SKT Develops Its Own AI Inference Tech
SK Telecom has teamed with UK chip designer Arm and Korean AI‑chip startup Rebellions to build AI inference server solutions that pair Arm’s newly announced AGI‑class CPU with Rebellions’ RebelCard accelerator. The joint offering targets inference workloads, promising higher performance per watt and lower operating costs than traditional GPU‑based systems. SK Telecom will bundle the hardware with its sovereign AI foundation model, A.X K1, to boost the competitiveness of its AI‑focused data centres. The collaboration follows Rebellions’ 2024 merger with Sapeon Korea, a SKT‑part‑owned entity, underscoring a push for domestic AI hardware sovereignty.
Memory Crunch Hammers Down Smartphone Shipments
A severe DRAM and NAND memory crunch, driven by AI data‑center construction, has squeezed the smartphone supply chain, pushing component prices up about 90% QoQ in Q1 2024. Apple emerged as the sole market‑share leader, posting a 21% share and...
Bidders Line up for €8 Billion XpFibre Deal
Altice’s Patrick Drahi has opened a sale process for his 50.01% stake in XpFibre, inviting a shortlist that includes DigitalBridge, KKR, Brookfield Asset Management and Vauban Infrastructure Partners. Initial offers value the fibre network at roughly €8 billion (about $8.7 billion) including...
India Takes a Step Closer to Direct-to-Device with Spectrum Consultation
India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) has launched a consultation on how to allocate spectrum for direct‑to‑device (D2D) satellite services. The regulator is weighing whether providers should use Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) spectrum or International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) spectrum, a decision...
Korean Telcos Pledge to Restore Trust and Cut Prices
South Korean telecom giants SK Telecom, KT Corp and LG Uplus met with Deputy Prime Minister Bae Kyung-hoon to announce a three‑point plan aimed at restoring public trust after a series of high‑profile data breaches. The agenda focuses on bolstering...
Gamma Is in Talks with a Number of Possible Buyers
Gamma, a UK‑based business services provider, announced it is in preliminary talks with several potential offerors to explore options beyond a standalone strategy. The company highlighted strong revenue and earnings growth, driven by recent German acquisitions, including a €196 million (≈$212 million)...
Investors Take the Reins of Gigaclear
Investors including the National Wealth Fund, ABN AMRO and NatWest have taken control of Gigaclear after a recapitalisation that injected £80 million (≈$100 million). The deal resolves a near‑£1 billion (≈$1.25 billion) debt pile, with lenders taking a haircut of up to 40 %. Gigaclear now...
DT Launches Starlink Powered Satellite Service for Businesses
Deutsche Telekom has launched Satellite Internet Access by Starlink (SIA), a fully managed satellite broadband service for large enterprises and public‑sector organisations in Germany. The service delivers up to 400 Mbps download and 40 Mbps upload using panel antennas, targeting sites lacking...
UK Telco Customers Can Now Escalate Complaints Quicker
UK telecom regulator Ofcom has cut the waiting period before customers can escalate complaints to an independent ADR scheme from eight weeks to six weeks, effective 1 April. The change follows data showing 94% of complaints are resolved within six weeks...
Anthropic Reckons Its New Model Has Cracked Cyber Security
Anthropic unveiled Mythos, an AI model that can automatically spot coding flaws and high‑severity security vulnerabilities across major operating systems and browsers. Recognizing the dual‑use risk, the company launched Project Glasswing, granting early access to Mythos for a consortium of...
Amazon Leo Heads to Thailand by Way of Thaicom
Amazon has partnered with Thai satellite operator Thaicom, whose subsidiary TC 142 will act as the authorized distributor and landing‑rights holder for Amazon Leo in Thailand. The deal gives Amazon Leo a regulatory edge over SpaceX, whose Starlink proposal was rejected...
NTT Tries Out WiGig for Industrial Private Networks
NTT demonstrated an outdoor private WLAN using 60‑GHz WiGig at Mitsubishi Chemical’s Okayama factory, linking robots, sensors and cameras across a 2 km area with 18 repeaters. The network achieved uplink speeds up to 900 Mbps and maintained connections to moving assets....
