Equipment Suppliers (Vendors)
- Huawei has remained in the leadership of the global telecommunications equipment market, according to information released by Dell'Oro. It remains #1 in five of the six telecom segments it tracks.
- The market share of the 7 main suppliers, which account for around 80% of the market, has changed little over the last 3 years. Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei were the top 3 vendors outside China in 2022, accounting for around 20%, 18% and 18% of the market respectively.
- Global sales grew by 1% in 2022, split by around 50% for mobile and fixed. The double-digit growth in sales of fixed broadband equipment was offset by low growth in the other five segments (Microwave Transport, Mobile Core Network, Optical Transport, RAN, SP Router & Switch).
Oi
- The Court approved the new request for judicial recovery of Oi and its subsidiaries. Based on the list of creditors, the bankruptcy liability reached R$ 43.7 billion, of which approximately R$ 29 billion are financial debts.
- Oi held an Extraordinary General Meeting which decided to reduce the board members to nine. The slate indicated by the current board, which includes the CEO of Oi, Rodrigo Abreu, and the representative of minorities Raphael Manhães Martins, was elected.
- Oi's ON shares lost 10.4% in the week and PN shares lost 4.7%. Ibovespa lost 1.6% in the week.
- Oi's ON shares lost 24.1% in the year and PN shares lost 39.98%.
Winity and Vivo
- The debate on the agreement between Winity and Vivo for the use of the 700 MHz band heated up after the end of secrecy and the disclosure by Anatel of public versions of the consent requirement and the Roaming Agreement between them. The Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts also asked to know the process.
- Winity argues that the agreement is essential for its economic viability and meeting commitments to cover highways and locations.
- The 5+5 MHz block in the 700 MHz band would be assigned to Vivo on a secondary basis, preventing Vivo from exceeding the spectrum limit CAP for a frequency < 1 GHz.
- Anatel's legal and technical area understands, however, that Vivo was prevented by the public notice from participating in the lot in question and, consequently, from making use of the frequency band of this lot, in order to avoid the concentration of spectrum in that band.
Other Highlights
- Telebras' net revenue reached 347.8 million in 2022, with a 21.8% growth compared to 2021, due to the expansion of broadband in 2022 and the recognition of R$ 19.7 million related to the readjustment with retroactive effect of the contract with DATAPREV. The Company presented a loss of R$ 128 million in the year.
- In addition to V.tal, RK Partners also made an offer to buy Oi's copper network as scrap, taking responsibility for removing the poles.
- Algar plans to fund the withdrawal process with the sale of the copper network.
- MCom released a new list of members of the Management Board of Fust, which now has Maximiliano Martinhão and Nathalia Lobo as full members.
- Like TIM, Vivo was unable to find buyers for Oi Mobile's cell sites that were put up for sale as part of the commitments assumed with Cade.
- TelCables Brasil is the new name of Angola Cables.
- Operation coordinated by the Ministry removed 199 streaming and gaming sites and 63 music apps and blocked 128 domains and six channels of messaging apps.
- Anatel has made available on its website the list of Smart TV Box/TV Box that are legal.
Coming Weeks
- March 20th: Brisanet's 2022 Results
- March 22nd: Unifique's 2022 Results
- March 23rd: Oi's 2022 Results
- March 29th: Desktop's 2022 Results
Maintaining telecommunications in times of conflict: The case of Ukraine
On the last day of MWC 2023, I participated in a panel on the topic that was attended by experts on the subject and representatives of the Ministry of Communications and the main operator in Ukraine.
What happened after the invasion?
- Kyvstar, Ukraine's biggest operator holding 24.8 million cell phones, reported record traffic of 80 million call minutes in peak hour.
- Critical Infrastructure (Telecommunications and Electricity) became attack targets: 18% of Kyvstar cell sites were completely destroyed, additional 20% with some damage.
- Mobile coverage became intermittent, either because of the destruction of the cell sites or because of the lack of energy (80% of cases).
- The regulatory institution allocated more spectrum to the three main Ukrainian operators.
- Ukrainian mobile operators decided that customers could continue talking even if they ran out of credit.
- The 3 operators announced a national roaming agreement. Customers of one network can now use the network of any of the other 2 operators.
