Deutsche Glasfaser and Vodafone reach FTTH wholesale deal

Deutsche Glasfaser, which is building open FTTH networks in rural and suburban areas in Germany, announced a ten-year wholesale agreement with Vodafone.

The contract offers Vodafone nationwide access to Deutsche Glasfaser's FTTH network. 

Open access allows fiber optic customers to choose between different offers.

Andreas Pfisterer, CEO of the Deutsche Glasfaser Group: "We are pleased that Vodafone relies on our fast-growing fiber optic network in rural and suburban areas. Everyone benefits from OA: Fiber optic customers in the countryside have freedom of choice. And we as a company are getting closer to our goal of supplying the regions with fiber optics quickly and comprehensively through such wholesale partnerships.

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Vodafone to divest stake in Vantage Towers to GIP and KKR

Vodafone formed a joint venture with a consortium of long-term infrastructure investors led by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) and KKR to hold and manage Vodafone’s 81.7% stake in Vantage Towers AG.

Vodafone will contribute its shares in Vantage Towers into the JV by way of a capital increase against new JV shares. The Consortium will obtain a shareholding in the JV of up to 50% by acquiring JV shares from Vodafone for cash.

The deal has a valuation of €32.0 per share, a premium of 19% to Vantage Towers’ 3 month volume-weighted average share price and a multiple of 26x adjusted EBITDAaL for the 12 month period ended 31 March 2022.

Nick Read, Vodafone Group Chief Executive said: “This is a landmark moment for both Vodafone and Vantage Towers. This transaction successfully delivers on Vodafone’s stated aims of retaining co-control over a strategically important asset, deconsolidating Vantage Towers from our balance sheet to ensure we can optimise its capital structure and generate substantial upfront cash proceeds for the Group to support our priority of deleveraging. We are excited to partner with GIP and KKR, both world-class investors who bring significant expertise in digital infrastructure and share our long-term vision for Vantage Towers as we collectively take the business to the next stage of its growth.”

In parallel with this announcement, the JV has announced today that it will make a voluntary takeover offer (“VTO”) for the outstanding Vantage Towers shares held by minority shareholders pursuant to Section 10 of the German Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act. 

https://www.vodafone.com/news/corporate-and-financial/vodafone-enters-co-control-partnership-gip-and-kkr-vantage-towers

Vodafone advances plan to spin-off tower business

Wednesday, February 24, 2021  Towers, Vodafone  

Vodafone took another step toward spinning off its tower business as an independent business by completing its nomination of directors to a Supervisory Board.The Supervisory Board of Vantage Towers will comprise nine members, led by independent Chairman Dr. Rüdiger Grube. The Supervisory Board will bring deep expertise in the towers sector and across the telecommunications industry, strong operational and M&A experience, together with high standards...

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Germany opens ground station for optical satellite links

Earlier this month, the Institute of Communications and Navigation of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) inaugurated a ground station at its Oberpfaffenhofen site to test optical satellite links.

"In the future, it will become increasingly important to efficiently network satellites with each other and to exchange data securely and efficiently with the ground," says Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, Chair of the DLR Executive Board. "This is driven by the ever-increasing data volumes involved in communications, navigation and Earth observation activities, as well as by the increasingly scarcity of radiocommunications licences."

The newly expanded ground station in Oberpfaffenhofen will make it possible to test and further develop its numerous applications, including satellite-based quantum communication solutions.

The centrepiece of the new optical ground station is a new telescope with a diameter of 80 centimetres. The telescope is a Coudé focus telescope, in which the light collected by the telescope is guided via mirrors directly into a laboratory.

https://www.dlr.de/content/en/articles/news/2022/04/20221012_new-optical-ground-station-inaugurated-at-dlr-site-oberpfaffenhofen.html

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Video: Private 5G gets real in Germany

Is private 5G reaching an adoption inflection point in Germany? Is so, what are the drivers? Why would enterprises bother with building their own 5G infrastructure instead of relying on Wi-Fi or the public cellular network?  What spectrum is available in Germany? Is it easy to attain? What value can a network integrator such as NTT provider for the enterprise customer.

