Victoria Fox's Blog, page 133

The CNMC plans the total liberalization of the broadband market

The measure would be taken after the new regulatory review of the market that the regulator is preparing and benefits Telefónica, which gains agility to respond commercially to the initiatives of its rivals.

The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) , the regulator of the telecommunications sector, is preparing the launch of the new analysis of the broadband market that could lead, according to knowledgeable sources, in the

To continue reading go Premium
Try it for €1 the first month

and enjoy unlimited access to all Expansión web content

I love you

Or sign up with your Google account in two clicks

SOURCE

Telefónica will ask for 130 million by winning the lawsuit against Millicom for the frustrated sale of the Costa Rican subsidiary

Telefónica has won against the multinational telecommunications company Millicom, the lawsuit filed in a New York court for the frustrated sale of the Spanish company’s subsidiary in Costa Rica.

Although the court ruling does not set the amount of the independence

To continue reading go Premium
Try it for €1 the first month

and enjoy unlimited access to all Expansión web content

I love you

Or sign up with your Google account in two clicks

SOURCE

Brussels is willing to authorize more mergers of 'telecos'

The European Commission (EC) appears to be more open than before to authorizing mergers of European telecommunications operators with the aim of helping finance the rollout of 5G and upgrading obsolete networks from ADSL to fibre. This change in position can be considered a softening of the EC’s approach after European regulators (the Competition area) annulled several potential integration agreements for companies in the sector in recent years.

The largest telecommunications groups in Europe such as Telefónica, Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Vodafone have been asking the European Commission to help them invest the billions of euros needed for the deployment of 5G and fiber optic networks. (FTTH), and to this end they have asked that consolidation be facilitated in the telecom operator market to achieve scale and, in addition, they have demanded that digital giants (such as Meta, Google, Amazon or Netflix) pay a “fair” contribution (an initiative known as Fair Sharae) for the use of their networks.

According to a draft of the white paper being prepared by the EC to which the Financial Times had access, the EC has considered that the current fragmentation of the telecommunications sector, with hundreds of operators – compared to the big three in the US or the big three in China – could impact operators’ ability to achieve the scale needed to invest in the networks of the future.”

The European regulator noted that, although it recognized that a competitive telecommunications market was a benefit for consumers, “industrial competitiveness and economic security” should also be taken into account when analyzing the consolidation of the sector.

The digital infrastructure report, which will outline Brussels’ future strategy on how to build resilient digital networks, is expected to be published next week and is being reviewed by the EU executive.

Although its recommendations will not be legally binding, telecommunications operators have noted that comments from Brussels indicate that the EU executive is more willing to consider a greater number of mergers in the sector to achieve more scale and help close the funding gap. for the deployment of new networks.

This comes after the Commission noted in 2023 that telecoms operators had indicated they would need to spend up to 50% of their annual revenue over the next five years to invest in new infrastructure.

“The creation of a true single market for telecommunications services requires reflection on how to encourage cross-border consolidation,” Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the internal market and services, told the Financial Times . “Scale is key to achieving the massive investments needed to build the cutting-edge digital infrastructure that Europe needs for its competitiveness. There are still too many regulatory barriers to a true telecommunications single market,” Breton added.

New Commission

The document is expected to revive the debate on the consolidation of telecommunications after years in which the Commission’s main concern about alliances was to prevent mergers from causing an increase in prices for consumers.

In any case, the modification of the merger authorization strategy, softening its requirements and therefore facilitating a new wave of consolidation in the sector, would have to be reflected through the actions of the new European Commission and the new European Parliament that will emerge from the European elections next June. That is to say, although the current Commission can try to put the debate and its new position on telecom mergers on track, the reality is that any implementation of this new policy will have to be carried out by the new EC that emerged from the elections.

Harsh conditions and vetoes

The concerns of the current EC about the effects of mergers on price increases for consumers have in the past provoked a hard line from the EC, especially from the area of competition defense, led for years by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager , which vetoed the sale by Telefónica of its British subsidiary O2 to the Hong Kong group CK Hutchison for 10.5 billion pounds sterling in 2016. But, in addition, the harsh conditions imposed on other operations led to the withdrawal of the merger of the subsidiaries of the Scandinavian telecos Telia and Telenor in Denmark. Or they also caused a sharp deterioration in the profitability of the Italian market by forcing the Italian telecom companies Wind and Hutchison to grant strong remedies to the French company Iliad, which started a huge price war to enter the transalpine market.

