Member Info for fleccy

"Tesla on the other hand targets consumers, so anything they do, cars, trucks, Starlink is meant for the average "

You can't compare Tesla and BT, in terms of business model, as they are completely different types of company. The comparison was made to demonstrate how market cap is based on fantasy rather than substance. Tesla have some good products, the cars look nice and their battery technology is second to none, but the valuation assumes that Tesla will take over the world. Tesla is now valued more than the nine largest car companies in the world combined, yet the market cap isn't reflected anywhere in it's Revenue/Net Profit. Other car manufacturers are now producing their own cheaper EV products and other companies are moving into the Gigafactory battery space, like Britishvolt. It appears that many investors have hitched up to the Musk bandwagon and thrown caution to the wind. It's fascinating to watch these anomalies in valuations, no doubt many will say I didn't see it coming when the bubbles burst.

It looks as though BT and Cellnex entered a partnership agreement for BTs High Transmission toewers, (not EE mobile masts).

"Cellnex Telecom and BT have signed a long-term strategic agreement worth £100mn, allowing Cellnex the rights to operate and market 220 high towers owned by BT for the next 20 years. The agreement sees Cellnex increase the total amount of telecom sites it manages in the UK by almost 40%. Cellnex will manage the existing service contracts for these sites and offer new equipment co-location services. Both companies will share the additional revenue streams that are expected to be generated. Cellnex and BT are committed to exploring the potential for further collaborative opportunities."

https://www.towerxchange.com/cellnex-strengthens-position-in-uk-with-100mn-bt-high-towers-deal/

Found this article from June, which demonstrates BT owns the masts. The price would appear to be extremely cheap and the headline seems speculative. I couldn't see any other articles, and this may have been a vested interest fishing exercise, a bit like the articles stating that BT would only attract bids of 150p. Funny how BT's not far off 150p now, which blows that speculation out of the water. If Vodafone's mast portfolio is worth 20 Billion, it suggests EE's mast portfolio would be worth a lot more than 1.5 Billion.

"BT considering £1.5bn mast site disposal"

https://www.cellcm.com/bt-considering-1-5bn-mast-site-disposal/#:~:text=As%20a%20result%20of%20the,sold%20during%20this%20fundraising%20exercise.

The hardest thing is finding out how many masts are out there. I think the mobile phone companies own their masts, otherwise the Government would have negotiated the Shared Rural Network with other third parties, as well as the mobile phone companies. I've also found various articles stating that EE have been building masts up to the end of last year, fOr ESN. so more indications that the mobile companies own their own masts. Owning the masts gives them the flexibility to install as many transmitters as required without having to negotiate with a landlord. I own Vodafone shares too, but Vodafone will have to pay Vantage going forward for any hardware mounted on the towers, as well as at the base stations in cabins.

"Richard Harrap, Managing Director of ESN at EE/BT, says: “We are delivering a significant amount of coverage rurally and in other difficult-to-reach areas like marine. EE is some way ahead of the other operators on rural coverage, thanks to the investment we have made for ESN.”
The delivery of ESN involves upgrading around 18,000 existing 4G sites and building approximately 700 new ones. Upgrades usually comprise a mix of swapping out antennas, changing over equipment and upgrading transmission to add capacity to the backhaul. Most of this work is now complete."

https://uk5g.org/5g-updates/read-articles/how-the-esn-will-boost-uk-rural-coverage/

"O2 masts"

Well that answers the UK Telefonica/Vodafone question, I missed that article.

What this sort of deal highlights is the value of the assets locked up in Telecommunications companies. The combined portfolio of EE and BT owned masts/Towers must be worth a fortune. I'm not sure where to find the tower statistics, to determine the number of EE/BT towers in the UK, but EE have stated that they've already upgraded around 21000 towers for the ESN alone with more to come.
Throw in Openreach and all other BT businesses and it's clear that Telecom stocks are undervalued currently, but will be hyped at some point in the future. IOT will be in everything and everything will be connected, anything outside of private and commercial premises will have to rely on 4G/5G, or some sort of metro wifi coverage. Driverless cars, drones, cameras, traffic monitoring, etc, etc etc, etc,,,, will all require network access. Throw in the opportunities around data harvesting at source and Telecom/Mobile networks inherent value will show itself at some point in the future.

"Seems the towers that are sold are EU and int'nl only. Not UK. Doubt BT part own any of them."

BT own their own UK towers under the EE brand. Telefonica own O2, and they hold tower sharing agreements with Vodafone, etc. Within the UK, a merger between O2 and VM would possibly affect any deal to sell off O2's UK towers, as well as the previously mentioned tower sharing agreements.