- The 3 mobile operators started to offer free or very reduced roaming to their subscribers who went to other European countries.
Mobile Networks Are Part of the War
Mobile networks are used by both armies that adopt a hybrid communications solution, using dedicated communication systems and having the mobile network as a back-up. This led to:
- Mobile operators suspended service to all Russian and Belarusian cell phones that were roaming in Ukraine and proceeded to block all phone calls made from Ukraine to Russia and Belarus. A SIM Box was found which was used by the Russian armed forces to send SMS and make calls as if they were from Ukrainian operators.
- Russian mobile operators started providing mobile service in the occupied area after the invasion.
Although this is a distant reality for Brazil, there are 2 billion people in the world living in conflict zones.
The event also had the participation of MTN, which encounters similar situations in many African countries where it is present.
More details about the conflict in Ukraine can be found on:
https://blog.adaptivemobile.com/the-mobile-network-battlefield-in-ukraine-part-1
Results 2022: Vero and Datora
- Vero's net revenue grew 63% in 2022, reaching R$ 687 million. EBITDA margin hit 52% and net profit reached R$ 64 million.
- Vero ended 2022 counting 773 thousand fixed broadband accesses, 584 thousand of them were fiber.
- Datora's net revenue increased 7.2% in 2022, reaching R$678 million, of which R$ 524 million is VoIP (+3.3%) and R$ 154 million is a communication platform as a service (CPaaS) (+23.2 %), which includes IoT, MVNO and other services.
Oi
- Oi's Extraordinary General Meeting to address changes in the board of directors was not held due to lack of quorum and was rescheduled for March 16th.
- The funds that requested the holding of the meeting withdrew the indication of a competing slate, after Oi's new request for recovery.
- Oi's ON shares raised 8.3% in the week and PN 6,6%. Ibovespa lost 0.2% in the week.
- Oi's ON shares presented 15.3% loss accumulated in the year and PN had loss of 36.9%.
Other Highlights
- Global sales of AR and VR headsets dropped by 20.9% in 2022. 8.8 million units were sold, 80% from Meta. (IDC)
- The public offer of 50% of the 7.2 thousand cell sites acquired from Oi Mobile by TIM was ended due to lack of interested parties. This was one of the remedies established by Cade to approve the sale of Oi Mobile.
- Infovia 01 (Santarém – Manaus) was officially delivered to MCom by EAD ("Seja Digital") with the approval of the term of declaration and delivery of the infrastructures of the Norte Conectado Project.
Coming Weeks
- March 16th: Oi's Extraordinary General Meeting
- March 20th: Brisanet's 2022 Results
- March 22nd: Unifique's 2022 Results
- March 23rd: Oi's 2022 Results
- March 29th: Desktop's 2022 Results
Mobile World Congress returned this year with the presence of more than 80 thousand people, many of them from Brazil.
The diversity of what happens there is so great that everyone has a partial view of the event, focusing on their points of interest. I present below my view.
1 billion 5G cell phones in the world, now what?
The base of 5G cell phones grew faster than previous technologies and reached the 1 billion mark in 3 years, half of these accesses are in China.
Operators in the United States, Europe, and other Asian countries have invested heavily in 5G coverage, encoraged by unprecedented improvements in speed and capacity, with a focus on the consumer market.
Their priority now is to monetize these investments. The following alternatives were discussed during the event:
- The GSMA's Open Gateway initiative to standardize an Application Programmable Interfaces (APIs) framework designed to provide universal access to operator networks for developers.
- Telefonica's vision of transforming the network into a supercomputer that provides distributed computing power.
- Activate the new 5G core (Stand Alone). This is fundamental to support new applications with low latency slicing, but also to deal with the complexity of the network making it autonomous. The vision is for the network to move from being a configuration-based machine to being an intent-based organism. From the 243 operators with a 5G network in 2022, only 35 were using the new 5G core in their networks.
- Private networks and FWA.
Will 5G applications for B2B have to wait until 2025?
Advancement in new applications for B2B is only expected with 5G Advanced (5.5G) which is being specified by release 18 and should be commercially available in 2025.