Kai Grunwitz, CEO of NTT Germany, answers our questions.

https://youtu.be/kutgXILAT3w

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T-Systems migrates Continental's SAP to private cloud

Continental, which operates one of the largest SAP installations in Germany, is working with T-Systems to migrate to a private cloud.

Under the project, T-Systems is transferring more than 450 SAP systems from Continental AG to the private cloud in Frankfurt am Main. There, the IT service provider will support the SAP operating system until at least the end of 2027. The contract covers all services related to operation, from consulting to the hotline. 

"We are pleased to continue working with T-Systems," said Christian Eigler, Group CIO at Continental. "The decisive factors for us were the reliability of the applications, the flexibility of the solutions and, above all: end-to-end service – one SAP, one contact person. For all trades from consulting, migration and transformation, operation to the German-speaking hotline."

Adel Al-Saleh, member of the Deutsche Telekom Board of Management and CEO of T-Systems, said, "Cloud services developed in Germany are one of our most important growth areas for the European industry. The benefits are lower costs, more flexibility and better resilience for companies. The automotive industry benefits from this to a particular extent because it uses cloud applications to standardize its own processes and those of many suppliers." 

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/t-systems-brings-continentals-sap-to-the-private-cloud-1013820

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Deutsche Telekom extends FC Bayern contract through 2027

FC Bayern and Deutsche Telekom agreed to an early extension of their 20-year partnership until 2027. Telekom will continue to have exclusive access to content from the club, which the company offers to its customers via FC Bayern.tv on MagentaTV.

Oliver Kahn, FC Bayern CEO: "We're very happy that Deutsche Telekom has been at FC Bayern's side for 20 years. Telekom stands for innovation in a multimedia world, for innovation, for being forward-thinking. Together we have already experienced a unique success story. Our aim is to continue to set standards in sport and beyond - and we have succeeded once again with this contract extension."

Michael Hagspihl, Senior Vice President Global Strategic Projects and Marketing Partnerships at Deutsche Telekom: "FC Bayern Munich and Deutsche Telekom have written an amazing success story in the last 20 years. We're very proud of these joint successes and the many milestones. Thanks to the enormous media presence, innovative energy and the effects of that, our partnership is worth many times over what we put into it together."

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DT to sell 51% stake in towers business to Digital Bridge and Brookfield

Deutsche Telekom will sell 51 percent of GD Towers comprising its tower assets in Germany and Austria, to Digital Bridge and Brookfield at 17.5 billion euros enterprise value on a cash and debt free basis. 

With around 800 employees, GD Towers operates more than 40,000 sites in Germany and Austria and has a successful track record in delivering new sites for its anchor tenant Telekom Deutschland and securing revenues with third party customers. The Company generated 1.1 billion euros of pro forma revenues in 2021. Pro forma adjusted EBITDA AL 2021 amounted to 640 million euros.

Both Digital Bridge and Brookfield have substantial exposure to the European towers sector. In joining forces with Deutsche Telekom, the partners will provide both expertise and long-dated capital to further refine and evolve the GD Towers strategic plans and ambitions for enhanced value creation in both the core towers business and in fast-growing adjacent segments as well as through M&A. The transaction structure enables GD Towers to pursue these value-accretive investments with a capital structure appropriate for an infrastructure business, which otherwise would be subject to the constraints of the Deutsche Telekom balance sheet.

“Deutsche Telekom once again delivers on its strategic agenda. We crystalize the value of our tower assets, thereby creating value for our shareholders,” said Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. “At the same time the deal allows us to continue improving Deutsche Telekom’s undisputed network leadership in Germany and benefit from further value upside of the towers business through our retained 49 percent stake.”