One of the latest merger agreements that will be authorized by the current European Commission is that of Orange and MásMóvil, a large-scale operation that will create the leader by customer volume in the Spanish market, dethroning Telefónica, the historical operator. The decision from Brussels, which will be positive, authorizing the merger, will be made public on February 22. And although the remedies agreed upon by the two groups have not been considered the most demanding, the obligation to sell frequencies to another group, the Romanian Digi , will create in the future an even stronger competitor than the Romanian group was. Until now. For this reason, the resolution and remedies applied to the Orange-MásMóvil merger will be scrutinized by the entire telecommunications sector in Europe.

SOURCE

Artificial intelligence: Microsoft invests 3.3 billion euros in AI in Germany

The US technology group Microsoft plans to invest almost 3.3 billion euros in artificial intelligence (AI) in Germany over the next two years. Microsoft President Brad Smith announced this in Berlin during a conversation with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). The money will be used to expand data center capacities for AI applications and cloud computing.

It is the largest single investment in Microsoft’s 40-year history in Germany. It also includes an AI training program that aims to reach up to 1.2 million people.

The plan is to establish new capacities in Bedburg, Bergheim and Elsdorf near Cologne. The group is seeking physical proximity to major customers of its cloud services, including Bayer and RWE. This should keep delays in data exchange between data centers and applications low.

“Great contribution to structural change in the Rhenish district”

Hesse should also benefit from the investments. The Rhine-Main region is Germany’s leading location for data centers, as the large Internet exchange DE-CIX is located in Frankfurt am Main. Vast quantities of digital data are exchanged via it every second. A Microsoft cloud center that already exists in the region is to be expanded.

North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) viewed the investment as “a strong signal for Germany and a great contribution to structural change in the Rhenish region”. With this billion-dollar decision, Microsoft is making a significant contribution to sustainably driving forward the transformation of the economy in its federal state. “The fact that a global player is making such an investment in North Rhine-Westphalia is a sign of trust and the result of concrete location policy.”

Microsoft invested billions in OpenAI

Germany leads the list of announced investments by the world’s leading software company: Microsoft President Smith promised last November to invest 2.9 billion euros in Great Britain by 2026 to drive the growth of AI applications. Just over a month earlier, he had promised Australia around three billion euros.

Microsoft is a leading player in AI, for example because it invested several billion dollars early on to invest in the Californian AI start-up OpenAI. The latter presented its AI bot ChatGPT in November 2022. Microsoft has meanwhile invested billions more to build up large computing capacities for training AI. The group uses AI technology, among other things, in its search engine Bing and in its office programs as a so-called copilot. The main competitor is Google with its AI program Gemini.

The US technology group Microsoft plans to invest almost 3.3 billion euros in artificial intelligence (AI) in Germany over the next two years. Microsoft President Brad Smith announced this in Berlin during a conversation with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). The money will be used to expand data center capacities for AI applications and cloud computing.

It is the largest single investment in Microsoft’s 40-year history in Germany. It also includes an AI training program that aims to reach up to 1.2 million people.

SOURCE

Right-wing libertarian podcast: TikTok removes podcast channel “Hoss & Hopf”

The video platform TikTok has blocked the right-wing populist podcast Hoss & Hopf . The channel was removed from the platform “due to dangerous misinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories,” a company spokeswoman confirmed in a Spiegel report. Excerpts from the podcast by Philip Hopf and Kiarash Hossainpour were played on the channel with 160,000 followers.

The two podcasters work in the financial industry. Hopf runs a company in Stuttgart that offers investment tips for venture capital. Hossainpour says he lives in Dubai and became known as an influencer for cryptocurrencies, according to Spiegel . In their podcast, Hopf and Hossainpour repeatedly shared conspiracy theories in addition to their right-wing libertarian worldview, Spiegel continues.

Hopf rejects accusations of influencing children

According to their own statements, Hopf and Hossainpour deal with explosive political topics in order to “speak freely about the world and its current trend topics,” as it says in the self-description of their YouTube channel. The two have around 192,000 subscribers there. When asked by the dpa news agency, Hopf said that he was “one of the many dissatisfied citizens of this country” and that he “sometimes expresses this loudly.” He rejected the accusation that he influenced children and young people too much.

The TikTok spokeswoman referred to the company’s community guidelines in her reason for blocking the account. It states, in part: “We do not permit inaccurate, misleading or false content that could cause significant harm to individuals or the community, regardless of intent.” Personal opinions can be expressed “as long as they do not contain harmful misinformation.”

TikTok allows its predominantly young users to record, edit and share short videos. The app has been criticized in several cases due to gaps in data and youth protection.

The video platform TikTok has blocked the right-wing populist podcast Hoss & Hopf . The channel was removed from the platform “due to dangerous misinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories,” a company spokeswoman confirmed in a Spiegel report. Excerpts from the podcast by Philip Hopf and Kiarash Hossainpour were played on the channel with 160,000 followers.

