Pieter Geeraerts

Mobile operators and GSMA unveil a pioneering Mobile Industry Manifesto for Europe: "New Rules for a New Era: Connecting Europe to 2030." A must-read for the future of our sector in Europe: 👉 Connectivity is the backbone of a competitive digital and green economy. It is the lifeblood of technologies, such as AI and big data, cloud, quantum computing, and the metaverse. The mobile sector’s importance as a strategic asset for Europe’s resilience should be recognized, and its value should be enhanced. 👉 Europe is lagging behind other global players. Excessive market fragmentation, spectrum costs, and an outdated regulatory framework have caused the telecom sector’s revenues to decrease. A paradigm shift is urgently needed. 👉 With over 100 operators present in the EU, European telcos have an average customer base of approximately 5 million subscribers each. By comparison, operators in China and the U.S. have 450 million and 110 million subscribers per company, respectively. 👉 A more pro-investment approach to EU spectrum policy can be an essential driver of Europe’s connectivity goals. 👉 There is a regulatory imbalance in the digital ecosystem between the largest tech companies and the telecom operators that needs to be addressed so that all market players benefiting from the digital transformation assume their social responsibilities and make a fair and proportionate contribution to the costs of infrastructures, for the benefit of all Europeans. https://lnkd.in/dVmJJfhn

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How do #telecom companies stay relevant in an ever-evolving industry? This was a key topic at the prestigious Telecom Insights Congress organized by Telecompaper close to Amsterdam, the Netherlands.    As a guest speaker, I was honored to showcase our vision on Proximus+ and how it creates value for our customers and for Proximus. With Proximus+, we want to be relevant in the daily digital life of our customers – beyond the presence we have today in the video-space with our Pickx TV platform. We want to help our users to discover how all the new capabilities of the digital world can improve their daily life. We make it #simple by facilitating account creation through the Proximus id and Itsme, by enabling payment on the Proximus bill and by focusing on customer journeys. We make it safe and #secure by working with strong local and international partners. Proximus+ is already being used by more than 1 million Proximus telco customers, and also available to non-telco users 💡 This week, Proximus+ also launched a new feature, our “beta” toggle. This allows every user to decide whether to participate or not in testing the latest functionalities. I’m extremely proud that first beta feature we launch, is the “Wallet” including a very compelling cash-back program with strong local partners. If you haven’t tested it yet, you don’t know what you are missing out on! 💰 My take-aways from the conference? 👉 While we invest in additional network capacity with 5G and fiber, applications that consume this capacity are needed in order to create the appetite to pay for the connectivity, which will allow to fuel future investments 👉 Jan-Piet Nelissen and Deloitte co-created with the audience a possible future for our industry: reliability of telco networks will become even more important, we are confident that applications will arrive that consume the available network capacity, while OTT pressure on bundling services like video will continue  👉 As we are moving to energy-intensive cloud computing and generative AI, Menno van Leeuwen highlighted the need to continue our road for a sustainable industry 👉 Wouter Stammeijer ran us through KPN's "connect, activate and grow" strategy   Thank you Ed Achterberg and Erik Compter for inviting me to share our experiences with the Dutch telco community. Thank you Tina Hernalsteen and our #EcosystemTribe for developing an amazing Proximus+ application 🙏 And for the Belgians among us, have you downloaded Proximus+ yet? How do you use it? Happy to read you in comments.  #bold2025 

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I was quite impressed by this week's European Spectrum Management Conference #EUSpectrum in Brussels, by Forum Europe. Four themes stood out:   1️⃣ After years of silence, there was a refreshing focus on #indoorwireless. While some was a consequence of Wi-Fi Alliance as one of the event’s sponsors, it was a theme that cut across multiple presentations and panels. There was a fractious debate about next steps for the upper #6GHz, discussion of #Private5G (although not much on #neutralhost) & alignment with #DigitalDecade goals for Gigabit connectivity. Also, references to sustainability & lower energy use for indoor systems + FTTP vs. macro RAN blasting through walls. 2️⃣ Spectrum sharing is being taken seriously, especially hybrid-sharing for U6GHz, and enterprise / local spectrum in the 3.8-4.2GHz band. Sharing with & between other technologies and user groups - satellite, military and broadcast - got airtime too. Various regulators and some vendors seem to be onboard (notably Qualcomm), with debate now on "how" rather than "why" - cross-technology signalling, databases, sensing etc, plus trials & specific rules. There's still a lag on "when" though - the EU is moving slowly here. There's a parallel realisation that #6G and #5G Advanced will have to deal with sharing, especially in 6GHz and proposed new 7-8GHz bands. The latter got a very stern presentation from NATO making it clear it's not going to be cleared for mobile use. Basically, Europe needs spectrum sharing. So it should learn to be good at it - and start working fully on it now. Nokia & Ericsson are slow to drop their #5G maximalist positions though (or at least their policy teams). No, outdoor XR isn't a killer reason for more exclusive IMT spectrum. 3️⃣ Everyone is excited about new satellite use-cases and the agenda items for WRC27, especially direct-to-device, but there's plenty of questions over how re-use of existing MNO spectrum to/from space would work in a market with lots of national borders. There seems to be more of a spirit of cooperation - and some sensible regulatory oversight/input - than in many areas of telecoms. One to watch 4️⃣ Various diplomatically-subtle but well-articulated attacks against the European Commission white paper, which with Letta’s report on the Single Market, suggested there should be more centralised control and harmonisation of spectrum #policy across the EU, vs today's powers held by national regulators and 46-country European agency CEPT / Electronic Communications Committee   The EC does not have a stellar record on spectrum – notably strong-arming all EU members into 26GHz mmWave for 5G years early, despite clear signs nobody wanted it. There is huge diversity in spectrum landscapes at a national level (broadcast, military etc), as well as differing appetites for experimentation. Expect plenty of pushback against the proposals. 🔚 In conclusion: A really good event. I'll leave the 5th theme (AI-for-spectrum) for another post.

