Analysis: AT&T 1Q-2026 Results: Increased Fiber Penetration, FWA Momentum, D2D Deals, and Mobile/Home Internet Bundles
AT&T posted $31.5 billion in Q1 2026 revenue, driven by a record surge in advanced connectivity net additions and strong fiber and Fixed Wireless Access growth. The company added 292,000 fiber subscribers, bringing its total to 12.5 million, and expanded Internet Air FWA to 1.73 million users with 239,000 new customers. Convergence is deepening: 45% of advanced home internet customers also use AT&T wireless, and 42% bundle mobile services. AT&T reaffirmed its roadmap to 60 million fiber locations by 2030, targeting 40 million by year‑end 2026.
Ookla: D2D Satellite Connectivity Surged 24.5% During Last 9 Months; Starlink’s Footprint Expansion Leads the Way
Ookla reports that direct‑to‑device (D2D) satellite connections jumped 24.5% between July 2025 and March 2026, driven largely by Starlink’s rollout into Chile, Ukraine, Peru and the UK. Starlink now dominates the market, supplying the bulk of D2D traffic alongside smaller players such...
South Korea’s Top 3 Telcos Reinvent Themselves as “AI Companies;” Growth Strategies Revealed
South Korea’s three major telcos—SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus—are rebranding as AI companies, each pursuing a distinct strategy: SK Telecom is building a sovereign AI full‑stack with its 500‑billion‑parameter A.X K1 model and dedicated AI data centers; KT is shifting...
GSA: 5G Non Terrestrial Networks, 5G SA and 5G Advanced Gain Momentum
GSA data shows rapid growth in non‑terrestrial 5G networks, with 97 operators across 70 countries announcing investments in LEO satellite device‑to‑device (D2D) solutions and aligning with 3GPP Release 17 standards. Major players such as Skylo, Orange, Verizon, Vodafone IoT and Sateliot,...
Analysis: Amazon
Amazon announced an $11.57 billion acquisition of Globalstar, securing valuable L‑band mobile‑satellite spectrum. The deal bolsters Amazon’s Project Kuiper, which plans to launch about 3,200 low‑Earth‑orbit satellites by 2029, with half the constellation operational by July. Globalstar’s Direct‑to‑Device (D2D) technology will...
US Mobile’s New Bundle Combines Its Multi-Network Mobile Service with Starlink Residential Internet
US Mobile announced a partnership with SpaceX’s Starlink to bundle its prepaid, multi‑network cellular service with Starlink residential internet. The offering combines unlimited mobile plans that switch automatically among AT&T, Verizon and T‑Mobile with uncapped Starlink broadband, all managed through...
Nokia’s AI Applications Study: “Physical AI” May Require RAN Redesign to Support High‑volume, Low‑latency Uplink Traffic
Nokia’s recent study of more than 50 AI applications highlights a surge in uplink‑heavy, low‑latency traffic driven by emerging "Physical AI" use cases such as autonomous vehicles and industrial robots. The report finds that delivering sub‑20 ms latency for high‑definition video...
Is the “Far Edge” A Bridge to Far to Cross for AI Inferencing? What About “Distributed AI Grids”?
Telcos are divided over deploying AI inferencing at the far edge, with Omdia data showing only 15% prioritize it and 11% favor the near edge. AT&T’s Yigal Elbaz questions the value of extending compute to radio sites for marginal latency...
Inside TM Forum’s Catalyst Project “Living Networks – Phase III”
TM Forum’s Catalyst project “Living Networks – Phase III” brings together more than 800 ecosystem members to pilot autonomous, resilient, and energy‑efficient network operations. The initiative introduces a cloud‑native, Kubernetes‑based architecture with enhanced data governance, enabling AI‑driven failure prediction and resource...
Using AI, DeepSig Advances Open, Intelligent Baseband RAN Architectures
DeepSig has leveraged deep‑learning models to eliminate the pilot signal in mobile networks, cutting signaling overhead without hurting performance. The startup is now a principal contributor to OCUDU, an open‑source carrier‑grade baseband stack launched by the Linux Foundation and the...
Fiber Broadband Association Middle Mile WG: How to Use “Digital Infrastructure Networks” For Coordinated Fiber Backbone Investments
The Fiber Broadband Association’s Middle Mile Working Group released guidance urging states to coordinate fiber backbone projects and adopt "dig once" policies to accelerate deployment. It emphasizes that the United States must increase fiber mileage 2.3‑fold by 2029 to meet...
The Financial Trap of Autonomous Networks: Scaling Agentic AI in the Telecom Core
Telecom operators are racing to deploy autonomous, self‑healing networks powered by agentic AI, but the hidden expense of continuously running GPU‑intensive models threatens to overwhelm IT budgets and ESG goals. Traditional Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaling reacts too slowly for sub‑millisecond...
IMT-2030 (“6G”) Minimum Technology Performance Requirements for Radio Interface Technologies
At the February 2026 ITU‑R WP 5D meeting in Geneva, the working party reached consensus on the technical performance requirements for IMT‑2030, the forthcoming 6G standard. The draft report defines 20 minimum performance requirements, including seven entirely new metrics, to evaluate...
Part I: Outcomes From the IEEE–ITU Sustainable Climate Symposium
The IEEE‑ITU Sustainable Climate Symposium in Geneva highlighted how artificial intelligence can make telecommunications networks more energy‑efficient and climate‑resilient. Participants from standards bodies, UN agencies, industry, and academia discussed AI‑driven optimization, circular‑economy models, and the need for robust governance frameworks....
AWS to Deploy AI Inference Chips From Cerebras in Its Data Centers; Anapurna Labs/Amazon In-House AI Silicon Products
Amazon Web Services announced a multiyear partnership to deploy Cerebras Systems’ Wafer‑Scale Engine (WSE) chips for AI inference in its data centers. The move adds a purpose‑built inference accelerator alongside AWS’s own Trainium processors, targeting ultra‑low latency and high‑throughput workloads....
Ericsson and Intel Collaborate to Accelerate AI-Native 6G; Other AI-Native 6G Advancements at MWC 2026
Ericsson and Intel announced an expanded partnership at MWC 2026 to accelerate AI‑native 6G development, focusing on AI‑driven RAN, cloud‑native core, and next‑gen silicon. The collaboration leverages Intel Xeon AI acceleration and upcoming Ericsson silicon to deliver energy‑efficient, secure compute...
SKT 6G ATHENA White Paper: A Mid-to-Long Term Network Evolution Strategy for the AI Era
SK Telecom released the ATHENA white paper outlining its mid‑to‑long‑term strategy for a 6G network that is AI‑native, Zero‑Trust, and open. The framework, encapsulated by the ATHENA acronym, maps out how AI will be embedded across radio, core, transport and...
Ericsson Goes with Custom Silicon (Rather than Nvidia GPUs) for AI RAN
Ahead of MWC Barcelona 2026 Ericsson unveiled its AI‑RAN portfolio, opting for purpose‑built ASIC silicon instead of Nvidia GPUs and confirming Intel as its only commercial silicon partner. The company highlighted a software‑defined approach that uses hardware abstraction layers to...
Taara Lightbridge Pro: An Ultra Reliable Wireless Optical Communications System for 5G Mobile Backhaul
Taara, a Google X spin‑out, unveiled Lightbridge Pro – a carrier‑grade free‑space optical (FSO) system that promises 99.999% uptime for 5G mobile backhaul. The solution delivers up to 20 Gbps full‑duplex capacity and automatically switches to fiber or RF backups when...