"the numbers don’t lie. See Tesla is not making much profit but are generating revenue and buzz. What is BT doing?"

You must be talking about the "buzz" since Tesla's revenue is less than BT's lol

I looked at Starlink when we last discussed it on here, and could see some uses for satellite trains. The technology uses microwave for the uplink/downlink and lasers connecting the satellites together. The idea is to use low orbit satellites which allows low latency uplink, downlink, and transit, which could have uses. Hibernia subsea cable was built to offer low latency communication between stock markets. Starlink can potentially offer a lower latency link connecting stock markets across the world. Rather than trying to fill the sky with a arrays of satellites offering mass coverage, why don't they have a few sky trains offering a speciality low latency service to trading platforms? I don't think Musk has a bad idea with Starlink, I just think he's thinking too big.

"Is there anything else left? Entitled people never grow organically, they are like vampires! Starlink is coming, hope I get out before they launch anything at affordable price."

We've already had many conversations about Starlink, and covered why it's only useful to rural users with no other means of getting good broadband access.
As far as Cloud offerings, BT have business and residential cloud offerings

https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/bt-cloud/getting-set-up/what-is-bt-cloud-

BT offer VOIP Cloud services for Small businesses

https://business.bt.com/products/business-phone-systems/voip/cloud-phone/

BT offer Business Cloud services.

https://business.bt.com/products/corporate-data/

BT have an array of Cloud offerings, and bear in mind that most other cloud service providers rely on BT for connectivity.

Seems to be an Ideas person, going forward, I'll watch out for Digital Transformation headlines with interest. I wonder if they'll look at AI, Convergence and IOT as part of this transformation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23h4HGhT_Cc

Never heard of Harmeen Mehta. I've just watched a couple of videos. Her specialisation appears to be digital transformation. In one of the videos she talks about am autonomous NOC, which I don' get. I've worked in operations as a Network Operations Centre Engineer, and Fault finding requires intuition, experience and knowledge of various Network platforms. I wonder if she means the front end customer fault reporting function. I can see how you might get rid of call centres, but AI isn't there yet, as far as Network operations are concerned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOlo5rrX_ls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7tgat72t40

"Given that hedge funds have been including cryto into their portfolio and Fidelity accept bitcoin as collateral for cash loans. SEC has no issue with hedge funds buying bitcoin at the moment."

Hedge Funds are seen as sophisticated/Professional investors and not seen as worthy of protection, as they should know better. The UK ban on Crypto Derivatives came into effect on the 6th Jan, and it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that Crypto Currency availability wont chip away over time with increasing regulatory actions. Time will tell. I wouldn't invest in Crypto, looks like the FCA agree.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/uk-crypto-community-reacts-as-fca-derivatives-ban-goes-into-effect

"Not that I am advocating bitcoin but FCA are just worried about themselves and becoming redundant , as they are powerless over decentralised digital currencies."

Your statement assumes that Digital Currencies exist irrespective of Central Bank and Regulatory policy, but that isn't the case.
A digital currency is dependent on individual regulatory bodies and central banks allowing them. if the FCA in conjunction with the BOE decided to ban crypto currency transactions in sterling, then that would be one currency inflicting a massive wound. If the US decided to stop Dollar transaction around Crypto currencies then it would wipe out the Digital Currencies. Central Banks wont just move in and change policy overnight, there'll drop lots of hints first. If the current advice from the FCA is a hint, then wait for further hints from other international regulatory bodies.

Ryanair has been borrowing money to shore up their balance sheet.

"Ireland-based Ryanair has received £600m (about $730 million) from the United Kingdom’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF). This move comes as the low-cost carrier’s CEO has been critical of state aid to airlines."

https://simpleflying.com/ryanair-730-million-loan/

"AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Ryanair RYA.I sold an 850 million euro ($1 billion) bond on Tuesday, its first in three years, in a sign that European debt markets are starting to reopen to airlines, which were crippled by the coronavirus crisis."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ryanair-bond-idUSKBN25Z1Z5

Ryanair have also had a rights issue.

"A total of 35.2 million shares were placed at a price of EUR11.35 each, Ryanair said on Friday morning, the price representing a 2.6% discount to Thursday's closing quote. The airline was trading 1.8% higher at EUR11.88 on Friday morning."

https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/AN_1599204295811576900/ryanair-completes-eur400-million-raise-to-aid-post-virus-opportunities.aspx

"The FCA also points out that all UK cryptoasset firms must be registered with the watchdog, under regulations to tackle money laundering.
Operating without a registration is a criminal offence. So if you’ve invested with a firm that isn’t on the Financial Services Register or the list of firms with Temporary Registration, you’re advised to withdraw your cryptoassets and or money.