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Proximus is looking to acquire spectrum from NRB who has decided to embrace the MVNO model instead The NRB Group, one of the biggest ICT firms in Belgium, acquired a 20 MHz slot on the 3600 MHz frequency band to provide #5G services in 2022. Now the Belgian company has decided against rolling out its own mobile network, but intends to continue offering 5G services to customers as an mobile virtual network operator (#MVNO) Belgium’s former incumbent, Proximus, it now looking to acquire NRB's 5G licence and the two companies are discussing a possible #wholesaleagreement. The agreement between Proximus and NRB was submitted to BIPT, the federal telecoms regulator, who has approved the transaction, subject to the effective transfer of rights taking place after the publication of a new call for applications for the 3410-3430 MHz band. The call for applications will be accompanied by an increase in the spectrum cap from 100MHz to 120 MHz to enable Proximus to acquire NRB’s 20 MHz. https://lnkd.in/gQuV652r

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We call on Ministers to take further concrete steps in order to ensure that the European Council conclusions of 18 April 2024 turn into swift and concrete policy action. Heads of State and Government explicitly called for “supporting the digital transformation of business, government and society, which requires a true Single Market in digital services and data, encouraging and facilitating investment in digital infrastructure like 5G and 6G”.

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📱 Exciting news: Proximus unveils enhanced mobile offerings! 🚀 Our #customers not only deserve the best mobile network in Belgium, but also solutions that allow them to maximally enjoy everything the digital world has to offer us. As of May 2nd, we will update our Proximus mobile offering with more #data at the same price for some of our tariff plans. As our customers’ data needs are constantly evolving, we’re committed to meeting and exceeding those needs every step of the way, by investing in the capacity of our mobile network, and in the solutions that we offer to our customers. And with our recently launched Proximus+ application, we also educate our customers that might be less digital-savvy on some of those digital experiences by bringing best in class local and international digital partners at their fingertips. Curious to learn more about our enhanced mobile offerings? Dive into our latest press release to discover how they're set to redefine the way you experience mobile #connectivity:  https://lnkd.in/d6SK-GAe     #bold2025 

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Interesting fact. Many property owners think their site is safe because it has always been there, but there isn’t a banker in the world who will lend against an individual mobile site lease because of the lease termination clause. Termination and rent reduction risks are real. Mobile telecommunications are the only area of commercial real estate where the tenant rather than the landlord acts like they’re in charge, asking for rent reductions, capping escalators, selling billions of Euros of masts to tower companies and sponsoring sports teams while convincing governments that the only way to provide coverage is to disenfranchise property owners even more than they already have. The attempts at government-sponsored taking from literally hundreds of thousands of property owners across Europe would be unconstitutional in the United States, where property rights are respected. Meanwhile, 5G coverage in the United States has reached 95% while in Europe it hovers around 80%; less than 50% in the UK! The problem in Europe is that markets are inefficient. Regulation will not solve this problem. Europe has a patchwork of bloated operators (inefficient labour is in fact a much greater expense than site rents) and operator-sponsored tower companies do not solve this problem. Everyone knows that operator-sponsored tower companies will favour their parent. Meanwhile, in the U.S. there is a clear focus among participants: operators focus on data (voice and data are now just data); tower companies focus on steel, and dozens of land aggregators focus on land. Everyone wins. That’s how you achieve 95% coverage — not by seeking favours from governments that harm hundreds of thousands of property owners, depriving economies of billions of Euros of potential investment, all to protect a few executives and their shareholders. If operators want to be protected like utilities then they should be regulated like utilities. Their profits should go to their ratepayers (the customers) rather than their shareholders. But they don’t want to do that. Instead, they want their inefficient operations to be propped up by governments while maintaining their pay packages and stock prices. Naive government bureaucrats can be much more easily convinced than markets — the invisible hand tends to arrive at the truth. Hence 95% 5G coverage in the United States — along with greater specialisation among market participants (data, steel, land). A functioning ecosystem. Meanwhile 81% coverage in Europe (less in the UK). Regulation is not the solution. It’s the problem. Europe should welcome market specialisation, not stifle it. MANY parties would help fund 5G rollouts — if allowed. At TIP we seek to partner with tower companies and operators alike and will infuse markets with billions of Euros of investments. Why not let us? Because, Marco, the bankers are right! Lease aggregation promotes market efficiency because banks will lend only to portfolio owners, not individual owners.