“The partnership being formed today is about building the next generation digital infrastructure champion of Europe,” said Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge. “The combination of Deutsche Telekom’s leading mobile network and market position, alongside one of the largest real asset managers in the world in Brookfield, combined with the digital infrastructure domain expertise of DigitalBridge, creates a team of unmatched capabilities to support GD Towers as it grows to meet the evolving network demands of enterprises and consumers across Europe.”

“We’re delighted to be partnering with Deutsche Telekom and DigitalBridge to expand our presence in the European telecom infrastructure sector,” said Sam Pollock, Managing Partner at Brookfield and CEO Infrastructure. “This represents a great opportunity to invest in a highly attractive tower portfolio, with highly contracted cash flows and strong upside potential. Brookfield is already a leading global infrastructure investor, with approximately 200,000 telecom tower and rooftop sites under management globally. We hope to bring that experience and expertise to this new partnership, for the benefit of our customers in Germany, Austria and beyond.”

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/deutsche-telekom-enters-partnership-for-gd-towers-1011598

DT and Tele2 to sell T-Mobile Netherlands for EUR 5.1 billion

Tuesday, September 07, 2021  Deutsche Telekom, Netherlands  

Deutsche Telekom and Tele2 AB will sell T-Mobile Netherlands to private equity funds advised by Apax Partners and Warburg Pincus for 5.1 billion euros. The deal follows DT's 0.7 billion euros divesture of its Dutch mobile tower business earlier this year.T-Mobile NL is the leading mobile operator in the Netherlands with a market share of 42% in 2020 based on number of mobile SIMs. T-Mobile NL successfully entered the fixed market with the acquisition...

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DigitalBridge to acquire Switch for $11 billion for its data centers

Wednesday, May 11, 2022  Data Centers, Digital Bridge  

DigitalBridge Group agreed to acquire Switch, a leading colocation data center operator, for $34.25 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $11 billion, including the assumption of debt.Switch, which was founded in 2000, operates SuperNAP data center campuses in Las Vegas, Reno, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The company touts its high-resiliecy and high-security designs for mission critical workloads in its "Class 5" data centers....

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Nokia to lead German 6G-ANNA Lighthouse project

Nokia has been selected to lead 6G-ANNA, a German national-funded 6G lighthouse project.

Nokia will collaborate with the 29 partners in 6G-ANNA to lead and drive 6G research and standardization. In particular, Nokia will work closely with the consortium, which includes partners from industry, subject matter experts, start-ups, research institutes and distinguished universities in Germany.

Within 6G-ANNA, Nokia will focus on designing an end-to-end 6G architecture and work with other project partners on three key technology areas: 6G access, network of networks, and automation and simplification. Selected topics such as sub-networks, XR, and real-time digital twinning will be implemented and presented as proof of concepts.

The 6G-ANNA project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF), with an aim of strengthening and pushing German and European 6G agendas and driving global pre-standardization activities from a German and European perspective. 

6G-ANNA is part of the larger “6G Platform German” national initiative and has a total volume of €38.4 million with a duration of three years.

Peter Merz, Head of Nokia Standards, said: “We are honored to lead 6G-ANNA, the most important government-funded 6G lighthouse project in Germany. While the first 6G networks are not expected to be commercially available before 2030, we are already laying the technical foundation with 5G-Advanced, as well as long-term innovation that will drive 6G developments.”

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2022/07/11/nokia-to-lead-german-6g-lighthouse-project/

Nokia collaborates with DOCOMO on 6G

Monday, June 06, 2022  6G, Nokia  

Nokia announced a partnership with DOCOMO and NTT to jointly define and develop key technologies towards 6G. The collaboration will focus on two proof-of-concepts for emerging 6G technologies: an AI native air interface and sub-THz radio access. These aim to demonstrate a performance gain with an AI based 6G air interface compared to a conventional air interface, and to show that high-data rate beamformed access can be achieved in a high frequency...