OpenAI Seems to Think It Can Acquire Authenticity and Trust
OpenAI announced the acquisition of the technology podcast network TBPN for a reported "hundreds of millions of dollars," aiming to integrate its editorial team into OpenAI's broader communications strategy. The company pledged to preserve TBPN's editorial independence, positioning the move...
Openreach Upgrades The Shard as Copper Switch-Off Approaches
Openreach warns that up to 3,000 London commercial buildings could lose essential services if they remain on the copper PSTN after its scheduled shutdown at the end of January 2027. The telco showcased a rapid, disruption‑free fibre upgrade at The Shard...
AI Won't Fix Telecoms From the Sidelines, Analysts Warn
Telecom operators are stalling AI investments due to ROI uncertainty and entrenched data challenges, analysts say. Weak data governance, poor quality, and siloed information impede projects, while many initiatives remain in trial phases. Operators focusing on internal efficiencies see gains—first‑call...
UK Social Media Activity Drops but AI Is on the Up
Ofcom’s latest reports reveal that while 89% of UK adults remain on at least one social platform, active participation is falling sharply – posting, sharing and commenting dropped from 61% in 2024 to 49% this year. Users are becoming more...
Helios Towers to Expand Mobile Connectivity Across DRC
Helios Towers has secured a $110 million investment agreement with DRC’s ANAPI to expand its mobile tower infrastructure. The deal will fund new sites in urban and rural areas, improve network resilience, and incorporate sustainable energy and local skill programs. Helios,...
AT&T Makes $1 Billion Worth of Cost Cuts for US Government
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced a new agreement between the NTIA and AT&T that will reduce FirstNet’s costs by roughly $1 billion while securing an additional $1 billion in network investments. The deal, valued at about $2 billion in total, aims to...
Deutsche Telekom CEO Hits Out at European Microregulation
Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges used the shareholder meeting to criticize the EU’s upcoming Digital Networks Act, calling it a form of micro‑regulation that would limit scale and undermine European digital sovereignty. He highlighted the group’s strong 2023 results –...
Nvidia Ploughs $2 Billion Into Marvell in Data Centre Push
Nvidia is investing $2 billion in Marvell to fuse its AI‑centric NVLink Fusion platform with Marvell’s custom XPUs, silicon‑photonic interconnects and networking gear. The partnership will enable rack‑scale, heterogeneous AI infrastructure that blends GPUs, DPUs, CPUs and high‑speed optical links. Marvell...
EE Launches AI TV Search Feature
EE has introduced Smart Search, an AI‑driven feature on its EE TV platform that lets users find shows and movies by describing mood, theme, plot or a simple one‑liner. The tool pulls content from live TV, on‑demand libraries and third‑party...
Vodafone and WWF Collect a Million Phones for Charity
Vodafone’s "One Million Phones for the Planet" campaign has collected a million devices across Europe and Africa, generating £1 million (≈$1.25 million) for WWF conservation work. The funds are earmarked for projects such as a new Colombian national park, Brazil’s Earth Engine...
Mobile Network Spending to Fall 29% in 2026-31, Says ABI Research
ABI Research forecasts global outdoor mobile network spending to peak at $92 billion in 2026, stay flat in 2027, then tumble 29% to about $65 billion by 2031. The decline follows near‑complete 5G rollouts and early 6G planning, with 5G‑Advanced expected to...
China Unicom Bets on AI Cloud Services to Break Telecoms Revenue Ceiling
China Unicom is accelerating AI deployment across consumer, enterprise, and home services, targeting 2026 as a launch point for new revenue streams beyond traditional voice and data. Its flagship AI Cloud Phone, built with Huawei, already has 18 million users and...
DT's AI Factory Brings in the Lawyers
Deutsche Telekom’s Industrial AI Cloud, branded as the AI Factory, is now powering Noxtua’s legal‑tech platform, offering a sovereign European environment for processing highly sensitive legal data. The partnership addresses concerns over the US CLOUD Act by keeping data under...