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NAB2024 sound bites with Thijs Bijleveld of IMAX Streaming and Consumer Technology on key trends and discussion topics: - Quality & perceived quality - Efficiency and how to reduce cost - AI - Creating experiences Stay tuned for more to come. #nab2024 #connectingthedots #connectingpeople

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EUWENA and its members at Private Networks Forum May 28th saw the RCRwireless initiated online webinar on private networks; the Private Networks Forum. This year’s edition saw no less than 5 presenters and presentations from EUWENA and its members! There were -         2 suppliers that are EUWENA members: Druid and IBwave -         2 end users that are EUWENA members: EDF and Schiphol Amsterdam airport -         EUWENA herself through the secretary doing a panel on mainports and private cellular The entire webinar was very pinpointed and specific and covered all aspects of private wireless networks; from Neutral Hosting to Assured Quality and from end user cases to perceived value add. For anyone in the eco system or about to embark on a private wireless implementation, there’s good insights to be had from individual sessions. Check out https://lnkd.in/e42uJcSY Notably, our members Druid and IBwave were in a session that articulated how private 4/5G is finding its way into mining, logistics, airports, warehousing and how the eco system is moving towards SME’s. Also, the role of the SI and the simplification for usage by less – or not at all – cellular savvy end users were explored. Member EDF elaborated on the use of private 4G in its power stations, both thermal and nuclear and its windfarm. EDF explains how it employs the bands 2.6 Ghz and 3.8-4.2 Ghz, both of which are available in France yet under differing regimes. EUWENA secretary Koen Mioulet and member Schiphol, Willem Blom, ran a session of the requirements of mainports and the desire to harmonise spectrum and standardise deployments in order to scale projects across countries and assets. Schiphol elaborated how it intends to run a full scale 5G network for all its operational processes (yet already has a 4G trunking replacement network and a 5G PoC) 

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Today, Route Mobile Limited embarks on a new strategic direction by becoming a part of the Proximus Group. Proximus Group is a provider of digital services and communication solutions operating in Belgium and international markets and the parent company of Telesign (leader in Digital Identity) and BICS (leader in global connectivity solutions). This is a strategic direction for Route Mobile that will help in entering mature markets like USA & Europe and further expand our product portfolio. We will be unlocking synergies with the group companies to create a comprehensive offering across the communications value chain. I have always talked about making Route Mobile a billion-dollar revenue, profitable company. This development is a step further in that direction. I and some founding members of Route Mobile will be reinvesting in the parent company Proximus Opal. Read the detailed announcement here: https://bit.ly/4dtSqHU I will continue to be the CEO of Route Mobile and also lead the CPaaS business, globally. I am excited to unfold the exciting future for Route Mobile as a part of the Proximus Group and build a global leader in Digital Communications. Masiv Mr Messaging 365squared TruSense Call2Connect #cpaas #Newbeginnings #DigitalIdentity

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Amazing session by Roy Estoque on the topic of #RiskManagement - #RICOM, #CyberDesk. Extremely important and cardinal topic, not only in the world of telecom (in context of #Telstra) but also for all the domains in IT world. Kudos to Roy Estoque for the great session and sharing his wealth of knowledge with all of us. #thanks #gratitude #greatteam #greatwork #riskmanagement #ricom #cyberdesk

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🚀In such a rapidly evolving automotive industry, consumers are increasingly seeking flexible and convenient alternatives to traditional car ownership. With this demand comes the rise of car subscription companies in Europe. From providing access to a diverse fleet of vehicles to offering hassle-free, all-inclusive packages, these tailored subscription services are revolutionizing the way individuals engage with mobility. It's a clear sign of the industry's adaptability and commitment to meeting the evolving needs of consumers in today's fast-paced world. As the subscription service matures, the need for car fleet management and driving behavior control is increasing. As a manufacturer of vehicle trackers and dashcams, there are both opportunities and challenges ahead.🛣️💨 #Automotiveindustry #Mobility #Europe #FleetManagement