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Next G Alliance outlines North America's roadmap for 6G

Thursday, February 03, 2022  6G  

by Benedict Chua, Associate EditorATIS’ Next G Alliance published a Roadmap to 6G report that presents the first 6G vision for North America and describes major steps that industry, government and academia should take to ensure North American wireless leadership for the next decade.ATIS said more than 600 experts from 80 Next G Alliance members representing industry, government and academia came together to create the 43-page report.The following...

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Alibaba Cloud opens data center in Frankfurt - its 3rd in Germany

Alibaba Cloud opened its third data center in Germany.

The new facility, which is located in Frankfurt, offers a range of cloud computing products ranging from storage, network to database. It also features free cooling operation via dry coolers - using naturally cool ambient air instead of mechanical refrigeration. In addition, the datacenter is committed to using 100% green electricity to power its operation.

Alibaba said adheres to the highest security standards and the strict compliance regulations set out in the Cloud Computing Compliance Controls Catalog (C5) in Germany. 

Alibaba Cloud now boasts a network of 84 availability zones in 27 regions across the globe.

“The third datacentre launch underscores our continuous commitment to serving the local German and European markets,” said Raymond Ma, General Manager of Europe, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. With our proven innovations and competitive solutions that meet strict security and compliance requirements, we are determined in our mission to support our customers with their digital transformation demands.”

https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog?spm=a3c0ia.190302.9135018350.25.48db5d0faQ0dXt

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Mavenir establishes Open RAN Centre of Excellence in Germany

Mavenir has established an Open RAN Centre of Excellence centered in Bonn, with satellite teams in Düsseldorf and Munich to support European Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) with Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) engineering, planning, design, system integration and deployment.

Vishant Vora, President, Global Operations and Managed Services at Mavenir, said, “Mavenir’s Centre of Excellence in Germany is developing advanced Open RAN end-to-end skills, and supporting our German customers with localised support to accelerate Open RAN deployments.”

Puneet Sethi, Senior Vice President and General Manager of RAN Business at Mavenir, said, “This latest Centre of Excellence further extends access to Mavenir’s Open RAN expertise across Europe and complements existing R&D design centres of excellence in Sweden, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom.”

https://www.mavenir.com

• Earlier in the year, Mavenir launched the comprehensive OpenBeam™ portfolio of O-RAN compliant radio products, which provide MNOs with Open RAN solutions spanning micro, macro, millimeter wave (mmWave), and massive MIMO (mMIMO) use cases.

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Milestone: Deutsche Telekom now has 5,000 5G antennas

Deutsche Telekom reports that its 5G rollout continues at pace with more than 5,000 antennas now part of its 5G network. 

• Around 350 new sites have been added in recent weeks. 
• In total, almost 1,700 sites make up the very fast 5G network. 
• The antennas transmit at the 3.6 gigahertz (GHz) frequency. The network can provide up to one gigabit per second for download speeds. 
• New additions to the list are locations from all over Germany, including Dülmen (North Rhine-Westphalia), Soltau (Lower Saxony), Annaberg-Buchholz (Saxony) and Freising (Bavaria). 

As of now, the new 5G sites also support the latest 5G standalone technology. This already applies to all antennas transmitting in the 3.6 gigahertz band. 

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/5000-antennas-available-for-high-speed-5g-1002442

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Germany's Hetzner Online Deploys Infinera’s ICE6

Hetzner Online, a leading web hosting and data center operator in Germany, is using Infinera’s ICE6 solution on the GX Series Compact Modular Platform to offer new 400 GbE services across its network to meet the surging bandwidth demands of its customers.

Infinera said the deployment doubled capacity for Hetzner Online, which ranks as one of the largest data center operators in Europe with hundreds of thousands of servers in operation. With ICE6, Hetzner Online can efficiently provide 3 x 400 GbE services between any two points in its network using a single ICE6 optical engine running 2 x 600 Gb/s wavelengths. 

“Keeping up with the relentless growth in bandwidth of our customers is a critical aspect of being a leading provider of hosting services,” said Martin Fritzsche, Head of Network, Hetzner Online. “With ICE6’s industry-leading performance, we have been able to double the capacity of our network to meet the unpredictable data center interconnection needs of our customers in Germany and beyond.”

