Vodafone 2015 Annual Report Download - page 27

In the coming weeks we will launch residential
broadband services in the UK, using the
infrastructure acquired with Cable & Wireless
Worldwide (‘CWW’). Over 2,200 mobile base
station sites in the UK have been connected
to the CWW network, which signicantly
increases both the amount and speed of data
we can carry. We remain on track to achieve
the nancial synergy targets we set when
we acquired CWW.
We have made good progress on the
integration of both Ono in Spain and KDG
in Germany, combining our xed and
mobile networks and beginning to migrate
Vodafone broadband customers to our new
infrastructure. For example, in Germany
we have created one national backbone and
70% of all trafc has already been migrated
onto a single network. Read more about the
integration process on page 39.
In emerging markets we are also building high
speed bre capability to serve targeted urban
areas. In South Africa we have launched bre
to business services and begun to trial bre
to the home.
Ono acquisition
We spent €7.2 billion (£5.8 billion) during the
year acquiring Ono in Spain, a leading provider
of telecommunications services including xed
telephony, broadband, pay-TV, and mobile services.
Ono has the largest cable network in Spain with
7.4 million homes passed (around 40% of Spanish
households). It serves 1.9 million customers and
is the market leader in ultrafast broadband, offering
superior speeds in excess of 200 Mbps.
In April 2015 we launched our fully converged offer,
Vodafone One, which utilises the best of Vodafone
and Ono to give customers in Spain the next-
generation converged service with the fastest 4G
mobile network, landline (xed), internet and TV.
Note:
1 Analysys Mason.
In India we laid around 16,000 kilometres
of bre to business areas during the year taking
the total to nearly 150,000 kilometres.
Our subsidiary, Vodacom, is awaiting regulatory
approval to acquire Neotel, the second largest
provider of xed telecommunications services
in South Africa.
According to external estimates1 an increasing
number of households in Europe take
bundles of pay TV and broadband packages.
To ensure we can offer the best in class
unied communications solutions we also
provide TV services. We already have nine
million TV customers in six markets through
wholesale arrangements, and we aim
to expand this to several new markets this year.
Our xed broadband assets
and performance
The successful execution of our strategy has
given us a strong unied communications
footprint in Europe. We now pass 28 million
households with our own high speed xed
bre or cable infrastructure. In addition,
we can reach a further 22 million households
via wholesale agreements with xed
operators. This strategy is supporting good
commercial performance.
During the year our xed broadband base
in Europe increased by nearly 2.8 million
(including acquisitions) to 11.3 million making
us one of the largest providers of xed
broadband services in Europe. The number
of customers taking our high speed bre
or cable broadband increased to ve million.
Our ambition is to expand our broadband
coverage further.
Our converged solution for business
customers, Vodafone One Net, combines
xed and mobile services and a full suite
of cloud-based unied communications and
collaboration services in one easy to use
package. During the year we expanded the
service to more markets and the number
of users increased by 400,000 to 3.9 million.
Overview Strategy review Performance Governance Financials Additional information Vodafone Group Plc
Annual Report 2015
25