Mobile Networks Are Now Part of the Battlespace — Here Is How to Defend Them
Hostile drones are increasingly using commercial mobile networks, embedding cheap consumer SIMs to blend with legitimate traffic and bypass line‑of‑sight limits. The European Commission’s Action Plan on Drone and Counter‑Drone Security urges precise, proportionate defenses, emphasizing targeted, device‑level interventions over...
Ofcom Cheers as Apple Intros Age Verification for UK Users
Apple has launched an age‑verification system for UK Apple ID users, requiring new accounts to confirm age via credit card or government ID and checking existing accounts for eligible payment methods. Users under 18, or those who have not verified,...
Ericsson Eyes up Supercomputer for 6G Research
Ericsson has signed an MoU with Germany’s Forschungszentrum Jülich to explore supercomputing‑driven research for future 6G networks. The collaboration will tap Jülich’s JUPITER supercomputer, Europe’s most powerful, to benchmark AI, neuromorphic and modular HPC solutions aimed at ultra‑low energy consumption....
Iliad Upbeat on 2025, but Cagey on Current Year
Iliad reported a 23% jump in operating free cash flow to €2.25 bn ($2.43 bn), surpassing its €2 bn target. Revenue grew 3.4% to €9.5 bn ($10.3 bn) driven by strong performance in Italy and Poland, while EBITDAaL topped €4 bn ($4.32 bn). The group added 1.5 million...
SES Targets New Operational MEO Constellation by 2030
SES announced its next‑generation medium Earth orbit constellation, meoSphere, slated for operational service by 2030. The network will initially comprise 28 high‑power satellites built by K2 Space in Luxembourg, with pathfinder launches planned over the next three years to validate...
Brits Are Apparently Overwhelmed by Domestic ‘Smart’ Tech
Unilever has introduced Persil and Comfort "Smart Series" laundry consumables designed for auto‑dose washing machines, positioning them as the first detergent optimized for such appliances. Kantar research for Unilever found that 31% of Britons plan to buy a smart device...
$2 Trillion in Mobile Money Transactions Were Clocked Last Year
The GSMA’s 2026 State of the Industry Report shows mobile money transactions surpassed $2 trillion in 2025, doubling the value reached just four years earlier. Active 30‑day accounts grew 15% to 593 million, driven largely by Sub‑Saharan Africa, while monthly usage climbed...
INWIT Slashes Outlook on Towers Conflict with TIM and Fastweb+Vodafone
Italian tower owner INWIT slashed its 2026 revenue outlook after TIM, Fastweb and Vodafone announced a 50:50 joint venture to build 6,000 new 5G towers, a move that conflicts with existing master services agreements. The announcement sent INWIT shares down...
Digi to Launch Fibre Broadband in the UK
Romanian telecoms operator Digi Communications, through its UK subsidiary Fiber One, has acquired a 51% stake in the non‑operational fibre builder Whyfibre. The purchase gives Digi control of a nascent fibre network spanning Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, with pilot broadband services...
Zayo to Plug in New AI and Cloud Data Centre in UK
Zayo Europe will supply Tier‑1 fibre connectivity to QTS’s new AI‑focused data centre in Cambois, Northumberland. The campus will host up to 720 MW of AI‑ready infrastructure and integrate with Zayo’s pan‑UK network linking major cities and trans‑Atlantic routes. A £110 million...
Speed Is Passé, 6G’s Killer App Is “Sensing”
At Mobile World Congress 2026, the telecom sector signaled that 6G’s defining feature will be Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC), turning base stations into real‑time radar sensors. This shift moves networks from pure data pipes to platforms that map physical...
European Court Gives Preliminary Green Light to National 5G Vendor Bans
The EU’s top court issued an Advocate General opinion that member states may ban telecom hardware and software deemed a national‑security risk, provided each ban is backed by a specific risk assessment. The opinion, stemming from an Estonian case against...
Campus Networks Have a Security Problem. Huawei's New Solution Can Fix It.
