarter in Global and the creation of our newly integrated Business unit.

“By continuing to build and connect like fury, digitise the way we work and simplify our structure, by the end of the 2020s BT Group will rely on a much smaller workforce and a significantly reduced cost base. New BT Group will be a leaner business with a brighter future.”

Some additional highlights:

• FTTP build of 702k premises passed in the quarter at an average build rate of 54k per week, with 41% of our 25m build completed; FTTP footprint of 10.3m, up 43%, with a further 6m where initial build is underway
• Customer demand in Openreach for FTTP extremely strong with FY23 orders up 70% year on year; take up rate grew to 30.4% with record net adds of 395k in the quarter; base now c.3.1m
• Record quarter of Consumer FTTP connections up 50% year-on-year with the base now over 1.7m
• We have 8.6m 5G connections, up 62% on last year; our 5G network now covers 68% of the population
• Cost transformation on track with gross annualised cost savings of £2.1bn since April 2020 against the £3bn target, with a cost to achieve of £1.1bn against a target of £1.6bn
• Created Business through the merger of Enterprise and Global to enhance value for all B2B customers, strengthen our competitive position and deliver material synergies
• BT expects to reduce its total labour resource from 130,000 employess currently to 75-90,000 by FY28-FY30.

https://newsroom.bt.com/results-for-the-full-year-to-31-march-2023/

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CommScope refreshes fiber gateways and ONUs

CommScope launched a new HomeVantage line of fiber gateways and optical network units (ONUs).

The portfolio expansion of fiber gateways provides a cost-effective solution for service providers to deliver the full 2.5Gbps broadband speed of GPON around the home. With offerings that include both one device and two-device solutions, the gateways enable reliable, single platform delivery of voice-over-IP (VoIP), data, and broadcast-quality streaming video. This new HomeVantage line of fiber gateways includes:

• HomeVantage NVG578M1 GPON Fiber Gateway with dual-band Wi-Fi 6
• HomeVantage NVG578M2 GPON Fiber Gateway with dual-band Wi-Fi 6, with enhanced Wi-Fi®
• HomeVantage NVG568M2 Ethernet Gateway with dual-band Wi-Fi 6, for use with a separate ONU/ONT

“We’re excited to debut our new HomeVantage line of fiber gateways that enable our service provider partners to consistently elevate the connected home experience,” stated Ken Haase, vice president of product management, CommScope Home Networks. “HomeVantage home networking solutions are economically designed to provide cost-effective solutions for service providers with the ability to continually deliver next generation features and advanced consumer services to the home.”

CommScope is also launching a range of XGS-PON passive optical network (PON) data ONUs with optional voice services to deliver up to 10Gbps symmetrical broadband services over fiber. The ONU offerings include:

• HomeVantage N670 XGS-PON Fiber indoor ONU
• HomeVantage N675 XGS-PON Fiber indoor ONU with voice

CommScope home PON solutions are standards compliant and interoperable with leading OLT vendors, including CommScope’s FLX™ cloud-to-edge next-generation PON solution.

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Dell'Oro: Nokia continues to gain share in RAN market

Preliminary findings show that the slower momentum that has characterized the broader 2G-5G Radio Access Network (RAN) market since 4Q 2021 extended into 1Q 2023, spurring the overall RAN market to record a six consecutive quarter of more stable trends, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.

“Despite lackluster topline growth, the quarter was actually very interesting both from a regional and supplier perspective,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “Not surprisingly, growth is now transitioning away from the advanced markets towards the slower-to-adopt 5G markets. But the speed of this shift was perhaps a bit surprising as the pendulum swung drastically towards the positive in India while the North American RAN market performed much worse than expected.  And from a supplier perspective, vendor rankings were, for the most part, stable in the quarter. Vendor revenue shares, however, were impacted by the vastly different growth trajectories across the suppliers,” continued Pongratz.

Additional highlights from the 1Q 2023 RAN report:

• Top 5 RAN 1Q 2023 RAN suppliers include Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung.
• Top 4 RAN 1Q 2023 RAN suppliers outside of China include Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, and Samsung.
• Nokia recorded the highest growth rate among the top 5 suppliers, while Ericsson and Samsung both lost some ground in the first quarter.
• The report also shows that Nokia’s RAN revenue share outside of China has been trending upward over the past five quarters.
• The Asia Pacific RAN market has been revised upward to reflect the higher baseline in India.

https://www.delloro.com/news/ran-still-slow-but-stronger-than-expected-in-1q-2023/

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Poland's Hawe Telekom hits single-module 1.6 Tb/s with Infinera’s ICE6

Hawe Telekom, a wholesale carrier based in Poland, completed a live network trial of Infinera’s ICE6 800G coherent solution. In the trial, which was conducted on Hawe Telekom’s Warsaw-Poznan-Frankfurt route, Infinera’s ICE6 technology delivered high-performance 600G, 700G, and 800G transmissions on Hawe Telekom’s existing optical line system.

“ICE6 operating in our international system has achieved full 800G single-wavelength throughput. Each ICE6 module has two line interfaces, which enabled us to achieve a total transmission of 1.6T on a single interface module. This validates Hawe Telekom’s ability to meet the highest operator standards, and we are prepared to offer the highest-speed services to our customers,” said Dominik Drozdowski, Vice President of the Management Board, Hawe Telekom S.A.

“Deploying Infinera’s innovative and industry-leading ICE6 solution will enable Hawe Telekom to keep pace with bandwidth demands and scale as needed, delivering secure, high-capacity services at the lowest cost possible,” said Nick Walden, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Infinera. “We look forward to working with Hawe Telekom to deploy ICE6 across their network.”

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Stathera raises US$15M for MEMS timing devices

Stathera, a start-up based in Montreal, announced US$15 million in a Series A funding round for its MEMS timing solutions.

Stathera also announced a commercial collaboration agreement with South Korean conglomerate, Doosan. The company is also pursuing partnerships with semiconductor industry leader MediaTek, as well as quartz timing leader TXC.

The round was co-led by BDC Capital’s Deep Tech Venture Fund and Celesta Capital, with additional participation from strategic investors including MediaTek, Seiko Epson, and TXC.

“Technology scaling using conventional timing architectures has hit a wall when it comes to synchronizing next-generation electronics. Stathera’s technology introduces a new approach to integrating and manufacturing timing devices,” said George Xereas, Stathera’s CEO and Co-founder. “We are excited to be the only company with state-of-the-art DualModeTM frequency technology, which has the potential to re-architect the entire $9.4 Billion electronics timing industry. We are grateful to our investors for recognizing and investing in this potential, which will allow us to expand our world class team and drive commercialization.”

https://www.stathera.com/

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