 “Infinera’s high-performance ICE6 solution continues to meet the demands of rapid bandwidth growth driven by cloud services, providing operators like Hetzner Online the ability to maximize their network infrastructure by utilizing the greatest capacity at the greatest reach, resulting in a cost-effective and spectrally efficient solution,” said Nick Walden, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Infinera. “We are pleased to continue to support Hetzner Online in providing its customers with industry-leading services.”

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Intel picks Germany for its next European fab

Intel announced plans to invest an initial 17 billion euros into a leading-edge semiconductor fab mega-site in Magdeburg, Germany, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt.  Construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2023 and production planned to come online in 2027.

The new facility will use Intel’s most advanced, Angstrom-era transistor technologies, serving the needs of both foundry customers and Intel for Europe and globally as part of the company’s IDM (integrated device manufacturer) 2.0 strategy.

Intel also plans to create a new R&D and design hub in France, and to invest in R&D, manufacturing and foundry services in Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain. 

Intel is also continuing to invest in its Leixlip, Ireland, expansion project, spending an additional 12 billion euros and doubling the manufacturing space to bring Intel 4 process technology to Europe and expand foundry services. Once complete, this expansion will bring Intel’s total investment in Ireland to more than 30 billion euros.

In addition, Intel and Italy have entered into negotiations to enable a state-of-the-art back-end manufacturing facility. With a potential investment of up to 4.5 billion euros, this factory would create approximately 1,500 Intel jobs plus an additional 3,500 jobs across suppliers and partners, with operations to start between 2025 and 2027.

Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, said: “Our planned investments are a major step both for Intel and for Europe. The EU Chips Act will empower private companies and governments to work together to drastically advance Europe’s position in the semiconductor sector. This broad initiative will boost Europe’s R&D innovation and bring leading-edge manufacturing to the region for the benefit of our customers and partners around the world. We are committed to playing an essential role in shaping Europe’s digital future for decades to come.”

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Deutsche Telekom's revenues grew 7.7% in 2021

Deutsche Telekom exceeded its financial guidance for 2021, with total revenue growing by 7.7 percent to 108.8 billion euros.

Service revenues rose by 6.5 percent to 84.1 billion euros. Adjusted EBITDA AL rose by 6.6 percent year-on-year to 37.3 billion euros. 

“We won’t let up,” said Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. “Profits are growing in all areas. The Group’s successful course continues.”

In 2021, Deutsche Telekom invested 18.0 billion euros worldwide, excluding expenses for mobile spectrum. 5.9 percent more than in the previous year. Adjusted net profit increased by 2.6 percent to 5.9 billion euros; on an unadjusted basis, it increased by 0.4 percent to 4.2 billion euros.

Some highlights:

• In its home market, Deutsche Telekom can look back on a year of substantial growth in customer numbers and of strong earnings. In the broadband business, the Company recorded 360,000 customer additions, thus significantly increasing its market share in 2021. At year-end, 17.2 million (retail and wholesale) customers were using a fiber-optic based line (FTTH, VDSL/vectoring), 1.2 million more than a year earlier.
• In mobile communications, Telekom recorded growth in branded contract customers of 666,000 for the full year. The clear market leadership in terms of mobile service revenues was reinforced. In the fourth quarter, this figure was up 2.3 percent against the prior-year period.
• The Germany operating segment increased total revenue by 1.6 percent year-on-year in the 2021 financial year to 24.2 billion euros. Growth in adjusted EBITDA AL was even stronger: up 3.6 percent to 9.5 billion euros.
• T-Mobile US ended the year with 108.7 million customers, an increase of 6.7 million within 12 months. More than 2.9 million of these additions related to the particularly profitable postpaid phone segment. Total revenue increased by 15.2 percent to 80.8 billion U.S. dollars. At the same time, adjusted EBITDA AL increased by 11.8 percent to 26.9 billion U.S. dollars. The business combination with Sprint is paying off. Last year, synergies leveraged in shared functions, sales, and networks amounted to 3.8 billion U.S. dollars. In 2022, this figure is expected to rise to between 5.0 and 5.3 billion U.S. dollars, thereby exceeding the integration costs of the merger on a full-year basis for the first time since the business combination with Sprint as of April 1, 2020.
• The Europe operating segment generated adjusted EBITDA AL of more than 4.0 billion euros within a year for the first time. In organic terms, i.e., adjusted for exchange rate effects and changes in the composition of the Group, this was 5.4 percent more than in the prior year. This indicator for earnings performance had increased organically year-on-year in every quarter of the last four years. Service revenues grew by 2.0 percent in organic terms in 2021 to 9.6 billion euros.
• Customer numbers increased in all areas in 2021. The European national companies won 770,000 new mobile contract customers in total. The number of broadband customers went up by 350,000. The number of users of convergent fixed-mobile product bundles increased by 842,000.

