What's happening: GSMA forecasts 57% of mobile connections on 5G by 2030, projecting $11.3T economic impact
The GSMA’s 2026 Mobile Economy report projects that 57% of global mobile connections will operate on 5G by 2030, with the Gulf Cooperation Council leading at 95% penetration. The transition is expected to generate $11.3 trillion in economic impact and lift operator revenues to $1 trillion.
Also developing:
The episode explores Finland’s rollout of the DEFINE Network, a nationwide defense innovation framework that links civilian 6G research with military applications. Central to this effort is the University of Oulu’s 6G Test Center, which provides rare radio‑frequency testing facilities and serves as a NATO Defense Innovation Accelerator node. By integrating Oulu’s wireless expertise with Rihimäki’s data and AI capabilities, the network aims to accelerate Finnish SMEs into defense procurement, boost high‑value exports, and position Finland as a key NATO partner. Guests including Research Director Hanu Nikurautio and Business Oulu’s Yusi Leponiemi discuss how this ecosystem bridges lab breakthroughs to real‑world security needs.
Analysts Don Kellogg and Roger Entner dissect recent reporting changes at AT&T and T‑Mobile, highlighting AT&T's more granular churn disclosures and T‑Mobile's move to account‑level churn reporting. They argue that while the optics of these metrics have shifted, the underlying...
Flavio Luciani and John Souter’s new analysis shows the global peering market is not contracting but evolving. While mature regions exhibit modest dips in ASN counts, overall IXP capacity continues to rise, driven by traffic consolidation and the growth of...
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has formally instructed the upcoming Noida International Airport to treat telecom operators as entitled to in‑building network installations under the Telecommunications Act, mirroring a similar dispute at Navi Mumbai airport. The clarification follows a request from...
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...

In this episode, Anshal Saad and new co‑host Mike Dano discuss the winding down of the 5G Americas trade group as a signal that the industry is moving beyond the 5G lull toward 6G. They highlight Samsung and Korea Telecom's...

Norwegian shipbuilder VARD has received an order from France’s Orange Marine for two additional cable‑laying and repair vessels based on the VARD 9‑03 design. The ships will be constructed at Colombo Dockyard in Sri Lanka and follow the same specifications as...
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...

AS-SETs were created to simplify eBGP route filtering by aggregating multiple AS numbers into a single identifier. In practice, manual maintenance and nested definitions have led to misconfigurations, routing leaks, and security concerns. Experts Job Snijders and Doug Madory discuss...

Lightpath, the wholesale arm of Optimum, posted $468 million in 2025 revenue, a 13% year‑over‑year increase driven by strong hyperscaler and enterprise demand. AI‑driven contract value jumped 40% to $362 million, while hyperscaler total contract value surged 240% to $252 million. The company’s...

Canalink, the public telecom operator of Tenerife, has applied for permits to land a submarine fibre‑optic cable on El Hierro, extending its Base 6 network that will link Tenerife, La Gomera, El Hierro and La Palma over roughly 328 km. The cable is designed to deliver...

EchoStar exited the facility‑based cellular market after FCC pressure to monetize its spectrum, selling valuable bands to Starlink and AT&T while walking away from thousands of tower lease payments. The lease abandonment has prompted tower owners to seek FCC intervention,...
The European Commission’s Digital Networks Act proposes spectrum licences of up to 40 years, or even indefinite duration, a sharp increase from the current 15‑25‑year norm. Mobile operators back the change, arguing it offers long‑term certainty for investment. Critics contend...
The article announces that Krzysztof Szarkowicz’s presentation on EVPN in MPLS‑based environments is now publicly available as part of the EVPN Technical Deep Dive webinar series. While EVPN is often discussed alongside VXLAN, its original purpose was to serve as...
The author filed FCC comments urging the agency to drop Title II regulation for voice services and reclassify them as Title I information services. He argues that traditional copper‑based POTS is obsolete and that today’s voice is delivered by a myriad of...

The Wireless LAN Professionals Conference (WLPC) in Phoenix served as the year’s focal point for WLAN engineers, vendors, and thought leaders. The author’s session “Go Open or Go Home” earned the Golden Yagi Award, highlighting community enthusiasm for open‑source advocacy....