The two podcasters work in the financial industry. Hopf runs a company in Stuttgart that offers investment tips for venture capital. Hossainpour says he lives in Dubai and became known as an influencer for cryptocurrencies, according to Spiegel . In their podcast, Hopf and Hossainpour repeatedly shared conspiracy theories in addition to their right-wing libertarian worldview, Spiegel continues.

SOURCE

Microsoft: With an investment like this, the Chancellor sometimes stops by

When large investments are made, Olaf Scholz said on Thursday at the Microsoft Germany headquarters in Berlin, the Federal Chancellor sometimes comes by. “Same with this one.”

That sounded a bit routine considering that this was after all the most valuable company in the world announcing the largest investment it has ever made in Germany – and in the most hyped technology in a long time. But Microsoft and Scholz have the shared talent of presenting exciting things in a dry manner.

The Chancellor was the star guest at the Microsoft press conference, at which Microsoft President Brad Smith and Germany boss Marianne Janik announced an investment totaling 3.2 billion euros for 2024 and 2025: in data centers and further training in the field of AI. The company wants to build new computing capacity in the North Rhine-Westphalian cities of Bergheim and Bedburg as well as in the Frankfurt am Main region – especially for artificial intelligence applications. Scholz said it was “a good morning for our country.”

SOURCE

Vodafone includes the CEO of the Emirati Etisalat on its board of directors

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) operator Etisalat has reinforced its presence in Vodafone with the entry of its CEO, the Egyptian Hatem Dowidar, into the board of directors of the British company, of which it is the main shareholder with 14% of capital.

Under the strategic alliance that both companies closed last May, Vodafone confirmed this Wednesday that Dowidar will form part of its board as a “non-executive director” starting next Monday.

“(Dowidar) brings extensive experience in the telecommunications industry and has held senior positions in a variety of companies in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. His appointment will further strengthen our strategic partnership,” said the president in a statement today. of Vodafone, Jean-François van Boxmeer.

The CEO of Etisalat declared that his objective is to support “the rapid transformation” that the Vodafone management team and its CEO, Margherita Della Valle, are carrying out.

Dowidar will also be part of the Appointments and Governance Committee of the British multinational.

The Egyptian manager, Vodafone recalled today, has more than 30 years of experience in several multinational companies, the majority (24 years) in companies in the telecommunications sector.

And before taking up his position on the board of directors, he already held other “leadership positions” at Vodafone, including regional director of Emerging Markets, CEO of Vodafone Egypt and CEO of Vodafone Malta.

Dowidar began working at Etilasat in September 2015 as group operations director, rising to the position of CEO in 2020.

SOURCE

Jeff Bezos sells more than $4.1 billion in Amazon shares

This is the e-commerce giant’s first sale of securities since May 2021.

Jeff Bezos , founder of Amazon , got rid of some 24 million shares of the e-commerce giant between February 7 and 12 in exchange for an aggregate consideration of around $4,118 million (€3,832 million), according to reports. records of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) collected by Europa Press.

This is the first sale of Amazon shares made by Jeff Bezos since May 2021, a month before handing over the reins of the multinational to Andy Jassy , when the founder of the company got rid of a package of 737,332 titles, whose value aggregate then exceeded 2.4 billion dollars.

Last week, Bezos had informed the SEC of his intention to get rid of up to 50 million Amazon shares , with an estimated value of about 8,475 million dollars (7,887 million euros), which means that there would still be something to sell. more than half of the planned package of actions .

After the last transaction confirmed to the SEC, Jeff Bezos would control more than 964 million Amazon shares, equivalent to approximately 9% of the company and whose estimated value at the current price is around $160 billion (€149 billion).

According to ‘Forbes’ magazine, the founder of Amazon occupies third place among the largest fortunes in the world, with an estimated net worth of 190.2 billion dollars (177.006 million euros).

SOURCE

Víctor Calvo-Sotelo leaves the general management of DigitalES

Víctor Calvo-Sotelo, the until now general director of DigitalES, the association of companies in the telecos ecosystem and the digital sector, has announced to the more than sixty companies that are part of the association, that he will leave in the next

To continue reading go Premium
Try it for €1 the first month

and enjoy unlimited access to all Expansión web content

I love you

Or sign up with your Google account in two clicks

SOURCE

What and where the richest businessmen in the world studied

By:E.Balaguer

Updated: 02-14-2024 00:31 hours

See gallery

The most successful entrepreneurs have one thing in common. They all started entrepreneurship before finishing university. In their careers as students there is everything: elite universities, early dropouts, cum laude grades and even conflicts with the authorities. This was his time at the faculty.

SOURCE