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Vantage to build 16MW data center in Frankfurt

Vantage Data Centers disclosed plans to build the second of three facilities on its flagship 55MW EU campus (FRA1) located in Offenbach, Germany, just one kilometer from the main data centers and peering points in Frankfurt. This facility will include 16MW of critical IT capacity and 13,000 square meters (140,000 square feet) once fully developed and will open to customers in the first half of 2024.

In addition, Vantage has acquired full ownership of the first data center on this campus, buying out its joint venture partners Energieversorgung Offenbach (EVO) and DataCenter-Group (DCG). Vantage will continue in a new partnership with EVO as the energy provider and landowner of the campus. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed.

“Vantage continues to accelerate our growth in Frankfurt and Offenbach, the most sought-after data center markets in Europe, to meet demand from our hyperscale and cloud customers,” said Antoine Boniface, president of EMEA for Vantage Data Centers. “Our partnership with EVO and DCG was instrumental in opening this 

Furthering its commitment to be a responsible corporate citizen, Vantage, alongside EVO, will repurpose the waste heat from the new data center and make it available to the local community for heating purposes. This unique initiative supports Vantage’s sustainable construction goals and enables the company to make a positive impact in the region.

Vantage recently announced that it has also begun construction on a second campus in Frankfurt to meet increased customer demand. The two campuses combined will have 95MW of critical IT capacity in the Frankfurt region once fully developed. 

https://vantage-dc.com/data-center-locations/emea

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Tim Höttges to remain CEO of Deutsche Telekom

Tim Höttges to remain CEO of Deutsche Telekom for another five years. His current contract was due to expire at the end of 2023.

Deutsche Telekom's Supervisory Board proposed Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL Group, as its new chairman. He will stand for election at the shareholders' meeting on April 7 next year to succeed Ulrich Lehner.

Ulrich Lehner: "I am very pleased that we will be able to retain Tim Höttges at Deutsche Telekom for longer than previously planned. Like no other, he stands for the transformation and success of recent years. Over the past almost eight years, Tim Höttges - together with his team - has modernized Deutsche Telekom and consistently focused it on a course of growth and innovation. In the process, they have always exceeded their targets. With skill, tenacity and assertiveness, Tim Höttges has made Deutsche Telekom the leading telecommunications company in Europe. We are delighted to be able to keep our front man. He is Mr. Magenta and is held in high regard both inside and outside the company. His main task will be to systematically implement Deutsche Telekom's strategy over the next five years and further develop the company into the leading digital telecommunications company."

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/deutsche-telekom-settles-succession-planning-643144

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O2 completes Germany's first 5G Voice over New Radio call

O2 has become the first German mobile network operator to make a Voice over New Radio (VoNR) call purely over its live 5G network. 

Currently, voice calls in all German mobile networks are completed using 3G and 4G technologies.

VoNR is currently possible in the live network at O2's first 5G mobile stations in Potsdam and Munich.