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💼 Supercharge Your Business with Juno Telecoms' Gigabit Ethernet 💡 Data-heavy applications require robust and lightning-fast connections – enter Juno Telecoms' Gigabit Ethernet service. A solution that’s not just about speed, but also about providing a reliable backbone for your data-intensive operations. Whether it’s cloud computing, high-volume transactions or real-time data processing, our service is built to withstand the demands of your business. 📊 With our Gigabit Ethernet, you're not just future-proofing your connectivity; you're setting a new standard for efficiency and reliability. Our expert team ensures a smooth installation and round-the-clock support, so your business operations are never disrupted. 🛠️ Empower your business with connectivity that matches your ambition. Learn more about our Gigabit Ethernet services and take the first step towards a faster, more reliable network today. 🔗 Learn more: https://buff.ly/2tGK7qf #GigabitEthernet #BusinessConnectivity #DataSolutions #UK #FutureProof #HighSpeedNetworking

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EuCNC & 6G Summit Antwerp Edition brings together not only all the relevant European stakeholders in the telecom sector, but also worldwide players in various domains, including verticals where 5G/6G improve their operations and efficiency. Come and join us in this celebration of innovation!

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The best news to start the week with! Proximus Fiber is now officially the fastest internet in Belgium, as certified by Ookla! 🚀 A huge shoutout to our amazing teams and partners—this achievement is the result of years of investment and teamwork! Speed tests conducted by the industry leader in network performance metrics prove that Proximus #Fiber achieves the highest speeds compared to other major internet providers in Belgium! With Ultra Fiber, we offer up to 8.5 Gbps for downloads and an incredible 1 Gbps for uploads. Our Giga Fiber delivers up to 2.5 Gbps download and 500 Mbps upload, significantly outpacing the competition. With our Fiber To The Home network, Proximus ensures not only lightning-fast internet right into your living room, but also unmatched stability and low latency! Over 1.8 million Belgian homes and businesses are now connected to our fiber network! The Speedtest certification further motivates us to accelerate our fiber rollout. Curious if fiber is available in your area yet? Check out www.proximus.be/fiber. Geert Standaert #GigabitNetwork

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"It’s a good thing that people are increasingly aware of how fraudsters target SMS messaging. At Telesign, we have been among those raising awareness because our mission is to make the digital world safer for everyone." 🙌 Gain insights from our CEO, Christophe Van de Weyer, on how SMS can remain a viable option for businesses in the ongoing fight against fraud: https://ow.ly/KuLn30sCcak

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***For Immediate Release*** Humanity Link Announces Launch, Setting Out to Inspire Impactful Interactions Date: May 1, 2024 [Groningen, Netherlands] - Humanity Link, a Cloud Communications Platform as a Service provider, has officially launched with a significant investment from Boost-up, a leading investor group based in Groningen, the Netherlands. Humanity Link is dedicated to supporting non-profits with advanced connectivity and technology solutions that enhance communication, streamline operations, and increase community engagement. "This investment is a significant endorsement of our mission to inspire impactful interactions for humanity," said Christopher Hoffman, Founder and CEO at Humanity Link. "We're thrilled to partner with Boost Up as we launch Humanity Link, and we look forward to using this funding to make a positive impact with non-profits around the world." Humanity Link offers a suite of technology solutions designed for non-profits, including multi-channel communication platforms, cash delivery and fundraising functionalities, customizable AI-driven chatbots, and secure data management systems. The company has helped over 2 million families in more than 30 countries through consulting services that improve data-driven decision-making in humanitarian settings. With this new funding, Humanity Link is set to expand its services to support more non-profits with tools that enhance their mission outcomes. The company partners with leading technology providers like Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Twilio, receiving support from these platforms and teams to bolster its service across some of the world's most challenging regions. For more information about Humanity Link, visit www.humanity.link or contact our Media team at contact@humanity.link. About Humanity Link Humanity Link is a technology company specializing in solutions for non-profits. With a mission to inspire impactful interactions, Humanity Link offers a range of tools designed to improve communication, operational efficiency, and community engagement. The company has secured investment from Boost Up to fuel its growth and support its commitment to helping non-profits make a lasting impact. #nonprofits #ICT4D #CPaaS #telecommunications #tech4good #humanitarian #refugees #vulnerablepeople #health #WASH #shelter #environment #climatechange #data #datacollection #development #phones #pwd https://www.humanity.link Martijn Kruisman

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