FacebookTwitter
28m ago
08:03
FCA: Five reasons to be wary of cryptoassets
The FCA says it has five concerns about investments which are offering the prospect of high returns from investing in cryptoassets:

Consumer protection: Some investments advertising high returns based on cryptoassets may not be subject to regulation beyond anti-money laundering requirements.
Price volatility: Significant price volatility in cryptoassets, combined with the inherent difficulties of valuing cryptoassets reliably, places consumers at a high risk of losses.
Product complexity: The complexity of some products and services relating to cryptoassets can make it hard for consumers to understand the risks. There is no guarantee that cryptoassets can be converted back into cash. Converting a cryptoasset back to cash depends on demand and supply existing in the market.
Charges and fees: Consumers should consider the impact of fees and charges on their investment which may be more than those for regulated investment products.
Marketing materials: Firms may overstate the returns of products or understate the risks involved.
FacebookTwitter
44m ago
07:46
Introduction: FCA warns of risky crypto investments
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

Britain’s financial watchdog has just issued a warning to consumers tempted by the promise of high returns from investing in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin - you might lose all your money.

The Financial Conduct Authority says it is aware that some firms are offering customers the promise of high returns through investing in cryptoassets, or lending or investments linked to cryptoassets.

Such offers, the FCA warns, are risky and speculative.

It also cautions that consumers who put funds into cryptoasset-related investments are unlikely to have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if something goes wrong."

https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2021/jan/11/bitcoin-financial-watchdog-risky-cryptoassets-investments-ftse-stock-markets-dollar-business-live?page=with:block-5ffbf5be8f086b9a461f7e03#block-5ffbf5be8f086b9a461f7e03

EZJ are in the same quagmire (boat) as the rest of the Airline Industry. It baffles me how any Airline can go up when they're all having to borrow money just to stay afloat.

Crypto/Blockchain has uses, but I don't see it as a currency. I agree with everything stated about Fiat currency, which like bitcoin has no real intrinsic value, but Fiat currencies are backed by central banks whereas Bitcoin has no such backing. Should Central Bankers decide to curtail "crypto currencies", they could do it overnight just by banning payments in crypto. The main use of blockchain will be in things like logistics, acting as ledgers to track shipments, etc. Anyone who see's it as a replacement for gold will be disappointed when the bubble bursts imo.

I wasn't keen on the article, it has negative undertones and struck me that the author is a remainer at heart. The reason I voted to leave is because I don't like the way the UK is headed, and decided a change is necessary. I believe that any country should be self sufficient, and only trade surplus to its requirements. Successive UK Governments have allowed industry to either run down, or be exported away. The UK population has increased to a point where resources like food, medicine, etc have to be imported, making us reliant on other countries to survive. We are open to blackmail, such as the recent channel crossing closure, and have become too reliant on other states. Governments appear to have acted on the bidding of big corporate and Financial entities that act on behalf of themselves, and against the population of particular individual countries. I believe in capitalism, but not at the expense of national security, so hopefully Brexit will encourage future UK Governments to increase food security, component manufacturing capability, and Industry in general. I expect that the imbalances in trade will reduce over time, as Brexit will ensure more Engineering due to country rules of origin. The Economics of Brexit will create an environment where things will have to change. Hopefully our Grandchildren will have careers in High Tech Industry, rather than serving coffee at Costa, or Burgers at Mc Donald's.

"fleccy. There is no way any new players will enter the airline industry for years to come. The ones that survive the next few months will rise from the ashes."

That's a possibility, but by no means certain. I think it will be longer than the next few months for travel/flying to recover. The latest articles are suggesting that the UK wont reach herd immunity until the Autumn, by which time every UK adult will have been offered a vaccine, but the way things are going the EU wont reach herd immunity until well into next year. Because of the fear of new Covid variants, I'm guessing that Travel will be amongst the last sectors to come out of lockdown. All the signs are that Travel is a write off this summer, and unlikely to show any recovery until April/may next year. Once travel is opened up again, much will depend on people wanting to holiday abroad, and business travel recovering. One result of this work at home culture and virtual meeting environment, business travel will take a hit. I've no doubt that tourism will recover, but the industry will have to offer bargain basement deals to encourage use, and people get use to paying a certain price for things. Airlines and Tourism will suffer the effects of this for years to come in my opinion, I don't see any evidence around the bull case for Airlines.
I'm not invested in Airlines, so I have no vested interest in presenting a view. I'm just saying it as I see it.