"Voice over New Radio will enable our customers to make optimum use of the network in the future. We are introducing the technology for voice transmission much faster than with the LTE standard. With 4G, the simultaneous transmission of voice telephony and data took about five years after the introduction of the mobile standard; with 5G, it took only a few months. We are proud to be the first operator to succeed with VoNR on our 5G network," says Mallik Rao, CTIO of Telefónica / O2.

https://www.telefonica.de/news/press-releases-telefonica-germany/2021/09/voice-over-new-radio-vonr-o2-succeeds-in-making-germanys-first-voice-call-on-the-5g-live-network.html

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Deutsche Telekom: huge opportunity with private 5G

 Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Messe AG are building one of the largest private 5G campus networks in Europe at the exhibition grounds in Hanover, which cover almost 200 football pitches. The site will serve as a globally unique test field for 5G applications. Deutsche Messe AG is transforming itself from a trade fair organizer to the operator of a site for testing and demonstration purposes. 

Citing figures from Bitkm, Deutsche Telekom notes that 50 percent of companies want to invest in 5G and campus networks,largely because they see digitalization as an important lever to adapt to changing conditions. Business resilience has been especially critical during the pandemic. 

https://www.telekom.com/en/company/details/more-resilient-with-5g-campus-networks-635894

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Deutsche Telekom opens its Open Telekom Cloud

 Deutsche Telekom announced that companies from regulated industries can now host data covered by data privacy in the Open Telekom Cloud, which is provided from Telekom's data centers in Europe. 

All data remains in Europe. Deutche Telekom says these data centers are among the most secure and modern facilities of their kind in the world.

Deutsche Telekom has made a Group-wide commitment to maintain social secrecy in accordance with § 35 of the German Social Code I (SGB I). Social secrecy ensures that providers of social benefits do not process the data of their members without authorization. Among others, this affects statutory health insurance funds, pension insurance, employment services and employers' liability insurance associations. 

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/the-open-telekom-cloud-opens-up-for-social-benefit-providers-636472

DT expands its Open Telekom Cloud with Amsterdam data center

Sunday, June 13, 2021  Data Centers, Deutsche Telekom, Europa, Germany  

Deutsche Telekom is expanding the reach of its Open Telekom Cloud with the opening of a huge data center campus in Amsterdam.  The facility covers a total area of 21,000 square meters.  DT said its servers and storage will operate under the highest security standards, with electricity exclusively from renewable energy sources. The two facilities in Amsterdam target PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) values of 1.32 and 1.25, which is approximately 30 percent lower consumption than conventional data centers.

"The opening of our cloud data center in Amsterdam strengthens Europe’s data sovereignty," said Adel al Saleh, member of the Telekom Board of Management and CEO T-Systems. "And companies improve their security, because European data protection rules apply.“ 

The new Amsterdam site "mirrors" the two core data centers of the Open Telekom Cloud in Biere and Magdeburg. The distance of around 500 kilometers is well above the critical infrastructure (KRITIS) recommendation of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). Computing and storage power are still available even if there are outages - due to natural disasters, for example - at the various sites.

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/open-telekom-cloud-grows-new-amsterdam-location-616958

Capgemini and Orange to build "Cloud de Confiance" in France

Monday, May 31, 2021  Capgemini, Cloud, Europa, France, Orange  

Capgemini and Orange will establish a joint venture company called “Bleu” to provide a "Cloud de Confiance" to address the security requirements of the French State, public administrations and critical infrastructure companies across France. The idea is to build a French hyperscale cloud, fully under French and European jurisdictions.Bleu will provide its customers with an independent, trusted cloud platform with a broad catalog of digital solutions...

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Planning begins for a European quantum communication network

Monday, May 31, 2021  Europa, Quantum  

The European Commission has selected Airbus to lead a consortium of companies and research institutes to study the design of the future European quantum communication network, EuroQCI, to enable ultra-secure communication between critical infrastructures and government institutions across the European Union. The 15-month study will set out the details of the end-to-end system and design. The European Commission's ambition is to run a EuroQCI demonstrator...