NMSurf has introduced a 1 Gbps symmetrical fixed‑wireless broadband service in Budaghers, New Mexico, targeting up to 50 locations. The gigabit download and upload speeds aim to support remote work, online education, telehealth, and high‑definition streaming without laying fiber. By using...

Sparkle announced GreenMed, a next‑generation subsea cable linking Europe and the Middle East via the Adriatic Sea. Designed by Alcatel Submarine Networks and installed by Elettra Tlc, the system will integrate with Sparkle’s backbone to provide low‑latency, resilient routes. The...

Ooredoo Group has created Ooredoo Fibre Networks (OFN), an independent entity to own and scale its submarine cable and high‑capacity fibre assets. Khalid Hassan Al‑Hamadi was appointed CEO, effective 15 February 2026, with the carve‑out slated for completion by 2027. OFN...

The Iraqi‑UAE consortium announced WorldLink, a $700 million subsea‑and‑terrestrial data cable that will run from the United Arab Emirates to Turkey via Iraq’s Faw peninsula. The privately funded project will be deployed in phases over a five‑year period, offering an alternative...
California’s Public Utilities Commission awarded AVX Networks a $37.5 million grant to deploy submarine fiber‑optic cable linking Catalina Island to Huntington Beach. The funding will enable high‑speed broadband for more than 3,500 island residents, bolstering telehealth, remote education, and local businesses....
Operators are rethinking 6G network design as AI applications demand flexible traffic handling. The NGMN Alliance study warns that multimodal AI, such as AR glasses and autonomous vehicles, will reverse the traditional downlink‑heavy pattern, requiring more uplink capacity and adaptable...
The 3GPP 2025 Excellence Awards were presented during February Working Group meetings in Gothenburg, Goa, and La Ciotat. Samsung’s Eko Onggosanusi was honored for a decade of leadership on NR MIMO physical‑layer work, while Nokia’s Sung Won received recognition for steering...
Google announced the America‑India Connect, a multi‑continent infrastructure program built around a five‑year $15 billion AI investment in India. The plan creates a new subsea gateway in Visakhapatnam and adds three submarine cables linking India with Singapore, South Africa and Australia,...
BDUK released its February 2026 update on Project Gigabit, showing that 21% of UK properties now have fibre built. The data, captured on 16 February 2026, reflects contract‑level construction across all regions. BDUK notes a reporting lag, meaning actual on‑ground progress may be slightly...
nexfibre will finance the fibre upgrade of roughly 2.1 million Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) coax‑served homes that sit alongside the newly acquired Netomnia footprint. VMO2 will pay wholesale fibre‑access fees once the XGS‑PON network is live, with most deployments expected by...
Google announced a $15 billion America‑India Connect subsea cable project spanning five years and four continents. The initiative adds new landing points in Visakhapatnam and creates redundant fibre‑optic routes linking India to Singapore, South Africa, Australia and the United States. By...
Openreach will implement a sweeping organisational overhaul on 1 April 2026, coinciding with the appointment of Katie Milligan as its new chief executive. The restructure introduces a dedicated Chief Customer Experience role, filled by Surinder Khatter, to head a newly created CX...
Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) announced that 56,000 premises received gigabit‑capable service in the October‑December 2025 quarter, bringing the cumulative total to 1,373,800 premises – roughly 4.1 % of UK households. The bulk of the new connections came from Project Gigabit contracts...
Virgin Media O2 and Nexfibre’s consortium is buying Netomnia for £2 billion, adding a 3.07 million‑premise full‑fibre footprint. Overlap analysis shows 0.38 m sites already in Project Mustang, 0.22 m in Project Lightning, 0.16 m in Nexfibre, and 1.77 m with only DOCSIS 3.1 coax. Post‑deal, VMO2’s...
Cisco IOS/XR 25.2.1 violates the OSPF passive‑interface contract by still emitting OSPFv2 Hello packets. The router sends two hellos on a supposedly passive link, then stops, leaving the neighbor in the Init state and causing netlab integration tests to fail....
Oman’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority urged private operators to broaden revenue beyond voice and data by investing in digital services such as IoT, cloud, and automation. The briefing highlighted a 358% jump in IoT subscriptions to 1.63 million and a rise in...
Singapore has launched its National Space Agency and warned that cyber‑vulnerabilities permeate every stage of the space value chain, from satellites to ground networks. The February 2022 KA‑SAT attack, which knocked out communications and energy services across Europe, underscored the systemic...
Scientists at Cornell University have created a wireless brain implant so small it can sit on a grain of salt, yet still record and transmit neural activity. The device uses light‑based optics for power and data, eliminating bulky wires and...
Fidium announced it will expand its fiber‑to‑the‑premise network with new symmetric speed tiers up to 8 Gbps, bundled with next‑generation Wi‑Fi 7 routers. The rollout begins in April 2026 across select neighborhoods in Maine, New Hampshire, Texas and California. The company says the...