In this context, efforts to seek massive IoT are kept. In this process, eSIM becomes mandatory for M2M devices. Just as it already happens in Brazil, where 85% of MVNO cell phones are M2M terminals for IoT, in other countries this application is also starting to grow.
5.5G is an important step towards 6G which is planned for 2030.
Another important step is the use of millimeter waves (26 GHz in Brazil). Everyone recognizes their importance and that you cannot reach Terabit/s speeds without them, but their use has not yet taken off because densification requires heavy investments. GSMA data indicate that only 20% of operators that have mm waves are using this band and 10% of marketed devices support millimeter waves.
What about Metaverse?
- Metaverso was present at MWC, although “Hipe” is passing. There is still no consensus definition as to what Metaverse is.
- What can be observed are virtual/augmented reality solutions and "Digital Twin" in applications such as training and games. This seems to be the way to create concrete cases, since it will only be more widely viable with 6G.
Was AI the big theme of MWC 2023?
- Undoubtedly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used in everything from cell sites to the Core of the 5G network and in virtually all applications presented at MWC 2023.
Also worth mentioning:
- The use of satellite through the smartphone to send messages from anywhere in the world has enormous potential to save lives. The satellite segment concluded that there is no point in thinking about special terminals, you have to use the device that is in everyone's hand, the smartphone.
- The great presence of fiber at MWC 2023, both from companies and professionals. During the event, Huawei, in partnership with Softex and Teleco, presented the whitepaper F5G (Fixed 5G – O Brasil Conectado).
- GLOMO Awards, of which I am a judge: Huawei won Best Mobile Network Infrastructure and Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough; the Rakuten Symphony for Best Network Software Breakthrough, and; EdgeQ’s 5G + AI Base Station on a Chip was CTO Choice (Outstanding Mobile Technology Award).
Oi
- On March 2nd, Oi filed a new request for judicial recovery before the 7th Corporate Court of the Judicial District of the Capital of the State of Rio de Janeiro, on an urgent basis and ad referendum of the Company's General Meeting ("Judicial Recovery").
- Oi communicated to the market that it reached an agreement with a group that represents the majority of creditors.
- The Restructuring Proposal also contemplates a potential financing in the amount of US$ 275 million.
- V.tal contributed to the plan by granting a 50% discount on its credits related to the Long-Term Use Assignment Agreement held by Globenet on all future obligations from 2025 to 2028.
- As guarantees, Oi is placing its stake in V.tal and Cliente.Co, which will be created.
- Oi's ON shares lost 33.8% in the week and PN shares lost 21.8%. Ibovespa lost 1.8% in the week.
- Oi's ON shares lost 23.7% in the year and PN shares lost 40.8%.
Accesses in January
- Brazil presented negative mobile net adds in January (-357 thousand). Vivo (-45 thousand), TIM (-208 thousand) and Claro (-227 thousand) showed negative net adds, while Algar (+23 thousand) and MVNOs (101 thousand) had growth.
- Vivo grew in prepaid (+118 thousand) and Claro in postpaid (+242 thousand). TIM presented negative net adds in both segments.
- With the update of fixed broadband accesses in 2022, Brazil now has 44.9 million fixed broadband accesses and the year's net adds increased to 3.3 million accesses.
- Pay TV lost 188 thousand subscribers in the month and fixed telephony 313 thousand.
5G
- Claro received from Ookla the trophies as operator with the fastest mobile network in the country and as the best mobile video experience.
- TIM created a US$ 50 million investment fund focused on 5G solutions.
- GAISP initiated the release of the 3.5 GHz band in over 439 municipalities. it has already been released in 507.
Other Highlights
- Information Services GDP (Telecom represents more than 50%) grew 5.4% in 2022, more than the Brazilian GDP (2.9%).
- Valenet, a regional fixed broadband provider in Minas Gerais, acquired CMT, now reaching about 160 thousand fixed broadband accesses in 85 cities.
- Desktop concluded the acquisition of Fasternet.
- Netflix accounts for 14.9% of the world's internet download traffic, followed by YouTube (11.4%). (Sandvine/Statista)
Coming Weeks
- March 16th: Oi's Extraordinary General Meeting
- March 20th: Brisanet's 2022 Results
- March 22nd: Unifique's 2022 Results
- March 23rd: Oi's 2022 Results