Huawei introduced its Xinghe AI Full‑Scope Security Campus Solution at MWC26, aiming to transform campus Wi‑Fi from a connectivity utility into a comprehensive defense platform. The solution bundles four AI‑driven layers—connectivity, asset, spatial, and privacy security—featuring post‑quantum encrypted Wi‑Fi Shield,...
Vodafone Says It's Boom Time for IoT
Vodafone’s IoT division announced it has surpassed 200 million connected devices, marking a doubling over five years. The company is rolling out satellite‑based IoT services through partnerships with Iridium and Skylo, promising seamless coverage for remote assets such as containers, cattle,...
Vodafone UK Buddies up with Hiya to Tackle Scam Calls
Vodafone UK has activated Hiya’s Secure Branding on its network, allowing verified businesses to display their identity when calling customers. The service uses Vodafone’s open APIs and is limited to approved entities such as banks and government bodies. With 85% of...
UK Startups Offered Use of National AI Supercomputers
Britain’s Sovereign AI Unit has launched the AIRR programme, allocating £500 million to give strategically significant UK AI startups access to national supercomputing resources. Around 10 % of the capacity of the Isambard‑AI and DAWN supercomputers—valued at roughly £20 million per year—will be...
Cutting Planning Red Tape Will Take the UK From Laggard to Leader in Connectivity
The UK lags in 5G, ranking 24th of 30 European nations, while VodafoneThree has committed £11 bn to build a network covering 99% of the population by 2030. The rollout relies heavily on upgrading existing sites—96% of work—allowing a 30% reduction...
O2 Speeds up Deployment with Pre-Assembled Mobile Mast
O2 has introduced a pre‑assembled mobile mast that shifts most of the complex antenna, radio and cabling work to a factory environment. The approach slashed on‑site installation time from two days to four hours and reduced cable connections from roughly...
Internet Goes Down in Congo in Time for the Election
Internet monitoring group NetBlocks reported a nation‑scale outage in the Republic of Congo coinciding with the presidential election, echoing a similar three‑day blackout in 2021. The shutdown occurred despite the telecom regulator ARPCE’s recent directives urging service continuity and resilience....
Ericsson and VNPT Upgrade Airport Connectivity in Vietnam
Ericsson and Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications (VNPT) have teamed up to upgrade connectivity across Vietnamese airports, deploying Ericsson's new C‑band radios and RAN Compute baseband kits. The solution delivers high‑capacity indoor coverage, multi‑band roaming and a software‑defined architecture that scales...
PLDT Wins Award at MWC 2026 Green All-Optical Network Forum, Outlines "GRIT" Strategy for Sustainable DigiCo Future
PLDT was honored at the Green All‑optical Network Forum during MWC 2026 for its sustainable, AI‑ready network practices. The company unveiled its "GRIT" strategy—Green, Resilience, Intelligent Technology—to guide a transition from a traditional telco to a DigiCo model. Leveraging Huawei’s automation,...
Totogi: ‘Building AI that Really Works at Scale Is Not a Weekend Project’
Totogi’s Ontology is an executable knowledge layer that sits above BSS, OSS and network systems, providing a unified decision infrastructure for telco AI. The platform recently secured a deal with Singapore’s StarHub, promising up to a 10% boost in enterprise...
SoftBank Takes Aim at Latency with some AI Wizardry
SoftBank unveiled Autonomous Thinking Distributed Core Routing, an AI‑driven system that pairs a CAMARA QoD API with an intelligent agent to dynamically select the optimal network path. The solution toggles between user‑plane‑function routing for efficiency and SRv6 mobile user plane...
O2 Offers Subscribers 5G+ Upgrades but Struggles to Explain Why
O2 announced that its 5G standalone (5G+) network now covers more than 700 UK towns and is available to every subscriber, regardless of plan tier. The carrier promotes the upgrade as delivering stronger reliability and capacity in high‑traffic venues, while...
Malaysian Telcos Take over National 5G Network
Malaysian operators Maxis, CelcomDigi and YTL have exercised a government put option, buying the state’s stake in Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) and taking full ownership of the country’s 5G wholesale network. Each of the first two paid 327.87 million ringgit, while...