Connected America, the premier broadband and digital infrastructure summit, will take place April 14‑15 at the Irving Convention Center, featuring a slate of Texas leaders from state agencies, municipalities, and private fiber providers. Bryan Clayton, director of the Texas Broadband...
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...

All West Fiber announced the completion of Phase 1 of its fiber‑to‑the‑home upgrade in Evanston, Utah, delivering up to 8 Gbps service to residents and businesses. The rollout is part of a three‑phase project, with Phases 2 and 3 already under construction to extend...
The Institute for Local Self‑Reliance unveiled an upgraded Community Network Map that now includes Tribal broadband providers. The interactive tool identifies 82 active Tribal Internet Service Providers across the United States, displaying population size, business model, network links, and whether...

The Connecting Africa Podcast’s fourth‑season episode features Calvin Collett, founder and CEO of Melon Mobile, who details the gritty reality of launching a digital‑first mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in South Africa. He explains how building customer‑centricity into the company...
InfraVia, Liberty Global and Telefónica’s joint venture nexfibre has agreed to acquire Netomnia, the parent of YouFibre and brsk, in a £2 billion transaction. The deal consolidates a significant portion of the UK’s full‑fibre retail market under nexfibre’s control. It brings...
The FCC released its Internet Access Services report for December 31, 2024, intended to update Congress on broadband availability. The analysis highlights persistent flaws: inconsistent location definitions, reliance on ISP‑self‑reported marketing speeds, and omission of significant Fixed Wireless Access customers. Moreover, the...

Ericsson has launched Agentic rApp as a Service, an AI‑powered network optimisation platform available through AWS Marketplace. The solution leverages agentic AI and a natural‑language interface to reason about network conditions and execute closed‑loop optimisations via the O‑RAN R1 interface,...
The author explains how to get EVPN IP‑VRFs with transit VXLAN working on Cisco IOS/XE, emphasizing the need to configure an explicit VLAN on switch images or a bridge‑domain on router images for the transit VNI. He outlines the required...
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled on Virgin Media’s September 2024 TV spot that claimed the company was “Awarded Best Broadband Experience.” While the ASA concluded the claim was not misleading about technology, it found the advert failed to provide verifiable...
Dave Farber, a foundational figure in the creation of the Internet, has passed away. He helped transform the early research network into today’s global communications backbone and designed the Irvine Ring, a landmark local‑area‑network architecture. Farber was also celebrated for...

Starlink now lets customers switch service plans either instantly or at the next billing cycle, with upgrades prorated and downgrades forfeiting remaining value. The company also revised its privacy policy to permit the use of account and usage data for...
Opportunity Zone financing is being overhauled under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, creating OZ 2.0 effective Jan 1, 2027. The new rules make the program permanent, introduce a rolling five‑year deferral, a 10% basis step‑up after five years, and a 10‑year...

A new study by the University of Surrey and Tsinghua University shows AI‑driven sleep modes, intelligent hardware, and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces can dramatically reduce 5G network emissions. The research demonstrates that granular sleep states and “cluster zooming” in cell‑free massive...

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the WSIS+20 outcome document in December 2025, cementing a ten‑year architecture for global digital governance aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Digital Goals. Coupled with the Global Digital Compact adopted at the 2024 Summit of...