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T-Systems teams with Google Cloud on sovereign cloud for Germany

T-Systems announced a strategic, long-term partnership with Google Cloud to provide a sovereign cloud for German enterprises, the public sector, and healthcare organizations. 

The companies agreed to develop a large spectrum of next-generation sovereign cloud solutions and infrastructure where customers can host their sensitive workloads whilst continuing to leverage the scalability, elasticity and reliability of public cloud services. Service management and operation of the sovereign cloud will be supervised by T-Systems.

The new joint offering that will be available as of mid 2022 and then upgraded over the following months. In addition, T Systems will exercise a control function over relevant parts of the German Google Cloud infrastructure. 

"Our joint strategic goal is to support the digitalization of European companies and the public sector as they move operations to the cloud," explained Adel Al-Saleh, member of the Telekom Board of Management and CEO of T-Systems. "Together with Google Cloud, we will build a sovereign cloud services portfolio that provides clients with full control over their data, software and operations whilst leveraging the full power of Google Cloud. Even stricter compliance requirements for public sector institutions will be addressed. We are happy that we’ll be able to offer customers a cloud solution that is secure and sovereign, but also gives access to the innovation and scalability of Google Cloud in Germany. We are also considering Austria and Switzerland as a next step," he added.

"We’re committed to helping enable Germany’s digital transformation,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Data privacy, security and control are vital to European and German organizations as they digitize their operations. The sovereign cloud solution we are partnering with T-Systems to create will provide public and private-sector organizations with an additional layer of technical and operational measures and controls that ensure German customers can meet their data, operational, and software sovereignty requirements." 

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/sovereign-cloud-from-t-systems-and-google-cloud-635314

T-Systems enters strategic collaboration agreement with AWS

Thursday, December 17, 2020  AWS, Cloud, Deutsche Telekom, T-Systems  

T-Systems and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a multi-year Strategic Collaboration Agreement to manage the digital transformation of companies more quickly, efficiently and securely. 

T-Systems said the agreement will spur it to build out capacity in both solutions and people through a strong training and enablement program. The ICT service provider intends to train 3,000 additional AWS experts as part of the new collaboration.

Regarding security, AWS and T-Systems agreed to closely collaborate to achieve the targets recently set by the European regulation.

“Since the beginning of our relationship with AWS, we have built up expertise in AWS technology and combined it with our extensive experience from major transformation projects. Our customers appreciate this,” explained Adel Al-Saleh, member of the Deutsche Telekom Board of Management and CEO T-Systems.

https://www.t-systems.com/us/en/about-t-systems/news/t-systems-and-aws-expand-collaboration-365120

Deutsche Telekom aligns with Microsoft Azure

Thursday, December 10, 2020  Deutsche Telekom, Microsoft  

Deutsche Telekom and Microsoft announced a seven-year strategic agreement to help customers of all sizes accelerate their cloud transformation initiatives. 

"We have agreed on the framework for joint strategic growth with our long-term partner Microsoft. We are delighted," said Adel Al-Saleh, member of the Deutsche Telekom Board of Management and CEO of T-Systems. "This partnership will enable us to enhance services for our customers. We will also be supporting each other with digitalization and network build-out." 

Highlights

• Telekom plans to migrate the majority of its internal IT workloads to the public cloud by 2025 and Azure is a central part of that strategy. Through a companywide training program, thousands of Telekom employees will learn how to maximize the benefits of Azure. 
• Telekom will also offer its customers direct access to the Microsoft cloud through Azure ExpressRoute. 
• Telekom will offer Microsoft 365, including Microsoft Teams. As part of this, the companies have started a project for German schools to reimagine traditional approaches to education, enabling remote learning through cloud-based IT infrastructure, modern devices and the cloud productivity and collaboration applications within Microsoft 365. 
• Telekom will help its customers with moving their SAP environments to Azure. SAP solutions on Azure offer enterprise-grade security, and business continuity and reduce hardware expenses, making it easier for start-ups and smaller organizations to get started. 

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